Most people believe that samurai can fix anything with a snap of their fingers. This is certainly not true. Although we can do more than the average person, we are still heavily restricted. We need the right catalogs unlocked, and the points to make the purchases. Sure I can whip up a gun at a moment’s notice, but building a city from scratch? Or supplying the entire military with weapons? I only have so many points to go around.

- Adrien ‘Big Hope’ Tenison’s interview in ‘Samurai Today’

—-

It only took a couple of minutes to reach the city limits again, and once we did, Skyler turned towards the commercial harbor. Unlike most megacorps, Synthesis Systems didn’t have its headquarters in the business district, but instead my mother had built a massive harbourside complex. Research and development, manufacturing, and even a surgical hospital, all within a few hundred meters of the main office. It even had onsite restaurants and dorms for employees during lockdown periods.

The complex had a separate secure parking structure for employees, where Skyler and I usually parked, but since we were visiting my mother today, we went straight to the executive parking area. Unlike Elysian Heights, which was opulent on the outside, the Synthesis Systems building was designed to be a lot more utilitarian. It didn’t stand out much from the surrounding area. It was a lot of matte grey metal and heavily tinted windows.

What it lacked in design, it made up for in function. The entire compound could be locked down within seconds, providing the employees with extra time to get to the shelters during an incursion or locking hostile spies and saboteurs into an area. In the years since I became head of investigations, I’d seen the first function used once and the second function used several dozen times.

We circled the building once before pulling into the garage, one floor below my mother’s office. “Do you have any idea what this is about?” Skyler asked as we stepped out of her car.

“No, I knew that my mother had some dealings with a couple samurai, but I didn’t know she was running joint projects with them,” I replied. “She usually informs us about all the confidential projects. I wonder why she didn’t tell us about this one?”

“Government confidentiality? The samurai asked her not to? Who knows? I’m guessing your mom would have told us if she could have,” Skyler said as we stepped into the elevator. I tapped my palm against the identity scanner, then hit the button for my mother’s office.

The elevator opened up right into the waiting room outside my mother’s office. It was a tastefully designed area with real wood paneling, million-dollar furniture, and real coffee beans freshly roasted. My mother didn’t actually care about any of that, but it was just the sort of thing that the CEOs and high-class clientele she met with expected.

Agnes was standing behind her desk, across from the waiting area, arranging a few things on a serving tray when we arrived. As soon as she noticed us, she picked up the tray and stepped towards my mother’s office. “Your mother is expecting you, this way, please,” she said politely.

She stepped over to the impressive double wood doors, knocked politely once, then pushed one open so we could enter. My mother’s office was like her condo, modern and tasteful. There were a couple displays containing some of the most recent innovations the company had come up with, but otherwise there wasn’t a lot of clutter.

My mother shot out of her chair the instant she saw us. “My babies! I’m so glad to see you.”

I caught my mother in a soft embrace, then waited until she hugged Skyler before asking the question we were both itching to know. “Mother, what’s going on?” I finally asked when they separated. “How long have you been involved in a project with Velvet Aurora?”

My mother’s smile fell slightly, and she glanced over at Agnes. The other woman nodded once, placed the tray she was carrying on a nearby coffee table, and quickly left the room, closing the doors behind her.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

It was only after Agnes left that my mother finally let her exhaustion show, as she slid into one of the lounge chairs set up by the window. “Quite a while actually, ever since I met Groundwire. You remember that nice little fox girl? Anyways, with her help, I engineered a new strain of antithesis-resistant tree. Turns out there’s not much that the antithesis can’t adapt to, so what we ended up doing is creating extremely dense and tough trees. I’ve been told the antithesis take over ten times longer to harvest them.” She sighed. “Anyways, after I started providing these new trees to the government for their ecological renewal project, I was approached by a small group of samurai who wanted to hire me to help them with a brand new project.”

“And you accepted?” Skyler asked.

“Of course, dear,” my mother said. “It’s not every day that a samurai comes to ask for your expertise, never mind an entire group.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about this project?” I asked.

“Because they asked me not to. Well that, and they had high-level government backing. I had to sign so many NDAs it made my head spin.” She sighed, leaned forward, and grabbed a chocolate from the nearby tray and popped it into her mouth before leaning back and savoring the treat.

“So what changed? Why bring us in now?” Skyler asked.

“Well, you’re samurai, and it’s a samurai project. Apparently that trumps the NDAs. That, and Velvet seems to think highly of you,” she smiled. “You make me so proud!”

I rolled my eyes. “And what IS this project exactly?” I asked.

My mother leaned forward, excitement in her eyes. “It’s to create a facility to clone and grow a new breed of bush until they’re ready to be planted in the wild!” she explained excitedly.

“Couldn’t the samurai do that on their own?” I asked. “Or, you know, just buy more mature sprouts.”

“Oh, Reina, my dear, we’re not talking about a couple dozen of these trees. We’re talking about millions and millions of saplings,” my mother said. “I may not know much about the samurai, but even I can see how that would be extremely expensive to implement.” She took another piece of chocolate, popped it into her mouth, and chewed for a moment before continuing. “The bushes are fascinating too. They have interlocking roots, and when one is attacked it can send out a danger signal through the network.”

“Which I’m guessing the samurai can detect,” Skyler said, understanding the situation before I did.

My mother nodded. “Can you imagine? Millions of hectares of vegetation, and the instant the antithesis landed, and tried to harvest something, the local samurai were alerted? Do you know how much of our forests we could have saved if this tree had been developed ten or twenty years ago?” she said excitedly.

I gently patted my mother’s hand, trying to get her to calm down. I wasn’t even close to the environmentalist that she was, but I did appreciate exactly what she was trying to do. “So what’s going on? What do you need us for?” I asked quietly.

“The main facility is about fifty kilometers from here, just up the coast. There have already been reports of antithesis in the area, and if they get in and start devouring the saplings or destroying the equipment, it might take years for the project to recover!” my mother exclaimed. “I asked for assistance from both the government and the other samurai but I was told both the city and major disaster zones were a higher priority. That’s when Velvet suggested sending you two to deal with the situation. She said it should be difficult but achievable for a couple of rookie samurai to deal with.”

I grabbed my mother’s hands. “It’s fine. Skyler and I both understand how important your projects are, and if Velvet Aurora personally recommended us for this job, then it’s something we can definitely look into,” I told her, trying to calm her down.

Skyler nodded. “It may be a low priority for the more experienced samurai, but it sounds perfect for the two of us. We can head down there, secure the location, then be back before the first wave of antithesis hits the walls.”

My mother wiped a tear away and cupped both my and Skyler’s cheeks. “Thank you, girls, I knew I could count on you.” As she dropped her hands, I could see the worry drain from her face. She stared at us both, smiling for a few more seconds before clapping her hands. “Now! Who wants a cup of tea? If not, you should at least have some of this chocolate. Moray bought some of my hydroponics beds and cloned cacao beans a couple of years ago and now makes the best natural chocolate on the west coast. I know I shouldn’t eat as much as I do, but it’s so lovely!”

I chuckled softly. I was glad that we could pull my mother out of her funk, and if Skyler and I could help her while also fighting the antithesis, it seemed like a no-brainer.

As my mother prattled on about all the people she met over the year, I reached forward and took one of the chocolates and popped it into my mouth, causing it to melt immediately. She was right, heavenly.