What are the samurai laws? Well my sister, who's a law professor, would tell you that they’re a series of amended laws that giving the samurai more freedom to act, and deal with the antithesis threats.
That’s drivel.
You want to know the truth? The fact is that the samurai are going to do whatever the fuck they want, so the government was just better off giving them a pass for ninety nine percent of it. It’s not like we could stop them anyways.
-Sgt McKensie Adams to her new partner
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“Is it really safe to take a civilian vehicle outside the city to track down a hive?” I asked as Skyler loaded her new drones into the trunk of her car.
{Arty: The only models that constitute any real threat to a flying vehicle are the Model Ones. Athyna and I are tracking the swarms on the real-time map, and it appears that most of them are keeping close to either the heart of the antithesis horde or major hive locations. None of them are even close to your target.}
“What about Elevens? They’re flyers, and from what I saw yesterday, they’d probably be able to swat our car right out of the air,” I said.
{Athy: Even though Elevens are airborne units, they’re not much of a threat against most flying units. They’re optimized to travel long distances, carrying smaller units to new locations, but they’re not especially fast until they dive. You should be able to easily avoid them.}
“And if we can’t, I’ll just pop the trunk and let Howie, Arty, and Morty take care of them!” Skyler declared as she slammed the trunk.
“Really?” I asked, turning towards her and raising an eyebrow. “You plan to just pop the trunk and let those three free if we get in trouble? You don’t see any issue with that?”
Skyler shook her head, so I stepped over and released the trunk latch again, causing the compartment to shoot open, and block our view of the windshield. “You have a mid-engine car, with the trunk in the front,” I explained. “How are you going to drive with the window blocked?”
“I have other drones, I’ll figure it out!” Skyler replied defensively as she slammed the trunk again. “Besides, you have a few points left over from the Tanaka sales office. If we do run into trouble, you and Arty can always panic buy something to save us.”
“I think you mean make a carefully thought out, and strategic purchase,” I quipped as Skyler and I separated, moving towards car doors.
{Arty: You shouldn’t need to do either of those things. Like Athyna mentioned, the skies are clear where we’re going.}
“And where exactly ARE we going?” Skyler asked as we slipped into her car and fastened our seatbelts. “This topographical map has a lot of detail, but it’s kind of hard to navigate by landmarks when you’re hundreds of feet in the air.”
{Athy: I’ll put a mark on both your car’s GPS.}
“Thank you, Athyna, that’s extremely helpful,” Skyler replied with a smile. She triggered the ignition, causing the car to roar to life, but didn’t take off immediately. “Should we inform your mother or Agnes where we’re going? So they don’t worry?” she asked.
I sighed. “I sent them a message earlier, while you were transferring Howie’s command protocols. They read it, but haven’t gotten back to me yet,” I said. “Aunt Yan told me they rushed off to the office the instant the lockdown ended this morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cascadian government placed a massive order of medical supplies or something, considering every city is now under siege. Synthesis Systems is the premiere supplier of medical supplies, synthetic blood, and replacement limbs, so they’ll probably be as busy as we will until things calm down.”
“Right… I kind of wish we were there to offer our support,” Skyler muttered.
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“I doubt they’ll need the head of the legal team, or internal affairs in the next few days,” I told her. “Mother will be fine. We need to concentrate on the problem at hand. The hive.” Skyler nodded and put the car into gear.
As soon as we shot out of the garage and got a good view of the city, I groaned. The lockdown had been lifted while we were inside, and the hoverlanes were already packed. Skyler just smirked at me. “We’re samurai, remember? And this is an emergency situation. Rules of the road no longer apply!” She turned us in a vaguely northwesterly direction and gunned the engine, sending us rocketing towards the city’s perimeter.
“I would have thought a lawyer would have taken longer to adapt to the fact that she didn’t have to follow the same laws as everyone else,” I joked as I was pressed back into my seat by the acceleration.
“Being a lawyer isn’t all about enforcing the law,” she replied, a large smile on her face. “It’s also about knowing how far you can push things before the law truly applies. I had to spend over six months reviewing samurai related law back in school, so trust me when I say the rules are extremely different for us now.”
“I noticed,” I muttered softly.
Since we didn’t have to take the regular traffic lanes, it only took us a couple of minutes to exit the city. While the immediate area around the city walls was clear-cut, to allow the city’s defenders to see and engage any antithesis that wandered into the area, beyond that was untamed wilderness.
I’d heard that some megacities went out of their way to clear any major pockets of biomass within dozens, or even hundreds, of kilometers of their walls to prevent the antithesis from gaining a foothold. Cascadia was different. Both the Cascadian government, and many samurai, not only actively protected the natural areas, but actively encouraged the replanting of forests that were lost while purging the antithesis.
When my mother found out, she went out of her way to talk to several different biotech-related samurai, like Groundwire, in order to gain access to new, slightly more antithesis-resistant tree species. She then created an entirely new department within Synthesis Systems, dedicated to supporting these replanting initiatives. It turns out that supporting both the samurai and the government in a smart, sustainable way could be very lucrative.
It was only when Skyler started slowing down that I was shaken out of my musing. I hadn’t really been paying attention to the trip, but we appeared to be approaching a small ravine between two mountains.
“Do you think the Rockies will help slow down the antithesis advance?” I asked idly.
{Arty: Vancouver is in an interesting position. The Coastal Mountains to the east of the city do provide a natural barrier, and the passes make natural choke points, making it much easier for a handful of samurai to defend against the horde that’s developing. However, the city IS on the coast, and it’s much more difficult to block aquatic models since they’re not limited to two-dimensional movement. You’re fortunate to have such a large contingent of aquatic-focused samurai within the city.}
“I hope we never need to help on that side,” I mumbled.
“Don’t say stuff like that!” Skyler hissed, her eyes still locked on the valley below. “You’re tempting fate when you do!”
I threw up my hands in mock surrender. “I just meant I’d be TERRIBLE in underwater combat,” I told her. “I can swim just fine, but have you ever tried to swing a stick or something underwater? It’s nearly impossible. The antithesis could probably just swim out of the way every time I tried to hit them.”
“Mhmm,” was all Skyler said. She was staring at a specific point below us, concentrating, so I leaned forward to take a look.
“Is this the place?” I asked. I couldn’t see anything that screamed hive to me, but then again the trees were so thick I could barely see the ground. There could have been an army of antithesis below, and I’d never be able to see it.
“It’s the point that Athyna marked, but I don’t see a place for us to set down,” Skyler admitted. “There aren’t any clearings in this area.”
I quickly pulled up the real-time map and zoomed into our current location. There were a couple of red dots hovering around our location, so the antithesis were down there, somewhere. “There’s a creek about five hundred meters to the south,” I reported after inspecting the map for a minute. “It’s not exactly close, but I don’t really see any other options.”
“Let’s take a look,” Skyler replied quietly. She turned the car that way and feathered the gas until we reached the creek.
“It’s narrow, but there is enough clearance to fit the car down there,” I said as I rolled down the window so I could take a better look at the area.
“I can’t park my car in the creek, though,” Skyler complained, as she strained her neck to get a look as well.
{Athy: If parking is an issue, then I can use your incursion protocols to take direct control of your car. Once you two leave the vehicle, I’ll raise it back above the tree line, out of reach of the antithesis, until you get back.}
“I don’t think we have much choice here, do we?” Skyler asked. “It’s either here or a several kilometer walk from further down the mountain.”
I stared at the creek for several seconds before finally pulling my head back into the vehicle. “It’s not great, but it’ll do. Let’s get down there and kill that hive.”