Chapter Thirty – Blueprint for Success

Chapter Thirty – Blueprint for Success

“With Samurai providing the blueprints, all sorts of technological advancements once thought impossible suddenly became possible. Though just because humanity, or at least some parts of it, knew how to build these things didn’t mean that they could.

A lot of the technology we have blueprints for we simply can’t construct yet.”

–Excerpt from ‘Building the Future,’ 2041

***

My idea of a ‘cleared floor’ did not, apparently, satisfy Gomorrah in the least.

I wondered if she learned how to nag at nun-school while listening to her complain about how I hadn’t even checked every room and corner before declaring the area safe. She poked her head into every room, looked at every nook and cranny, and casually melted the turrets that Myalis had deactivated.

I left her to it and started dragging the mercs over to the lounge I’d burst in from. I figured the me-sized hole in the window would help with ventilation. Their guns were tossed into the armoury, which had a door Myalis could lock on command.

In the end, we had a dozen mercenaries, all stacked up in one room and with no gear that looked dangerous.

Gomorrah paced for a bit, then pointed to one guy in particular. He had a bit of a five-o’clock shadow, and was wearing a rather sleek suit that was getting crumpled on account of him laying on the floor. “That guy seems important. He was moved down here by the others, and I saw him giving orders.”

“So he’s the boss,” I said.

“Maybe? Atyacus hasn’t found much about him. His social media feed is pretty much empty. There’s not much to find about him other than birth records and some medical things. Nothing interesting unless you want to know that he had a hernia a year back.”

I snorted and bent down to pull the guy up. The bastard was heavy, even dragging him by his lapels onto the room’s couch was a strain. Once he was sitting down I tapped his cheeks, but that didn’t seem to work. “Myalis, what do I need to wake this guy up?”

The knock-out gas you used will wear off within another four to six hours.

“Oh, sure, I guess we’ll just make ourselves comfortable then,” I said.

The snark is unnecessary.

“I find it fun,” I defended myself. “So, anything I need to wake this guy up within the next couple of minutes? We’ve been fooling around a bit, but we are on something of a schedule.”

Of course you do. There’s a rather cheap product from your Class I Medical Utilities that can solve this. It’s only one point. Overuse of it has some rather terrible consequences on one’s health, but I don’t think that’s an actual concern here.

“Alright, gimme one.”

New Purchase: Wake Up
Points Reduced to: 7997

A box appeared on the sofa next to the comatose guy. On opening it I found a plastic device the size of an inhaler, with a soft pad on one end and a large button on the other.

Stick over exposed skin, then depress the button.

I tugged the guy’s jacket sleeve up to expose his wrist and placed the device over it before pressing down. There was a bit of resistance to the press, like emptying a syringe. The man shook a bit, started to shiver, then woke up with a gasp.

“Hey there, buddy,” I said.

“Ah shit,” he said as soon as he locked eyes on me and Gomorrah. His gaze wandered to all the mercenaries on the floor around him, then to the hole in the wall. “Do you have any idea what it means to make enemies of us?” he asked.

“Uh,” I replied. “Not really. Didn’t cross my mind. Do you have any idea what it means to kidnap a samurai kid? Because I have the impression that it’s a whole order of magnitude worse.”

He just kept glaring. “We have often assisted samurai with missions both clandestine and not. If you think us unable to call in favours then–” He finally stopped when I grabbed his jaw in my cybernetic arm.

“Okay, let’s start from the top. I’m Stray Cat, that’s Gomorrah. Do you have a name?”

I let go. “My name is no business of yours you–” then I grabbed him again.

“Alright, your name is now Potty Mouth,” I said.

The look of indignity that crossed his face was great. It was a little strange to think that a trick that worked on the Kittens was working on a grown man, but I wasn’t about to complain. The snort from Gomorrah was only further encouragement.

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I leaned in close. “Look, Potty Mouth, we didn’t just burst in and knock your friends out for fun. I’ve been tracking our missing girl for nearly a day now, and my patience is starting to wear thin. We got this far. We know you’re the ones who kidnapped her. So, you tell me where she is, and we leave. You’ve got insurance for fixing the place up, right?”

I let go of his face again. Potty Mouth worked his jaw, still glaring up at me. “We can’t tell you about our work with any client.”

“We can empty all of your bank accounts,” I replied.