Addendum M4-7: I’ve just finished analysis of a deceased Model Four in particularly bad condition. To clarify, every exposed surface, including every wound entry point, has dissolved into an acidic black slime. Apparently, when the hallucinogen produced by Model Fours comes in contact with a mixture of two different recalled UV protection creams, a chemical reaction occurs which creates an acidic slime which not only burns both Antithesis and humans, but acts as a catalyst and initiator for apoptosis in Antithesis.

Given that both creams were taken off the market for being excessively toxic with no meaningful biodegradability, and neither cream seems to cause the reaction independently, weaponizing the reaction would be far more trouble than it’s worth. Frankly it would be easier to reverse engineer Vanguard sonic flesh melting grenades.

* Dr. Evelyn Hargrove

***

So I became a Vanguard this morning.

You did indeed, Jacqueline Vega.

“Call me Jackie?”

Of course, Jackie.

Of course Willy had to quip, “who you talkin’ at, Miss Jackie? That tentacle monster whispering sweet nothings at you?”

“Ah, no. I… I… uh…”

“I’ll be back.” With that Willy sets to dragging Tony away from the worst of the stinking tentacles. They blacken as I watch, as does the body of the Model Four laying atop me. A rivulet of black drips onto my shoulder and hits a spot where the big Antithesis scraped off all the sunblock.

I bite my lip, because I can handle a little burn better than Tony at this point.

Jackie, you should seek to extricate yourself from this Model Four. Your inadvertent chemical warfare agent has backfired.

“No, really?” I struggle a bit, but without my hands, I can’t even begin to shove the thing off or to the side, and my hands are broken and stuck inside the beast. “Wait. Can’t Samurai get fancy high tech meds?”

I was just about to suggest you open the Class I Medical Utilities Catalog and acquire a Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite.

“Will that fix up my arms?”

Of course. It won’t fix your legs, but there are a variety of more effective prosthetics available through many catalogs, depending on your preferred role and personal style. Chyrl pauses, and I get the impression she does it entirely out of fascinated horror. In fact, there are several Tier Zero Options which could be considered significant improvements over your current prostheses.

“Yeah, no, I got other feet at home for when my running feet aren’t the best option. Some nice high traction ones for working in the cafeteria, a fancy pair for when I want to dress up. No point in buying what I’ve already got.”

Yes, but…

“No. Point. Gimme that Nano-Regenerator thing.”

Class I Medical Utilities unlocked!

Points reduced to... 180

New Purchase: Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite

Points reduced to... 160

A plain beige box adorned with a simple mask appears on the ground next to my hip. Some of the black goop seeps into the shallow depression it makes in the dirt, and the box smokes and sizzles faintly. I stare at the box, then at my arms where they’re stuck into the Model Four, then back at the box.

“Tell me you’re new at this while not saying you’re new at this.”

I… I have no idea why, but even a short lifetime of listening to kids explain how exactly their food wound up on the ceiling detects strong ‘you see, what had happened was…’ energy in her next statement. I’ve just received an offer for you from a nearby research facility.

“Yeah, I got a job already Chyrl, I don’t think I need you selling me as a lab rat.”

No, Miss Jackie, not an offer to buy you, an offer from the lab, which has a Samurai in residence, to purchase the corpse of the Model Four in your possession.

“Y’know, I’m not gonna argue who’s possessing who right now, but this is starting to sting. How much and what do I have to do?”

The Samurai is offering you four hundred points in exchange for the Model Four, but only if you put it in stasis until they arrive.

I sigh. “How much I gotta spend to put this thing in stasis? I’m guessing I’ve got to unlock another catalog? Or is it a Class One Medical Utility?”

Ah, no. You will need to purchase at least an eight cubic meter Class III Stasis Container, although the Samurai would prefer you use a twenty seven cubic meter Class III Stasis Container in order to save as many of the tentacles as possible. They are allowing you to purchase the container from their catalogs, and the eight cubic meter container is one hundred points, the twenty seven cubic meter device is one hundred fifty.

Bartering instincts honed haggling with street vendors all my life kick in. “Tell ‘em I want five fifty and they bring my Container back when they’re done.”

A moment later Cheryl replies, they’ve offered five hundred and they keep the container.

“Five fifty, they let me purchase more containers from their catalog, and let them know this thing’s turning to goo as we speak.”

They’ve agreed. Shall I make the purchase?

Before I can reply a wave of sound and pressure washes across the park. It sounds almost like a car backfiring, but a really big car from really far away. I look to my left, toward the sound, and my gut clenches in horror as the megascraper I’d been looking at earlier slowly tips sideways.

My brain wants to freeze, but my mouth starts talking instead. “Chyrl? Can you bring that big box in around me and this ugly thing here?”

I can. Shall I optimize the dimensions to maximize preserved Antithesis tissue?

I stare in horror at a wave of black… something. Smoke, dust, burning Antithesis, no idea what except it’s rolling toward me like a wave as the megascraper topples. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes, do it, do it, now, now, now…”

New Purchase: Class III Stasis Container

Points reduced to... 10

I kinda expect everything to go dark, or maybe some dreams, or I dunno what, but I do not expect a sudden wave of frostbite-inducing fog filling the air.

“Shit! Chyrl! If I just spent a bunch of points on a big assed refrigerator, I’mma feel some kinda way!”

You purchased the Stasis Container two hours ago. You are presently in a secure facility on the waterfront. Samurai Lab Jack It should be here presently to extricate you.

I still shiver; I dressed for triple digit heat index, not a walk-in freezer. “Okay, when’s he gonna…”

Gloved hands slip under my armpits. “She, actually. How badly are you stuck?”

“Sorry. I’d probably have gotten myself out if my hands weren’t broke.”

“That box is a Nano-Regenerative Suite, isn’t it?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

She chuckles. “This might hurt.”

She yanks, and I scream, because nothing below my elbows remains unbroken. Then I hear a sound I never want to hear again; my running feet crunching and snapping, the carbon fiber tearing away. She pulls me over some dirt, then out into a near spotless room; the only thing keeping it from being ‘spotless’ is some dirt that’s spilled out the door of the big box she’s pulled me out of.

“Back in a moment.” She isn’t rough about setting me down, but she does it with a businesslike efficiency that still leaves me wincing as my hands and forearms hit the floor. Of course, I’m not that worried about them. I've heard all about the amazing things Samurai Tech can do in terms of healing, so I’m pretty sure I won’t need prosthetic arms to match my legs. From the back, Lab Jack It is nothing but her namesake, a white ankle length lab jacket, with bleached blonde hair pulled back into a braid. One thing to be said for the cold, the black gunk on my arms isn’t so much burning as tingling real bad.

A moment later she emerges from the thickening smoke in the Stasis Container, my Nano-whatever in one hand. She’s got a mask covering everything below her eyes, and safety glasses over those. She closes the door, turns to me, and says, “you want I should apply this now?”

“Please.” She leans over and presses the applicator looking thing into the crook of my left elbow; that arm looks more messed up, so I’m not confused as to why she picked that one. “Thanks.” Then the ‘regenerative’ part kicks in, and it’s not super painful, but it feels unpleasantly like things are moving around under my skin.

“Looks like the Model Four is just as advertised. What did you hit it with?”

“A hammer? I shot it a couple times from the inside with Tony’s pistol, too.”

She shakes her head. “No, I mean what chemicals did you douse it with?”

I shrug. “I had a coat of Johnson UV Protecc Sunblock SPF two hundred over a coat of Copper Body Sunscreen SPF one hundred.”

She looks at me, clearly horrified. “Weren’t both of those pulled from the market, like, over a decade ago?”

“Yeah. My mom managed to pick up a few fifty five gallon drums of each of them super cheap ‘cause of that.” She just stands there gaping, so I ask, “do you have someplace I can wash this shit off?”

“Yeah, c’mon.” She tows me back to an emergency shower, scrapes the worst of the gunk off into some sample dishes, then hoses me down. Of course my clothes take that opportunity to fall apart. I sigh. I really liked that running outfit.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Hey, Chyrl? I can buy stuff with points, right?”

You can.

“How many points do I have now?”

“Oh! Right! Wait just a second.” After a brief pause, Lab Jack It says, “Okay, five hundred fifty points transferred over to you. I suspect it’s gonna be a bust, what with two different non-biodegradable carcinogens in the mix, but a deal’s a deal. Oh, I’ve authorized my AI to let you buy stuff from my Catalogs so long as I’m in town.”

“Not just the Container Catalog?”

She shrugs. “Okay, any of my Class One catalogs, plus the Container one. It’s not like you’re going to break the planet or screw up the ecosystem worse than it is with Stasis Boxes.”

I nod. My hands have stopped tingling, so I reach down and detach my poor busted up running legs. “Can I buy something to fix these?”

With five hundred sixty points and access to Lab Jack It’s catalogs I’m sure we can buy you better.

“I don’t want better. I want these fixed. Or just replaced, if that’s cheaper. I’m not sentimental about them or anything.”

Lab Jack It interrupts. “If you replace them, can I have them?”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “I’ll examine them to see what, if anything, that black stuff did to them.”

I hand them over. “Sure. Chyrl? Replacements?”

You’re not a technophobe, are you?

“Nope. Just poor, and don’t see the point in buying something I don’t need.”

I get the impression of a long, drawn out sigh, then.

New Purchase: Class 0 Racing Prosthetics

Points reduced to... 555

A box settles to the ground next to me, this time with an image of a pair of old school running prosthetics. I pop open the box, and almost cry at how new they look. But I don’t have time to get sentimental. I pull my new feet from the box, attach them just like my old ones, then kip up to my feet.

“Limber, aren’t you?”

“I try to keep fit. Are we over by the floating museum?”

“About a block away. You might want to put something on, though.”

“Yeah, I was getting to that. Chyrl, I’m gonna need something with a little better coverage, unless you can get me some good sunblock?”

Another suppressed sigh. May I at least get something more durable than your previous cloth garments?

“Sure, go for it, just make it quick and drop it right on me, I’ve got places to be.”

How much may I spend on your new clothing?

I figure if my running legs only cost like five points, clothing couldn't cost too much. “Whatever, just make it quick, I'm cold and I'm in a hurry.”

New Purchase: Class I Omni-Protective Bodysuit

Points reduced to... 330

“Holy crap! What the hell did you…” Then the cloth settles over my skin. All of it except for the parts covered by my particulate mask with its integrated sunshades. It’s smoother than any fabric I’ve ever felt; the closest I can think of is the little microfiber cloth I use to polish up the parts of the cafeteria that can still polish.

“Chyrl?”

Yes, Jackie?

“What’s the return policy on Samurai gear?”

In a word? No.

“Please don’t waste points like that again. But thank you.” I turn to Lab Jack It. “I need to get going now. Thank you for helping me out of that thing, though!”

She shrugs. “De nada. Chyrl knows the way out, I need to start my analysis of this stuff, see if there’s anybody around who wants the corpse when I’m done with it.”

Following a path projected by my augs, I jog along a few corridors, then ride up an elevator that dumps me in sight of the old battleship on the waterfront. I take off at a run, and twenty minutes later, surprisingly unsweaty, I jog up the steps to the front door of the school.

DeJuan looks out through the wire mesh reinforced glass. A few seconds later he pops the door open. “Miss Jackie? Is that you?”

I step inside and slide my particulate mask up onto my head. “Yeah, it’s me. Is everybody okay?”

He shrugs. “The kids are getting a little rammy. Everybody wondered where you were.”

I jog down the hall toward the stairs. “There’s what, about thirty of them here now?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, the rest of the kids rolled in like an hour ago.”

“Why aren’t they in the shelters?”

“Why do you think?”

I sigh. “No food in their shelters, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got enough Füd… wait. Chyrl? Can I buy like, real food for points?”

You can…

“Give me a second then.” I make it into the caf, where sixty odd kids are sitting around in the light from the long windows at one end of the room.

They see me come in, recognize the loping gait of my running legs, and cheer. “Miss Jackie’s here! Lunchtime!”

“Everybody, please be patient! I’ll have lunch ready in just a minute, but I just got back from the waterfront!”

They’re good kids, but they don’t get any less rammy, and a couple of them start up a chant. “Lunchtime! Lunchtime! Lunchtime!” But they’re not fighting, or wrecking anything.

Just hungry.

I get back to the kitchen, although calling it that at this point is an insult to kitchens everywhere. One of the refrigerators works, and the grill would if we had any propane, but normally I just heat up Füd Bärs in an old industrial microwave I scavenged from a closed convenience store. “Okay, Chyrl. You see the folks out there, right?”

There are sixty one to sixty seven students, eight young men and women who from their armament and decoration are gang members, one elderly gentlemen, three middle aged women, and one drone who are seated at one of the tables. Does this match your roster? I can’t seem to find any evidence of a formal electronic roster at all.

“There isn’t one. Uh… sixty one students. The six real little ones are six older girl’s kids. How many points would it take to feed them all?”

All the students?

“Everybody in the room. It won’t add that much to feed twelve more, would it?”

Just a moment. The pause is so short I think I might have imagined it. There are many options, especially with access to Lab Jack It’s catalogs, but three of them stand out as optimized, depending on your preferences.

“Lemme hear ‘em.”

The most point-efficient method would be to purchase raw materials to make simple lunches. Nutrient paste and bread would be simplest, but depending on which of the appliances work, you can purchase almost any raw foodstuffs you can name. That would provide a nominally nutritious lunch for roughly one point per twenty individuals, or four points, with a little extra left over. If you do nothing but nutrient paste, I’m certain we could get enough for all seventy nine people for two points. The meal would be uninspiring, however.

“Still better than Füd Bärs.”

Indeed. The second option is to buy a simple Class I Nutrition Packet for each of them. They are nutritionally balanced and designed for use by Samurai in the field, so they might be a bit much, calorie wise, for the students. But they do come in a variety of flavors. Those would be one point each, or eighty points to feed everyone including yourself.

“And the third?”

Many of your students, as well as all of your staff members, show varying signs of malnutrition, not to mention various minor problems comorbid with malnutrition. If you purchase a Class I Experimental Medical Scanner for fifteen points, and… Another pause that I might have imagined. Your current augs will not be able to integrate with the Scanner. If you purchase a Class I Experimental Scientific Augmentation Package for another twenty five points, I can scan each person and, for three points each, produce a Class I Customized Restorative Meal for each person, specifically designed to eliminate their malnutrition and associated comorbid issues.

“That… sounds a little too good to be true. Also, why are those things listed as ‘Experimental’?”

They were designed by Lab Jack It herself. For what it’s worth, she used both for quite some time, although she has since upgraded to a much more advanced set of Augmentations designed to support her scientific inquiries. But on a point-for-point basis, you are unlikely to find a better set of augmentations for your purposes. As to the food, I assure you, it is exactly as I described. It is, however, the most expensive option, short of selling your points and hiring a Michelin rated chef.

“I’m not buying tires, I’m feeding kids. But… it’ll actually fix their food issues with just one meal?”

Not permanently, of course. But the meals will contain time-release minerals and vitamins enough to put them firmly on the road to recovery, as well as whatever minor medications or palliatives are required. I assume you feed these same children daily?

“Yeah, and the adults.”

So going forward we will simply need to supply them with balanced diets, and the issues should not recur. I feel the need to ask, though. Why?

“Why what? Why do I feed them? Hungry kids can’t learn. Ignorant kids won’t survive, let alone have a chance to make it out of here. If nobody survives or makes it out of here, nothing else matters. It all starts with keeping them fed.”

I see. Do I even need to ask which option you’ll be choosing?

“Gimme that scanner, the new augs, and you might as well set aside the points for the meals now, so they don’t get wasted on some stupid shit like the guns and knives I’m sure the gang guys are gonna ask me to pick up for them.”

New Purchase: Class I Experimental Scientific Augmentation Package

Points reduced to... 305

New Purchase: Class I Experimental Medical Scanner

Points reduced to... 290

New Purchase: Class I Custom Restorative Meal x80

Points reduced to... 50

A pair of boxes appear on the counter in front of me. Each one has a little embossed circle with a crossed pair of spatulas in the middle of it.

Just place the larger of the two discs on your right temple, then place the smaller on your left cheekbone.

Instructions that simple I can follow. I spend the next five minutes biting my lip trying not to holler about how weird and vaguely painful the process is, then I walk out to the old counters where I usually stack up the Füd Bärs sorted by ‘flavor’. “Okay, everybody! Line up, littlest to biggest, moms with kids first!”

Of course it takes a little bit of wrangling by every adult in the room, but before long they’re all lined up. The first kid, the shortest Mom, steps up with her own kid on her hip. “Hey Jazz. How’s Ernesto doing?”

“He’s fine. A little fussy. My mom says it’s colic? Whatever that is.”

Scan complete. Their Meals are on the shelf under the counter.

I reach under without looking and pull out two lunchbox sized boxes, both with that crossed spatula icon on them, and hand them over.

“Ernesto’s not on solid food yet?”

“Yeah, but you don’t make milk from nothing, Jazz.” She shrugs, takes both boxes, and walks back toward the long tables with their integrated benches.

Kid by kid I greet them, talk with them for a few seconds while Chyrl scans them, then hand over their lunches. After a minute I hear Jazz kinda squeal, and when I look over I see her feeding little Ernesto from a bottle that looks nicer than anything I’ve seen around here in a while. When she sees me looking she calls out, “Thank you!” then turns back to swap out that bottle for another one just like it.

“You sure he’s gonna be okay? I don't want him getting sick from overeating.”

Trust me, Jackie, I’ve taken that into account.

Fifteen minutes later, with the kids and adults all sitting there eating, I lean back against the old prep counter behind me.

There’s one more meal to be distributed.

I reach under the counter to find one more container. When I pop it open, it has a half dozen almost familiar shapes. “Really, Chyrl?”

Have you eaten anything but Füd Bärs in the past year?

I snort, picking up one of the oblong bars and sniffing at it. My nostrils flare as I fail to notice even the slightest bit of a Füd Bär’s normal faint naphthalene reek. I can’t help it, I bite into it, only to find that other than the basic shape? It has absolutely nothing in common with Füd Bärs. Not the taste, not the texture, not the smell, even the aftertaste is actually good. “Try the past, uh, twenty or so.”

Chyrl goes quiet, but I get the impression she isn’t real happy at the moment. “I’m sorry.”

For what?

“I guess I’m not much of a Samurai. Beating up that Model Four was just a fluke, a happy accident from too much awful sunblock.”

Don’t. Don’t be sorry. I’m not upset, not with you.

“Yeah, but I’m still not anybody’s idea of a Samurai. Cool Spatula logo or not.”

I’ll remind you, Samurai is a human term. Not a bad one, mind you, but our term, the Protector’s term, is, was, and will always be Vanguard. The ones who lead the way. There are plenty of Vanguards who do that with weapons. Even quite a few who do it from laboratories, like Lab Jack It. Some even do Search and Rescue, or other humanitarian or first response tasks.

“Yeah, I’m none of those things, either.”

No, no you’re not. But you said it yourself; no matter what anyone does? It all starts with keeping them fed. You ran back here ignoring any threat to your own safety just to feed these people. You spent the points you earned risking your own life to do so. And that, Jaqueline Vega, makes you Vanguard enough for me.