Chapter Twenty-Six – Red Carpet Treatment

Chapter Twenty-Six – Red Carpet Treatment

“After the end of the second world war and the advent of more advanced weaponry, there was a noticeable shift in the way armed forces reacted. It still took some decades for what is essentially an entirely new SoP to take effect, but by the late 90s most modern militaries understood that a small number of well-equipped soldiers could be used to greater effect than large units of poorly-trained conscripts.

Something about their mentality just does not agree with the idea that a problem can be solved without explosions, lasers, or explosive lasers.”

–Excerpt from ‘An Analysis of the Capability of the Modern Unit vs.The Samurai,’ 2029

***

I raised my hand and turned it this way and that. My nails shone pretty and rainbow. There was a bit of a holographic effect with them, little hearts in the middle that only showed up at certain angles. “Neat,” I said.

“Yes yes, very very pretty,” the old woman said.

I grinned back at her and looked at the time. It had been a nice way to spend ten minutes. I bet that Lucy would love that kind of pampering too. Maybe we could order one of those massage people in our hotel room. That was a thing that was done… probably. I wasn’t up to date on how the rich wasted their credits.

“Myalis, can you transfer over some credits to the nice lady?” I asked.

This will basically empty your account.

“Yeah, but Lucy will like it.”

The woman looked at me quizzically for a bit, then something in her eyes glowed and her smile only grew. “Thank you, honourable customer. You go pinch many bottoms now.”

“Damn right,” I said as I shoved off her chair, then stretched. “Any news from Gomorrah yet?”

Atyacus has kept in contact with me this entire time. They’ve reached the appropriate location, though it took convincing a guard to look the other way.

“A merc guard?” I asked.

No, the location where Atyacus proposed breaking through the wall is a warehouse for medical supplies. It has twenty-four hour guards and surveillance. I suspect that the Hour Men encouraged the placement of a high-security facility next to their offices to act as a sort of additional deterrent. Atyacus disagrees. We’ve been going back and forth for what for you would be subjective years.

“You do that a lot?” I asked. “Argue with other AI?”

We need to do something to pass the time. Arguing online is one of the few hobbies we share with humanity.

“That and trolling people.”

I would only ever troll you, you know that.

I rolled my eyes and came to a stop next to the exit of the nail salon. I leaned against the counter and tapped my feet, then, because there was nothing else to do, I logged onto my media feeds.

It had been… maybe forty-eight hours since I’d last checked. That was practically a lifetime.

Normally I was pretty reserved, only looking to see if anything neat had happened maybe once an hour. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone so long without looking, but then the last couple of days were a little hectic.

And, as the site checked my biometrics auto-logged me, my vision was filled with gifs, ads, stills taken from the friend of a friend, more ads, news posts, news posts that were actually ads, government warnings about the incursion, and then ads made to look like government warnings about the incursion.

You have over six thousand private messages. All from the last day.

“I’m popular,” I said.

Ninety-two percent are targeted ads. Two percent are offers from various corporations aware of your status as Vanguard. Three percent are from people begging for assistance, the remainder are poorly designed malware.

“Annnd I’m already bored,” I said.

That might be for the best. Gomorrah has spliced into the office’s internal network. Their security software isn’t terribly impressive.