Chapter Thirty - Grasshopper's Guide to Discreet Destruction

"I need to justify changing my name? Your honour, my name is Al. A and L. Do you have any idea how often people call me AI? It's insulting!"

--Al Bert, courtroom hearing, 2026

***

"So, what do you need from me?" I asked. Grasshopper had led us down and into a parking garage that I wasn't aware of, but wasn't surprised to discover in the lower floors of the building the Family was located in. The employees had to park somewhere and Grasshopper didn't strike me as the sort to shove her car in the Samurai-only slots.

Mostly because her car...

I eyed it for a moment, not sure what to say, really.

It was kind of what I expected, without ever really realising that it was exactly what I expected, if that made any sense.

Grasshopper drove a little beige hover car. It was ten, maybe twelve years old, and looked like it was decently well-worn, but clean. There were bumper stickers slapped onto the back. I'm a teacher, what's your superpower? It wasn't even a fancy brand, just... run of the mill.

"Hmm," Grasshopper said as she rubbed her chin. "Can you secure a location? You mentioned something like that earlier."

"Yeah, sure," I said. "I can get..." I paused as Grasshopper raised a hand.

"Sorry. But not here. Ask your Ai... Myalis, was it? Yes, ask them to contact mine. We can send notes back and forth that way. It's far more private."

"Is privacy going to be that big of a concern?" Sam-O-Ray asked.

"Oh yes," Grasshopper said. "We'll be stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Now, I believe that we're all responsible adults who can be trusted with nuclear devices, but I do worry about just leaving them laying around and letting just anyone know. It's like having a gun locker at home. It's safer to have things stored properly, and it's even safer if no one knows where the locker is to begin with."

"Right, that's perfectly sensible," I said. "In any case, yeah, I can think of a few locations. And if we need people, I might be able to wrangle something up. It won't be professional."

"Loyal is more valuable than professional sometimes," Grasshopper said, then she froze. "Then again, I do feel like I need to stress about the presence of weapons of mass destruction and how we'll need both professional and loyal?"

"Yeah, got it," I said. "I'll clear something out and get into contact with you in a couple of hours. You're in charge of this."

I was putting my foot down. Helping I could do, but fuck me if I was going to be put in charge of yet another big project. I didn't have time for that, or the inclination. Besides, now seemed like as good a time as any to nix the idea of me being in charge.

"Okay," Grasshopper said. "It's a responsibility I'll take seriously. Now, I have to go. I teach senior literacy classes in an hour. Toodles!" She bent all of her extra arms in, then tucked herself into the driver's seat of her little hover car. It was too small for a woman as tall as she was, and she looked squished in there.

"Why... why doesn't she have a better car?" Rac asked.

"I guess that one still works?" Sam-O-Ray said with a shrug. "I don't know. Maybe it's good on gas?"

I stared at him, then at the car. It was electric. "Well, whatever. What are you gonna do?"

"Ah, well, I guess I can help where I can? You said you had a spot, yeah? Let me go check it out, maybe? I've got nothing better to do at the minute so I wouldn't mind running security for a shift. I can scope the spot out, make sure no villain-sorts show up early."

"That... might actually be a fantastic idea," I said. "Good call. And speaking of calls. Rac, distract Sam-O-Ray for a bit while we head back up. Sam-O... wait, do you have a ride?"

"Yes," he said.

"Is it older than me?" Rac asked.

He grinned. "Nah, little sister. I splurged a little. A man ought to have a nice car, I think. It's up by the roof."

"Cool, let's head that way. I have a couple of calls to make," I said. And then I placed the first of those calls. Fortunately, it was picked up almost immediately. Unfortunately, the person on the other end was breathing hard and trying not to show it. "Delilah?" I asked.

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"Catherine?"

"Is this... a bad time?"

"I'm at the gym, so it's fine."

"Oh... yeah, okay, sure, call it whatever you want. Say hi to Franny. Call me when you're done." I hung up.

And then it rang in my head, an incoming call from Gomorrah.

"Hello!" I answered.

"I wasn't... we weren't... god give me patience. What do you want, Catherine?"

"I can't tell you because of unfriendly ears, but I can text you... this." I opened our private text and sent her a message.

"'We're going to nuke the moon?'" she read. "Cat, what?"

"It'll be fantastic," I said. "But also, we need to secure a location for the big gun."

"Big gun?"

"And I need like, twenty minutes to explain Grasshopper's plan."

"Grasshopper is involved in this?" She paused for a few long seconds. "Honestly, that's the first bit of good news in all of this."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said.

She chuckled. "It's of no confidence, actually." Did they not teach her sarcasm at nun school? "Come over to the gym, I'll send Myalis the coordinates."

"Thanks," I said before we hung up. So, I had an idea of where I was going, then. Did Gomorrah not have a home gym? Or was that just something she hadn't gotten around to yet? If so, that was totally fair. "We're going to meet a friend at the gym," I said.

"Which one? There's probably a few thousand in the city," Sam-O-Ray said, which was probably a bit of an understatement now that I thought about it.

"Well, we sure are going to one of them. We'll figure things out from there."

The ride up was nice and quick, the elevators actually had a 'samurai mode' which mostly meant that it moved a bit faster and didn't stop on every floor along the way to pick up normal folk. I had to wonder if this was a normal feature for the rich-rich sorts.

And then we were out and onto the roof again. Rac and I moved towards my bike while Sam-O-Ray walked over to a large truck. It had big wheels and a bigger suspension, and of course needed neither because it could fly. Still looked sleek, though. I wasn't sure if it was alien tech or just a nice ride, actually.

Myalis helpfully punched in the coordinates to the gym in my augs navigation thing before I took off, then she sent the info out to Sam-O-Ray for me. I linked up with him on a quick call so we could talk while in the air. "I'd send you directly to the site I was thinking of," I said. "But I don't know if it's acceptable yet. This is kind of moving fast. Gomorrah will know better, I think."

"The fire lady, right?" Sam-O-Ray asked. "She's pretty popular."

"Yeah. She's always ranked ahead of me on that kind of thing. If I cared then I'd be a little upset."

I spun my bike around and headed out, punching through some traffic and then riding across the city in a very illegal straight line. Sam-O-Ray kept up well enough, his big truck didn't accelerate quite as fast, but it did commande a lot more space in the air.

As it turned out, the gym Delilah was using was four blocks over from home. I supposed she'd looked for something close by. It was just on the other side of the split between the section of the city cordoned off after that last incursion a few weeks ago, so it had probably never closed its doors for that.

The gym itself wasn't a whole building, of course. It was on the sixty-first floor of an otherwise unremarkable residential mega complex. The nicer upper middle-class sort, with apartments that had like, three to five rooms each and a window to the outside.

We parked, got out, rode another elevator up (this time without the Samurai cheat, so we were stopped every other floor and had to share with some people who were very keen to stare at us) and eventually we made it to the gym.

The gym was some fancy looking corporate-sleek place. Security scanners around the doors, a big mandatory dress code on a laminated plaque next to a list of prices and membership types that would need a flowchart to be untangled.

There was a large sign that said No Guns in Gym Area which I promptly ignored. "Well, shit," I muttered. She really had been working out. It was a little disappointing to learn, actually.

***