Stray Cat Strut - Volume Nine - Chapter Twenty-Four (Patreon)

Chapter Twenty-Four

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I walked over to the commander, then squatted down next to him and reached over to poke at his face. He had a lot of squish to him for someone in the army. Maybe he was one of those armchair commander sorts, because it certainly looked like he spent a lot of time sitting down.

“He’s alive, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Shy said. “I used a sedative. I wasn’t sure if we should kill them all?”

“Probably best not to,” I said. “All of these soldiers are deserters. I don’t know what the punishment for that is, but I’m sure it’s not pleasant. Anyway, we could use more bodies on the front lines, right? We can give these guys the opportunity to get back to work.”

“That same offer you made to the people upstairs?” Crisis Mode asked.

“Eh, without the window part, I think. Or the ‘me shooting them’ part?”

Shy looked at me, then tilted her head to the side slightly. She looked like a dog that had just heard an unfamiliar noise.

“We met a bunch of rich fucks way up above. Nice penthouse kind of place. They’re probably the ones responsible for a lot of the problems in the city, so I gave them some, ah, hard choices to make.”

Shy blinked, then looked around. “I suppose that makes sense. This group, ah, doesn’t seem able to do a media blackout. They have some tech here, but it’s nothing that can handle a full-scale blackout like that.”

“I, ah, don’t think the media blackout was that way,” Crisis Mode said.  Shy and I glanced at her, and she reeled back a little. “I mean, the blackout wasn’t just like a firewall. I think it was more that the news just didn’t report things.”

“Because the people that own all of the media are the same ones that wanted the media to shut up? Yeah, that tracks. Shit. Quebec was kinda screwed from the start, huh?”

I couldn’t see her face, but I had the impression that Crisis Mode cringed at that. “Seems like it. Ah, did you find anything on the Commander?” 

Shy shook her head. “I didn’t talk to anyone.”

“Damn, that’s cold. Just walked in here and put everyone to sleep, huh?”

“Sometimes, not talking is... easier.”

Yeah, she would say that. “Alright. But now we have all these knocked out morons to take care of an--”

A door further in slammed open and a man with messy hair and army standard fatigues stumbled in. “I’m Shane Luchies, and I won’t let you get away with this!” he shouted before charging towards us. He had a rifle and--

The man stumbled, then crashed into the floor with a dull thump.

Shy lowered a little dart-pistol looking thing and slid it back under her combat poncho. “Sorry. I missed one.”

“All good,” I said. “So, we calling in the army to take care of this? Juno will want to have a word with this guy.” I stood and gave the Commander a little tap with the end of my boot for emphasis. 

“That would be nice,” Shy said. “Latyns is in their system, copying everything. There are some people on leave. We’ll know where they are.”

Why did that sound so creepy coming from her? “I’ll send Juno a text,” I said before doing just that. I received a reply just a few seconds later, thanking me, then about half a minute after that a second text, letting me know that a force was going to head over to take care of things here. “How long are your little knock-out needles going to last for?” I asked.

“Until they’re removed,” Shy said.

Well, shit. I texted that to Juno too. Maybe they’d drag the soldiers over to wherever then remove all the needles at once. That’d be funny.

“So... lunch?”

It was well past lunchtime, but I was a bit peckish, and walking around this much only made it worse. Getting a bite to eat wouldn’t hurt.

Shy shrugged in reply, which meant that the choice really was on Crisis Mode. She glanced between us, then nodded. “Okay? I know of a few places. Ah, if you don’t mind cheaper food?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Know of any place that’s semi-private?”

“Sure,” she said. “The food in Quebec is excellent. Do you like Greek?”

“I like potato wedges,” I said.

I don’t know if that was the right answer, but Crisis Mode chuckled. I gestured to the Commander. “We might want to take him along. Like, leave him in the ship, but bring him. Just in case?”

That was probably a good idea, but it also meant that I had just volunteered myself to carry the fatass. I grunted as I hooked an arm under his legs and tried to princess carry him, only that didn’t work, and he was nothing but dead weight. 

It took an embarrassingly long time for me to figure out how to pull him up and over my shoulder. I had to firefighter carry his ass up to the elevator, then wait for us to ride back to the floor where I’d parked the Bastion.

Only once I got there, I discovered the guards and a heap of soldiers waiting for us at the very same security checkpoint that we’d gone through on the way in.

I think a lot of them recognized the ass I was carrying next to my head, but none of them chose to comment on how their boss was cosplaying a sack of potatoes. 

“Uh, ma’am?” one of them asked.

“Yeah?” I asked, maybe a little snippy.

“Did you want your things back?” He gestured to a fold-out table set nearby. All of the fake crap I’d bought earlier was sitting on it. 

I sighed. “Yeah, I ought to,” I said.

It looked realistic enough that someone might try to resell it as samurai-made shit. What would happen when someone tried to use one of those on an Antithesis and it turned out to be a prop? That’d be embarrassing. 

“Can, uh, a few of you give me a hand? Mine’s full,” I said.

A couple of them did actually volunteer, though I noticed that they carried that man-portable nuke launcher as if it was made of newborn babies. Which, yeah, okay, fair.

We carried everything over to the Bastion and I had the soldiers just kind of toss it all into a corner. They were rather horrified about the way I was treating what they though was live ordnance, but that just made it low-key kinda funny to me. 

I dumped the Commander in the closest thing we had to a brig, which was the bathroom, and then locked the door on him. 

“Alright, so where did you say was good?” I asked.

“There’s this little Greek place called Casa’s that’s not far from where I used to work,” Crisis Mode said. “It’s on street-level, and its been there for a while. The owner is nice? That, and they’d deliver to where I worked without any apps or anything.”

“Like... you had to call?” I asked.

Shy looked appropriately horrified at the idea of having to call a place to have food delivered, which I felt. This was 2057. No one called. 

“Yes? The delivery fee was less and I think the owner’s cousin was the driver? It was cheap, like I said. I’ve been craving some of their rice and one of their real-chicken souvlaki’s for a week.”

I supposed that wasn’t the worst. I’d have settled for more fast-food, but that struck me as better. Besides, Lucy would chide me for eating too much junk. So, I kicked the Bastion into the air and followed Crisis Mode’s directions. She had a bit of a hard time finding the right street from above, but once she did, she pointed us in the right direction.

There was street-side parking available. The fact that the ship took up half of the street even while riding up on the sidewalk sucked, but what was I supposed to do? Park three blocks over? People could drive around.

The way I saw it, getting lunch was Important Samurai Business. If I didn’t, I’d get hangry, and then people might die. 

The waitress lady just within wasn’t ready for three samurai to walk in, but she rallied and escorted us to a window-side booth, then scampered to get us some water. 

“Good service,” I said.

“I’m still not used to people treating me weird,” Crisis Mode said.

“Eh, it’s fine. I figure as long as you only get used to it after you’ve earned it, then it’s not a problem. The real problem is figuring out how far you have to go to actually earn it. But I had a solution for that one.”

“What’s that?” she asked. 

“Huge ego,” I said. “So, do they have those wedge fries here? I never got an answer on that.”

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