Chương 442: Book 7 - Chapter 38 - Calming Music

[Grrrraaaaaaahhhhhh! Where'd that fucker come from! It bit my leg off! I'm going to kill that son of a bitch!] I blinked in surprise when I saw the message. After cooking some quick vegi chips, something Sharron had found immensely amusing for some reason, the two of us had retired to her lounge and collapsed into her plush furniture to listen to some music. It wasn't like I was actively monitoring the samurai comms.

I knew Sharron would be upset if I'd been doing work instead of trying to relax, but I couldn't help but keep it active in the back of my brain just in case something important happened. Although there had been a constant stream of messages being exchanged back and forth between the different teams, they'd mostly been minor updates. There hadn't been any posts even close to this angry before.

I rolled over onto my side, something that was actually a little difficult considering how soft the couch I was lying on was, and looked over at Sharron.

"Are you monitoring the comms channel?" I asked. Sharron rolled her head to the side, and she stared at me through slightly narrowed eyes.

"No. I'm trying to relax right now, and you're supposed to be doing the same," she said.

"Why?"

"Because there's someone screaming about losing a leg in the chat room," I replied.

"It caught my eye because it's a little more… guttural than most of the other messages." She frowned, and her eyes glazed over for a moment.

"Huh… someone's got anger issues," she said.

"It reads like something I'd scream over voice comms in the middle of battle," I muttered.

"Yes, yes, it does," she replied quietly.

"But who puts something like that into a text chat?" I asked, trying to ignore how quickly she agreed.

"Well, pretty much all comms come in across the mental interface in our augs, so if they were browsing the boards when they were attacked, they may have accidentally posted whatever they were thinking at the time," Sharron replied.

"It's like yelling something across a voice channel when you're in active comms."

"I guess that makes sense," I said as I scrolled through the previous few messages.

"Hey, I'm going back through the log… The last message, I see from this guy seems to be a note about searching around the northern section of the net which was knocked out by the EMP, but I'm not seeing anything about spotting any Antithesis."

"Maybe he got ambushed?" Sharron said.

"Or he didn't bother to report when he spotted the Antithesis. Do you bother to report to everyone the first time you spot an Antithesis?"

"Touche," I said, flopping onto my back and once again sinking into the couch.

"Remind me later to find out what happened there."

"That's the spirit!" Sharron declared, leaning back in her recliner.

"It's not a major issue yet, and it's supposed to be relaxation time, so we'll deal with it later." Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Yeah, relaxation," I muttered. The truth was, despite my best efforts, there was no way I was going to be able to relax while listening to Sharron's music. We were currently listening to something called EDM, which just sounded like noise to me.

"How can you find this relaxing?" I asked, fighting the urge to cover my ears.

"What?" she asked.

"The heavy repeating baseline has me all wound up. It's the farthest thing from relaxing ever!" I declared.

"Really? I find it relaxing when I turn the volume down low like this. It's like a familiar repetitive beat of a heart or the ring of a pickaxe," she replied. I struggled back into a seated position.

"Pickaxe?" She nodded.

"It reminds me of my time in the mines, where I had to spend several hours a day with nothing but the repeated clang of the crew's pickaxes to keep me company." I stared at her blankly for several seconds.

"You realize that's not normal, right?"

"Evelyn, we run around killing alien flora hell bent on the eventual extinction of all life on Earth. Our whole lives are 'not normal'," Shannon replied.

"Okay, you have a point there. Do you at least have something a little less… headache-inducing?" I asked.

"I've had gunfights occur right outside my house before, and they've been less grating than this."

"What about the gunfights you've been involved in?" she asked, with a slight smirk.

"Well, in that case I'm usually far too focused on the task at hand to actually care," I grumbled.

"Please?"

"Fine," Sharron huffed. She struggled for a moment to drag herself out of her chair before wandering over to the massive cabinet built into the wall. Flipping open a glass door, she hit a button on the machine, finally silencing the noise and ejecting the thin silver disc.

"Why did you get a system that relies upon physical media anyways? You could have just signed up with those music archive companies," I asked.

"You know, like everyone else does."

"Because those services are so impermanent," she said.

"Their catalogs are constantly changing as the companies fight amongst themselves, revoking rights to some songs while releasing others. Plus, once you stop subscribing to their service, you lose access to all that music. I like having my music on hand, actually owning what I buy."

"That's an exceptionally old point of view," I snorted.

"No one owns what they pay for anymore."

"Correction, no regular person owns what they pay for anymore," Sharron said as she slipped another disc into the stereo.

"As samurai, we can get pretty much whatever we want. As long as we have the points, of course. Out of everyone I know, I'd expect you to understand the want to have something physical, to hold onto what you own."

"Well, when you put it that way… yeah, I understand," I said, lying back and staring at the ceiling.

"When you grow up with next to nothing, being able to hold something you own and knowing that no one's going to take it away from you… it's kind of comforting."

"Exactly!" Sharron exclaimed. She reached over and tapped something on the console, and another upbeat, but far less migraine inducing song started up.

"Better?"

"Much," I said.

"What are we listening to now?"

"Symphonic Rock," she replied with a smile.

"It's not like the mass-produced AI driven stuff you hear nowadays."

"It's nice," I admitted as I leaned back and closed my eyes. As soon as I did, a priority message popped up in the samurai chat. [Attention everyone: We've just become aware that the Antithesis have released a wave of hunter-killer units, which are targeting samurai in the area and are practically undetectable to standard sensors. Please exercise caution, travel in groups, and watch each other's backs. We'll update you once we know more.]"Wonderful," I sighed, once again pulling myself into a seated position.

"I was just getting comfortable too."

"Don't tell me you're actually getting up for that," Sharron said.

"According to Claire's message, they're looking into it and don't have any information yet. What are you planning to do?"

"Investigate," I replied.

"If the Tender is sending out hunter-killers, then it's either worried or thinking about making a move, and I want to do everything I can to prevent that."

"Are you sure you can't wait? We're supposed to be relaxing," Sharron grumbled.

"The Antithesis wait for no samurai!" I replied as I pushed myself to my feet.

"You know that."

"I do. I was just looking for excuses to listen to my music longer," Sharron sighed as she rolled out of the chair.

"Let's go. It sounds like we have work to do."