Chapter Thirty-Seven – Trigger Happy

Chapter Thirty-Seven – Trigger Happy

“Manufacturing trends started to shift after the first incursion. Domestic production returned as international supply-lines were cut, and it suddenly became cheaper once more to build everything a local economy needed next to that local economy, rather than on the literal other side of the planet.”

–Excerpt from Economy of Scale – Wartime Manufacturing, 2034

***

I wasn’t sure what to do for a moment.

On the one hand, some guy was talking to me. That meant that unless the antithesis had learned speech and how to use guns, then I was probably just dealing with a nutjob or three. I could hear kids back there as well.

On the other hand… someone did shoot Gomorrah, and I was a little bit miffed about it. Shooting things had thus far proven to be an excellent way to work out my anger.

“I didn’t quite hear what he said.” Gomorrah shifted lower on the catwalk steps. “Can you hear him properly?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He wants us to–”

“Come on out! With your hands up!” the guy screamed. He was closer to the door this time.

“He wants us to do that,” I said.

Gomorrah sniffed. “I’ll admit I’m a little… what’s the word… salty, that I was shot. I’m tempted to burst in and spray everything down.”

“Bit rude, no?” I asked.

“I know you’re out there!” our pal called out.

I sighed, then flicked my comms off so that when I spoke he could hear me. “Then why don’t you come out and say hi, huh, asshole?”

“It’s not aliens,” someone muttered on the other side of the door.

I rolled my eyes. This was just stupid. Moving up to the door, I reached up, turned the handle, then threw the door open while standing well to the side.

A roaring blast blew through the opening, and some buckshot ripped apart the edge of the doorway, sending a spray of wood flying down into the factory’s main floor.

“Nice shot,” I said, entirely aware of the hypocrisy.

I heard someone shifting, and I could make out three figures behind a desk, two of them had shotguns. They both started reloading at the same time.

I bounced to the side, slipped through the entrance, then ran and leapt over the table before they could figure that anything was amiss. Being invisible probably helped to confuse them.

I grabbed the two men who had guns by their shirts, then yanked them back and onto the floor with hard thumps.

Standing, I spun and brought my Bullcat up and pointed its barrel between the eyes of the third guy.

The moment held for a bit, one of the guys on the ground started to shift back to his feet, but I pushed him back down with a boot on his chest. “Let’s not,” I said.

Once I was sure I wasn’t about to be shot, I flicked off my invisibility. The guy behind me shifted towards his gun. I lit the tip of my tail on fire and shifted it around so that the sparking, burning head was between his hand and the stock of his gun.

“I said,” I repeated myself very carefully. “Let’s not.”

“You’re a samurai,” the guy on the business end of my gun said.

“Yup,” I said. “So’s the girl you shot.”

“She was trespassing,” the idiot under my boot said.

“Paul,” the guy I had at gunpoint said. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Listen to your friend, Paul,” I said. I pulled my foot off his chest and retracted my tail, then I carefully lowered my tail. “I can hear a couple of dozen people up here. What the hell is this?”

“This is none of your business, you corporate dog,” Paul said.

I glared down at Paul. “I’m a cat, you dumbass. Didn’t I tell you to shut up? You–” I wiggled me gun in the direction of the guy that still stood. “You seem halfway sensible. What’s your name?”

“Charles,” Charles said. “I’m, uh, one of the leaders of this community. Paul is too.”

“Well, half your leadership seems a bit trigger-friendly,” I said. “What are you people still doing here? You don’t have any connections to the net? TV… radio, even?”

Charles sighed. “We know about the incursion,” he said. “But we elected not to head back to the city, not if it might mean losing our home.”

“Right.” I said. “How many people are here?”