Chapter Forty-Three - Finders, Not Keepers

"Note to self: Don't fuck with Rac's weird catgirl friend."

--Jerusalem "Spider" Smith, personal notes, 2057

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I found Gomorrah chatting with not one, but three Family people. One of them was wielding a clipboard, the other two looked like they were a step ahead of the average PMC. Good gear, very sleek armour, slightly rounded and pitch black. It looked like they were custom fits too, or damned near to that. The kind of stuff that no real army would buy because they'd need a million different sizes to outfit a battalion.

Their helmeted heads turned my way as I came over, and I made a conscious effort not to be intimidated even a little.

Their gear looked pretty tight. There was definitely a samurai providing this shit, and I wasn't sure where my own gear sat in terms of quality.

Then again, I had a large mech standing nearby, so fuck them and their little armoured suits. "Hey," I said as I came up. "Good news, no news, news that's not so good?"

Gomorrah let out a breath. "Something like that," she said. "This is Officer Kennedy." She gestured to the lightly-armoured guy with the clipboard.

"Ma'am," he replied with a nod. "We were just going over the assessment with Samurai Gomorrah. Do you want us to start over?"

"Just give me the quick notes," I said.

He nodded, then glanced at the tablet he held. "We've secured the area around the disassembly factory. No explosives found. No traps. The area within is still filled with unbreathable air, but that is an incidental matter and only a complication, not a method to prevent ingress."

"Uh-huh," I said. "Did you find a way to clear it out?"

"We're opting not to," he said. "We have a team coming in with PPE suitable for the task."

Gomorrah nodded along. "The plan right now is to check what they have, catalogue everything."

"And then what?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Leave it to the Family?"

I frowned. They couldn't see it, but I think everyone caught on to the fact that I was hesitating.

This whole thing was a new sort of fucky. The gear in there was stolen, yeah, and now we've taken it out of the hands of the people who'd stolen it, but that didn't mean it was returned to its owners.

If someone jacked something that belonged to me, and then I discovered that the cops had caught on to them, I'd be pretty pleased about it. But if I didn't get my shit back, then I was basically no better off than if they hadn't caught the thief.

"What are you guys going to do with all the stuff in there?" I asked.

"We're going to move it to a more secure facility, for starters," Kennedy said. "I don't know what will happen to the materials past that."

"Mhm," I said. I raised a finger in a 'one moment' gesture, then popped open a text chat for Myalis. 'What will they do with it?'

Historically, the Family has made most of its fortune from the selling of blueprints and Vanguard equipment onto the open and grey market.

Right, figured. "So, priority number one right now is figuring out which samurai all those things belong to," I said. "Then we call them up."

Kennedy froze for a moment. "Our orders are to move the items to a secure location first, for cataloguing and safety."

I shook my head. "There's got to be a record, right? Something that'll let you know where everything is from?"

"There is a small server here. Its only connection is to a private network, the same one used to operate the machinery within the facility," Kennedy said. He tapped his tablet a few times. "It has dates and times, item descriptions, but nothing on which samurai each item belongs to."

"It can't be that hard to back-track," I said. "Myalis said that everything she makes has a sort of serial thing on it. Atyacus does the same?"

Gomorrah paused, as if listening to something, then nodded. "He says so, yes."

"Great. So everything is tagged. We'll be able to know who it belongs to."

I think I see where you're going with this. You won't be making many friends in the Family, but I do find it incredibly entertaining. Do go on.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"I'm sure if you can't find the tags, Gom or I can give you something to check them out. Like a fancy barcode scanner or something?" I nodded, liking the idea. "Then we just need to contact each samurai, tell them that their shit's right here for pickup."

"I... see," Kennedy said. I think he also saw how giving this stuff right back to its owner would mean that the Family wouldn't be profiting from it.

Well, not profiting as much from it. Most of the things in there looked like discarded junk to me. If someone called me up to tell me they'd found a magazine I dropped a week ago, I'd tell them to keep it. It was the big-ticket items that were more interesting.

"I'm sure we can arrange that," Kennedy said. It didn't sound like he wanted to, but I was pretty sure he'd do it.

"Hey, don't worry. Some of those samurai will be dead, and maybe their next-of-kin or whatever will let you keep the shit in there. Or you could break a deal with them for hard cash or something."

"I'll let HQ know," he said.

In all likelihood most of the items here were discarded weeks prior. The Vanguard to whom they belong will have moved on. There's also the possibility that they've perished, or that some of the items belong to Vanguard who are off-world at the moment. The Family will still profit from this venture.

Yeah, figures. I'd just cut into their bottom line a little, but I hadn't cut it apart. They'd make their credits here.

I let the conversation stretch into silence as I watched the Family's soldiers move.

I didn't think the Family was bad. They had their own best interests as their first priority, but otherwise they were working to make things better, to help. I couldn't exactly dislike that. But at the same time, that didn't mean I wouldn't be at least a little suspicious of them.

"Right," I said at last, cutting into the silence. "I think that's it for me here. I'm going to need to get my mech back home, which isn't going to be the easiest thing to do. I'll leave you guys to your work?"

"We'd appreciate that, ma'am," Kennedy said with a serious nod. "We'll keep you informed. HQ should be sending a link to an updatable file structure. If you want, we can have any goods that are marked as yours shipped to your residence?"

"That would actually be nice, yeah. Those prosthetics they stole were supposed to go to people that needed them. I guess if they're disassembled... well, maybe they'll be good for parts?"

I had no idea, but maybe See-Three would know better. I expected that having a heap of spare parts for the prosthetics we were making wouldn't hurt.

Speaking of spare parts... I glanced at my mech and sighed. Yeah, I was gonna need to get back to work. There were a lot of repairs left.

"I think I'll be heading back as well," Gomorrah said. "Keep me informed as well. Atyacus can take your messages. Cat, do you need help moving your mech again?"

"I'd appreciate it," I said.

Getting the mech here had been... tricky. It was fast, on the ground, but this was halfway across the damned city. So to get the mech here, I'd ridden it on top of the Fury. The articulated paws were able to get a good grip, and Gomorrah was able to fly her car well enough to keep it stable throughout.

It had still been... harrowing.

I was only pretty sure that I'd survive a fall.

"This was... interesting," Gomorrah said as she walked up next to me. She glanced around the tunnel. "Is this the kind of stuff you've been up to, lately? Shooting politicians and getting into arguments with the Family?"

"More or less, yeah," I said. "Is it weird that I almost miss fighting the aliens that want to eat me?"

"No, not at all. They don't have politics. Unless 'eating you' is political?"

"In some places," I said with a laugh. "Maybe. But yeah. It's simpler. See the alien, shoot the alien. Easy. This shit is all about competing interests and figuring out who wants to screw with me the most. It's a pain in the ass to deal with."

"I don't know. You've been handling it well enough. And the aliens are always there if you want to end your vacation early."

I hummed. "I'll think about it. I do think that this vacation of mine is coming to a middle."

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