Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Forty-Six - A Call

“There are a lot of people that show up when an incursion starts. You might wonder which idiot runs towards the unending aliens swarm, other than a dutiful Samurai, that is.

You just need to look at the payouts to see. Insurance companies hire out PMCs, or have their own military branches that secure buildings, real estate, and VIPs. Medicare groups want to rescue as many injured as possible. Police forces, especially those who charge by-the-saving are always quick to act.

The big boys though, the ones who are always on the scene first? Those are the private PMCs. Every block they clear, every building they save, every alien dead, means a whole lot of credits changing hands.”

--Colonel Robert Oxford, September 2043

***

I’d gotten stared at before. I was a teen who was missing an eye, an arm and who had ugly burns across her half her face. Worse, Lucy, the girl that I spent most of my day with, was the sort of pretty that could start problems.

I’d been the focus of attention that was unwelcome and ambivalent. I figured I was used to it.

The amount of stares directed my way when Deus Ex shot past the front barricades--and the rows of tanks and milling soldiers--and came to a hovering halt some ten meters off the ground above a sea of displaced civilians and rushing soldiers was so far off the scales that they were sending shivers down my spine.

She did something that had us dropping down only to stop the moment her heavy boots crashed into the pavement.

The teen looked around, ignoring all the people that had backed off to get out of her path. She pointed off towards a row of tents going up alongside the road. There was a wooden barrier and a line of soldiers between us and the tents and pre-fabs and army trucks. “See that van?” she asked.

“Yeah?” I said as I locked onto a row of semis.

The tentacles holding me in place let go. I jumped off in a hurry.

“There should be some gear in there you can take. Simple shit. Just take whatever and replace it as soon as you can with real gear. I’ll ping whoever’s in charge and tell them to add you to a S and R squad.”

“A what?” I asked.

She looked at me, my face’s reflection off the visor of her helmet looking down at me with a mirror of confusion. “Try not to die, alright?” She pivots around, her mechanical contraptions displacing the air with a dull thrum, then begins to hover an inch off the ground. “Oh, and don’t worry about those you saved. They’re probably fine.”

“Wait!” I called out.

She actually waited, which caught me flat-footed for a moment.

I wasn’t one to give much of a shit about social hierarchies and the like, but even my thick skull could get around the idea that a Samurai was above a normie.

“The kittens. The orphans I was with. Where are they?”

Her shoulders drooped. “I’ll make sure they’re looked after. You just worry about the opportunity you have today.”

And with that, the girl twisted around--the back of her platform opening up to reveal a whole crapload of glowing thrusters--and shot off back towards the front line of the incursion.

“What opportunity?” I asked.

I think she’s speaking of the opportunity to obtain more points. Joining a Search and Rescue party wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I looked at all the faces taking me in. Some curious, some ambivalent, others hungry in a way that made me uncomfortable. I wanted to get out of there, but I didn’t know where to head to.

Was Lucy alright? Were the kittens? I had to...

I was an idiot.

With a few flicks of my eye, I opened up a messenger app and opened it to my most spoken-to contact.

Cat: Lucy, you ok?

I licked my lips as I waited for a reply.

Lulu the greatest: CAT! Yes were ok!

Cat: Where r u?

Lulu the greatest: At a hotel. We were going to a shelter. Some guys brought us to a hotel instead. Said it was because of a samurai. Did u do it? HBU? Are you okay? Kittens are fine too!

Cat: I’m fine. I was saved by a laser loli. Talk later?

Lulu the greatest: stay safe!

It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I just wanted to find Lucy now, maybe spend a few minutes hugging her.

The choice was made for me though as a group of soldiers ran my way. They were older, decked in padded armour and with heavy vests on, covered in tools whose use I could only guess at. The guns carefully held diagonally across their chests didn’t need any introducing though.

They wore the typical headgear of the men and women serving in a PMC. A full face mask, breathing tubes reaching over a shoulder and into a canvas backpack. Their matte visors didn’t reflect any light, but I could still make out the rough shape of their faces within.

The one in the lead had a couple of stripes on his shoulders that the others lacked. He stopped before me and fired off a salut. “Ma’am,” he said. “We were informed that you’d be coming.”

“You were?” I asked. “When? I mean, I just learned it myself.”

No point in telling G.I. Joe that I had no intention of sticking around if it didn’t suit me.

“News travels fast, ma’am. This sector only has one other Tier One Samurai. We didn’t know if we could maintain containment.”

I raised a hand. “I understood like half of that,” I said. “Use little girl words.”

I could tell he was reassessing me behind that mask of his. “Most of the High-Tier Samurai who have come to help have elected to wait until the evacuation of the Incursion Site is complete before they begin to clear the area. Low Tier Samurai from the region have begun to deploy all around the Main Incursion Site in order to assist in the civilian evacuation.”

I could hear the capitalization in what he was saying. Not that that mattered. They wanted me to... what, help murder more aliens, save some people I didn’t know?

It’s a great opportunity. With the frequency at which Incursions hit, it might be some time before you have another opportunity to gather points. The more you obtain now, the better your position will be if you ever join another incursion, and the better your chances of carving out a comfortable life for your companions. If you would rather not participate though, I would understand. It has been a long day for you.

I worked my jaw and looked over my shoulder back over the sea of gawkers, past the rows of medical tents and the milling crowds. My kittens were somewhere over there. They were probably worried. Or, well, Lucy and a few of the others would be.

And on the other side, a city crawling with aliens, but also people that needed saving. I was just the one girl though. The one girl armed with a ceaseless supply of guns and bombs that could probably stem the tide, at least a little.

“Fuck me,” I muttered. “Okay. Deus Ex mentioned that you guys had gear? I’m not dressed for a party.” I looked at my bloody and torn clothes. My jacket was fine, the rest not so much. “Not the kind of party I’d want to crash anyway.”

“Yes ma’am! Clenze Private Military Inc. are glad to service you.” He nodded severely and did an about-face. “Please follow me, ma’am.”

Feeling a bit out of place, I followed the soldier and pretended to be okay with all the others forming up around me like bodyguards around a VIP, or maybe cops around a suspect.

We beelined for the wooden barrier keeping the crowds away. A couple of soldiers wearing much simpler gear were quick to pull it out of the way and salute as we passed.

“What’s with all the civilians?” I asked. “Aren’t there shelters?”

The soldier ahead of me cleared his throat. “The free shelters have all been filled. Most of these people either can’t afford one of the available ones, or they were just displaced from the Incursion Zone.”

I arched an eyebrow at that. There were paid-for shelters out there? That was news to me. Not that I could have afforded one, probably. I took in the buildings around us. We were on the edge of downtown. The buildings around me were mostly ten or so floors up. The centre of the incursion seemed to have hit somewhere along the edges of the city. It would probably be spared if the local Samurai shut the incursion down.

I licked my lips. I was one of those... shit.

“This is our armory, ma’am,” the soldier said as he gestured to a matte-black semi-trailer with a ramp leading into its back. “Take what you need. Free of charge.”

I wasn’t the sort to say no to free shit. At least, after I made sure there were no strings attached. “How do I sign things out? You need to know what I took, right?”

The soldier shook his head. “The items are all bar-coded. They’ll be marked as lost inventory the moment you take them.”

“And taking one won’t lock me into a contract?”

The soldier laughed, genuinely mirthful. Even the others around him joined in. “You don’t pull a fast one on a Samurai, ma’am. Not if you expect to live a life free of vindictive orbital bombardments.”

What?

I decided to set that aside as I climbed up the first couple of steps into the truck. Then I remembered that I was a teenaged girl about to enter a strange unmarked car and my survival instinct kicked in.

“Myalis, this thing legit?” I asked.

I can’t see anything wrong with it. The equipment here is probably sub-par though. I suppose it could save you a few points spent on other things.

“Right,” I said as I took the last few steps into the truck.

It was, as soldier-boy had said, an armory. Racks, most of them empty, lined the walls next to metal crates and even more racks.

Guns, rifles and pistols, boxes of ammunition, neatly folded clothes. There was everything someone needed to start a party except for some hot headed idiots.

“Nice,” I said as I drew the door shut behind me.

Barely passable. For the record, your current point total is sitting at two-thousand two-hundred and seven. You have also obtained one token.

I blinked. Then I grinned.

***

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