Chapter Fifty-One - Community Feelings

“There’s an essential mistrust of the community. A well-honed fear of your own neighbour.

Who knows, they might be a thief, a murderer, or a rapist? You certainly don’t know.

That fear, that’s what’s keeping us afloat right now. The longer people spend mistrusting their neighbour, the longer it’ll take them to realize that the person in the same shithole as them isn’t the one with the boot on their neck.”

--Clive Robertson, Head of Public Security for Nimbletainment, 2045

***

“I, uh, appreciate it,” I said. Now I just felt awkward, and I think Lucy caught on, because of course she did.

“Actually, Peter, I think Cat was here to ask about something else.”

Peter looked between Lucy and I. “Oh, okay. I jumped to a wrong conclusion then,” he said. “I assumed that you wanted me to help you... actually, I don’t entirely know. We could collect water and perishables now, before this sewer crisis really takes off. A few days of preparation could save a lot of lives.”

“Actually, yeah, that sounds like a fantastic idea,” I said.

“We do a lot of community outreach here. Foodbanks, shelter prep, school supplies. They’re all different non-profits, because we need to compartmentalize things, but all of them keep in touch, we have boards online where to share things. If you want, I can get word out that there’s going to be a water shortage. It’s happened before, we know what to do.”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” I said. “But yeah, Lucy’s right. I mostly came here to ask about something entirely different.”

Peter leaned his elbows down onto his borrowed desk. “Well, I’m listening. If it's going to save people, then I’m definitely in.”

“Those people that the Sewer Dragons kidnapped, the ones I mentioned before, we need to help them, right now Gomorrah and I are focused on saving the city, but I’d feel pretty fucking awful about myself if I left them to rot, and I doubt there’s any system in place to help.”

“That would require medical assistance for a lot of people,” Peter said.

“It is a lot,” I said. “Do you think you can help?”

“You won’t be too surprised to know that this kind of thing comes up often. Usually it’s someone in the community that needs an operation, or some new organ, or who lost a limb in one of the factories. When people can’t afford the help they need, they often turn to us, and we in turn turn to the rest of the community. I’ve done more charity runs than I can count.”

“Could you do something for the people the Sewer Dragons kidnapped?” Lucy asked.

Peter nodded. “I think we could. Two hundred... that’s a lot of people that need help, and it sounds like it will be expensive help too, but across the millions of people living in New Montreal, that’s only a few dozen credits each. It... I don’t want to bother you, Miss Stray Cat, but could you pitch in as well?”

I only hesitated a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I can help. I’ve been thinking... I have this neat machine that can build prosthetics for people, at least I think it can. I’ll need someone to operate it though, and I don’t think they’ll be the fancy self-installing, tailor-made sort of prosthetic.”

“If you could provide them, we can find someone to install them,” Peter said. “We have a few mechanics, some doctors or ex-medical students. I’m sure they’d be honoured to work with samurai tech, or if not we can probably pay them directly, that would be a lot cheaper than buying the things outright.”

I nodded. That would help. The blueprints would cost me some points, but fuck it, a few hundred points to help a few hundred people. “I don’t know if they’ll be the greatest, but I’ll make sure they’re functional, at least. And I don’t see why we should necessarily limit ourselves to the people the Sewer Dragons took. Within reason, of course.”

“I can set up a clinic. Give me two days, three at most, and I’ll have a place for you to store whatever you make, and some people to run the place.”

I glanced at Lucy, and she nodded. I think she was impressed, which to be fair, I was too. “Alright. I’ll take your word for it. I think I can provide security too.”

Peter winced. “We... we would like to trust everyone in our community, but some of them come from rough backgrounds, they never got the education they needed, or the care they deserved, and... yes, some might think that robbing a samurai’s clinic might mean a big pay-day.”

A couple of my mech cats would make them reconsider, I figured. It was like having guard dogs, but with railguns. “Yeah, don’t worry there,” I said. “The folk we’re helping, they’ll probably need more than just some fancy new limbs though. Therapy for some of them, I guess, and they might need more hospital time.”

Peter leaned back into his seat, a frown squeezing his brows together. “If we can prove that it works, then we’ll definitely get a lot of requests from people that need the same sort of help, which will mean a lot of donations. The community helping the community is what we’re all about here.”

“Cool,” I said for a lack of anything less awkward to say. Peter might have been a pretty cool guy, but he struck me as a bit idealistic. Like, I didn’t doubt that he’d seen some shit, probably a lot worse than most people did, hidden away between their homes and work all day every day. Hell, I knew that bad shit was going on all over, but I could still tune it out, dive into my media feed and bitch and moan about how someone somewhere else was doing something wrong.

I figured Peter was some sort of masochist, getting off on the suffering that people brought to him, then getting off again on helping them through it.

Or he was just genuinely a nice person, but that didn't feel as likely as my first idea.

I stood up, and Lucy bounced to her feet a second after. “Alright, you get that clinic going, I’ll provide the shit we need to help people. Can you handle the, uh, mental stuff?”

“We don’t have any proper therapists,” Peter said. “But we have a lot of good people, with big hearts. Sometimes that helps enough that people are able to get back on their feet.”

“Right,” I said. “Look, I know I’m coming out of nowhere with this, so I appreciate that you don’t mind helping. I’ll try to return the favour, you know? If any corpo types cause trouble, or if some government jerks try to mess things up too much, you give me a call, okay?”

“Thank you,” Peter said. “I think half the time we lose a clinic, or a fundraiser goes wrong, it’s because someone outside of the community got greedy. It’ll be nice to know we can actually fight back.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “We’ll keep in touch too.”

Peter stood up and rushed to the door to help us out. We made some meaningless small talk on the way out, and finally broke off as soon as we were back out in the main corridor.

“We were out of there fast,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said. “Just... I don’t know. Not a bad feeling, just, I’m feeling jittery?”

“Sexy jittery or annoying jittery.”

“Annoying,” I said. “We’ve done nothing but talk to people all day, that and a bit of moving around. It feels like at any moment things will go tits up, in a bad way.”

Lucy looped an arm around mine and pulled me closer. “You worry too much,” she said. “Maybe we should head back home, try to relax you a bit?”

I sighed, then leaned back into her. “Yeah, that does sound nice.”

“And maybe that pretty dress of mine’s arrived, I can put on a show for you? Or ... nah, maybe we can just order something from room service, find some PJs and do some cuddling?”

That did sound nice. “We don’t have PJs.”

“Well, it’ll either have to be nothing but some old t-shirts, or we can order some same-hour delivery clothes. Whichever you think would be more fun.”

I laughed, then turned as Lucy gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

“You’re taking on too much again,” she said. “Always playing the big damn hero, but never looking out for herself. Don’t get me wrong, I think heroes are hot, but I prefer the live ones. So you need to take a break when you can afford to, okay?”

“I guess,” I said.

“You’re not responsible for everyone’s lives, Cat. But I am responsible for yours, so if I tell you that you need a break, I’m being serious.”

“Oh, you’re responsible for me, huh?”

“Damn right,” Lucy said with unflappable certainty. “Now let’s get home, my feet are killing me.”

***