Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Six

“What is that creature?” 

Those were the first words out of Becky's mouth when we met. She had texted me a location; a small mall in the far north-eastern end of Fortress ENE, ironically called Mall ENE. The place kinda sucked. It had that vibe that was common in places that should have closed down ten years ago but were still clinging on. 

Probably some clerical error somewhere. Or the owners of the place had reduced the overhead to nothing, so the mall wasn’t costing anything to run, even if it wasn’t profitable.

The ground floor had a cheap chain restaurant where staff were screaming at each other over the beep-beep-beep of their machines. It was the only place to eat on the ground floor. There were four other places where restaurants had been, but they were all closed up.

The mall was pretty much all like that. One shop in three was closed, and those that were opened were more often than not slightly-scammy looking cellphone or aug repair shops. The sort where you could probably get your cyberware jailbroken by a thirty-year old college dropout.

Becky and I met at the fast food place. I probably wasn’t allowed to bring Mister Couchtop in, but I did anyway, setting him down on the table between us. 

She leaned in real close, almost sprawling across the table to look into the cage. “Pspspsps, little dude?”

I snorted. “This is Mister Couchtop,” I said. “He is a distinguished gentleman. Please don’t pspsps him.”

“A distinguished gentleman?” Becky asked. She grabbed the string that wrapped around the hood of her hooded coat and flicked it into the cage, clearly trying to get Mister Couchtop to play, but he wasn’t interested at all. 

At least he wasn’t meowiling anymore. Poor guy had not liked the motorcycle ride. I knew that some cats didn’t mind. My social media feed was flooded with cat videos, and some of them were even real and not AI slop. There were plenty of cats that rode on bikes with their humans, but Mister Couchtop didn’t strike me as a big fan.

“So, why’d you bring mister kitty cat here?” Becky asked. “If you want me to keep him for a bit, the answer is no.”

“You’d say no?” I asked.

“Yeah. I kept a cousin... second cousin? Anyway, I pet sat his gerbils once, and three of them died.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“Yeah. There were only three of them to begin with. We don’t talk anymore.” Becky flung herself back into her seat, the chair climbed onto two legs before cracking back down. “Hungry?”

“Not as much as I was,” I admitted. “But I could use a bite, sure.”

There was some bullshit app we could use to order without having to get up, and a little bot would come with the food and plop it down on the table. It was nice and high-tech and half the time you’d have to get up anyway since the order would be wrong. The app also had my Orchid Lux software yelling at me about spyware the moment I even looked at one of the QR codes on a wall.

I had Becky order for me, and paid her in cash. I went for some breakfast sandwich thing and she ordered a burger, fries, a soda, a large meal (which came with more soda and more firies), a milkshake, an ice cream flurry (with extra candies in it), two chocolate chip cookies, and a box of nuggets. 

I stared at her order when she smacked it down onto the table. It took up as much room as Mister Couchtop. 

“Are you starving?” I asked.

“Huh? No? Why?”

“That’s a lot of food,” I said. That was like pointing out that the ocean was a little wet. 

Becky shrugged. “I’m a growing girl?” she took one of the sodas and sucked greedily at the paper straw. “Ahhh... oh, hey, they have a thing here this month where if you buy some items you get rolls in one of the gachas I’m playing!”

I had noticed the big tiddy anime girls on the cups. “Did you order all of that so that I’d pay for your gacha rolls on the side?” I asked.

“No?”

She proceeded to prove herself truthful by devouring the entire meal in front of me. The most I got out of it was a single nugget that she almost reluctantly shared. 

“So, you look tired. What’s going on? And what’s with the cat?”

“It’s a long story. But... ah, remember how we’ve been gallivanting around?”

“Playing hero?” Becky asked with a grin that was just shy of feral. “I know! I’ve been looking at some stuff to add to my costume.”

“We’re not playing hero,” I said. “And yeah, well turned out we might have stepped on some toes. Seraph burst into my place this morning to kidnap me.”

“The corp?” Becky asked. Her grin faded. “Shit, you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said. “I shot one of them in the knee, fucked up some of their equipment, and stabbed one of their C-rankers in the eye. Plus, I got out of there without being caught and I threw up a stink. Bet you their stocks are going to look a little rocky in the next week and their reputation got a little dirty from it all.”

“Shit. Still, I’d be properly pissed if they did that. Good on you for fucking them up, though.” Becky proceeded to stuff an entire handful of fries into her mouth. And she called Mister Couchtop a creature? 

“I’m... I feel like I should be angry, but at this point I’m more tired. A little proud, too, I suppose. But yeah, mostly I’m tired.”

Becky nodded. “I get that. So, what’s your next move now? You never struck me as someone who didn’t know what she wanted to do, Miss Deadline.”

“I have some ideas,” I said. “But mostly I need a base of operations. Somewhere to stay.”

Becky blinked. Then she pointed a fry at herself. “So you came to me? Really? I think I should be flattered, but like, c’mon, you’ve got to know that I don’t exactly live it up.”

“I can imagine,” I said. And I could. I was pretty sure that Becky was wearing some of the same clothes as the last time we met which was... which was... shit. When was that? It had been over a month for me, of personal time. In real time, that was, in the time that everyone else was living, it had only been a couple of days. 

That was still fucking with my head. 

“Didn’t the River Rats have beef with Seraph?”

“Yup! Well, with a few guilds, really. But I think Mousey hates them in particular. Look, if you want, you can crash at my place for the night. I can move some things off the couch for you. It’d be nice to have some company. But you’ve gotta know, we don’t live in a nice, ritzy place. If Rich Bitch saw where I stay she’d break out in hives.”

“That’s fine,” I replied. “As long as it’s a place where I can lay low for a while. I need some time to get my shit together, line up a new apartment, and lay the groundwork to have Seraph piss off.”

“What’s that look like?” she asked.

“I really have no idea,” I replied. That wasn’t entirely truthful, but it wasn’t too far from the truth either. It would do as an answer for now.

“Well, we’ll have you talk with Mousey then! She’s top at this kind of thing.”

“She’s a ranker, right?” I asked. I did vaguely recall Becky saying something of the sort. 

“Yup! C-ranked. Used to work for some corps, but left because that shit was lame. She’s a socket licker too.”

I choked on my softdrink, and it took nearly a minute for me to catch my breath again. “A--a what?” I asked. 

Becky had moved over to smack me on the back, but that didn’t stop her from grinning like a loon. “What I was trying to say is that her magic’s all buzz-buzz, like mine?” She raised her free hand and sparks jumped between her fingers with a snapping sound not unlike a taser going off. 

“Oh,” I said. “Yes, that makes... more sense,” I replied. 

“What did you think I meant?” Becky asked.

“Oh, fuck off,” I replied before giving her a friendly shove away. “You know what that sounded like.”

“Haha! Well, I don’t know what Mousey’s into that way. I guess she likes gacha girls too, but I mean, who doesn’t, yeah?”

“Right of course... by the way, if I’m going to be at your place... how much gacha merchandise will I be seeing?”

Becky froze.

“You don’t think anime waifus are cringe, right?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Right? Tell me that you don’t! I can’t have you at my place if I don’t know!”

***