Chapter Seventy-Six – Maximum Clonage

Chapter Seventy-Six – Maximum Clonage

“You are condemned to be yourself.”

–A tombstone in the New Monteal Veteran cemetery, 2056

***

There was a weird feeling in the air, and I wasn’t sure I could really describe it well.

It was a sort of… anticipation?

I stuck to Lucy’s side as she stepped out of the Bastion and walked like someone with a mission. Ten steps out and she was already being accosted. The people out here were Kittens. Lucy’s Kittens. They were mostly dressed in business casuals, lots of sweaters and pleated pants and longer skirts. Office wear, basically, only they had badges with their pictures on them and a STAFF designation.

One of them handed something to Lucy, which she took and pinned to her own jacket. Lucy Leblanc, ORGANIZER.

I flushed a little, then took a deep breath and recentred myself before Lucy could notice. She turned to me, all business, and handed me a small badge of my own. “Here,” she said. “You’d think the samurai wouldn’t have to wear one, and I guess you don’t need to, but it’ll make things easier.”

“Sure,” I said. Mine had my face on it, looking straight into the camera, ears perked… I had not taken this photo, ever. The tag read SAMURAI in large, bold print. “When was this photo taken?” I asked.

I provided it to Lucy.

“I mean, yeah, sure, but this looks very real. I mean… I guess you would know how to generate an image well.”

Obviously. But whose to say I didn’t just take a photograph of one of your clones.

“My whats?” I asked.

Don’t concern yourself over it.

I was, in fact, feeling a bit of concern. She was probably just fucking with me, though. That would track.

I took a moment to scan the area. There was a faint drizzle coming down, because this was New Montreal and going a day without rain was uncommon, but it really wasn’t all that bad. Just a faint misting, and a glance at a weather app on my augs showed that it would be clearing up around noon to just cloudy. More rain tonight, but whatever.

The misting made everything slick and wet and it helped push away the suds of cleaning chemicals being sprayed around.

The casino had staff moving all over the place. We were still outside, of course, standing right next to the road. The road which was blocked on both ends at the moment by tall orange cones. Security was tight on either end. I watched as they scanned a box van up and down and around before letting it pass. It came to a stop nearby and a few kittens jumped out and started carrying gear out of the back.

It looked like there were banners, signage and some kiosks going up all over the just within the casino.

Most of that seemed to be there to create a sort of funnel? At least in the lobby area.

The casino looked to be cleared out, at least on this end. No gamblers… and for that matter, no gambling stuff. Had they moved all of the tables and machines out of the way? Damn. That was actually kind of impressive.

I couldn’t remember who had decided to do this here, or if we were just using the place because it’s where the gangs did things normally, but it was a good move to have the conclave take place here again. I was patting myself on the metaphorical back as Lucy turned my way.

“Need help?” I asked.

“No, I should be alright,” she said. She looked bright-eyed and pretty happy with herself. “You should set your mechs out now, while the area is cleared. There should be room inside, in the main show floor.”

“Right, I can do that,” I said.

It wasn’t a bad idea. I’d kind of forgotten how big the Velvet Wheel was. As impressive as my mechs were, they were dwarfed by the size of the building. Maybe I could use that one decoy catalogue that I rarely touched to buy some fake shit to sprinkle around and give the gangs pause? Only… eh. Too much effort, and it would be hard to justify the cost in points to myself afterwards.

What would I do with a decoy mech? Park it on the roof at home?

Better not.

I ordered my mechs out, sending the Nyanzerfaust off to one side, where it could stand imposingly where no one should be walking close enough to see the patchjob I’d done on its legs, then I sent my tankier MEOW mech within the casino.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

It only barely fit through the wide double doors at the front, but once it was standing in the centre of the lobby area, gimbal-guns scanning the room and turret slowly panning left and right… yeah, that was a good centrepiece. I dug it.

“Stray Cat,” Gomorrah said as she walked over. She had pulled up a hood against the rain, so her porcelain-looking face mask wasn’t entirely covered by a wet sheen.

“Yeah?” I asked. “Anything come up?”

“Maybe,” she said. “We’re not expecting anyone to show up for a while, but we’ve already noticed something,” she said.