Chapter Thirty - Blueprint for Success

“With Samurai providing the blueprints, all sorts of technological advancements once thought impossible suddenly became possible. Though just because humanity, or at least some parts of it, knew how to build these things didn’t mean that they could.

Exotic materials, incredibly tight and precise machining requirements, and the need to build entire facilities just to build the parts to build the devices we wanted took some time to develop.

A lot of the technology we have blueprints for we simply can’t construct yet.”

--Excerpt from ‘Building the Future,’ 2041

***

My idea of a ‘cleared floor’ did not, apparently, satisfy Gomorrah in the least.

I wondered if she learned how to nag at nun-school while listening to her complain about how I hadn’t even checked every room and corner before declaring the area safe. She poked her head into every room, looked at every nook and cranny, and casually melted the turrets that Myalis had deactivated.

I left her to it and started dragging the mercs over to the lounge I’d burst in from. I figured the me-sized hole in the window would help with ventilation. Their guns were tossed into the armoury, which had a door Myalis could lock on command.

In the end, we had a dozen mercenaries, all stacked up in one room and with no gear that looked dangerous.

Gomorrah paced for a bit, then pointed to one guy in particular. He had a bit of a five-o'clock shadow, and was wearing a rather sleek suit that was getting crumpled on account of him laying on the floor. “That guy seems important. He was moved down here by the others, and I saw him giving orders.”

“So he’s the boss,” I said.

“Maybe? Atyacus hasn’t found much about him. His social media feed is pretty much empty. There’s not much to find about him other than birth records and some medical things. Nothing interesting unless you want to know that he had a hernia a year back.”

I snorted and bent down to pull the guy up. The bastard was heavy, even dragging him by his lapels onto the room’s couch was a strain. Once he was sitting down I tapped his cheeks, but that didn’t seem to work. “Myalis, what do I need to wake this guy up?”

The knock-out gas you used will wear off within another four to six hours.

“Oh, sure, I guess we’ll just make ourselves comfortable then,” I said.

The snark is unnecessary.

“I find it fun,” I defended myself. “So, anything I need to wake this guy up within the next couple of minutes? We’ve been fooling around a bit, but we are on something of a schedule.”

Of course you do. There’s a rather cheap product from your Class I Medical Utilities that can solve this. It’s only one point. Overuse of it has some rather terrible consequences on one’s health, but I don’t think that’s an actual concern here.

“Alright, gimme one.”

New Purchase: Wake Up

Points Reduced to: 7997

A box appeared on the sofa next to the comatose guy. On opening it I found a plastic device the size of an inhaler, with a soft pad on one end and a large button on the other.

Stick over exposed skin, then depress the button.

I tugged the guy’s jacket sleeve up to expose his wrist and placed the device over it before pressing down. There was a bit of resistance to the press, like emptying a syringe. The man shook a bit, started to shiver, then woke up with a gasp.

“Hey there, buddy,” I said.

“Ah shit,” he said as soon as he locked eyes on me and Gomorrah. His gaze wandered to all the mercenaries on the floor around him, then to the hole in the wall. “Do you have any idea what it means to make enemies of us?” he asked.

“Uh,” I replied. “Not really. Didn’t cross my mind. Do you have any idea what it means to kidnap a samurai kid? Because I have the impression that it’s a whole order of magnitude worse.”

He just kept glaring. “We have often assisted samurai with missions both clandestine and not. If you think us unable to call in favours then--” He finally stopped when I grabbed his jaw in my cybernetic arm.

“Okay, let’s start from the top. I’m Stray Cat, that’s Gomorrah. Do you have a name?”

I let go. “My name is no business of yours you--” then I grabbed him again.

“Alright, your name is now Potty Mouth,” I said.

The look of indignity that crossed his face was great. It was a little strange to think that a trick that worked on the Kittens was working on a grown man, but I wasn’t about to complain. The snort from Gomorrah was only further encouragement.

I leaned in close. “Look, Potty Mouth, we didn’t just burst in and knock your friends out for fun. I’ve been tracking our missing girl for nearly a day now, and my patience is starting to wear thin. We got this far. We know you’re the ones who kidnapped her. So, you tell me where she is, and we leave. You’ve got insurance for fixing the place up, right?”

I let go of his face again. Potty Mouth worked his jaw, still glaring up at me. “We can’t tell you about our work with any client.”

“We can empty all of your bank accounts,” I replied.

That got a twitch out of him.

“And I do mean all. Hell, I’m pretty sure we could just bulk-sell all of your assets to the quickest bidder. And what we can’t sell we can lock up. Is this your only base? I kinda doubt it. The others must have other things worth selling, right? And just how loyal are all the employees here? Will they stick around after they learn that payroll is now a pipedream? How long until one of them squeals for a few million?”

Potty Mouth shifted on the sofa and his eyes wandered around as if he was looking for a way out. “If we betray a customer’s trust, we’re done for as a business,” he said.

“If you piss me off and keep stalling, you’re done for as a person,” I said.

Gomorrah raised an arm and a gout of bluish flames burst out from her sleeve. “They say that burning to death is one of the worst ways to go. But usually someone dies from asphyxiation long before they cook. My fire produces no fumes.”

I stared at her. “Damn, that’s cold.”

“It’s literally the opposite,” she said.

“Fine,” Potty Mouth said. “Look, I don’t know everything that goes down, alright? I’m just upper management, not the CEO. But, but I know who contracted us for the capture and confinement job.”

“Capture and confinement?” I repeated.

“Sounds like a euphemism for kidnapping,” Gomorrah said.

I shook my head. “Corporate slang. Nasty. So, who was it? And where’s the girl now?”

Potty Mouth squirmed. “I don’t know where she is. I can tell you where she was delivered, but that’s it. But, but,” he said when Gomorrah lowered her arm to point it at him. “But, they were a lot sloppier than we were. And you found us, so...”

“Right,” I agreed. “And the who?”

“Sunrise Weapons,” Potty Mouth said. “They make light-based weapons. Chemical lasers and electrical arc emplacements. Experimental stuff from blueprints bought off some Samurai.”

“And they wanted the girl, why?” I asked.

He shook his head. “We didn’t ask. They wanted her intact. Any new samurai intact. Along with anyone near them. We took the dog because it was close and she seemed attached to it.”

“No shit,” I said. Standing taller, I reached to rub my eyes, remembered that I had a helmet on, then let my arm drop. “Damn. Okay. You got the drop-off location?”

“More importantly, do you know which division of the company you worked for?” Gomorrah asked. “They have a few installations that are on public record. I doubt they have cells in their accounting offices, but I’d like to narrow it down some more.”

Potty Mouth hummed. “It was their R&D, I think. But not the main one. I think they got a second group just for this. Most people wouldn’t agree to work on a samurai.”

“I wonder why?” I said, voice as flat as it could go. “Myalis, you remember that big gun I bought the other day? The one that I never got to fire?”

Are you talking about the decoy railgun?

“That’s the one. I need a bomb from the same set. Something with decent motion sensors on it.”

I think I understand.

“W-what are you doing?” Potty Mouth asked.

I pat him on the head. “You’ll see,” I said.

New Purchase: Decoy Bomb

Points Reduced to: 7995

The ‘bomb’ was an elaborate affair, with a steel case and a few canisters connected to a screen in the middle. A silvery ball sat atop it, spinning around and scanning the room with a red beam like one of those barcode scanners at a grocers.

I placed it on the coffee table in the middle of the room. “Right. You stay here, Potty Mouth,” I said. “We’ll be activating this as soon as we’re out of the room. Maybe don’t move?”

I gestured to the door with a thumb, and Gomorrah walked out ahead of me.

“I’ve got your number,” I said before shutting the door. It didn’t do much to stop his protests.

A loud beep from the bomb shut him up though.

“Let’s go see Sunrise about a girl,” I said.

***