Chapter Thirty-Five – Welcome Under God’s Grace

Chapter Thirty-Five – Welcome Under God’s Grace

“Today, the new pope–coming in to replace the last Pope, Pope Sanctum.exe the first, who was consumed in the Lagos, Nigeria incursion while visiting the city as part of a relief convoy–was named by the conclave at the Second Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, an event proudly sponsored by Apple.

The new pope, Pope Innocynt XIV is the first AI pope to be elected to the position in the church’s history. A controversial decision to many of the faith.”

–Catholic World News, 2044

***

Angelo was a lot more comfortable with us by the time we were done. Unfortunately, he didn’t have too much more to add. At least, nothing immediately pertinent. Nya asked a few questions, about the names of gang leaders and how things were organized, but while I paid attention, it wasn’t anything too helpful.

Or maybe it was, but I had no memory for names just dropped so casually, and the economics of running a gang wasn’t something I cared so much about. Lucy might care, a little, but… yeah.

Angelo was decent about it, though. He returned to the little office he shared with two others and copied all of the files they had. He warned Nya and I that anything copied off of a school computer would have CIAL’s DRM and ICE implanted on it. The kind of shit that might try to fry someone’s unauthorized augs.

That could mean a headache if you didn’t have a decent firewall. It could mean your augs running so hot they slagged themselves (which sucked, because modern augs were implanted over the eyes and usually under the skin). Or it could straight up kill someone if they had too much unsecured cyberware all connected together.

Myalis barely even glanced at the DRM before it shrivelled away and died.

What Angelo had given us was several years worth of notes, half-written articles, spreadsheets, and a lot of rampant speculation. It looked like he and his pals had tried to find some novel correlations, but the data they were using was kind of shit to begin with.

There was one article whose name forced me to open it. The Plausible Link Between the Cost of Milk and the Spread of Drugs in an Urban Environment. Yeah, there might have been some meat in that one.

Still, it looked like they were pulling a lot of their information from the New Montreal Sûreté, the government-run police. Those idiots couldn’t be trusted to keep an automated speed trap running properly, so I wouldn’t trust anything they reported.

“Well, that’s a lot to work off of,” I said.

“I hope it helps,” Angelo said. “Most of us do this for the extra credit, but I think we all hoped that it would come in handy for something beyond advertising or adjusting insurance rates, you know?”

“I get that,” I said with a nod. “Can you do me a solid? I mean, beyond all of this?”

“Um, sure?” he said.

“Let your pals in the gangs know that I’m looking into whatever they’re up to, yeah?”

“You want me to deliver a threat for you?” Angelo asked.

I made a so-so gesture. “More of a friendly reminder. I’m trying to fix New Montreal up in my spare time. It’s like… a hobby? I don’t think anyone enjoys a hobby when someone else comes along and pisses all over it, you know? So yeah, let them know that I don’t mind if they start a union, hand out bread, and keep people safe. That’s all cool. But pushing drugs, killing indiscriminately, or doing seriously fucked up shit? That might fly some of the time, but now’s not one of those times.”

I was absolutely brimming with shit.

I had never given a single credit’s worth of a damn about what the gangs of New Montreal did unless it was impacting me and mine directly. The most I had ever done about one was head out with Gomorrah to mess up those Sewer Dragons, and that had consequences that I was still handling now.

But, for some stupid reason, some people thought that I had a whole lot more power and influence than I actually did. The moment anyone started to question my actual authority, I was straight up fucked.

Until that happened… well, maybe Angelo would be able to reach a few of the right ears, and then news would spread and a few gangsters would chill the hell out. A few words spoken here and there was a cheap price to pay for that kind of potential return.

“Alright,” I said. “Anyway, see you around, maybe. Nya, you ready to go?”

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“Nya!” she replied, which was probably a yes?

In any case, I started to walk out, and Nya kept up. “So… you’ve been a samurai for a while?”

“Mhm!” Nya said. “I have. But don’t call me an old lady. I can still kick your butt!”

“Right,” I said. “You mentioned how you dealt with the… what did you call them? The Yakuza? That’s just Japanese for gang, right?”

“More or less. Mostly less, but it’s close enough, nya!”

“Cool. How?”

Nya snorted, then next thing I knew, she had an arm wrapped around my shoulders. “Let Nya tell you all about it. First, the bad guys did some bad things, but in a stupid way. Very loud. Very obvious. Then, Nya’s… coworkers, the other Ronin, decided that they needed to be put in their place, because they were hurting people and it was stupid. So, they told Nya where to go, and then I kicked a lot of butts.”

“You have no idea, do you?” I asked.