"You might ask yourself why oh why would I would risk my personal fortune, my health, perhaps even my life, or the lives of my family and friends just to sign a Samurai? I promise you this. It's not company loyalty. I was in those seats once, listening to a pitch just like this. I had nothing, nothing but a chance. And some people call me lucky, and that's part for it, but I slept in alleyways. I camped out at their parent's homes, their churches, their pet's vets. I always always always respected their privacy and never shouted, but I was there rain or shine with a pamphlet and a business card and a rehearsed speech. In six years, I got eleven Samurai to make time enough to allow me to give them my pitch. Three times they came to the table in good faith to make a deal, and twice we closed. Now I'm the CEO of four companies and on the board of six more. This suit I wear cost more than most of you have made in your entire life. I arrived in a company plane from my home in South America where I employ three hundred staff members. I've fucked three women on last year's People's Hottest Women of North America List. I can afford Samurai tech that will let me live in a twenty-five year old body until I'm two-hundred years old. Why? Cause I have credits to spend. How am I so rich? I- Followed. The. Plan."
Excerpt from Stone Johnson's sold out level five class and book signing for "Follow the Plan Volume nine: recruiting others."
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It was night. I'm not exactly sure why that surprised me. It had been what? Five o'clock when the alarms had gone off. And they'd gone off early as we had to wait for rift confirmation.
"Max?" I subvocalized.
"Yes Fredric?"
"I'm not sure what's um, well, insulting to you or not. Can I- Should I use you for things like keeping notes or should I use augs for that?"
"I was created to be used. I can be used in absence of all other technology. It is rare to have a Protector go fully biologic but it has happened. Though it often happens where the dominate species is aquatic."
"Like whale-size or something."
"Like Guam sized," Max said. I had a hard time even relating to how large that would be.
"Fred!" Sara snapped and I pulled my eyes away from the city's sky line. She had a thin sort of helmet on. I reached up to touch my own head and felt the same type of helmet. I turned to look at Greg or Troy but she snapped at me again.
"What?" I said embarrassed for making her repeat it.
"We need orders!" Sara said stepping close. I saw the two men waiting near us share a look and behind to slowly walk backward their eyes drawn up and away from us.
"From me?" I asked, feeling like the bumbling kid I was all the way back in high school trying to talk to a pretty girl. Not that I felt anything at all for Sara.
Her eyes darted to my mouth and I felt myself grimacing. What the fuck was wrong with me.
"Are you in shock?" she asked carefully.
"How would I know?" I asked seriously. Wasn't being in shock one of those things that fucked with your evaluation skills and thus you literally couldn't evaluate if you were in shock if you were?
"You are nor in shock," Max said, "But there may be side effects from the simulation."
"Simulation?" I asked, apparently out loud from Sara's reaction.
"The damaged parts of your brain are being simulated while I repair them."
I was now in shock. So I was apparently capable of that sort of evaluation.
Sara moved closer and I blinked at her then took a step back.
"She says it's brain damage but she is repairing it."
"How do we help?" she asked.
"He can function like normal, it will only take time," Max said and I realized she was speaking to Sara and allowing me to hear it.
"We need orders," Sara said.
"I mean, what do you recommend?" I asked her.
She closed her eyes tight and inhaled a shuddering breath. She looked injured. How I imagined I looked when I put my back out.
"Are you alright?"
"You have to make the decisions. That's why you were chosen. We can help but-" she shook her head.
"I don't even know where to start."
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"What is Max saying you should do?"
"Umm," I said not wanting to say the rest, "I haven't asked."
"You haven't-" she began and then she looked at me, "Maybe we should get you someplace you can rest."
"Is there people I can help? Now I mean?"
"Of course." She didn't snap but it was a near thing. I'd never actually seen her like this. She was bubbly and optimistic, or deadly serious and driven. I felt an actual pain in my heart. I lifted up my hand and felt armor there on my chest. What if, in being chosen, I'd broken her. It didn't seem worth the exchange.
"I need to help," I said, "Let's help. How does it work, I get points when others kill with the weapons I buy?"
Both Max and Sara began talking at the same time and I had almost vertigo trying to listen to both. I held up my hand and Sara blushed hard and gave a quick bow.
"There is a fall off on distance but yes you earn points for the weapons you purchase or in some cases reload, within certain ranges of you."
"Okay," I said with a nod, "I guess that means front line?"
No one responded.
"Take me to the front line then I guess."
We jogged, and I still felt twenty years younger.
"Welcome to forward post Alpha-two-" the man paused for a moment, then added a belated, "Samurai." He was speaking to Sara, who shook her head and looked at me while taking a tiny, if meaningful step back.
"How can I help?" I asked. He blinked at me then nodded once.
"This way sir. Weapons, ammo, medical supplies, enemy location intelligence, whatever you can supply can be put to use. We are working with Rez forces to get people down river as fast as we can, and get the injured stabilized for transport."
"Max can you find out what the medics might need and prepare a list of equipment we can buy to save lives?"
"I have interfaced with the medics and their real time reporting is lagging a bit but there are multiple camera feeds. I have compiled several lists if you'd like to review them. They appeared floating before me without the nausea my augs would provide. At the top of each list was a point total, estimated fatalities recovered, serious injures repaired, and other items, including cosmetic damage.
"How many points do I have?" I asked.
1648
That seemed like a lot, as the third list, the one that had reduced the fatality count to zero only cost 422 points.
"Buy that and-" two pallet sized crates popped into existence behind the older man and he jump, his gun coming up and out and a single round behind fired before I could so much as blink.
"I'm- I apologize," he said slotting the pistol back into its holster.
"For the medics," I said.
"Of course," he said. There was a moment as he subvocalized orders, then men began rushing over.
When it came to how to kill the xeno there were too many options. Sara had a piece of advice I'd heard before, but somehow there was more weight in it coming from her, "When you're in the fight you're in it."
There were some rush decisions. Buying guns and ammo for the PMC soldiers seemed foolish as they had to stay bunched up around me or I couldn't earn the points back.
"Everything has to pay for itself," Sara said.
The front line actually advanced once I arrived. The xenos weren't actively trying to get us, they were expanding through buildings still, and going after easier prey.
When they explained it that way it clicked. There were still people in the city.
Two hours after we started we had a system in place. Artillery. It could be bundled up around me and with smart mortars we could target anything the PMC soldiers or drones could paint with lasers. Ground vehicles, mostly cargo transports were hijacked thanks to an very nice one-off item that cost only six points. It would fuse with the vehicle and give open access to anyone who wanted to control it.
Twice all the tech died. The Electronic Counter Measures from the Antithesis model twelve. We didn't find or kill it, but we did pour fire into everything and pull back both times.
Max took control of the PMC reconnaissance drones and linked up with the logistic operators to update the map. The green dots of confirmed humans slowly was swallowed by red.
We lost people. Both those we tried to save and the soldiers. Twice solders refused to extract people from a safe room while we remained on the street. The first time I provided weapons. The second time Sara led them.
There were a crew of several men that carted off supplies as I bought them. Mostly the medical gear and the six point "car-go" stickers as I was calling them. Max had called them Class one single use Electronic control shunts or something, but she knew what I meant when I asked for more.
I was flatly in awe of the logistic operators, even knowing the work load was being distributed to operators like Sara around the world. They were pouring over camera footage and doing their best to find survivors, as well as contact and direct them. More than once we prepared for incoming friendlies by clearing the road space so a van or box truck full of survivors who had rescued themselves could race past while we cleared the xenos in pursuit.
I asked for a point breakdown at one point. I was visual when it came to numbers and graphs were easier to understand. My most efficient point producers were the class one anti-air turret system connected to an oversized ammo feed system full of self targeting explosive ammunition and networked into a system wide class one targeting system that tied into fixed place drones and extreme range aerial surveillance drones.
I'd put something like 1500 points into equipment but it had produced more than 5,000 points.
Of course the same graph said the least efficient point purchases was buying armor, medical drones, and anthesis flesh melting powder, that was distributed by flying drones over areas where we killed a large number of number threes and fours to deny the enemy the dead bio mass.
By far the models that caused us the most problems were the model fives. They shot poison quills and even when we shifted to targeting them as soon as they were spotted they were responsible for the most dead.
The sun had risen, but the super-meth or whatever it was that Max could pump out meant I was just as awake and focused as ever. It was about eight in the morning when tragedy struck.
The model ones were easy to kill and I'd left anti-air turrets linked with the targeting AI everywhere. Most of the other mortar launchers traveled with me on a sort of wide flat disk. The AI targeting suit and number of anti-air turrets meant it was common to see a swarm of model ones appear from the cover of buildings, twist in the air like a flock of birds, and then have each individual member explode. The first wave rarely got all of them, but the model one's hardly ever concerned us now.
Then minutes after Max informed me that an older, and thus more powerful, Samurai would be arriving shortly from the Phoenix incursion, a building was brought down almost on top of us. I'm not sure how they did it, but I'm sure it was the xenos because just before the building fell, that same ECM that killed radio feeds and reset augments flashed out. In the confusion of rebooting options and communication, a building slid into the street.