Chapter Twenty-Nine - The Cat Ass Trophy

"Okay, so yeah, my gimmick is cosplay, but that's not easy, you know? Do you know how many crunches I do? Squats? Look at my thighs. Look, I have an eight pack. Only some of this is artificial. And like, yeah, I take hella drugs, but it's for the look.

Now I'm stuck cosplaying as all these buff guys... which ain't all bad."

--Cosplayer, streetside interview, 2057

***

I couldn't help but be aware of the camera drone floating after me as I walked over to the wall. The MEOW followed as well, stomping along with a slow, easy pace that managed to keep up.

There were plenty of soldiers around, and I think that if just any Joe off the street showed up, they would have been politely told to fuck off, but no one seemed to mind my presense.

Actually, it was kind of the opposite? A lot of soldiers saluted quickly before moving out of my way, and I saw a lot of them smiling and pointing. The militia members moving around in nervous clumps were far more likely to pull out a phone or grin.

I guess there was some truth to the whole thing where Samurai were considered symbols or whatever. These people were about to go to war against an unending horde of face-eating aliens that couldn't be reasoned with. It was probably comforting to know that there were bigger fish floating around nearby, willing and able to wipe the enemies away.

There was an opening in the wall. A tunnel about twenty-ish metres deep that ended on the other side of the wall. The massive doors were currently left open to let gear and people pass.

I started that way. Then a voice poked at me inside my head.

Have you considered talking to your audience at all? They're growing a little restless.

Right... the audience. I had a small, unobtrusive combined chat field in the corner of my vision. It was flying by so damned quickly that it was basically impossible to read, but I guess that didn't matter. The fact that it was moving so fast was telling, but I did catch a few people saying it was boring.

Assholes had never lived in a world without short-form entertainment and where the punchline was only twenty seconds away from the start of the joke.

I mean, I was one of those, but whatever.

So, I reached up to the side of my head the universal 'I'm making a call' gesture, and connected to one of the team channels we had set up. I could tell even before linking to the voice channel that it was busy. There was a chat channel as well, and Princess had been posting images probably taken from her augs while Hedgehog was posting maps and blueprints of this section of the wall.

I joined the voice chat with a beep-boop noise and was immediately listening in on Gomorrah and Libre talking.

"We're going to need to move more people down to the over-river section of the wall," Libre said.

"I just inspected that area. They're shoulder to shoulder in the corridors already. There's not a lot of room to work with."

"Yes, but I expect that when the fighting starts, we're going to need lots of bodies there to stem the flow."

I cleared my throat, tried very hard not to glance at the camera drone, then squeezed into the conversation. "This is Stray Cat. I have one of my mechs with me now and I'm on the... north eastern edge of the walls. Near entrance, uh." I leaned back. There was a big stenciled sign on the side of the doorway. "G5-NE. Looking for some action. Where do you want me?"

"Hello, Cat," Gomorrah said. "We have a live heat-map with last-sighting. If you want to be seen shooting Antithesis, there are a few spaces you could be in. But Libre also has a few reservations about that."

"There are places where it would be strategically viable to draw the enemy to," he said. "I'll make some pins for the nearest ones. If you can make noise in those locations and attract the Antithesis towards you, that might be best. Otherwise, having you patrol the wall would also be a valuable use of your time."

"Sure," I said.

Start off with a bit of action, then show off the troops. At least, that's how I was hoping it would go down.

"I'll head out right now. Give the army a few more minutes to set up. Let me know if anything goes wrong or you need my attention elsewhere."

"Got it," Gomorrah said. "I'll be on the wall not too far from your position if you need assistance."

That was actually kind of reassuring. I still had that image of that samurai that Libre was into getting knocked down by that huge Antithesis and killed stuck in my head.

I slipped on my helmet, locked it in place, then walked through the tunnel leading to the outside of Quebec's walls. It was weird, stepping out into nature... well, relative nature. There was grass and a few bushes and like, a couple of trees. The space past the wall had obviously been terraformed a little to make it flatter, but I could see some hills about a kilometre off.

So I turned towards the camera. "Alright, while the fine ladies and gents in the army get their shit together to defend your sorry asses, I'm gonna go out there and try to blunt the alien's advance. Sorry if this isn't the most entertaining shit out there, but half of these kinds of battles are just waiting around for the aliens to show up."

I gestured, and the MEOW's cockpit opened up. Then I reached for one of the handholds to climb in.

Start with your left leg. And arch your back a little.

I paused, considered what that would do, and where the drone was, then I rolled my eyes and did as she asked as I climbed aboard with as much grace and confidence as I could manage. Once in, I tapped the command to shut the cockpit up.

The amount of text flying by in the chat had somehow increased a ton, though...

"Why are there so many peach emotes?" I asked. My voice wasn't being transmitted, so there was that.

I may have positioned the camera in a flattering angle.

"Seriously?" I asked.

It will prevent viewers from tuning away. Humans are exceptionally susceptible to sexualization. There's a reason that it has been a valid marketing tool for so long. Humour, tribalism, violence, sex. You're not funny and you're not part of their in-group, so you only have violence and physical attractiveness to sell them on.

"At least I'm hot," I muttered. I couldn't help but be a little sour about it. Not that I really minded. I was more bothered by all of the comments asking where my tail was connected to. Fucking morons.

On the flip side, this was probably good for my popularity or whatever.

I was going to dunk the head of the first kitten that showed me a bass-boosted phonk fancam of my ass into a toilet, obviously. But it was still flattering.

I pushed the mech forwards, aiming for one of the larger hills nearby which happened to be pinned on the actively-updating map in the corner of my vision. Basically, it was as good a spot as any to oversee the area and blow up some aliens. Plus, it was high enough up that the Antithesis would be able to see me from afar and divert my way.

I set the MEOW to a quicker pace, lopping across the soon-to-be battlefield, then climbing up the hill while the camera drone gained some altitude and kept pace.

Once at the top, I did a quick weapon's check while also scanning the horizon.

There was an old highway running along the side of the river, with some abandoned buildings all along it. Mostly warehouses and the like, but there were a few small towns further out. I imagined that they were either evacuated or just dead little spaces.

North of that was a massive field of solar panels, broken up by the occasional rising pillar of a windmill.

I thought that Quebec got most of its power from hydroelectrics, but solar had been pretty popular for a while. It took up a lot of space, though, and solar power was harder to commodify since one could argue that the sun was free.

Anyway, as much as the area had been industrialized and used for commercial purposes, there were still bands of forest and grasslands that hadn't been taken over yet.

That's where the aliens were.

My mech's onboard targeting locked onto a few flyers, then started to pick out some bigger signatures rushing through the forests.

I switched to a live channel so that both the other samurai and the live audience could hear. "I'm picking up about... one fuckton of model threes in the woods heading this way. Plenty of model ones overhead too."

"That's expected," Libre said. "It's just the first wave. A probing attack. Dispatch them at will."

"Neat. Haven't had the chance to fire this gun yet. Let's see." I reached over and flicked a few toggles, which had a shell loading into the gun above my mech with a satisfying ker-clunk. "155 millimeter HE. Should do the trick, yeah? We can test other rounds after."

I checked the gun's camera feed, locked onto a bigger batch moving in the woods, then shifted the mech's stance to be a little wider.

Then I pulled the trigger.

***