Chapter Twenty-One – Eternal Optimism and Petty Spite

Chapter Twenty-One – Eternal Optimism and Petty Spite

“As climate change continues to grow in scale and scope, the world will continue to become less hospitable to humankind. We should have addressed this fifty years ago, and it’s too damned late to do anything about it now, but that doesn’t mean that we will just keel over and die without putting up a fight.

It’s why we seeded clouds across the entire planet. It’s why we live in more and more cities with enclosed environments. The world might kill us, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll go out so easily. No, our death will be slow and painful.”

–Professor U. Shuda Listened, Climate I-Told-You-So Expert, 2025

***

“A lot of my plans hinge on the fabricator,” I said as I slowly flew up and through New Montreal’s skyline.

That’s understandable. It’s one of your largest purchases, and one that’s primarily designed to allow a Vanguard to outfit themselves and produce an abundance of resources. It would be strange not to place it at the centre of your plans.

“Does every samurai get something like that?” I asked.

One in eight Vanguard will branch out into some sort of production system. Most of these focus on making tools and consumables that they commonly use. As they progress, most Vanguard will also turn these production systems towards larger goals.

“So, like what I’m doing?”

Your actions have precedents. It’s only logical that a Vanguard capable of producing goods should produce goods, and seeing as how Vanguard are chosen from among people that wish to help the world, it again only makes sense that they would use their abilities to provide goods and equipment to the wider world.

I continued to think as I flew towards home. As I rose over the top of the majority of the towers around me, I was able to make out my place out in the distance. The weather was nice out, for once, a bit of sun coming out from between grey clouds. “So, if there’s a bunch of samurai making shit, why’s the world still a shithole?” I asked.

Are they things you’re planning to make enough to improve the world as a whole, or are they just enough to help those you want to help right now? As a Vanguard grows in abilities, points, and power, the scope of the help they can provide grows as well, though this growth is more linear than you might expect. The world is a better place for them, it’s likely that you just take a lot of the growth they provided for granted.

Was that it? It made some sense, I supposed. Different samurai would care about different stuff. If I gave Gomorrah unlimited creation abilities, I bet she’d invest in giving everyone a flamethrower, or she might invest in helping the nuns or whatever that she was used to working with. That probably would help the world in a small way.

Someone like Grasshopper would probably invest a lot of time and effort into making educational stuff better, which would also help, in its own way. Hell, I was pretty sure she was already investing a lot of time and effort into doing that. I think she had a whole set of interactive children’s books or whatever being made.

“Well, whatever,” I decided. I’d use mine to make the shit I cared about better. For now, with just the one, it wasn’t like I could change the entire damned world. I’d start with what I could do on the scale I was used to working on, and if things didn’t go to shit, I’d see about expanding.

The printer at home probably had one hell of a backlog already, so we’d have to see about improving it, or getting a second one.

Could I use the first one to make more of them, or was that cheating?

I flew around the museum, then came to a nice, gentle landing out front. It was mostly gentle because I let the autopilot do all of the work; landing was hard.

Stepping off the bike, I stretched my back out until it popped, then removed my helmet and shook my hair out. The air was damp and humid, but it wasn’t raining for once. The parking space was still wet though, and I couldn’t imagine the rain not picking up again before the evening was up.

I barely made it to the front door before it opened and Lucy came strolling out. She collided with me in a hug. “Hi!”

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“Hi!” I said as I returned the hug. “You’re in a good mood.”

“When am I not? My eternal optimism is my third best feature.”

“Third best?” I asked. “What are the other two?”

“My hair comes second, obviously,” she said.

Her hair was nice, a big poofy ball of tightly knit curls that was fantastically bouncy. At least when the humidity didn’t get to it. “And the first best feature?” I asked.

“Boobs,” she said.