Chapter Thirty-Nine - I Want to Lick Your Eyeball

"Do not, under any circumstance, lick someone's eyeball.

We do not endorse any eyeball-licking memes."

--PSA from the Ophthalmologists Association of USTwo, 2041

***

I found Rac all geared up and waiting for me by the entrance. She was in her skin-tight armoured suit, but with a loose t-shirt and shorts atop it, as well as a beaten up old denim jacket. "I'm digging the mixed material look," I said.

"The what?" she asked.

"You know, fancy high tech undersuit, low tech grunge over it?" I asked.

Rac gave me a look, as if she was questioning my sanity which... alright, fair. Rac was one of those few who grew up in a situation shittier than my own, she deserved a break. "Do you mind if I come with you again? Or would you rather I stay here to work?"

"You mean with the printer?" I asked.

She nodded. "I loaded it this morning, and brought some prosthetics down to the clinic already. Miss See-Three took those I made this morning and the batch from last night too."

"You got two batches off since last night?" I asked. I was moderately impressed. "When did you even start?"

"This morning?" she said. "It's almost noon."

Oh, right. Some people woke up early. "You're a morning person, then?"

"No," she said. "I don't need much sleep."

We both stepped into the elevator while I chewed on that. "You know, you'll never grow big and tall if you don't get enough sleep, right?"

"Is that why you're tall? You sleep a lot?"

I poked her in the shoulder. "Rude. But probably not entirely inaccurate, to be honest. I'm an expert at napping."

The elevator stopped at the parking garage, and we stepped out and towards my bike which was parked nearby. We got on, took off, and soon were zipping across New Montreal heading north again. I was totally ready to bee-line straight to the Big Gun site when I got spooked by Myalis talking in my head.

There are several monitoring systems observing you.

"Oh, shit," I said. We were just out of the city limits, past the new walls. "Should I start evasive manoeuvres?"

No. There have always been a number of systems that have observed your flight. Most of these related to traffic control, or part of the New Montreal defensive grid--tracking system for the close-in weapons systems mounted on the walls.

"We're being aimed at?" I asked.

You always have. The tracking systems I've noticed now are new, and specifically tuned to notice your bike.

I gave my bike a bit more gas to move along faster. "If anything opens up on us, I want you to buy some decoy grenades, please."

Understood.

What should have been a nice, calming flight out of the city was a little more white-knuckled than I was used to, but nothing happened. No gunshots, no missiles ramming up my tailpipe, no surprise explosions.

"Can you trace who put those trackers out there?" I asked.

Certainly. I have already, though I'm afraid the trail goes cold rather rapidly. The devices were delivered to a few rooftops via hovercars. The cars are registered by--or have been recently used by--several freelance mercenaries. The devices are all commercial-use trackers with mostly default programming. There are a few avenues I can dig into some more, but most trails have been obscured from the start.

"Damn," I muttered.

"Is everything okay?" Rac asked from behind me.

"Yeah, it's fine," I called back. "Someone playing games is all."

Might I suggest taking a slight detour. You might not want to lead anyone investigating you right to the Big Gun project site.

Shit, that was a fine idea. I turned, driving instead towards Saint JEROME. It didn't take too long for us to get there, and it took less time once there for me to get a ride-along with a few engineers picking up some equipment from a drop-off in the city.

The news that I'd been tracked went over surprisingly well in the shared chat, and I found myself somewhat reassured when Grasshopper told me not to worry while I sat in the back of a cargo truck and rode out to the site, my bike strapped into the trailer so that I'd at least have a way home later.

When Rac and I arrived, a solid half hour later than I'd expected to, it was to find Princess and Knight waiting for us by the unloading area the engineers had set up.

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"Stray Cat!" Princess said. She was grinning ear-to-ear as I hopped out of the truck. "Good afternoon."

"Hey," I said. "How are you doing?" I scanned past Princess and Knight to the grounds. I was used to seeing things from above as I flew in, which was a good way of seeing how things were progressing, but even from ground-level I could tell that shit was getting done. The hole for the gun was now a very long trench and the mounds of dirt dug up to make that trench were now like several small mountains as well as a sort of natural wall of dirt along the perimeter of the site.

Princess walked right up to me and smiled even as she looked up into my eyes. "It's nice to see you again. And I'm doing alright," she said.

Yup, she was still creepy. "Cool cool," I said. "So, any news since I was last here? I mean, stuff that didn't make it onto the group chat?"

"Oh, uh, not too much? Did you see, I got to ride one of the tractors!"

"It was terrifying," Knight said.

"Were you with her?" I asked.

"I was, yeah," Princess' far more down-to-earth sister said. "Princess doesn't have a licence yet."

"Ah, right." I wasn't about to mention that I didn't have one either.

Princess clapped her hands. "Oh, right! We came to meet you because Grasshopper wants to talk. It's important."

"Oh, right, I'm supposed to buy some parts for the gun, right?"

"That too!" she said. "But no, it's mostly because of interference."

I felt my brows knitting together. "Interference?" I repeated. "Is some political fuckwit sticking their dick in our project or something? Because I have solutions for that kind of thing."

Princess giggled and shook her head. "Nope. It's from other samurai."

I blinked at that. "Wait, what?"

"You might want Grasshopper to explain it," she said. "She'll do a better job of it than I can."

"Basically," Knight said. "We're not the only ones trying to stop the end of the world. We're not the first either, and some others have called dibs on blowing up the moon."

I shook my head. Unbelievable. Princess and Knight escorted me across the site to where a few temporary buildings had gone up, replacing the tents serving as bunks. The mobile base was still parked there, and it looked like it was still in use, but there was also an honest-to-god bunker not too far from it.

It looked like the engineers had more cement or whatever than they knew what to do with, so they started setting up a full on base right here.

Actually, that... kind of made sense. The Big Gun was pretty damned permanently emplaced. From what I understood, a kilometre-long railgun was actually very delicate, and also huge. Huge and delicate didn't go together very well most of the time, so moving this thing was going to be impossible.

Still, it was kind of wild that it deserved the whole bunker and base treatment.

Grasshopper met me outside of the mobile base with a big smile and her arms spread out for a hug. I gave in, walking into her hug with a put-upon sigh.

I wouldn't ever let her or anyone else know, but I did secretly enjoy Grasshopper's hugs. The only problem was that I had an image to keep up, and being seen getting hugged and fussed over by Grasshopper wasn't great for that.

"Hello, Stray Cat," she said.

"Hey," I replied. "So, we're getting messed with by some samurai?"

She nodded. "Come on in, I'll tell you all about it."

"Alright. Who is it, anyway?"

"Who are they, rather," she corrected softly. "It's not one samurai, or even one organisation. At the moment there are three groups, including us, who have plans to take out Phobos within the next forty-eight hours. There are others who have their own plans in place, but they won't be ready for a little longer."

"So, it's us, two others, then a gaggle of other samurai who'll be tossing shit at the wall at the last minute?"

"I wouldn't use those terms, exactly, but you're essentially correct," she said. There was a globe hovering over the planning table, with three bright red dots on it. One of them was in eastern Canada, where we were. The other in... central Europe? And the last somewhere in Asia. "Let me show you what we're up against!"

***