"Is that the Leeroy Jenkins of 2031? or the Leeroy Jenkins of 2046?"

"Neither. I was thinking of the Leeroy Jenkins of 2029."

"We need a better way to name these Samurai."

-- Excerpt from a random online discussion about deceased Samurai.

***

“Gun, large caliber. Rapid fire. Something with penetration and stopping power. No box. On the planter.” My words were cold and clipped, shortened for speed. I was well aware that in stressful times I came across as unfeeling and authoritarian. I didn’t care. The only time I got like this was when seconds, or even parts of a second, mattered. In those times, social graces were sacrificed to ensure survival.

Some text flickered in my vision, almost subliminal in its speed. As I reached the top step, I heard something landing on the planter slash railing beside me. I began to believe it might be real. Only Samurai could summon weapons and ammo from thin air.

“Ammo for a P5-AT, in mag. Extended capacity.” I dropped another M-3 and reached out just in time for the mag to drop into my hand. I slotted the mag, the old one dropping to the ground, and sidestepped behind the planter in the pause.

Around the corner came a mess of tentacles on four stubby legs, heavier than most Three’s and about chest high at the shoulder—the first of the M-4. I dropped the P5-AT and let the strap catch it while I picked up the new weapon. It had a comforting weight to it as I raised the weapon. A wall of text and colored lines dropped over my sight as my glasses were overloaded with data. I sent commands out, closing down all input from the weapon. The view did not change; I still could not see.

“Too much. Can’t see.” All the garbage vanished for a split second before I pulled the trigger. The click of the trigger action seemed to echo in the store. I released the trigger. “It’s not working. What the hell?” The display in my glasses hazed over, painting faint bands of color over the walls.

The M-4 continued to climb the stairs. Its bulky body was covered in small tentacles, through which reached several larger ones. The big tentacles flailed their sharp edges and tips at me. I pulled the trigger again, and the gun slammed into my shoulder as it fired. I braced better as I hit the trigger again and again, shifting sideways along the railing. The monster stumbled on the top step and fell. I pumped a couple more rounds into it for good measure before switching to the second one coming up the stairs. That one fell on top of its companion, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

A loud, rhythmic sound from behind startled me. I spun and pulled the trigger before realizing that it was a person clapping. Fortunately, the gun only clicked: out of ammo. Standing right behind me, now at gunpoint, was a tall, thin man in elegant clothing. His long blond hair was pulled back to show his pointed ears and bound in a ponytail. “That was a nail-biter,” the stranger said. He simply looked at me, as if unaware of how close to death he’d come.

My stomach dropped as I realized how close I’d come to accidentally killing a person. I yanked my rifle down beside my leg, pointing the barrel safely at the floor. I’d gotten overexcited and attacked in reflex, despite years of sims learning to look first. Even if I was on my first live battlefield, that was no reason to throw away years of training in proper gun control.

I suppressed my shudder and asked, “Who are you?” I held my hand out and said, “I need a reload.”

The man looked puzzled for a moment before a magazine dropped onto my hand. I fumbled with the unfamiliar weapon until I managed to eject the old cartridge and load the new one.

“Jonnie Be Good. Samurai. Your AI has been squawking for help. Apparently, it can’t get initiated with you for some reason.” If he was bothered by how close I had just come to killing him, he covered it well. Then again, if this was a Samurai, chances were good that he had some defense against a simple bullet, no matter how close the rifle was.

“Nice to meet you. I think we have that fixed.” I guess that sealed it: I was indeed a Samurai.

“Still, I’d like to see if I can figure out what’s going wrong. The AIs are mind-bogglingly advanced and should be able to link up with anything on the planet. Mind if I give you a couple of scans?”

Unsure how I felt about becoming a Samurai, I turned towards the stairwell and started to pick up my dropped magazines. “There’s an incursion going on; is this the best time?”

“Yes. That bit with the gun not working shouldn’t have happened. It was hilarious, by the way. I’m going to have to share that one.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I gave him a dirty look, knowing there was no way to prevent memes. “What was up with that?” I asked.

My tablet beeped, and I looked to see a text editor app on the screen. It showed a long scroll of text running off the page. The latest message read:

“The gun couldn’t operate with the software turned off. It’s required. But your Crappy Combat Glasses ™ have the data processing of a gnat, and the display gets overloaded. To fix it, I let the software display what it wanted and futzed with the focus of the glasses’ display, so it was all blurred. You really need to get those upgraded.”

Jonnie apparently had the same information and jumped in. “Properly integrated, your AI would have been able to prevent that in a number of ways. It’s more than a fancy shopping app. A good AI will be proactive in helping up to their limits, most of which they are obstinate about not sharing.

“Don’t worry about the antithesis. I’ve got a probe down there, and we have some time before they head this way again.’

If we were safe, like he said, I didn’t see any harm in some medical scans, so I nodded my permission.

“Hold still, and I’ll get these scans that Wylbur’s asking me for. What is your name, by the way?”

While Jonnie waved a short rod up and down my back, I reloaded my magazines. “Marcus Corin.”

“Hmmm, well, we can’t have that, now can we? Samurai’s got to have a name with meaning.” He switched tools and continued the scans, this time centered on my head. “Any thoughts about what your shtick will be?”

“Shtick?” I asked.

“Yeah, every Samurai has something they do better than others, some particular way they do things. Take me. I’m the closest thing you’ll find to a Samurai medic, so I got a medic’s name.”

I racked my brain for any relationship between his name and medics, but couldn’t come up with any. But he was making sense. Every Samurai approached how to defeat the antithesis in their own way.

There had been no time to think about my approach yet. I’d been too busy protecting the kids and fighting the antithesis. I’d only been a Samurai for, I checked the clock in my glasses, thirty minutes? “I’ve been too busy to think about style. You stick with what you know until it doesn’t work. I'll change when it stops working.”

He glanced at me speculatively while putting away the tools. “Let me think about it. It’s a big responsibility. Do you have a lot of experience with firearms? Were you in a PMC?”

“Why does it have to be you? I could come up with one,” I asked.

“It’s traditional for the name to come from another samurai. You’re free to move, by the way. I’m done with the scans. The AIs are trying to figure out what they mean.”

“I’ve tried for the PMCs but can’t get in. I’m either overqualified or underqualified, depending on the company.” I looked at the stairwell, all covered in alien corpses. “Is there any easy way to get rid of all those?” I asked.

Jonnie looked them over. “They do change the atmosphere, don’t they? Are you going to stay here or move in?”

A box landed noisily on the floor between us, disrupting our conversation. The box was made of wood and had elaborate carvings on it. Jonnie looked at the box in surprise before his eyes lost focus for a minute. I turned to my tablet to see if my mysterious AI had any messages for me.

“We’ve found the problem and have a solution. Wylbur’s porting in the necessary solution, and Jonnie will apply it. We have to complete a gene activation that failed. This is a natural process for you, and it won’t change your being. I don’t expect you will notice any changes from doing this.”

Jonnie turned to me. “Bit of a good news, bad news thing here. Good news: we found the problem. Somewhere, some alien DNA mixed with yours, causing a bunch of issues. The important one is that it’s preventing the AI from integrating with you. The bad news is that the solution is not real fast. It’ll take an hour or so to fully settle, or something like that. Wylbur’s quoting privacy limits, so I might not have the full picture.

"Once that is complete, your AI can get you through the rest and answer any questions. I’ve never heard of a case where an AI lied to their Samurai.” As he said this, Jonnie opened up the box and was unfolding a long scaffolding. “And to do this, they had to bring in actual materials and twist the purchasing rules into a pretzel. So, turn around, and let me at your back.”

My mind was reeling at this revelation. “Alien DNA? What? You mean I’m part antithesis?”

“No, it’s a different race, one that has fought the antithesis before, or still is, maybe. My AI doesn’t talk about the other races much.” He grabbed my shoulder and turned me before setting the top of the scaffolding on my shoulders. “So, alien DNA. That’s pretty exotic. I bet the girls will love you when they hear about this. In fact, I think that’s what I’ll name you: Captain Exo. It has a nice ring to it, right?”

I winced. It sounded like some character in a children’s program. It was almost as bad as what I’d chosen when I was six. “Sounds cheesy.”

“True, but who’s going to question a Samurai? How about Exoman? No! Xenovir, because everything is cooler in Latin.”

I wasn’t too keen on getting a name from a random stranger I’d met a few minutes ago. A Samurai’s name should embody their person or their style. If I hadn’t even been a Samurai for an hour yet, how was he going to know what kind of Sam I would be? I supposed that if push came to shove, I could change the name later. I shrugged noncommittally.

He fiddled with the device for a minute, pausing now and then to flick his fingers in the air in the way aug users do while browsing. “It looks like that’s not taken, so yeah, we’ll use that. It’ll be sure to get you some chicks with it being all mysterious and indirect.”

I felt a pinprick at my lower back, right above the waistline. “Oh, and I’m not gonna lie, this is gonna hurt,” he said as he leaned into my shoulder. A searing pain rushed down my spine from neck to tail before it radiated out to the rest of my body, growing as it went. In seconds, the pain was overwhelming, and I lost consciousness.