Chapter Thirty-Nine - Where Things Go

“He that is without sin among you, let him yeet the first stone.
(John 8:3)”

--Excerpt from The New Youth Bible of 2044

***

“Do you want me to lay out the situation for you?” I asked as I helped Lucy to her feet. She paused, then stretched, and for a moment I was distracted by that little bit of belly that appeared when her shirt rode up.

“You make it sound serious,” she said.

“It sorta is,” I said. “We saved that girl, and uh, now she’s here. And she’s a bit of an orphan.”

Lucy turned and looked at me. “You’re so predictable.”

“What?” I asked.

She pulled me over, gave me an unfortunately chaste kiss, then used my shoulder as a place to rest her head while hugging me. “Predictable,” she muttered. “You saw the girl, felt bad about it, then decided she needed saving, right?”

“Well, I mean, at a certain angle you could certainly paint the situation to look like that,” I said.

She pinched my butt, or tried to. The armoured undersuit I was wearing made that a little hard. “Hmmph,” she said as she was robbed of one of her favourite past-times. “Well, whatever. We should have some funds, and as long as the girl doesn’t mind sleeping in the same room as the twins it should be okay.”

“Right, speaking of funds, I made lots of money.”

“Okay?”

“Like... multiple millions.”

Lucy pulled back and looked at me. “I guess that’ll help.”

“I thought you’d be more excited,” I said.

“Can we spend some of that on cute clothes?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes Lucy, we can.”

“Good. The rest... I guess rent? We’ll need proper food too. I don’t know if we can stay in this much luxury forever.”

“We could,” I said. I’d find a way, if it’s what Lucy wanted.

“It’s just a bit much,” she said. “But whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’ll find some school stuff for the kittens soon, including the new girl, and... I guess we’ll see where things go from there?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Maybe we can buy some other goodies? Or, uh, help people, somehow? Speaking of, I left Gomorrah in charge of the kittens.”

Lucy was confused for a moment, then I saw understanding flash in her eyes. “The nun?”

“The pyro nun, yeah,” I said.

“Cool! Let’s go say hi, and make sure the kids didn’t get themselves toasted.”

I was actually expecting... one of two things.

• Gomorrah buried under a pile of kittens, suffocating under their prying questions and being completely lost.

 

• One to ten dead kittens, and a faint odour of charred kids.

Instead I found the kids all sitting in the living room, with Gomorrah resting on the edge of one sofa and telling them all a story. They were being attentive, most sitting cross-legged on the floor and looking up to the samurai with wide eyes.

“Wow,” Lucy whispered.

“...And so on the sixth day, God created the heavens, the sun and the planets. He did this with his own will, and without assistance from any extra-terrestrial or intergalactic force.”

“When was that?” Bargain asked.

“That was many thousands of years ago,” Gomorrah said. She seemed happy, relaxed and quite content.

Bargain’s eyes narrowed. “Give me a thousand credits and I won’t discredit you in front of the others,” he said.

“I’ve literally seen her burn things alive,” I said. “I really wouldn’t fuck with her god-given patience. Anyway, Gomorrah, this is Lucy, my girlfriend. Lucy, this is Gomorrah, she’s a nun, a samurai, and, when she’s not being testy, she’s pretty fun. Also, she’s hot under the mask. Figuratively and literally.”

“How hot are we talking?” Lucy asked.

“I give her... point-eight Lucys.”

“I’m a measure for hotness now?” Lucy asked.

I nodded seriously. “When you’re in the room? Definitely.” This time, instead of a pinch, it was a smack. The armour did its job though, and Lucy shook her hand, looking mighty displeased.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Gomorrah said as she stood. “Cat... hasn’t spoken too much about you, but what she said was always very fond. I can tell that she really cares for you, despite your non-standard relationship.”

Lucy and I looked at each other and we both decided not to poke at that. It was 2057, for fuck’s sake.

“Right,” I said. “So...” I looked over the kittens until I spotted Katallina standing a bit to the side of all of them. “Right, everyone’s met Katallina?” I asked.

There was a lot of nodding.

“Awesome. Katallina, wanna come with me and Gomorrah and Lucy, just to the kitchen?”

We all shuffled quite awkwardly over to the island in the kitchen. Fortunately, the kittens started to be noisey soon enough. The TV came back on, the phones and augs came out, and they started to play and argue, creating a familiar hum of background noise, occasionally punctuation by indignant screams and the malicious laughter of children.

We settled down except for Lucy who moved over to the fridge. “What do you guys want? We have... literally everything.”

“Just water,” Gomorrah said. She reached up and undid her mask fully, then set it on the table next to her.

“Taking it off?” I asked.

“I assume that since this is your home, most of your points went into securing it,” she said. “It should be fine, right?”

I chuckled nervously and earned myself a suspicious look from the nun.

Lucy returned, setting some bottles on the table. Water for Gomorrah, soda for the rest of us. When she took in Gomorrah’s face, sweaty blonde hair, delicate nose and all, she paused. “That’s a point eight?” she asked. “Cat, were you trying to moisten me up for later by using some sort of weird compliment?”

“She loses points for being a nun,” I explained.

“How so?” Gomorrah asked as she took a pull from her bottle of water.

“Nuns have natural resistance to lesbianism,” I said.

The water went everywhere.

I started opening cupboards until I found some paper towels (not even the thrice-recycled sort. This place was really fancy) and started wiping down my face and the counters. “That was a reaction,” I said.

Gomorrah finished catching her breath, then glared at me.

“Ohh, she’s even hotter when she's angry,” Lucy said. “That’s just so cruel.”

“Can either of you take anything seriously?” Gomorrah asked.

“You’re seriously cute,” Lucy said. “I’m seriously contemplating inviting you to a threesome.”

Gomorrah’s mouth worked while blood rushed to her face. She couldn’t seem to decide on whether to glare or just blush herself to death.

I laughed and bumped shoulders with Lucy. “Alright, we can tease you later,” I said. “We do need to, uh, talk about stuff? Mostly I wanted you here because the kittens can be annoying in large doses.”

“What about me?” Katallina asked.

“Well, I wanted to see if you liked the kittens. You can still say no, you know?” I asked.

She looked to the table, then carefully took the soda Lucy had given her and sipped from it before answering. “I guess I could stay? I can leave if I don’t like it, right?”

“Of course.”

“And I can keep Catkilller?”

Lucy blinked. “What?”

The dog, probably hearing its name, strutted on over while leaving a fresh line of drool on the carpet. One of the kittens whined at it leaving, but the dog didn’t seem to care much. It dropped its head onto Katallina’s lap and drooled there for a bit.

“A puppy!” Lucy squealed. She teleported to the other side of the island and was soon rubbing herself against the dog, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the sudden loud attention. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? Your name is Catkiller? That’s a good name, yes it is!”

“It’s an awful name,” I said.

“I think it’s a nice name,” Gomorrah said.

I huffed. “Can we change his name?” I asked Katallina.

The girl looked at me, wide-eyed. “You can’t change a dog’s name,” she said.

“It’s literally called Catkiller! That’s like... going to inspire violence with the kittens, or something.”

“You let me keep a laser rifle,” Katallina said.

“That’s different,” I muttered. I’m not sure anyone heard me over the cooing noises Lucy was making while petting the dumb dog.

Are you jealous of a dog?

“I’m the one she... you know what, I’m not finishing that,” I said. Taking a breath, I cleared my throat. “Katallina. Welcome to the kittens, I guess. Don’t shoot any of them, no matter how annoying they get, alright?”

“I’ll do my best,” she said. “And, uh, thanks.”

I gave her a thumb’s up, then went to fetch a snack from the fridge. On returning, I placed another bottle before Gomorrah and slumped onto a stool. “So, tell me more about these home defence things?” I asked.

She closed her eyes. “How many points do you have?”

“About... seven thousand and change?”

The nun rubbed at her face. “You... are stupid. You could have saved us a day of running around with that amount of points.”

“My bad?”

“Alright, let me teach you the principles of spending points as a samurai, because it’s obvious that you’re not learning on your own.”