Chapter Eighteen - Better Than Some, Worse Than Most

"The exodus started in 2031. It was mostly pushed by two factors. The first, the massive reduction in safety in the rural areas of most developed countries.

The second factor was the destruction of a few large corporations that held a monopoly on rentable properties. Prior to late 2030, 84% of all rentable properties were controlled in whole or in part by a few corporate entities that set the price for housing."

--The Exodus, 2048

***

"I love you and miss you so much you cannot even imagine," I said the second Lucy picked up.

"Aww... so you're going to be a bit late?" Lucy replied.

I groaned. Damn, I was easy to read. I was walking outside of the command tent, on my way to the mech with Gomorrah by my side. Gomorrah looked at me with a slight tilt to her head, and it said something about how much time we spent near each other that I was able to read that as a question. I made the universal 'I'm on a call' gesture towards the side of my head and she nodded in understanding.

"What's wrong? Please tell me no alien chewed on your perfect ass. I'm the only one allowed to touch it," Lucy said.

I grinned. I don't know what it was about Lucy, but every time I talked to her things just felt... easier? It was like something in my chest unknotted itself at the sound of her voice. It was nice. "Hey, so no, my perfect ass is perfectly alright. Just... had a bit of a day I guess. Not that bad, but I was babysitting newbies."

"Aww, are they cute, at least?"

"Eh, a little. One of them is bizarrely into me? Like in a weird way. I can't tell if it's sexual or if she's just Stanning real bad, and either way it's creeping me out. I've got a long ass rant saved up about it."

"Ohhh, I mean, I get it, but at the same time, you're off-limits, girl," Lucy said. I could almost imagine her leaning back against something as she listened to me get started. Fuck I wanted to kiss her so bad.

"Mhm, don't worry, she's creeping me way out. The rest are fine. She's got an older sister who's nice and more sane. Though I did shoot her dad? Anyway, it's a long story. Right now Gom, Gomorrah I mean, and I are heading out to visit another newbie. The army was going to keep putting it off for too long."

"Oh, more newbies, and that whole thing sounds like a story. We should get into drinking wine so that we can be fancy while you spill!"

I laughed. "I'll look into it," I said just as I reached my mech. I put a foot on one leg, then tugged myself up but didn't quite get into the cockpit just yet. It was more comfortable to hang off the side for now. "Anyway, I'm going to be a few hours late. But I think I'll be taking tomorrow off. The newbies don't need me to scour a city, and there's better shit I could spend my time on."

Not that I wanted to delay things too much. I still needed to earn points, as many as I could in the time we had left before Phobos came down on us. And then if all went well, there might be the normal delay between incursions again, like it used to be. It might be months before there were more aliens to kill besides small cleanups.

How did all the top-tier samurai do it?

Actually, scratch that, they did it by working for years and not dying in between. Goddamn early start advantage.

"Are you zoning out again, Cat?" Lucy asked.

"Oh, shit, sorry," I said. "Anyway, I'm gonna be home in... eh, two hours maybe?"

"I'll be waiting," Lucy said. "Do you want me to be wearing anything special?" she asked that last with a purr.

I considered it, then sighed. "Your comfiest, fuzziest pyjamas?" I asked.

Lucy awwed at me. "I will snuggle you so fucking hard," she whispered. "You have fun now! And be safe! Don't scare the newest newbie too hard with all of your punkness."

"I'll try not to," I said before we devolved into goodbyes. Goodbyes lasted three minutes and included a lot of inane prattle, teasing, and making noises that I would literally kill to prevent anyone else from hearing.

When we finally hung up, I started to pull myself up when Gomorrah flagged me down. "A minute?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure, what's up?"

"I've been doing some research on our target," she said.

I shook my head. "Don't call them that, it makes it sound like we're heading out to pop their head off or something."

Gomorrah hesitated, then nodded. "That's fair. You're right. Anyway, the potential-Samurai. I don't have anything on them, and Atyacus is being silent."

"The whole privacy thing?" I asked. I'd run into that before with Myalis, and it was a bit of a pain in the ass. Still, it wasn't all bad. It went both ways. No other samurai's AI was going to spill about me and mine, and Myalis wouldn't tell me about others. All's fair. "Doesn't stop you from looking into the home, right?"

"I sent that drone I had surveying the new samurai today over. I have aerial on the town they're working in. I don't know if it actually counts as a town, really?"

"How's that?"

"The place has one gas station," Gomorrah said with some level of disgust. "It's a tiny town, no more than a thousand residents, if that many."

"Huh, real small," I said. "Like a stopping point for cars travelling around?"

She shook her head. "Not even. It doesn't lead anywhere."

"Wow," I said. "And our little baby samurai is hanging out there, huh?"

"I wouldn't call them a baby. We know nothing about them, they could be a grizzled old man for all we know."

I scowled for a bit. "Aren't most samurai younger? And like, disproportionately female?"

Fifty-two percent biologically female, the mean age for new Vanguard is twenty-two. To be clear, that's on Earth.

"As opposed to some other world getting eaten up by the Antithesis?" I asked.

Yes.

"Oh." Well, that was a bucket of cold water to the head. "Alright then! Anyway, got a plan to approach the newbie? I was just gonna walk the mech over. I think it's pretty clear that we're not aliens, it might be a sight for sore eyes."

"From what I've seen, they've set up a camp of sorts in the middle of their town, centred around an old church. They might not be willing to leave if it means leaving the civilians there behind."

"Then we tell some army guys to come with, they can watch over the place for a minute while we start evacuating. The place is stable?" I asked.

"Looks like it," Gomorrah replied with an easy shrug.

That was good enough for me.

I grabbed onto the edge of the cockpit, then pulled myself in. "Let the army know to send a little relief group over. Maybe with an escort? I'll clear the roads out."

"I'll follow in a minute," Gomorrah said. "I think I have to make my own call. Franny and I were supposed to discuss interior decorating tonight."

"Just have a lot of fireplaces or something," I said. "Actually, no, I live above you. Go for a nice water theme?"

"Cute," Gomorrah said without inflection. "Get going, I'll catch up in a minute."

That was good enough for me. I sat down, remembered to clip my harness in place, then I stood the mech up to its full height and started to walk around along the outer wall of Saint-Jérome. I got a surprising amount of waves from the soldiers hanging around the walls. It probably helped that I had the mech's tail swish around and nodded its head politely to anyone who waved.

It was nice to be loved, though this was a whole other kind of affection than I was used to.

Or maybe not? It was kind of like having the Kittens be happy to see me, but way less personal and a lot more distant?

"Fame is weird and I'm not sure if I like it," I said.

A surprisingly wise sentiment coached in expectedly drab terms.

"I don't actually know what that means, but I'll assume it's some sort of vague insult," I said.

Just a little bit. More of a backhanded compliment, really.

"I ought to backhand you," I said with a grin.

You'd hurt yourself.

I chuckled at that, then focused a little more on the road. Myalis had pulled out a map between here and... Saint-Colomban of Medicorp. Malis might have been in a good mood, because she started pulling up information on the place.

It painted a bleak picture, especially the population graph. There was this huge dip in the mid-30s, people either dying or just leaving. The place was bought up by some LLC called Medicorp, then abandoned again.

"Sounds like a nice place to grow up," I said.

Better than some, worse than most.

"Ain't that how it always is?"

***