Novels2Search
Death and Taxes
BK1-CH14-No Time to Relax

BK1-CH14-No Time to Relax

Arson_is_cold_3_14 : By rule [8.14a] a regular old human can plant trees. This has no merit. Hundreds of prisoners work there time off planting trees already. This is not something only a Samurai can do. Recommending we Dead This Thread.

Arborist919 : People can plant trees, but if you read the proposal it's not JUST about trees. (and it's "their" BTW) It's about soil and microbes and fungi too. It HAS to be Samurai because no one else DOES IT. It's arguable even that they can, but it's provable that they don't, and if you look at the proposal you'd see that.

Arson_is_cold_3_14 : Dog. You plant trees, they burn up. Rinse repeat. Besides Samurai got more improtant things to do.

Arborist919 : More IMPORTANT than securing the biodiversity of the fucking Earth?!

[[MOD MSG]] : Locking the thread. Arson, his proposal passes rule eight subsection fourteen section A. Only a Samurai can do as he proposes. If you want to waste your time arguing IF a Samurai SHOULD do as he proposes you can do so in the next phase. I'm pushing this Proposal on. You'll be given a date to Defend it.

Operator forums, Proposal submission procedural discussion Proposal : Tree_7_23.A.9DrC

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Eleven steps, turn, eleven steps, turn.

"Enough," I said softly. After a day of this I no longer had the energy to get emotional.

"Mute them Max." The conference call went silent.

"Perhaps because I'm exhausted I misspoke. This isn't a discussion or negotiation, you are being informed of how this case is going to move forward, backed by my authority as a Samurai. Your honor, I've sent you the, shall we say, recommendations, as well as all the new evidence. Of which Mr. Ross is correct. I obtained it without a warrant, and also I could have fabricated it, but I did not. I expect your ruling within the half hour. How ever you rule there will be no negative consequences for you, but the payments I've laid out will happen, one way or another. I have laid out what Mr. Ross's clients will pay and why. It can be by your judgement and order based on the facts now in evidence, or it can be because I say so. Mr. Ross please inform your clients the money will be moved in six business days. This should give them time to soften the blow. They can try to move it around but there is a vanguard AI who will be tracking it. If it looks like someone is moving it around to say, purposefully expose someone else instead of themselves, I'll seize personal assets as well. Thank you for your time. Max, cut the connection."

I was at nine steps. I took two more and instead of turning I ducked my head down and let the helmet bump into the front of the rail car resting my weight against the wall.

"Problems?" Sara asked. I'm sure I stopped subvocalizing part of the way through. It was one of the reasons I'd had my own office where the sun could cook me, instead of one of the desks in the middle where the air remained cooler for longer.

"I'm doing Samurai things," I said flatly.

I knew she didn't mean it as a way to prod me, but I was disappointed it had taken a full day to deal my cases. Not even ALL my cases, but only those where I was sure my clients were in the right. Not even in the moral right, but in the legal right as well. I realized multiple times I could just transfer the credits and send a note instructing all parties what had happened.

"I've made some decisions," I said pushing myself off the wall and removing my helmet. The fresh air was full of a sooty smell. I pulled up the map and zoomed out. The land was blackened. What tree trunks remained standing were branchless dark needles thrusting into the sky. The news feeds didn't even cover forest fires any more. Not with how frequent they were. You might look it up when the air particulate numbers climbed so much you had to wear a mask even in the subway. But otherwise, just like everything else, there was too much to worry about to worry about everything.

"Some of these decision concern you," I said dropping the map and meeting Sara's eyes.

Sara had swiped everything virtual away and removed her own helmet when I began talking. It was actually worse to talk this way, with the rail noise not being canceled out by the helmets, but it felt more real, more respectful, more serious.

"How," I paused, even after working on this speech on and off for the day I wondered about the morality of giving her the choice. She was raised in a cult. Did she really have free will when it came to Samurai? Was this offer just my own fear of inadequacy and putting her in needless danger? Or was she an adult who had her own agency, her own ability to control her own life? Was not offering taking that from her? Did it matter if it was?

Ultimately it came down to a few things. She was adamant that Samurai had to do Samurai things as no one else could. I had no doubt she would die, or kill, to help with that. And yet I feared such dedication to a cause I was barely even understanding.

"How involved are you willing to get? If I need something, anything, are you willing to give it? Where is your limit?"

She cocked her head slightly then her eyes widened a bit and she began to blush. She opened her mouth but said nothing as it dawned on me how she might have taken what I asked and I raised my hands.

What followed were a few embarrassing minutes of me assuring her I meant combat, giving up the best years of her life, augmenting herself with cyberware and bioware, and putting herself in the danger a Samurai faces without the resources a Samurai faces.

I had to stop her three or four times as she assured me she was willing as I worked my way through my list of concerns.

"This isn't something you agree to instantly," I began, but she interrupted.

"With all due respect Samurai," she said. I don't know if it was the first time she addressed me in that way or just the first time I noticed but there was a weight of formality in the title I wasn't sure I liked.

"I am of a single mind in this. The only issue I waver about is if the points you spend on me will be points wasted that you could spend on yourself. Yet if you have asked Max and she approves, then I am prepared to serve in this way."

Of course I should have asked the AI with a planet-sized brain. I failed in even this.

"Max, what is your advice concerning this?" I subvocalized.

"You will soon outpace her ability to keep up unless you spend equivalent points on her. That would be waste as you advance in tiers and point cost of items rise sharply, unless she is the recipient of the older technology you pass on to her that you would otherwise discard or shelve."

"She says it only makes sense if I give you the guns and tech I outgrow."

Sara was seated on one of the crates. She moved. She didn't exactly get up so much as shift forward off the crate and into a kneeling position on the ground. She continued bowing forward and pressed her forehead into the floor as she said, "I accept."

Before I could even react she was unfolding and standing up. Then she sort of rushed men and wrapped me in a big hug.

"How do we start?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said seriously backing away from her.

"Wrong," she said seriously, "The correct answer is dinner."

She brushed past me in the small space and started digging through the food stuff.

I had expected MREs or bags of rice for the amount of food we received in exchange for one point. But each meal was flavorful, filling, and unique.

"Pasta or soup?" Sara asked.

"Do they- is there shrimp? Have you ever had shrimp?"

There were tiny protein stamped shrimp in the more expensive ramen, but it wasn't even shrimp protein. It was the same single cell proteins grown in the big lab vats all over the world. They flavored it, dried, shaped, and dyed it, and everyone pretended it was real food. I'd had real eggs before. And goat milk, but only because a neighbor raised them in their apartment and had to pay us all off once when they couldn't make rent.

Instead of selling my portion I decided to take it into work and share it out. It had been about a thimble worth.

"Shrimp alfredo," Sara said reading one of the packages, "Shrimp, wheat noodles, real cheese in the alfredo sauce."

"Jesus," I said with a smile.

She gripped the corner of the bag and then snapped something inside. The bag seemed to inflate, then went rigid. She handed it to me. The real fruit juices were much too strong, instead we opened one and split it between two cups, filling the rest of the cup with water.

We mostly ate in silence.

I could tell she was excited and wanted to talk about what happened now, but I told her I was tired and needed sleep. She didn't argue.

Once in the sleeping bag I had it inflate until I could hardly move then deflate a bit until I was still snug but not trapped.

Instead of sleep I worked with Max and the Operator Guides going over things and learning what I could about what Samurais could do, were expected to do, and what they did well or poorly.

"Can you find this JoJo person?" I asked Max. I sort of winced as soon as I asked it. We'd been at it for a while now. Of course she could. I don't know why thinking and concentrating could more more tiring than physical labor, but it sure felt that way.

"I have located her," Max said.

"Huh," I said, "I guess I assumed she was a he."

"Why?" Max asked.

"Implicit bias," I said as a joke, but Max didn't respond at all and I once again felt the huge gulf between us. I was unable to imagine the situation from Max's perspective. It would be like trying to communicate with an ant. A stupid ant."

"Where is she?"

A video appeared. Older women were working fabric through sewing machines in what could only be called a sweatshop. A younger woman had one of the machines dismantled and was working on the innards. She seemed as focused as the older women were.

"Can you contact her?" I asked.

"There are jammers in place, stand alone jammers that I cannot get access to. I can get access to the guard's augs."

A red circle highlighted part of an arm seen through an open doorway. Another video window opened showing a hallway full of rolls of cloth with a man seated near a door resting sideways on a stack of clothing.

"Not yet," I said watching the young woman work on the sewing machine, her hands moving quickly from piece to piece.

"Where is this?"

I wasn't exactly surprised to hear it was in Idaho. I'd expected southeast Asia perhaps because of the ethnicity of the people, but the world was truly a melting pot now.

Max cleared the videos at my unspoken command. It wasn't a unique communication method, at least according to Max, but it was unique without spending points to set it up. When Max had rebuilt my brain I'd received a free brain mapping and communication with my Vanguard AI upgrade. It new my mind so well it could understand basic thoughts.

"Let's go back to the forum," I said.

The screen came up again.

27,621 active users in directory - 118 mods modding. Was written across the top. The numbers had continued to grow. Max's problem solving in the other threads had been a air drop of napalm on the dry kindling of the community. Word went out and people returned. I'd asked for help from the mods in designing a vehicle. I realize from discussions with Max and Sara that getting to an incursion quickly could mean both stopping it faster and saving lives.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I didn't have much time for media. I couldn't afford most of it, nor had the time, as I spent almost all of my time on my cases, both on and off the clock. I did however spend one hour a week watching a sci-fi serial with Paula. We'd connect on coms and she'd complain about the production quality while I laughed. My knowledge of ships, hover cars, and weapons of war was thin at best.

So it was that the All Bright Placer-Extractor vehicles appealed to me as I'd seen them in action both dropping off weapons, and rescuing people.

Max was amazing at helping me get what I wanted and design things like how engines would fit where and all that. But she did what I asked. The Operators, in a mere half hour, had come up with suggestions I would have never considered. Max could have suggested them of course, but she could have suggested millions of other ideas as well, all valid and meaningful.

"Show me what they've decided so far," I said.

Max either had already read the thousands of posts or had likely read them in the micro second after I'd asked.

An image of the vehicle appeared in front of me. It was a large oval lozenge, like a cough drop or a street drug. There was a stick like man standing near it to show scale. It was the size of a bus. Large, but far smaller than some of the other designs. There were five drums on each side. They were molded half way into the craft as if heated and pushed into wax. Various turrets were mounted at the top and the front of the ship was a porcupine's back.

As the walls and ceiling melted away I saw that the inside was cramped. The front third of the ship was all for weapons and ammo. Five larger fixed guns extended into the craft and one massive gun ran down the whole of the craft. The center was more spacious to passengers than the rear as the largest weapon had mechanical loaders and other mechanisms at that end as well.

"Explain this to me."

Max spent half an hour going over the Operator's design of the craft. Then we spent another half hour or so where Max optimized things and I made choices like, spend more points on this for more fire power or leave it the same as other turrets for more efficiency and fewer points.

One of the early choices was we had to go with Class Two drones on the sides of the ship. Class One didn't have the ability to compress matter, and the drones would be placer-extractors for fixed weapons like turrets and mortars. That made ten, or even six, prohibitively expensive. Unless we had a printer to print them.

Except the rule of thumb when it came to printers was that you needed one tech tier higher to print. So to reliably print all Class Two tech you needed a Class Three printer. Except of course that wasn't entirely true. There were printers in different catalogs and no tier three printer could print all tier two tech across all catalogs. Which realistically was meaningless information. I didn't need an apple if an orange could do. I need just needed enough.

The most impressive change was how the ship would extract human survivors. In less than a day the operation of the vehicle had changed dramatically. At first it had been what I had seen the All Bright PMCs do, swoop in in fast moving vehicles, land quickly, place weapons and pick up cargo, and take back off. Now the drones deployed dropped off what looked like inflatable bouncy houses that humans jammed themselves into. These would work both on land and sea. The drone continued to place fixed weapons while the ship rushed the budding hives.

Antithesis were infinitely adaptable and no incursion was exactly the same as any other. As evidence by the one we lived through where the hives opted to expand as quickly as possible instead of digging in for the long haul.

There was however one thing that was almost universal; when a hive was directly attacked, they circled the wagons.

The game plan the Operators had come up, and thus designed the equipment around, exploited that reaction.

The ship would race in, drones would split off and drop inflatable bouncy houses on rooftops and streets while the ship, what they had provisionally named the Solar Flare, made an aerial attack on the hives. It wasn't an attack meant to destroy, but to do enough damage to get the hive to believe it was an attack so that it would pull back its forces. Once that infrasound and spore signal went out the affected Antithesis turned and sprinted home ignoring anything else until they were within a certain range of the hive, including humans.

Even if the attack on the hive stopped immediately after the return-to-home signal was given, there were tens of minutes where the Antithesis swarmed and protected. Tens of minutes when humans could flee or be rescued.

The Solar Flare would then pick up the bouncy houses of humans with long cables that hung off the bottom, pick them up, fly them to a safe drop off, and leave them. Not having to land and waste time loading or off loading people would save time and lives.

The life pods would allow anyone else with a cargo winch to pick up and fly off survivors as well. Most PMCs air lifted in their gear dropping it at forward operating bases before using the same vessels to move into incursion territory.

"Upload the changes we made," I told Max once we were done optimizing and changing the design. There were hundreds of things the Operators either didn't know about or had forgotten about. It seemed their weakest point was sensors and information gathering. They focused on things like making the ship small enough it could fly through subway tunnels, between buildings with narrow alleys and the like. The most effort seemed to center around weapons and the rescue systems. Max had given me the metrics and most of the time was spent on the weapons. Most of the Operators were very knowledgeable, but most of that knowledge centered on weapons and the Antithesis models and their capabilities. There were twenty page long arguments over the merits between two different types of tech one weaponry because one was slightly better at killing model threes while the other was better at killing model fours.

The mods were out in force keeping ego out of it and making sure the discussions stayed on topic. No one was being banned but threads were being locked, stubbed, summarized or hidden. Yet everything was being tracked and referenced in an overall wiki-style document where threads and arguments about threads and arguments all had to be cited and vetted. It was the absolute chaos of the internet distilled into a real time discussion. There were huge threads dedicated to power, grounding, vibration, and heat dissipation. Whole other threads where arguments were being made about firing solution speed and radians-per-second tracking of agile model one's and therefore effective kill sphere density.

Maps that looked topographical or like magnetic flux were calculated to show how many model ones could be killed at what range and what maneuverability and compared to previous incursion data. Those discussions fed back into weapon and armor discussions. Either we had to kill them faster, stay at range, or be more armored. But more weapons meant more power, vibration, and heat, being at range meant less survivors rescued, more armor meant larger engines, which meant more power, or larger sizes.

There wasn't a single design being discussed, but thirty or so. Most were forks off the main branch but some were extreme oddities being explored to open insights into a more centralized design.

I couldn't even get my head wrapped around tracking the version changes, merges, forks, and branches. Thankfully Max could.

"Let's see what else they can do with those changes. And Max, thank them all for their hard work. Tell them this is extremely helpful."

Sara had breakfast waiting for me. I'd heard her moving around but hadn't interacted with her.

"Did you sleep?" she asked.

I thought about lying to her and telling her I had, then wondered if she had been awake and working with the other Operators. I could ask Max. Hell I could ask Sara herself, but I didn't.

"Why did they pick Solar Flare?" I asked her instead, assuming that even if she had slept she was keeping aware of the changes.

"Some think The Tax Man is a stupid name, and figure since you own the Helios building now that you'll eventually change your name to Helios. They even came up with a cool sun-icon symbol thing for you."

"I own the building?" I asked.

She cocked her head and shrugged.

"It's actually something you need to deal with. That a Samurai needs to deal with."

I let out a long sigh then nodded at her.

"Greg ran into some issues with people trying to get access to the building. They claim, and likely are, partial owners. There was a sort of stand off with armed authorities and the PMCs that showed up heavily suggest that if the Samurai involved didn't claim the building they were going to have to force the issue. Greg apparently panicked a bit, lied, and said you were in the building but in some sort of pod but that you'd send them a message. It's sort of top priority this morning. Had you not gotten up I was going to interrupt you."

It took less than three minutes for my identity to be authenticated by having Max break some super encryption puzzle and put me in contact with about sixteen different people including Greg. The Rez authorities were also involved. Technically they had no authority, but after the incursion, the earlier incursion that had left the building crippled, no one had taken ownership of the area. For a time the only law was of the might-is-right kind. Then the Rez began to bring order. They protected work crews who were getting water, power, and sewers back online while corps gutted buildings and scavengers followed on their heels.

It didn't feel right stealing a skyscraper, even if it was damaged. I took a play from corpo lawyers that had been used against me in the court room.

I had Max mute everyone.

"I have already taken ownership of the Helios building, both above and below ground and the surrounding block, water, power, and sewage connections as well as- You know what, if there is a question about what I own in the future I'll deal with it then. Aggressively. I'm not stealing the building, I just didn't know who to pay. So thank you all for getting in touch with me. If all the co-owners, partial owners, entities with liens, loans, or legal interest could create a document listing ownership percentage on the morning of the incursion. I will first figure out fines for lack of maintenance of the building, and then off set those fines against the value of the building. Should fines exceed value, which of course they won't no one will be on the hook. So at worst you owned one percent of the building, but contractually you were liable for fifty percent of the maintenance let's say. And let's just say that means you own money in fines greater than the value you'll be paid out. In such a case I will waive all legal rights to the debt and call it even."

In short that made it a win-no loss to be a partial owner on the list. Which meant that all parties even slightly involved would want to be on the co-owner list.

"Once you can produce a document and all co-owners and interested parties sign it, I'll pay off the value of the building as ascertained on the morning of the incursion at seven percent interest as of course I don't have those kinds of credits today. Interest will star accruing, umm, let's say today."

After that I informed them I'd be speaking to everyone individually. Greg was first. He apologized profusely, said there were armed corpo goons who had snuck in with residents and other survivors who were being housed, and they started clearing out floors claiming them for companies that were likely legitimate owners. Though he didn't check. Once the building managed to gang up on the goons and get them outside it looked like it would turn bloody when Rise-Up a PMC showed up with lethal rounds.

All Bright showed up moments after, dropping out of their PE ships, and Rez security arrived in electric busses ten minutes later.

Rise-Up said they were on the clock with three different employers for the same job. All Bright was hoping I'd take a meeting with their Business Development Group and thought stepping in might help make that meeting come about more quickly. The Rez was there to make sure no one started using bombs to blow up power, water, or sewage connections to the building. A tried and true method of dealing with squatters.

Before I could send Rise-Up packing their employers closed their contracts and they left on their own. I informed All Bright they were taking suggestions, and I made that clear to everyone involved, that everything was a suggestion. Greg was in charge internally and Albert, the Rez representative, externally.

When the situation was at least calm, I switched back to just Greg.

"What happened?" I asked.

He went over the same thing, about corpos trying to displace both residents and survivors.

"How many survivors?" I asked.

"Who can guess, a thousand more, maybe double that. They get into the abandoned places make barricades and bunch up. I've got leaks all through the water system, so much so that even with the pumps we have running full out I don't have enough excess water to make steam to drive the pneumatic pumps to run the elevators. I've got lights on, but barely, and-"

"Hold on. Max can you connect me to everyone in the Helios building. I want to send send a message."

"It would overload the local nodes. I can record the message and then set it to self propagate at a rate just less than the length of the message. Everyone would see it but not at exactly the same time."

"Let's do that."

"Ready," Max said.

"It's ummm,- Shit can we start over?"

"Of course."

It took me six tries before I listened to the message that would be sent out.

"This is The Tax Man. I was working in the old Helios building when the incursion arrived. On that day everyone worked together to get to safety. The building maintenance gang did a great job keeping everyone moving and giving them a plan on where to go. We all worked together and most of us survived. I need to ask you to hold off on tapping into the buildings water supply on your own. The maintenance gang will be by to help patch any holes or to make taps. Please allow them to do so. If you need water, please go to the elevator and stairways. We need to prioritize drinking water for drinking. Thank you for your attention."

I send it to Greg who groaned.

"Not good?"

"I don't have enough men even if all they did was focus on water. I've got-" he paused and then spoke quietly.

"Some of them won't want to hear that. They might riot."

"Riot?"

"They think you were a Samurai before the incursion started. That you had AC and hot tubes and Samurai food behind your security wall while the rest of them were barely getting by. You did get the building the Samurai tech that filters and conditions all the water and they think you were holding out."

He was explaining what other people thought, but there was a question in his voice.

"Greg," I said slowly, "I was worried I was going to die of a heart attack just from the stairs. I couldn't catch my breath. My forearms cramped up on the ladder and I thought you'd all leave me- You were there in the sewers. Why the fuck would I give up my arm and get my head crushed to goop just to hide?"

"I'm not saying it," he said defensively, "just some people are, and they likely don't want to take orders is all."

"How long can you keep it together over there?"

"Minutes away," he said casually. We've started rolling black outs, just tripping breakers to various blocks of floors for a while to get them used to the idea of no power and into the mode of 'charge it up' when the power comes back on. We will start the same rolling outages with the water. But if we lose the pumps we are in for a bad time. And they are old pumps."

We talked for a bit longer before I closed the connection.

Paula picked up immediately.

"We're fine," she said before I could ask.

"We've got weeks worth of water of course and several days worth of food. Also, a bunch of preggos and kids," she swung the camera around the room and I saw she was in part of the floor with the machinery and water tanks. There were people in all the cramped places.

"Got a real life med tech, educated and everything, though she's out of gear. You wouldn't be able to teleport in anything this far away would you?"

"Max?"

"No."

"No."

"I didn't think so, but thought I'd ask. It's not as bad as Greg is saying."

"Greg said it was fine," I said.

"Well," she said drawing the word out, "It's a bit worse than fine. Everyone has ganged up on the floors and while people are still letting people pass freely up or down there is talk of charging in food or water."

"Fuck," I said.

I could buy a hovercar or steal one and head back.

"Don't you head back here until you sort your shit out," Paula said, "This ain't no worse than that nine day power outage last year."

"That was," I said slowly, "pretty hairy."

"And we got through it. I've got to go, Sara says you are doing good and not to bother or distract you, but she's young and thinks that all men think about are big 'ol titties!"

She about shouted the last part and I had to laugh even as she closed the connection.

"Do you wish to message everyone in the building?" Max asked.

"No."

"How much longer until we get there?"

"Two days, nine hours."

"Let's discuss how we can speed that up."