Chapter Thirty-Five - Void Terminus

“We do what we can. Most of us are hard workers, and you’d be hard pressed to find a samurai that wouldn’t do some horrible things to keep people safe. It’s not just about killing aliens; it’s about trying to make the world we live in a better place.

Some days it feels like we’re swimming against the current to achieve anything, but on some days things work out.

This isn’t the nicest world we live in, but damn it, it’s ours too.”

--Good Morning New America Interview with Rising Tide, 2034

***

The boat bobbed in the water, and I had to sway with it not to fall ass-first into the shit stream. Once I had my balance I shifted to get a better footing and turned towards the Sewer Dragon piloting the boat.

We weren’t moving, which was probably because the guy was too busy staring at me, wide-eyed. “Turn us around and park back at the docks,” I said.

He glanced past me and down to the lower half of Doc Hack’s body that was currently leaking all over the deck. He spun the wheel around and we started to head back.

I stared at the blade that Myalis had chosen for me. It had a metal rod at the back, straight, with a sharp cap on the end, and all along that rod, not touching it but almost, was a paper-thin slice of nothing that seemed to be sucking in the air around it with a constant hiss.

Deactivating.

The black slice disappeared with a snap.

“What was that?” I asked. “I swear I saw stars in there.”

The Void Terminus Hiss is a melee weapon whose main function is to create a temporary rift. Objects entering that rift are transported to a location in empty space. The edges of the rift are, in layman’s terms, very sharp.

I stared at the sword which was currently just a metal stick. I didn’t miss the fact that it had one of those Japanese-looking hilts, with the round guard thing. Though the guard on this one looked like a cat’s paw, and there was a small plastic cat dangling from a loop at the very bottom, like one of those toys people used to hook onto old-school phones. “So... it murders people by teleporting a slice of them elsewhere.”

Essentially, yes. It is obscenely dangerous, but the requirements for that rift to exist make that particular kind of technology unwieldy and unviable in most combat situations. It so happens that as a melee weapon it is quite lethal.

“Fucking awesome,” I said. “If I swear while this thing is dangling by my side, will I cut my own leg off?”

I will do my best to prevent you from cutting your own limbs off. Though I am merely a millennia-old hyper intelligent machine with unfathomable powers. There’s only so much I can do to counter human idiocy.

“You’re sassy today,” I said.

You’ve essentially won, as far as I can tell. All that remains is the tedious work of cleaning up and assessing the situation, which I suspect will be somewhat complex. Giving you a moment to relax will help you manage the stress, and for some reason you find insulting banter amusing.

I didn’t know what to say to that, exactly. “That’s nice to know?” I tried.

The boat came around and lurched as it hit the edge of the docks. I jumped up and onto the nearest pier, then walked over to the tower. The Sewer Dragon I left behind looked around, confused, but he stayed put.

Honestly, I didn’t care what he did; as far as I was concerned, I was done here.

The tower had the usual airlock set up, though the decontamination shower here actually seemed to have some pressure to it, which was nice.

I stepped up the staircase and came upon the room where I’d killed a few of Doc Hack’s buddies. It wasn’t a pretty sight. My Claw wasn’t a delicate weapon, and I think the blender bit was wider than most people, which meant that the blended hole it left in them had a place to leak out of.

Didn’t feel like sticking around the mess much, so I moved on past it all and shoved my way into the corridors leading back to Doc Hack’s lab.

I found Gomorrah jogging over to me. “Hey,” I said.

“You’re alive. Did he get away?” she asked.

“Oh man, you didn’t see it!” Raccoon said over the line. “It was awesome! Cat was like ‘fuck you!’ and her sword was like, hisschaw! Then he fell into the shit.”

I blinked. “You were watching this whole time and you only spoke up now?” I asked.

“You were being all broody and cool, like heroes are after they kill the big bad. I wasn’t gonna interrupt your Batman moment.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I said. I sighed. “Rac’s right. Doc Hack’s very dead. Unless he can survive with only half his brain, then I don’t think we’ll need to worry about him anymore. I think we’ve won?”

Gomorrah shook her head. “We took out the source of the problem, now we need to deal with the problem itself.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There are a lot of people that were turned into Sewer Dragons. Not to mention the people still in the lab. We need to rescue them,” Gomorrah said.

“And,” Franny interjected. “You can’t forget what Doc Hack said. About the sewers needing the Sewer Dragons. You’ve killed a number of them, taken out the person who made more of them, and I imagine that the people they turned were put to work. If you remove all of them, then maybe the Sewer Dragons really will collapse.”

I groaned. “And then everything would go to shit.”

Rac snorted, and I made an effort to ignore it.

“We... we can... fuck, what can we do?” I asked. The problem was a lot bigger than I was used to, even as a samurai. You couldn’t explode a sewer system better.

“We need to rescue those stuck down here,” Gomorrah said. “That’ll be our first priority. The sewers... aren’t really our responsibility. Not directly. Our job is to make sure that humanity is safe, which does include things like infrastructure, but I don’t think we’re equipped for this.”

“Myalis, do we have anything for Sewer maintenance?” I asked.

“There are catalogues designed around that, yes. Though the total point cost to repair the sewer system as it is would exceed the points you and Gomorrah have. To bring the system up to par would cost a prohibitive number of points. I’m afraid the Vanguard’s point system isn’t designed for use on that scale.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” I said. “Crap, we’re not equipped for this.”

“You can’t take everything on your shoulders,” Gomorrah said.

I barked a laugh. “Trust me, I’m good at only caring for me and mine. But this might fuck up the whole city, and me and mine live here.”

“We can tell the government. It is their job to take care of this,” Franny said.

“As if,” Rac said.

“Raccoon’s right. They’ll panic, then cover their asses,” I said.

“Not everyone is that incompetent,” Gomorrah said. “Especially when samurai show up at their office and deliver the news personally. After we save the people down here.”

“Right, after,” I said. “So how do we go about it?”

“Can you check on the people in the lab? I’ll question that guard Doc Hack had. The Sewer Dragons have to have some way to communicate. I think we can convince them to bring anyone that wants to be... returned to normal to the lab.”

“And can we do that?” I asked.

“It’s easier than fixing the entire sewers,” Gomorrah said. “But... I’m not sure? Maybe? We can at least get them looked at by actual doctors.”

“Right, right,” I said. I really wanted to rub my face, but there was armour in the way. “Well, nothing for it. Let’s get this over with.”

Gomorrah nodded and shifted her shoulders. “We’re nearly done, I think. Don’t worry, it won’t be so bad.”

“I hope not,” I said.

The patch of corridor that Doc Hack had oh-so-helpfully blown up was now covered in white foam, courtesy of Gomorrah, I guessed. She stepped up before me and crossed a bulbous bridge of the stuff that spanned the gap left in the floor.

“Ah, shit, we’re going to need to tell someone about this too, aren’t we?” I asked.

“At least this part we can blame on Doc Hack... in fact, I think we should blame everything on him. It will make things easier,” Gomorrah said.

“How saintly,” Franny shot.

“Yes, yes, I think that’s exactly what it is.”

***