Stray Cat Strut - Volume Nine - Chapter Nineteen (Patreon)

Chapter Nineteen

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“Found him,” Shy muttered.

“What was that?” I asked as I felt the ears on my head twitch. I wasn’t sure if I had to ask for clarification or not, but it was better to ask and not appear too weird than let people know that I had cyberware that let me spy on people really well. That might creep someone out. Not that I minded for normies, but the samurai with me were ostensibly friends. 

I wasn’t one for politeness... because fuck that; but even I could understand that there were lines that you didn’t cross. If my cybernetic ears let me hear the weird noises someone made in the washroom then I sure wasn’t going to mention it. It was common courtesy or whatever.

“Ah, he’s in a place called the Rockfort building? It’s more or less to the north-east of the city.”

“I know that one,” Crisis Mode said. “It’s a large hexagonal building. Dark grey, not too far from the middle of the river. It’s not old. I think I remember seeing it go up.”

“Cool,” I said as I stretched up and flicked some switches. “Alright, so do we have plan for this one?”

“I don’t think so?” Crisis Mode said. “Are we going to ask Libre about it?”

“Nah,” I said. “If he wasn’t a whole entire asshole, then maybe I’d poke him and see what he thinks, but I don’t know if he deserves the head’s up. And you’re a samurai, Crisis, you don’t need to ask for permission to go do anything.”

“Right, of course,” Crisis Mode said.

“It took me some time too,” Shy said quietly. “When I became a samurai I... spent a lot of time taking care of my own things, and I didn’t leave very often. Just to make some points, then I’d go back home. But, ah, Stray Cat’s way of doing things is sometimes good? Saving people is good. Sometimes saving them in a loud way saves more people later.”

“Aww, thanks,” I replied as we finally started to lift off the ground. “But I wouldn’t say that doing things the loud way is always the best. Eventually, if too many of us start tossing important people off of rooftops, the important people will stop standing so close to the edges.”

Once in the air, I angled us in the direction that Shy had indicated and started to fly forwards. I kept the thrust low and made sure to turn on the ship’s collision detection systems. 

“Myalis, can we connect to the local air traffic net?” I asked. “Don’t want some soccer mom with a van full of kids ramming into us if we can avoid it.”

I felt Crisis Mode giving me a stare at that, but like, it wasn’t wrong, was it?

“Okay, so,we still haven’t decided how we’re doing this. I see three options. One, we drop Shy off nearby and let her sneak in. Maybe I can do the same? We find our guy and then escort him out, or ask him some questions in there. Second option, we go in loud. I still have... eh, some ammo left over, and I can always reload the rockets. We find out where he is and dig him out, possibly from the side of the building if needs be.”

“That’s insane,” Crisis Mode said.

“It’ll send a message,” I said.

“That we’re insane?” she asked.

“Yes? That’s a valuable message to send, I think. People have respect for insanity. You might not put a lot of respect on the average stray, but when it comes at you hissing and spitting you learn to back the fuck off.”

She shook her head. “What’s the third option?”

“Three, and this is the boring one, we park the Bastion and ask politely.”

“That might be the nicest solution,” Shy said. 

Fine, whatever. We came upon the building, and Crisis Mode was right, from above it was a giant hexagon, with a pattern of hexagonal windows around the sides next to hexagonal wall panels. Someone had a thing for the shape, I guessed.

I looped us around, then came down for a landing near the topmost floor. I gave it good odds that the Commander wasn’t in the basement or lower floors. 

Assholes always seemed to want to occupy the top of whatever building they were in. 

I shut the Bastion down, then stood up. “Okay. We probably won’t encounter any trouble, but just in case, arm up?”

“Can I have a minute or two?” Crisis Mode asked. “I think I need to switch out some of my armour?”

“That’s fine,” I said. “We’ll be in the back. There’s a washroom just there if you want privacy, but it’s a little cramped.”

“I lived in an apartment that wasn’t much bigger, it’s fine,” she said.

Fair enough. Shy and I wandered to the back of the ship, and I took the spare time I had to reload the Bastion’s guns. Those rockets had been a half-dozen points each, it turned out. Worth it, obviously, since they’d made a lot more than that, but it still hurt to spend a bunch of points to reload. 

A few minutes later, Crisis Mode exited the front of the ship and then settled a bag down onto the ground. By the way it clunked, I assumed it was her old gear.

Her new stuff was a step up. It was more white armour, on a teal-ish bodysuit, only the suit looked a little thicker, more padded down with some under armour that looked like it could take a hit.

The overarmour was all white panels shaped around her body. It was very... well, I didn’t have the words for the exact style of it, but it was very modern military. A few pouches, some faulds and a breastplate and overall look that suggested some curvature to it without being all sexed up. 

“Nice,” I said. 

She nodded, then slid a helmet on. It had one of those cool T-shaped visors at the front, and I could tell that there was some sort of HUD inside as well, plus it made a cool hissing noise as the helmet sealed itself.

“It’s comfortable so far. A bit heavy, though.”

“Worth it,” I said. “Just want until you explode, you’ll appreciate it.”

“Explode?”

“It happens,” I said. “Shall we?”

We disembarked and discovered security was waiting for us already. Three guys, looking mighty nervous to see us, which was probably for the best. If they were comfortable that might be a bad sign. 

“Hey,” I said. “We’re here to see the Commander.”

“He’s not here,” one of them said.

I stared at him, then glanced back at Shy. She shook her head. “Okay,” I replied. “We’re here to look for the Commander, then.”

“He’s not here,” the moron repeated.

I squinted at him. He had a security vest on, but under that wore familiar-looking fatigues, and while I wasn’t a gun-nut, the pistol at his side looked standard-issue. I muttered under my breath. “Myalis, he ex-army?”

One moment... yes. Private Gauthier. He is marked as having reported for duty every day for the last month.

“Look, Private. We’re here to see the Commander under the authority of ‘I fucking asked twice already’ and if you don’t want to help, then I’ll fling you off the side of this here building to warm the pavement up for your boss.”

The private wasn’t happy with that, but he did back up a little. Another, calmer security guy lead us in, but instead of rushing towards the Commander, we were brought over to a security station a floor down. 

There were more guards here, and a big X-ray machine next to one of those little conveyor things. “You’re going to have to disarm,” someone said before placing a plastic bin on the conveyor.

I stared.

Then I locked the audio in my helmet. “Myalis. I still have that decoy catalogue, yeah? How many guns can I buy for... say, twenty-five points?”

A lot.

“Good. Can you... help me with this?”

Oh, with pleasure. Lower back.

New Purchase: Decoy handgun

Points Reduced to: 9,409

I frowned for a moment, then reached to my lower back and felt something fall into my hand. I brought my hand around, and discovered a small handgun. I placed it in the bin.

Right pocket.

New Purchase: Decoy handgun

Points Reduced to: 9,408

I followed Myalis’ instructions. Not that they were too complicated. The security guys were all kind of just standing around, bored. Clearly some alarm had called a lot of them over, either as a show of intimidation or because they were expecting trouble or something, so I had a bit of an audience.

New Purchase: Decoy handgun

Points Reduced to: 9,407

New Purchase: Decoy grenade

Points Reduced to: 9,406

New Purchase: Decoy handgun

Points Reduced to: 9,405

New Purchase: Decoy assault rifle

Points Reduced to: 9,404

New Purchase: Decoy grenade

Points Reduced to: 9,403

New Purchase: Decoy handgun

Points Reduced to: 9,402

“You’re going to need another bin,” I said as I dropped in another little bullpup assault rifle. 

The guy stared, then slowly moved the bin down the conveyor. It trundled into the X-ray machine nad started to set off every alarm in there.

I reached into a small pouch inside my coat and plucked out a grenade, then another, then another, then another. The box had twelve of them by the time I followed Myalis’ instructions and reached into one of the deeper pockets of my coat.

I removed a sniper rifle that was almost as tall as I was. It didn’t fit in the bin right.

And... inner jacket, left side.

New Purchase: Decoy rocket propelled nuclear launcher

Points Reduced to: 9,391

I blinked at the description on that one before reaching into my coat. What I pulled out was a tube. There was a foot-ball-sized device on the end with a radiation-hazard symbol worked onto the side. The text SINGLE USE NUCLEAR DEVICE. STAND WELL CLEAR, was stenciled across the tube. 

The guy behind the machine was sweating. The others weren’t talking all that much.

“And... that?” he asked, gesturing to my Trenchmaker.

“That?” I asked. “Novelty lighter. Don’t worry about it.”

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