Chương 681: Chapter Fifty-Seven - Broadcast Necromancy

"-Okay... okay, so this might be a bad idea, but hear me out. -No. -Come on! She's never been more popular! -They blew up a corporation's headquarters like... two hours ago! We are not going to make and market dolls of them without permission. Do you have a death wish? -C'mon! -No!" --Overheard discussion about My First Stray Cat Dolls, 2057 I got back home a bit after Lucy and discovered her slumped back on the couch, looking exhausted.

"You good?" I asked.

"Hmm," she replied before cracking one eye open.

"I gave a speech."

"Was it good?" I asked.

"It was great," she replied. I smiled.

"I wish I was there."

"Nah," she said with the laziest little wave of her hand.

"You're too... you. People wouldn't have listened to me as much. Maybe more? I don't know. Too much to think about."

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Are you okay?" Lucy yawned, then nodded.

"Just tired. Public speaking kinda sucks."

"I just imagine them all naked," I lied. Lucy snorted and made a weak attempt to kick my leg, but I hopped back and out of range.

"Idiot," she muttered.

"Your idiot," I confirmed.

"Do you need help getting to bed?" I knew my Lucy well enough to tell that she wasn't in the mood for anything fun in or out of bed, but she did look like she could use a few hours of shut-eye.

"If I go now I'll wake up at like, four AM and won't be able to sleep, then I'll be cranky all day. Nah, better to stay up. I'll watch some slop on TV and get one of the kittens to make me some grub."

"Slop with slop," I said with a nod. An old favorite.

"I'mma head out, then. I haven't played with the Nyanzerfaust in a hot minute. Thing's never going to get reassembled if I don't put some hours in." Lucy nodded.

"Go have fun with your big toys," she said. Laughing, I slipped out of the room, moving to the side to let two running kittens pass. Making it to the garage, I found myself... kind of quiet? Like, in my head. There was a lot to think about, a lot of shit going on all at once. Lucy's big recruiting pitch was going to have consequences whether it worked or not. The gang thing was a whole situation. The conclave was going to need more organizing. I'd need to contact some people, call in some favours.

Then there was the little stuff I had to look over. The sewers, the prosthetics clinic. Maybe helping Tankette or Shy or both move in. The kittens, the brats living here, were starting to have a future too, and I'd need to help them with that as well. But that felt like a more distant problem for the moment. What else? The gangs, the corps, the other samurai, the government, the people? There was a lot of shit circling around inside of my head.

"Myalis, can you find a good radio channel?" I asked. I'll find whatever's least awful. Human music leaves a lot to be desired.

"Does it?" I asked.

"Well, I've never been musically inclined, but I'm afraid that if you make me listen to some perfect alien music, it'll ruin the taste of my trashy earth stuff, you know?" I think I understand. There's something enjoyable about seeing imperfections. I snorted. That was definitely a jab. Too bad I was too imperfect to understand it. Myalis found a radio channel that was half talkshow, half music, and somehow no ads? Or...

maybe Myalis was clipping out the ads and playing music of the exact same length in the space where the ads would be. That felt like something she could do. A few minutes later, seven ads about cat foods played in a row, so she was definitely fucking with me. Oh well. I got to work on the Nyanzerfaust. The mech had a lot of small bits of damage that needed looking into still. A few chunks were outright replacements, and I winced as I spent a few dozen points buying armoured panels and some internal parts.

Couldn't repair those, and some were so finicky that even the printer couldn't make copies. The rest, though, wasn't too bad. I'd removed most of the damaged parts, and now I was into the reassembly. That was still a whole process. Taking things apart was easier than putting them back together, and that wasn't just some lame analogy about the city as a whole. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Well, it could be, but I wasn't the analogy sort.

The radio switched back to the host talking. At first it was some random news. Politics, then some gag segments, then talking about some celebrity whose name I'd heard before but who I wouldn't be able to pick from a lineup if asked. My attention perked up as one of the hosts mentioned the ceasefire, though.

"Did you see it?" the female host asked.

"Yeah! With my own eyes. I was flying over to the studio, which as keen listeners will know, is in central New Montreal, when suddenly there's this big boom and my hovercar goes rocking. I thought someone collided with me. Or a bird. That's happened once and my insurance premium still hasn't recovered."

"Oof! But what was it like? I saw the videos, but that's not the same as being there."

"Yeah, you're right. I looked over and there's just this entire building on fire. Well, the top part, but from above it looked like the whole thing. I thought maybe someone had pulled a 9/11, but it didn't look like that. Then woosh, all the fire was gone. It only lasted a couple of minutes at most."

"Reports say that there was only one casualty. A member of Rama Corp LLC's C-suite."

"They passed in the fire?"

"Beheaded mid-emergency meeting at the company headquarters a whole ten minutes before the building exploded."

"Incredible. I heard a lot of people saying that it was the local samurai's way of sending a message."

"Yeah, well I might not have been the one the message was aimed at, but I heard it loud and clear. Don't mess with the fire nun."

"Hah! I don't think that's quite it. The New Montreal Gang Ceasefire leaked just an hour or two ago. It's all over social media. Turns out Stray Cat was the one who penned it."

"What's it say? I didn't have time to read through a contract this evening."

"Oh no, it's barely a page. You know how direct some samurai are about things. Basically, it boils down to 'keep your head low and don't rock the boat' but directed at the gangs."

"And some corps."

"And some corps. I think she warned them not to take advantage of the situation, and Rama Corp LLC did just that."

"Phew! Well, they won't do it twice."

"And now, some killer new beats by Kuroii!" I bobbed my head to some base-heavy technopunk while fiddling with the next part that needed assembling. The news had spread, then. Or at least, it had spread as far as the radio of all things. I figured that meant it would be on all the local news channels too. If there were any gangs that hadn't been clued in yet, this might be the wakeup call to pay attention. And it might be a nice way to warn other corps not to mess around either.

There was such a thing as 'too expensive to try.' Hopefully any bigger corporation would see the costs and decide that there were more economical ways to fuck around.

"Ah, shit," I muttered. What is it?

"I just remembered that I need to visit Princess. It kind of just, slipped my mind until just now." I grumbled under my breath, but... yeah, it had to be done. I'd visited all the rest. Might want to take a minute out of my day tomorrow to look in on Gros Baton and Hedgehog as well. If they hadn't killed themselves, then we could use that building, and I could use two more somewhat-willing volunteers to help with the conclave. It'd be good for their reps or something. Crap, was I becoming like Deus Ex?

Foisting off all of the shit I didn't want to do onto younger samurai? No, of course not. I was way hotter than the pipsqueak. That meant that tomorrow was going to be another loaded day. School, then more running around. But hey, loaded days weren't all bad. I'd need to find a few not-loaded days to finish up the repairs on this mech though, because as well as they were going, it was still going to take a few more days to get anything done. Meh, whatever.

I listened to some music, some commentary, more ads for cat products, and mostly just chilled out and tried not to think too hard. I was surprisingly good at not thinking too hard. A whole lifetime of practice.