I briefly locked eyes with Hel as I stepped into the Family’s briefing room. The last time I was here was right before heading to Seattle, and we both knew I really wasn’t thrilled to be back.
I glanced around the room, and recognized about half a dozen people within the crowd like Mirage and Zetta, so most of the crowd must have been samurai. Most of the people I didn’t recognize, which I guess spoke volumes about how little I socialized with the wider samurai community. Thankfully one of the people I recognized was Angeline, who was sitting on the far side of the room, so I made my way around the outside of the room and slipped into a seat beside her. Bob followed one step behind me until I took my seat, then he stepped over and put his back against the wall, scanning the area. I told him he didn’t have to constantly be on guard here, but the big guy took his job as my bodyguard seriously.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
Angeline glanced at me with blurry eyes. “Tired,” she muttered. “These assholes won’t stop fighting.”
“So I’ve heard,” I replied quietly. “Do you know what this is about? All I know is that Hel is fucking panicking, and wants all hands on deck.”
“Donno,” Angeline replied. “I’ve been busy trying to monitor what Helmar and Telnet are doing, and telling Mirage to fuck off. He still doesn’t seem to have grasped the idea that I’m not joining his little crusade.”
“I heard about the council shitshow, I’ve already repositioned the rest of my bears to compensate the best I can, but I don't have enough,” I told her.
Angeline’s half lidded eyes opened wide as she looked over at me. “You okay? The last time you moved that many bears didn’t turn out well,” she hissed.
“Don’t worry, I’ve had an upgrade,” I replied, tapping my brow lightly.
Angeline looked at me confused for a moment, then nodded. “Good.”
As the two of us made small talk several other samurai slipped into the room, until the room was almost completely full, and only then did Hel stand. “If I can have everyone’s attention please!” she said loudly.
It took a few seconds for the background conversations to die out, and all eyes to fall on Hel.
“Thank you,” Hel declared. Her voice was much quieter, but still echoed across the room. She stepped up to a lectern, and looked across the room. “The reason I called you all here is to discuss an issue which affects the entire city.” She paused for a moment, and took a deep breath before continuing. “Today, just a few minutes before noon, a company called Applied System Dynamics sent a declaration of war to the current city council members. They intend to perform a hostile takeover in order to gain control of the city’s industrial capabilities.”
The room was silent for a long moment, then exploded as dozens of people started yelling at the same time. The most prominent was Mirage, who was yelling something like ‘I knew it’, but I couldn’t make out anything clearly through the noise.
Hel slammed her fist down on the lectern, causing the wood to splinter. Half the room flinched, and the other half at least quieted down. “Now, I’m an outsider here, and I was appointed to try and settle the internal strife here, but this is something that threatens the safety and stability of the city, so I thought we should discuss it. In a civil manner,” she practically growled the last few words. I’m not sure if she discreetly used some of her tech, or it was just the tone of her voice, but it felt like the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
“Now… if you want to read the full declaration, it’s available on the net. I know some of you want to get directly involved in the conflict, I would recommend against it, but I cannot stop you. I WILL intervene if you attempt to coerce others into helping.” She slowly swept her gaze across the room, pausing momentarily as she looked at certain people, Mirage included.
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“Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, any questions?” she asked quietly.
The room erupted into noise again, but Hel just pointed at a fairly skinny kid who held up his hand. “Silent, go ahead.”
“Is this actually going to be a full blown war? Like I’ve heard of hostile corporate takeovers escalating, but I’ve never experienced a corporate war,” the boy said.
“It’s exceptionally rare, but they do happen. Most cities aren’t stupid enough to weaken their antithesis defenses in order to attempt to strike somewhere else, but if the corporations involved see a weakness they can take advantage of or are in desperate need of a particular resource, it can happen. Applied System Dynamics, and their allies, will be sending armed forces to storm the city and try and force the local corporations to capitulate by force,” Hel explained. “According to the declaration they’ll be attempting to keep collateral damage to a minimum.”
“And we just believe them?” I blurted out, earning a dirty look from Hel. “They want to take over, collateral damage would be detrimental to their long term plans. That being said, they’ll almost certainly bring heavy armor, so we can expect some. No more than an average incursion.”
Angeline put up her hand and was immediately selected by Hel. “What can those of us that don’t want to participate do to minimize damage?” she asked. I noticed she was wide awake now, guess that announcement gave her quite the shot of adrenaline.
Hel sighed. “I’m not an expert, I didn’t come here expecting a fucking war, but I’d say you can either stay away from the conflict, or try and evacuate the civilians from around corporate properties.”
“Should we expect other samurai to show up?” someone asked quietly from the back of the room.
“I don’t know,” Hel admitted. “But considering that we have a couple people willing to support the conflict, ASD probably does too.” She glanced over at Mirage, “So keep that in mind. Anything else?”
“For those that want to participate…” Mirage started, but Hel quickly cut him off.
“Can contact you directly,” Hel snapped. “I’d prefer if this didn’t devolve into a strategy session for just a small subset of our group. Discuss it after. Anyone else?”
“Do we know when they’ll arrive?” Nora asked. She was sitting at the back with Sharron, and I hadn’t seen the two arrive.
“No idea,” Hel admitted. “Satellite coverage hasn’t shown any activity, so I’ve asked Zetta to double check the feed. I’m guessing they wouldn’t have sent the declaration before they were ready, so I doubt it’ll be long now.”
A heavy silence fell over the room. I expected more questions, but I guess a lot of people were still trying to absorb the information.
“Since there are no other questions, you’re all dismissed. Those of you that don’t want to be involved just go about your days for now,” Hel declared. All around us people gathered into little groups, discussing the situation. Whoever was behind me kicked my chair so hard I almost fell out of it before Bob leaned forward to grab me.
“What a fucking gong show,” I hissed. “Why do these fucking idiots have to fight? We have enough problems as it is.”
“They must either think they can do it without compromising their own defenses, or plan to fight through before the council can react,” Angeline mumbled.
“They’re fucking stupid to try. As much as I hope that the council fights outside the walls, I know they’d hate to give up the defensive positions inside. This is going to turn into a total gongshow,” I growled.
I glanced over at Mirage, who was in a deep discussion with a couple of other samurai. It was only a small group, but considering they were all samurai the group still represented some significant firepower. Mirage must have sensed me looking, because he glanced over and shot me an angry look before going back to his conversation.
“Hope that idiot knows what he’s doing,” I muttered. “I don’t particularly like the guy, but I don’t exactly want him getting run over by a fucking tank.”
“This entire situation is fucking insane,” Angeline moaned. She slowly struggled to her feet then glanced in my direction. “I need some air, let's get out of here.”
I nodded, “Let's go.”