Chapter Fifty - Sans But Lucratif

“Non-profits can be easily split into two broad categories:

More often than not, the community based non-profits will fold once they begin to encroach on a corporate non-profit. They cannot be allowed to steal the good image that a corporation is paying large sums to maintain.”

--Quote from a Discourse on Challenges of the Modern Community, 2039

***

It took a minute to convince the secretary that yes, I was a samurai, and no, I wasn’t at their little non-profit to murder or ortherwise harm Peter. I was beginning to suspect that she had something of a crush on the man we were looking for.

“Peter’s office is back here,” she said as she gestured to the back, the bangles on her wrists jingling with the motion.

“Lead on,” I said.

“So, you two both samurai? Like, for real-real?”

I shook my head. “Just me. Lucy here’s my friend.”

“Yes, I’m Cat’s friend,” Lucy said.

I shot her a look, but she was wearing a shit-eating grin that promised future teasing, so I decided that I’d wait a while before explaining myself.

Peter’s office at the back wasn’t anything special. This wasn’t someone that had a fancy set up, either because he didn’t have the budget for it, or because he didn’t want to look like he had the budget. Then again, if Myalis suggested that he was working off of a shoestring budget, then I trusted her.

The girl knocked on the office’s glass door. “Peter, you have some highbrow guests here.”

“Oh, I’m highbrow now,” Lucy said.

“You were always high maintenance,” I replied offhandedly.

I had to suppress the urge to jump as the door opened and Lucy pinched my rear at exactly the same time. A man stood in the entrance, tall, with a chiseled sort of jaw and bright eyes. His hair was a little untidy, but in that sort of shampoo commercial way, and he had just a hint of a five o’ clock shadow on. “Hello?” he asked.

“Heya,” I said. “You got a minute?”

“What’s this about?” he asked. “I’m sure I can make some time for you, but I am rather busy right now.”

I nodded. “That’s alright. Just need a couple of minutes. My name’s Catherine, but folk call me Stray Cat. I’m a samurai based out of New Montreal. I had some, uh, stuff that might interest you.”

He stared at me for a moment, then turned to the woman next to me. “Can you do me a huge favour and text Martin about my five o’ clock, tell him something’s come up and that I’ll be with him as soon as I can. He knows that I wouldn’t put him off for anything that isn’t important.”

“Hey, sure thing, Peter,” she said before backing off. She eyed Lucy and I before leaving.

“Sorry, please, come in,” he said as he backed into the office. The table had some trinkets on it, and a few random pages stacked off to the side. It wasn’t the biggest of offices, but there was room for a pair of mismatched chairs in front of the desk, and a bookshelf to the side filled with boring-looking texts. Peter moved behind the desk and clicked his laptop shut. “I’m sorry, this isn’t my office, I’m borrowing it for the day. I’m on the move too much to have my own, really.”

“You move around a lot?” I asked.

He laughed self-deprecatingly. “All the time. People take you a lot more seriously when you show up in person, which I suppose you know, being here now and all.” He gestured to the seats, and I pulled one out for Lucy before taking the other.

“Look, I didn’t want to bother you too much, but someone told me you were the guy to talk to, so I figured I’d take my shot, you know?”

“Uh, sure. I get a lot of people that get referred to me. I’m a bit of a problem solver. Or at least I try to be. Never had an actual samurai asking for help though?”

For all that he carried himself with confidence, there was just a hint in his voce that he wasn’t as sure as he would have liked to be. “Hey, it takes all sorts,” I said.

“So, what’s the issue, and how can I help?” Peter asked.

“Have you heard of the problem with the sewers?” I asked. He shook his head. “Alright, well, the long and short of it is that a gang was living down there. They took care of the maintenance, mostly, and in exchange they’d get some stuff. Kind of a weird symbiotic relationship, you know? See, to live in the sewers you need a lot of special augs and a heap of modifications to your body. It’s not pretty.”

“I can imagine,” Peter said.

I nodded along. “So, after that last invasion, these Sewer Dragons, that’s the gang’s name, started to kidnap normal folk off the streets to make up their numbers. Now, Gomorrah and I--that’s another samurai I work with--we took exception to that and may have destroyed the gang.”

“That’s good?” Peter asked. He was obviously looking for the problem.

“It’s alright,” I said. “The problem is the people we saved. We have something like two hundred people that were chopped up and given prosthetics against their will. We’re talking two hundred pairs of legs, a load of internals, probably a heap of other medical issues, and a whole lot of trauma, I imagine.”

“That’s more serious than I expected,” Peter said. “What do you plan to do with all of them? Are you helping them?”

“We’re doing what we can, but right now we’re kind of torn. We either try to save these two hundred or so people, and don’t get me wrong, we totally can save them. Or we focus on fixing the sewer system before everyone in the entire city has to live without any water and no flushing toilets.”

Peter leaned forwards, elbows on the table. “That’s going to hit the poor hardest,” he said. “Everyone in the lower-middle brackets won’t be able to afford bottled water if the prices jump, and they’re the ones more likely to rely on public utilities for their water.”

“It’s a pretty big mess,” I said. “We’re trying to get things fixed before it really goes to shit, but it might be a close call. And no, before you ask, we can’t really just... samurai the problem away. Or we could, but not well. We just don’t have the resources to patch everything.”

It was a bit of a sour point, but I’d gone over it with Myalis. Even with drones and automatic systems in place, I wouldn’t have the points needed to fix the entire sewer system. Maybe if it was just one issue. Some problem with acidic water, or if we needed new filters. There were plenty of smaller issues I could take care of. The machine back home could make the materials to fix some parts of the system, but not at the speed and not at the quantity needed to fix everything.

Maybe Deus Ex could do it, drop a hundred thousand points into something huge to fix everything, but I wasn’t there yet, and the more points I spent on this problem, the fewer I had to use in the next incursion.

“I’ve basically thrown the issue on some up-and-coming political sort. And if he doesn’t fix things... I don’t know, I guess I’ll make him drink sewer water until he changes his mind about fucking with the lives of everyone in the city. We don’t need a riot because the water’s gone bad.”

Peter pursed his lips, then shook his head. “You’re overestimating people’s ability to be violent.”

“Huh?” Lucy asked.

“People that will be violent will be violent in response to something immediate, something happening in front of them or that’s making them angry then and there. But for bigger picture things... Do you know how many dirty politicians were killed in their homes by normal people? Corrupt cops? There’s a cop that’s currently on paid leave living two floors up. He’s literally home right now.”

“Why’s he off?” Lucy asked.

“Got caught touching a suspect inappropriately, after about thirty complaints like that. He also shot and killed some kid a few months back. He was told to do a search of some apartment and he broke into the wrong place.”

“And no one’s done anything?” I asked.

“People aren’t inherently violent,” Peter said. “Samurai are the exception. And... and I’m going on a tangent, I’m sorry. What did you need help with? This water thing’s going to get a lot of good people killed, I’ll do whatever you need me to.”

***