"Samurai all have access to the same things. Why then are some so much more successful than others?"

"Coming out swinging I see. No, no, I'll answer. Just give me a moment to process how I want to say it."

"Of course."

"My grandfather's grandfather was a skilled tradesman. We have a book for genealogy, and we try to keep track of family. Anyway he was a skilled laborer. In one of his letters to one of his sons he said, "For a tradesman to succeed in life, he has to have the correct tools for the job, and he has to be smarter than those tools." Meaning of course that one had to know how to use the tools properly. Samurai aren't skilled tradesmen. We can get access to tools, but there is still a learning curve on using them. We can buy scanners that can see through half a mile of rock, but we have to be wise enough to know that using that where people are will give everyone cancer. We can cause earthquakes or destroy buildings. And that's not even touching on the real question. Which is, did you hire the right tradesman to do the job. A Samurai that excels in urban combat and rescue can die on their first aquatic incursion because they don't understand that all the rules have fundamentally changed in the water. Now all that being said, if you are judging a Samurai who has selected their tools and honed their skills for aquatic incursions by how they handle being first on the scene of a forest incursion, you are doing that Samurai a disservice if you think of them as less successful than someone who has specialized in forest incursions."

Interviews with Samurai, Volume III, Page 65

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"Get rid of the points Max!" I yelled. Sara's head snapped toward me with the words and I saw her eyes crawl over my body looking for wounds. The point total on my HUD disappeared.

The points were a distraction, like I'd been told they would be. The last straw had been the annoyance I felt when the number dipped back under three thousand points while I bought much needed medical care for the soldiers that were literally keeping me alive. I saw the new prosthetic arm I'd bought for the PMC who lost his previous prosthetic a few tunnels back. It wasn't crazy expensive but it was expensive enough as he needed a component upgrade in his head as well to use it, which I didn't know about until I bought it. Because I didn't ask. Because I was on some sort of ego-high thinking being a Samurai meant I was a fucking wizard or something.

Clean up was horrid. I assumed it would be facing down model threes and fours who suicided into our combine fire. Instead it was half sending drones down cracks, burrower tunnels, and smaller pipes to make sure they were either clear or to destroy the Antithesis that had hidden away. The other half was chasing down larger groups of Antithesis that were trying to run away. Sprinkle in a handful of humans locked in bunker-like dead ends they were clearly living in, and the occasional ambush, and it made it work. The drones I had to send into small places had to kill the xenos first. Then more drone with deployable nanite flesh-melters to destroy what remained. Those were purely a point sink. I spent more going after them than I earned from killing them.

Not that I could just leave the smaller tunnels. Twice I found what Max called seeds. One was the size of an apple and I actually got close to the thing to look at it. I took video of the melon-like thing. It was covered in fine hairs, sort of like the silk at the top of a corn cob. Except they weren't hairs. they were tiny tubes. They forced out a tiny amount of liquid that made the exposed hair look like they were covered in morning dew.

The liquid would dissolve organics, which would then be sucked back into the tiny tube. over time the melon grew larger. And if left on it's own it would eventually become a hive.

The second seed we found was in a larger tunnel. It sat in the flow of sewage, which as far as it was concerned was just more food. It was the size of a car.

"Thumper," I said stopping the cart I was in and stepping off. Sara drove hers a bit further down the tunnel, swerving it so that the shield wall in front would block anything from firing directly on me.

I didn't say anything. I wanted to, but I'd been shot in the leg with one of the fucking quills and Sara had stopped listening to me and began doing as she pleased. What she pleased tended to be trying to keep me alive, but I was feeling smothered and mothered.

"How are we on ammo?" I asked.

"I could use some more," Adam said.

I glanced at him, then at the cart he'd been walking behind. He was covered with extra ammo.

"Never turn down a Samurai's offer for gear," he said, "might not save my life here, but might next time."

I nodded, acknowledging the point, but didn't buy him any more. Even though I couldn't see the points I could feel them. Still, they were there to be spent.

The cartography device thumped into the ground, now that they'd gotten it set up. I didn't bother looking at the map as it was built. There were a lot of false positives for the first four or five thumps. When Max produced the map for me it was a 3d thing I started out rotating with my hands. As we progressed either Max got better at reading my mind or I got better at projecting my thoughts, and I was able to manipulate the map with my thoughts.

"Fuck," I said out loud. Lots of eighteen inch and smaller tunnels. Which meant more point sinks.

A section of the map highlighted in blue with radiating marks.

"I would suspect there are humans in distress here," Max said. "These pipes," several lit up in orange with more orange near the area indicating, "are vibrating in a way consistent with a human banging on a metal pipe with a metal tool. The rhythm is Morse Code S.O.S."

"Possible, survivors!" I called out as I leapt back into the racked cart's metal platform. I gripped the controls and it shot forward. Sara racing a head of me.

"Update the others, leave the last cart to pick up the thumper and bring up the rear. Get two drones over there as fast as you can.

Beside the prosthetic, ammo, medical gear, and care packages for the survivors, the largest point sink had been a class two sniffer drone that could, when close enough, pick up the spores of the stealth units. Out in the world it didn't work that well, to the point where most Samurai relied on other means of finding them, but in the tunnels, it worked too well. It not only could tell where they were, but where they'd been as well. Which royally sucked when you were expecting an ambush at any moment and the things had been gone for an hour.

"Spore," Max said and I knew everyone got the same message because Sara's shield wall and my own slowed down at the same time.

The count didn't look high but that apparently didn't mean shit. It was like ice on a pond. Once there was enough to skate it didn't matter how much thicker it got. The level was above the needed level to allow them to dampen scanning and fuck with weak RF signals.

Sara began opening up. I used more measured shots, but I did the same. There had been just the single ambush, which if I had to score it, went very much in the xenos favor except for the fact that we had numbers and medical gizmos to heal up afterward. I'd asked how many points we spent on the medical shit afterward, and the math was simple. Spraying the tunnel with gunfire and acid grenades was a better use of points than bleeding out all over and then healing up. Not to mention much safer.

The stick bug like stealth units rushed us, and once again I questioned if I was capable of having a heart attack after all the healing shit I'd injected into my body in the last- fuck I couldn't even think how long it had been.

Fear was a motherfucker and I hated it. I was panting and wondering if I'd ever get used to this stuff. More and more I thought they'd made a mistake. I wasn't cut out for combat. I sure as fuck wasn't cut out for command. It was clear, once I asked for advice, that we could have avoided a few of the injuries had I asked sooner.

I started to accelerate but Sara opened fire again.

Again I fucked up.

I came to a halt and started firing. Just because we killed a few didn't mean shit. Yet I was ready to race ahead into the spore cloud and get attacked again.

We found a submerged model four, tentacles whipping out with white model seven worms on them. It seemed like once the hives had been destroyed the number of model sevens skyrocketed.

The tunnel told the story of what happened here.

The door was open and several adults rushed us, model seven's well established in the bodies.

Sara shot them in the head, one after the next and then looked at me. The nanites we used ate Antitheses flesh, but there were other models that liquified everything. I tossed the grenade and waited. Staring at the tunnel ahead of us. A body was wedged into it, the legs hanging out twitched every time the metal made the pipe ring.

I stepped forward and Sara grabbed my arm. We'd all taken the pills, but she let the other soldiers go forward and pull the body from the pipe. It was zombied up. Female. Someone shot it. I stared at it. The fingers were scraped down to the bone.

"Flashlight Max," I said and a simple modern flashlight dropped into my hand. I flicked it on and handed it to Sara who passed it up to the four men.

Even from where I stood I could see the worms in the bottom of the pipe worming there way further down.

"Two youths!" the man said pulling his helmeted head back to look at me, "Pipes' full of model sevens!"

"Youths?" the man beside him asked.

"Not the time!" the first snapped.

A quick conversation with Max produced a long fiberglass pole with a sort of deflated mushroom looking thing at one end. The men pushed it down the pipe, then hit a button at the base and pulled it out.

Stolen story; please report.

The mushroom head had expanded and all the worms, at least three or four gallons worth came out. They tossed the twenty foot pole aside. One of the men had a hip bucket and cup thing he used to liberally spread the white nanite powder around, The flesh of worms trying to get away, bubbling and hissing, sent shivers up my spine.

"Max," I said, "I need tarps."

"What size and material?"

"Something big enough to toss over all the dead humans so they don't have to look at them. then some sort of suits for the kids, or like a cocoon or whatever. And then drink boxes and food. Make them kid themed if you can."

Sara had to kneel and talk to them for six minutes until the boy started to crawl out first. They'd crawled down the pipe until it joined a much larger pipe and had been sitting there smoothing the worms with their removed shoes while they pounded on the pipe.

The boy had a phone which Max was able to link to two of the dead under the tarps. Most people used augs, but the poor, criminal, unaugmented, and desperate still used phones because they could be shared, though they were more data hotspots than vocal communication devices.

The armor Max suited them up in, including helmets that would seal to provide air, looked like some sort of tiger and teddy bear. When I asked Max provided a picture, likely taken a year or two before, of the kids dressed in similar costumes for Halloween.

"What the fuck were they doing down here?" I asked. I didn't really expect an answer, but Max provided one.

"Their grandfather fell ill, and their father took a second job to help pay for medication. This apparently cut into his production rate in his primary job, so he was cut. Unable to continue to pay for both rent and medication they lived in three different shelters over the course of twenty-four days. That was eight months ago and the last record I could find."

"It's all triage," I said staring at the kids. The brother was wide-eyed and staring at the tarps while he held his sister in the best hug he could with the bulky, almost mascot looking armor they both wore.

"We're headed up," I said, "Get the thumper going. Avoiding everything we can, if we can." I got nods from the others.

They tried to split the kids up to put them on different carts but that was a bad idea. Instead they both got one of the carts and Max drove it remotely while the soldiers that rode in that one walked. We still had to shoot our weapons when we came to sections with high spore counts, but we didn't run into any threats on the way up, even though we slowed to spread nanites on piles of dead.

I don't know if they were the ones I'd killed or if other Samurai had been through here. Everything looked the same to me.

I slapped a car-go sticker onto a hovercar parked on a street when we reached the surface. We put the kids in the back, and two of the men to drive them to the operating base.

There were three other Samurai in area now in addition to Ronin, the latest name change Ninja Girl was trying on.

I looked over the soldiers. The PMC men from All Bright has started out in the same uniforms. I'd eventually bought everyone body armor and helmets anyway. The men and single woman from the Rez had started out in piecemeal armor. Now they looked like a uniform fighting group that had been dragged through the sewers and splattered with all manner of filth.

"I think I'm done then," I said as I stared at the map Max was showing me. Most of the surface streets were confirmed clear. Far more buildings than I would have expected were marked as clear, and only the subterranean layers were unconfirmed.

Sara stepped in close to me, then turned her head to stare at the soldier who was closest. He stood there until the man behind him pulled on his arm. I didn't think he was trying to listen he was just zoned out. Likely exhausted. With four carts and room enough for one facing forward and one backward in the carts, they'd rotated who'd walked.

"Still xenos around?" Sara asked.

I nodded. Then shrugged.

"Then the job isn't done," she said.

I looked at her. Her hair was plastered to her forehead under the helmet. Wet with sweat. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and there was a white crust around her nostrils that I would have suspected was drug residue if I didn't know she'd been in the helmet for god knew how long. Dried snot more likely.

"Max," I said out loud, "can you ask the other Samurai in the area if any of them are willing to let me tag along and learn how to kill xeno's better?"

A window popped up like a HUD element though I now knew that Max was bypassing the augs and spitting that stuff directly into my brain.

Above the comfortably wide face of a man with a scruff of a salt and pepper beard was the name Cold Brew. He wasn't fat but I could tell just from the picture he was an rotund man.

"Holy shit. You must be new Mister Fredric Francis Fletcher Esquire. Haven't earned yourself a name yet, or given yourself one. What's the Esquire? CPA or something?"

"Lawyer."

"You ain't one of those ambulance chasers are you?" he asked.

"I do work with victims of industrial accidents but most of my work is charity based. Tenant's rights and tax law mostly."

"Fighting the tax man? That's a battle I can get behind! I'd be happy to split my points with you, but you'll see you don't get to do much, so I want a bigger cut. Normally it's fifty-five percentage each if two of us split it. I want to go seventy-five thirty-five in my favor. And just so I'm being up front about it, that's the most the system will allow us to shift the percentages. No way to get eighty-percent. Now some will take you under their wing and just ask you donate the points you earn back at the end, or trade them for one credit and the like. As it's clear this is your first day I'll let you earn, but most of us that do clean up, only do clean up. If those terms are agreeable, come on down and link up with me."

"I'll be there shortly."

"Take two carts back. If the politics have started to shit the bed back there you, as a group, try to sort it out. If you have to, point at the fancy armor and guns, and yes, extra ammo, and explain to your groups that I don't mind sharing out. I do not want to come back up from the sewers, tired and in need of a shower, and have to deal with the fact that All Bright is fighting with Rez Security about some bullshit. In five days all the survivors will be off rez land, but as of right now there are still xenos, so we are still what, at war I guess."

Sara nodded.

Cold Brew eyed Sara, and then raised an eyebrow at me.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Bodyguard," I said.

"You a fanatic?" he asked.

Sara nodded.

"Don't sleep with them," he said to me. He laughed and shook his head, holding his hands up.

"I'm not saying this one. Likely she knew you before the change?" He must have seen his answer in one of us.

"She'll see you as a person, but the others- fuck they worship us. A man like me, going through life like I did, then suddenly there are woman that want you for all different sorts of reasons." He was shaking his head again.

"Well," he said drawing the word out, "You didn't come down here for that sort of advice. Let me show you my drones."

He showed off the specialized drones, most of which were powered with compact bio generators. They scooped up dead Antitheist flesh to power themselves, which seemed somehow fitting. I didn't even know what powered the armored shield wall carts we were in.

He had a squid-like drone that was all rubbery flesh, that was able to move through two inch pipes, exit into other areas, do battle, and return. He had a five foot long silver-green snake with what looked like a drill head for spaces down to half an inch.

"Under half an inch the big one scopes it with a bore-a-scope and if there is something in there it's acid and then a neutralizer."

The big one was a refrigerator looking drone with a hundred inch wide articulating tubes.

"I'll tell you this," he said as we walked, the drones doing literally all the work. "If I could get the points without being next to these things, I'd never leave home. That being said, clean up isn't glamourous work. Sometimes there are pockets of survivors we save but those of us that choose this aren't doing it for the hero work. You won't find any of us high up in the rankings or pulling in lots of points. But also, there is very little risk, at least compared to what you already survived today. Now I don't want you to think everyone else who does clean up is a coward. I am, and I'm not gonna lie. I'm one of those Samurai that would take the ten points a day and do nothing. Lost too many people, seen too much shit, all that. If I couldn't do clean up, I'd tap out. I just don't want you to think everyone that does clean up is like that. Hell Tan Hua Yi Xian likely traveled here from half a world away to clean up to earn points for who knows what project they are working on."

That was one of the other Samurai in the area.

"I never met them, but our AI's worked out how to cut up the sewers equally and we will both work them until they are done. It's not work that will get you on the news shows or selling costumes to kids, and some of the Samurai that do it, like it that way. You sure as hell don't see any corpo simps following us into the sewers to try to get us to sign endorsement contracts or the like. It's easy work, and after you have the drones set up, it's easy points. Otherwise you can go on clean-up duty and lose points if you aren't careful."

He looked at me, then roared with laughter. Ironically he did so silently as his helmet cut his speech when it went above a certain decibel level.

"Alright," he said once he was done laughing, "Lay into me with the questions. But before you start, realize she's going to ask any afterward that you should have asked and it will get embarrassing quickly the longer her list is."

I had a lot of questions. I didn't think Sara would have much more than what I asked. I was once again wrong.

I suspected she was using the Operator network to come up with questions, or possibly that she knew the answer to most of what she asked but she wanted the weight of a Samurai behind the answer instead of just giving me the advice herself.

"There are those that go for printers. Too much infrastructure for me though. I need to be mobile for the clean ups, so I ended up with a sort of flying mansion type thing. But I hear the question behind the question. Why don't you ask it, for his sake?"

Sara bowed. She had only done that when we initially met him and shook hands.

"Do you have any blueprints you'd be willing to share or to sell at a cost less than what it would take for him to buy them?"

Cold Brew stared at her for a moment.

"I do. I'll send over all the Class Zero blueprints and all the medical Class One. I have-" he paused, "several Class Two and one Class Three blueprint. I'll send you the list of what I have, including what they call a Catalog dump, basically what I've unlocked. It's something the poorer Samurai tend to do. The bigger names, the ones willing to earn points killing xenos, they can just earn and buy catalogs. For the ones that are non-violent, or the ones who've seen too much, points become a rare currency and trading blueprints or buying items from a catalog you don't have to unlock is a frugal way to use your points. Mind you, you can't buy anything from my catalog unless you are near me. Near me being close enough to share earned points from a kill. That radius seems to be slightly different in say the sewers vs the open ocean, vs high altitude areal fighting, but basically you can buy stuff from my catalogs if I allow it and you are close enough. Otherwise you can't."

Max put up a list of blueprints Cold Brew had sent me.

"I,"I began. Then I bowed to him as well.

"Shit not you too," he said with a laugh.

"Now where was I?" he paused.

"Oh. Were you aware there is an Earth Catalog. It's not yet formalized. Some call it the Humanity Catalog. You can formally request for certain things to be added to it. You have to buy this scanner thing and then scan whatever you want. Then the AIs shoot it off to the protectors and they decide if it should be included or not. Which brings me to my party trick."

He held out a large hand, palm up and fingers spread. Then a six pack of beer was teleported onto his hand. The glass bottles were larger than pints, though I couldn't guess what size from looking at the squat bottles. The plastic looking container had the smiling face of Cold Brew on it giving a big thumb's up.

"I call this one," he said as he pointed to the large words that ran along the container, "Humanity Survives. Don't drink it in here, and if you don't like it please lie to me when you tell me how it was."

I took the six pack when he handed it over.

"And don't save it for a special occasion or anything sappy like that," he added.

I set the beer on the floor of the mobile shield wall and kept my walking pace beside the larger man.

"Let's see. If you are going the printer route realize that you can disrupt whole markets and even though you think it's great you are providing cheap meals-in-a-can or whatever, you end up putting all the farmers out of work, and then they lose their farms because the banks repossess their homes, cause they can't sell crops to pay the loans. Then you get killed, and the cheap food stops, and all the farm land has been turned into parking garages. Then people starve. Fucking with the markets is always something weird like that. It's one thing to sell a rich asshole a one of a kind super-speeder or something like that. Something else to introduce hovercars. And if you think I'm full of shit look at all the unintended consequences when-"

The rapid fire popping of his big drone interrupted us. The tubes had all whipped up and were pointed down the tunnel. They shot tiny darts full of paralytic, or paintball sized marbles full of acid. They killed whatever they fired at, then as the drone floated over the dead the tubes sprayed the bodies with acid and sucked up the goo to power the devices as well as turn into more paralytic and acid.

There were four dead model fours and two model threes in that ambush party.

"What was I saying? Oh yeah, the markets," Cold Brew said as we continued forward. His set up really was specialized for clearing tunnels.