Chapter One - Bliss

“There are seventeen megacities in North America. Cities so grand, so huge, that they’re impossible to map fully, with populations in the hundreds of millions, and with enough drama and waste produced in them every hour to drown anyone that goes looking for it.

There’s not a minute that passes where something terrible, and something just as magical, doesn’t happen.

Keep your eyes open, or you’ll miss out on all the fun.”

--Three Swipes, 2037

***

“And then what?” Lucy asked.

She was tucked into my side, head heavy against my shoulder.

I had been enjoying that wonderful sensation of bare skin against bare skin, but then my arm fell asleep and all I could feel were tingles when Lucy played with my fingers.

My lips were also tingling, but in an entirely different, far more amusing way.

“Well, then I triggered the bombs. All of them at once. It was kinda cool. The whole tunnel caught on fire.”

She shifted a little, head tilting back to stare at me. “The tunnel you were in?”

“Well, uh, technically?”

“Did you do any research at all about the explosive you were using?” she asked. “Because I’ve just googled it, and that stuff is supposed to be dangerous.”

“It was. But mostly for the aliens.”

Lucy huffed. “Catherine,” she said. She never used my full name like that unless she was on the wrong side of miffed.

“What?”

“You’re... you’re a bit of an idiot.”

“Hey!” I said. I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m not an idiot. I’m, uh, inexperienced.”

“You’re going to blow yourself up,” Lucy said as she shifted, turning onto her side and wrapping an arm across my chest so that her face was resting just below mine. “You know, I can’t use you to satisfy my incredible lusts if you’re dead. I’ll have to settle for that nun friend of yours, and she looks all prudish.”

I snorted. “I’d pay to see that. I think Gomorrah would just faint at the first sight of a bare leg.”

“I don’t want you dying, so that means you need to jam some smarts into that thick skull of yours.”

“Like some sort of education program?” I asked. “I think Myalis has something like that.”

“I was thinking more... school,” Lucy said.

“School.”

“Yes! I told you I want to go to some fancy school, get all educated and all that. That way I can get a fancy job and be rich.” She rose up, getting excited by the idea. Her leg dragged up mine and distracted me for a moment.

“Lucy, we’re already rich... rich-ish,” I said.

She flopped back down. “Boo! You’re no fun. You just want me as some sort of trophy wife.”

I laughed. “That would be hilarious. Can you imagine yourself meeting some fancy CEO types and trying to snob it up?”

She giggled. “Bet I could manage better than you. You’d just punch someone.”

“Hey! The rumours about my violent nature are heavily exaggerated.” I leaned down and buried my nose in her hair, then just relaxed there for a moment. “Do you really want to go to some fancy school?”

“Only if you come with me.”

“I have samurai stuff to do,” I said.

She snorted. “Oh yes, because the poor teachers will be so eager to scold you when you leave to save the planet for an afternoon.”

I considered it for a while. “Alright.” If it made Lucy happy. And... yeah, I was a bit of a dumbass sometimes. So more thinking couldn’t hurt any. “But only if it’s one of those schools with a fancy uniform. With, like, skirts.”

“You hate skirts,” she said.

“I’m not going to be the one wearing the uniform.”

Lucy laughed. “But what if we want to do some role-- what is it?”

I frowned up at the ceiling as the augs in my eyes went off. I had an incoming call, and somehow it was marked urgent. With Myalis around, I figured this wasn’t some telemarketer calling me about the urgent need to ensure my nonexistent car with their extended warranty.

Gomorrah’s name hovered over the call’s number. “Gomorrah?” I asked aloud as I answered.

Lucy perked up, then glanced to the side where a fancy digital clock was reading the time as... a bit past midnight. If Lucy hadn’t been keeping me up with fun, I would have been long asleep already.

“Cat?” Gomorrah replied, turning it into a question.

“What’s up?” I asked. My arm finally freed from Lucy’s weight, I started to run my fingers through Lucy’s hair, scratching at her scalp in a way that had her falling back down onto me like a big bony cat.

I heard Gomorrah breathe, then pause. I had the impression she was rubbing her face. “This is... are you awake?”

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“I mean, I don’t want to... screw it. I need help?”

“You turned that into a question,” I pointed out. Bending down, I gave Lucy a kiss on the head, then started to squirm my way to the edge of the bed. There was a lot of bed to squirm across. “Okay, what’s up?”

“This is embarrassing,” Gomorrah said.

“You just interrupted my post-coital bliss; trust me, the last thing I’m worried about is how embarrassed you are. What happened? Did someone fail to convert to whatever you’re preaching? Did you stumble into atheism? Start a cult by accident?”

“Cat,” she said.

I sobered up. “Alright. Tell me about it.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Do you need my emotional help or, like, my physical help? Do you want Lucy instead? She’s better at feelings and shit.” I fell back, legs over the edge, and landed with my head on Lucy’s stomach. She coughed, then wiggled herself to be more comfortable and started to play with my mechanical ears.

“I think physical? Or maybe I just need advice. My friend’s in trouble.”

“What sort?” I asked.

“She... she has a habit of sneaking out of the convent and picking fights with troublesome people. Drug dealers near schools, pimps that try to recruit in the wrong places. She takes the whole ‘fear of God’ thing into her own hands.”

“Sounds like a great person,” I said. I’d heard of vigilantes and the like before. They were nearly always vilified by the corps and the news--unless some corp was trying to look hip by siding with the ‘rebels’--and what they did varied, but usually beating up the worst sort of people and blowing up the homes of some bureaucrats was to be applauded.

Gomorrah shifted on the other side. “She left sometime today. Didn’t tell any of the sisters where she was going, and Atyacus can’t track her. Her augs are offline.”

I sat up straighter. “Oh. You’re going around looking for her?” I asked.

“That’s what I was doing,” she said, obviously frustrated. “She’s not at any of the places she usually hides in. None of her friends know, at least those I was able to get in contact with. Well, they said they didn’t know. I scared one of them into spilling the beans.”

“What’s she doing?”

“She’s attacking a gang, a bunch of idiots that call themselves the Sewer Dragons. They’re based in the lower levels, usually just a bunch of jumped-up nobodies, but they started kidnapping people around the edges of the incursion zone. I think they took someone Franny knew.”

“Okay, wait. Two things. First, Sewer Dragons? Really?”

“They live in the sewers. It’s not as stupid as it sounds.”

I snorted. “Sounds terrifically stupid to me. Okay, second, Franny?”

“That’s her name,” Gomorrah confirmed.

I had a mental image of a sixty-something woman with a crop and attitude.

I shook my head and got up, then started looking for some clothes. “So you need my help?”

“I can find her,” she said with conviction. “I just don’t know if I can find her before she gets herself killed. And I’m tired; I’ve been at it ever since Black Bear.”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” I said. “I’m on my way, okay? We’ll find your... whatever she is to you, and then you can scold her or whatever it is you nuns do behind closed doors. Quick in and out, it won’t take more than twenty minutes.”

“Thank you. I’ll have Atyacus send Myalis my geo-location. Text me if you get lost. It’s a mess down here.”

“Alright.”

The line went dead, and I sighed as I bent over double, picked my pants off the floor, then tossed them to the side. They were nasty.

“Heading out already?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah. Gomorrah’s... Franny, whoever that is, is in trouble, and she needs help saving her. I... sorry?”

Lucy rolled around on the bed until she was facing me. She also pulled some covers around, turning herself into a cocoon with just her head poking out. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not some bitch that’ll whine when her girlfriend needs to go save the world again.”

“Not the world, just some girl.”

“Oh, in that case, I’m going to bitch endlessly,” she said.

“Alright, now help me find something to wear.”

“We’re buying clothes?!” Lucy asked. She was suddenly out of bed. “Myalis! We’re buying shit, come on!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered, then I laughed as Lucy grabbed onto me and we both went crashing back onto the bed.

It was going to be hard getting to Gomorrah in anything like a hurry.

***