Chapter Twenty-Seven

***

Things went pretty fast from there. Tinwhistle was only here since she was technically the ranking officer after Juno now that things had been... reshuffled in the ranks. I think Juno was actually upset with me on account of the Commander not being dead. Oops? 

I was doing nothing but fucking up lately. 

Speaking of which. The moment we were done and everyone started to file out, I was flagged down by Gomorrah. She did that sideways head-nod thing, gesturing to one of the walled-off offices to one side of the room. 

I followed, pulling the door closed behind me. “Are you about to give me an earful about being late?” I asked.

“No,” Gomorrah said. “Though you could stand to be a little earlier. You do know that some of us consider you something of a... if not the leader, then the face of t he group, at least.”

“Yeah, I got that impression,” I said. I shifted a little on my feet. I didn’t want to appear uncomfortable, but yeah, I was. Being the boss of the kittens back home was one thing. Hell, I wasn’t so much the boss as I was the mom of the group along with Lucy. 

Bossing around a bunch of samurai though? That felt different. Not that I had any illusions that I was the real boss. Someone like Deus Ex still had a million times more clout than I did. I didn’t want to be the leader. It’s just that no one else stepped up, and I maybe wasn’t a very good follower.

“Maybe we’re more like co-leaders?” I asked.

Gomorrah’s emotionless mask stared at me. Even if I couldn’t see her face, I still had the impression that she wasn’t fond of the idea. “I’m not like Lucy,” she said. 

“No shit,” I replied. “She’s way... you know.” I made large, sexy, curvy gestures in the air before me, emphasizing the size of Lucy.

Gomorrah sighed and from the subtle movement of her head, I knew she had just rolled her eyes. “Setting that aside. What I mean is that I’m not fit for such an... easy co-leadership style. Not like what the two of you have, which is admittedly admirable. If a little extreme. However... yes, I am fine with helping. I don’t like the limelight, Cat. I’d rather not be the centre of attention of anyone. The little bit of presence I’ve had recently has already caused me some issues.”

“Wait, it has?” I asked, grasping onto that last bit.

She nodded. “My parents have... reached out.”

Oh, right, people had those.

“They a problem?” I asked.

“They’re my problem,” she replied. “I don’t need them defenestrated.”

“But do you want them?” I asked. This was a bit touchy. Well, no, it wasn’t like I didn’t remember having parents. I wasn’t orphaned as a baby. And I had a lifetime’s worth of movies to fill in the blanks of what a normal family life was like. 

She shook her head. “Later,” she said. “Right now, before we head out, I wanted to ask you to do a few things.”

“Sure?” I said, though I was a bit uncertain.

“I need you to take care of our PR.”

“PR?” I asked. “Like public relations PR?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “We’re walking into a delicate situation. Not so much with the Antithesis--though that is its own problem to burn--but with the city as a whole. I think that you can help smooth things over.”

“How?” I asked. “Want me to do a street-side interview? Pop onto a podcast?”

“Nothing like that,” Gomorrah said before pausing. “Though, maybe? I don’t know. If I were the one in charge of our public image, I’d do things a certain way. But that way mostly resonates with people like myself and my family. It would be clean and official.”

“And I’m a dirty rat that the average person one paycheck away from the streets will understand better.”

“Exactly,” Gomorrah said.

I blinked. “You were supposed to deny it,” I said. “Ah, whatever. So, you want me to do what, exactly?”

“You mentioned some amount of media presence,” Gomorrah said. “We can give you some time to do that. To address Quebec city, or its people. I don’t want to tell you what to do, because I don’t know what to do. I just know that the last few times we let you do our media work for us, the results weren’t awful.”

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure about that. Being on camera wasn’t my kind of thing. Actually, it was entirely the opposite. I wasn’t exactly shy, or Shy for that matter, but I wasn’t fond of being the centre of attention. “I can try, I guess.”

“Thank you. It’ll serve as a good distraction, at least. That might be all we need to keep the situation under control. Ideally, we can stop the rioting.”

“I’d like to know what the riots are about, actually. I can guess, but people don’t just up and decide to riot. It takes a lot to get people to leave their homes. If there are riots today, that means that they were ready yesterday.”

“I don’t know,” Gomorrah said. “And I don’t know how to find out, not quickly. Honestly, it’s not my job to find out.”

“Yeah, fair,” I said. “Urgh, this place is a fucking mess. Kinda wild that I miss New Montreal, huh?”

“Home is home,” Gomorrah said. “Where the problems are just as bad, only they’re problems you’re familiar with.”

I chuckled. “Alright, fair. As for the riot thing. I guess I can try? I might need some help with that. I don’t know where I’d even go to post the video. And would the others be okay with my filming them?”

“You’d care?” she asked.

“I mean, a little? Shy doesn’t seem like the sort who likes being, uh, perceived. I’m not sure about the others.” I was also pretty sure that Shy had ways around that, so she’d be fine if I just gave her a head’s up. 

Gomorrah nodded along. “I’ll let the others know. Do you need a while to set up?”

“I need a while to wrap my head around the entire idea,” I said before waving her concern off. “I’ll manage. Don’t worry.”

She eyed me for a moment, then nodded and started to head out. “We’ll be riding mostly with the army on the way back. Did you bring the Bastion here? I didn’t notice it coming in.”

“Nah, it’s parked a ways off,” I said. “I’ll have to go fetch it before I head out. I’ll want to bring my mechs with me.” They’d let me move a whole lot faster than I could on foot, and they represented a good chunk of my entire firepower.

Gommorrah headed out, and I sighed, then rubbed at my face. This was going to be a long day. I could feel it in my bones. 

“Myalis, I’m going to need a good camera setup. Maybe some sort of drone?” I gestured vaguely in a ‘floaty’ way next to my head, to represent a flying drone.

I can provide something like that. What’s your expected budget?

“How many points am I sitting at?”

Currently, your point total is 9,650. Enough for a small fleet of spy drones. Your Class I Stealth Technologies should have something suitable for the task. It will perhaps be more subtle than you’d expect, and cost more than if you were to purchase a catalogue explicitly for the task. 

“Eh, I think having it be stealthy isn’t a bad move,” I said. “Say... I don’t know, a hundred points?”

The Cat’s Eye twin-optic surveillance drone would cost around 95 points and would provide you with a floating camera platform that the Antithesis won’t immediately notice. It’s quiet, relatively cheap, and easy to control. Though it is also entirely unarmed.

“Yeah, that sounds good enough,” I said.

New Purchase: Cat’s Eye Drone

Points Reduced to: 9,555

I got a nice big box out of that purchase. It was, of course, vaguely cat shaped, and made out of a hard, semi-transparent plastic that I popped open. Within was a drone about twice as long as my handspan, with six small disks all around it and a ‘head’ segment that looked a little bulbous. It had a slightly cat-ish shape, but only if I squinted.

“You really tried with this one, huh?”

I was working on a budget.

I tapped on a little button on the drone’s head, and it lit up, then flew out of the box. A moment later it wavered and went semi-transparent. I could still see a strip along the sides, and a few parts, and passing my hand under it let me feel a current of air, but it was decently quiet. 

“That’ll do,” I said.

***