Chapter Sixty-Nine - Nice

“I’m proud to announce my re-election in the last emergency mayoral elections. New Montreal is facing a number of hardships, and I promise I’ll be there to address them as best I can. You have nothing to worry about while Dupont is here!”

--Mayor Dupont’s post-election speech, New Montreal, 2057

***

“Is this the last one? Please tell me this is the last one,” I said as I swiped to the side and looked at a new form. It was a small wall of text, without even little drawings to make sense of the corporatese and legal gobbledygook that filled the form from top to bottom.

“Cat, you’re barely doing any of the work yourself, don’t complain so much,” Lucy said.

Lucy, Franny and I were in Lucy’s office space, working through the tedious process of making sure nothing imploded the moment Lucy and I weren’t here watching over things.

Jennifer the sexbot was coming in and out periodically, carrying some actual paper documentation for Lucy to look over. She was also answering calls and filling out a constant stream of emails with auto-generated replies.

The transition was going to be... tricky.

Basically, Lucy was transferring power to a governing body composed of some dozen members that she thought wouldn’t fuck everything up immediately. The Kittens were still, nominally, under Lucy’s control, but if she wasn’t going to be right there sitting on top of it, then someone had to make the minute-to-minute choices.

I wasn’t sure if electing Jennifer as the leader was a fantastic idea or not, but Lucy seemed tickled by the idea, and I hadn’t come this far by telling her no.

In any case, the more forms I skimmed through, the more I was impressed by all the shit Lucy pulled. She had taken a bunch of volunteers, gave them a purpose, encouraged them to work together for their own interests, then somehow turned them into a passable fighting force with a generous hierarchy, decent pay, and enough momentum that I suspected that the Burlington branch of the Kittens wouldn’t be the only one.

“Did I ever tell you that you’re scary?” I murmured to Lucy.

She grinned, big and proud. “No, you haven’t. But I’ll take it.”

“I’m not sure about scary, but this is pretty impressive,” Franny said. She tossed a small tablet computer onto one of the desks. “When’d you find time to set all of this up while also doing... well, everything else?”

“Oh, I cheated,” Lucy said with a nod. “The trick isn’t just being good enough that you can do everything yourself. It’s finding people to do parts of it for you, then sweeping in and correcting them afterwards. There’s an entire out-of-work city’s worth of people to pick from, so I just had Myalis help me find people that were actually competent, then I asked them nicely to do the stuff they’re good at.”

“So, the same as asking the kittens back home to do different chores based on how old they are and how many limbs they have,” I said with a nod.

Franny looked between us, then shook her head. “We didn’t have the same sort of upbringing at all,” she said.

“Aren’t you an orphan too?” Lucy asked.

“No, actually. Still have parents. They’re corpo, some middle-upper sorts. They tossed me to the nunnery because you can get a kid raised there for relatively cheap, and there’s a lot of other ex-nun-raised girls who have gone on to do really well in business.”

“I don’t see the relation between being a good nun and being good at business,” I said.

Franny grinned. “The way the old nuns put it, it’s all about self-discipline and that kind of nonsense. I think it’s mostly that you learn how to be underhanded while looking earnest, but what do I know? I’m not exactly a shining example of what they want. Delilah, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of girl they try to produce.”

“She is a little uptight,” I said with a good natured grin.

Franny chuckled. “Yeah. Exactly. Now imagine her in one of those corpo outfits instead of looking like a nun, and you’ve got a complete picture.”

“I’m sure we’d all love to spend time thinking of Gomorrah in a pencil skirt,” Lucy said. “But we can do that later! We’re almost done here.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

I laughed, signed off on the final form without really reading it too well, then sat down on Lucy’s desk. “What’s next?”

Lucy looked around her office, then blinked a few times, eyes twitching in that telltale way that meant she was looking at screens I couldn’t see. “I think... that we’re pretty much done here,” Lucy said.

I felt myself tense up for a moment before it all kind of just... washed away. I wasn’t expecting it, but I supposed that for the last couple of days I’d been running on lots of stress. Now things were, more or less, over.

“Are we going to pick up Gomorrah?” I asked. “I imagine she’ll want to head home too?”

Franny perked up. “I sent her a message. She’s on her way back. But, ah. There’s only room for two in the Fury.”

“Well, I’m not going to get in between you and your girlfriend,” I said.

Franny’s cheeks warmed up so much they almost matched her orange hair. “It’s... we’re not... urgh. You’re too much like Lucy,” she said.

I shared a grin with Lucy. “So, she has a way home. What about us?”

“I don’t imagine taking a taxi is possible, is it?” Lucy asked.

I laughed. “I don’t think so. Besides, I don’t want to leave my giant warmech behind.”

For a couple of hundred points, you could buy the Mechanised Warfare Platform Flight Systems catalogue. Then bringing the Mechcatular Nyanzerfaust back to your home wouldn’t be as much of a challenge.

I glanced to the side, to make sure no one thought I was talking to them, directly. “And how exactly would that work out?”

I suppose it depends on what sort of flight system you purchase. I’d suggest foldable wings that can lock onto the side of the Mechcatular Nyanzerfaust with an engine pack for lift. With some slight VTOL abilities, landing the mech back at your home should be relatively easy.

“Yeah, yeah, we could do something like that. But then... Hey, Lucy, would you rather be stuck with me inside of a very tight cockpit, or would you rather ride on top of a giant warmech?”

Lucy stared at me for a moment, then her brows drew together as she actually thought about it. “How safe is riding the mech? And how much are we wearing inside that cockpit?”

“Well, I’d make sure you have a strap or something. Maybe a saddle? I don’t think there is much we can do to actually make it comfortable, honestly. It’s pretty wide at the shoulders, so it wouldn’t be like riding a horse or something. As for the cockpit.” I grinned. “I can wear as little as you want.”

“Right,” Franny said as she dropped some stuff off. “I’m heading out. Maybe we can have lunch or something one of these days. Lucy, thanks for the... advice earlier.” She cleared her throat, and I couldn’t help but notice the blush still clinging to her cheeks. “Have a safe ride back, you two. But like... take a car. Like normal people.”

“We’ll think about it,” I said. “Stay safe, Franny. And say hi to Gom for me.”

“Don’t forget what I told you, about the tongue,” Lucy added.

I turned towards Lucy while Franny made a quick exit. “What did you tell her?” I asked.

“I just gave her some friendly advice,” Lucy said. “Delilah and Franny are cute together, but they’re both really useless.”

I shrugged. “We weren’t always so good about stuff ourselves.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Lucy said. She wandered over, and very casually wrapped her arms around my waist and let her head fall onto my shoulder.

I hugged her back, artificial arm around the small of her back, my other hand slipping into the soft fluff of her hair to scratch at the back of her head. We didn’t talk for a couple of minutes, just hung onto each other. I didn’t know if Lucy was destressing, but it didn’t feel like it. This was more... hugging for the sake of hugging.

“You did well,” Lucy said.

I tensed up for a moment, and Lucy hugged me harder in response, so I just melted into it more. “Thanks,” I said. “I think I could have done better.”

“Next time,” she murmured. “There’s always going to be another fire. You know how it is, Cat.”

“Same as it ever was,” I complained. Then I pressed a kiss into Lucy’s forehead, and I felt like even if all I ever did was run around and try to stamp out problems, maybe that wasn’t so bad if I had something to return to.

***