Stray Cat Strut 4 E-Book

RavensDagger

• Herausgeber: Podium Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Stray Cat Strut
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 586

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

When an alien invasion threatens everyone she loves, cybernetic samurai Cat LeBlanc must upgrade her warrior skills, in this thrilling cyberpunk tale.   The megacity of New Montreal has become ground zero for the Antithesis. Having burrowed deep beneath every continent on Earth, the aliens have emerged in massive waves, destroying all sentient creatures in their path. All that's standing in their way is the elite vanguard of cyber-samurai determined to stop humanity's extinction at all costs.   Catherine "Cat" LeBlanc has only been a samurai for a week, tackling trials by fire as they erupt with guts, grit, and a lot of explosives. As a warrior-still-in-training, her unorthodox and spontaneous fighting style has saved many lives. Now, with New Montreal recruiting soldiers for war, Cat will be on the frontlines with fellow samurai like pyrotechnic nun Gomorrah; buggy, trigger-happy Grasshopper; and goth public relations specialist Emoscythe Mordeath Noir.   Despite her prowess in battle, Cat requires stronger armor and more powerful weapons to defeat the Antithesis's endless hordes. She also needs to ensure her girlfriend, Lucy, and their "kittens"—the brood of orphans they've adopted—are safe. But protecting New Montreal and its citizens requires methods of warfare designed to quickly wipe out as many Antithesis as possible. Is the price of victory worth the potential mass destruction it will leave in its wake?   The fourth volume of the hit LitRPG sci-fi series—with more than seven million views on Royal Road—now available on Audible and wherever ebooks are sold!

Leseprobe

BOOK 4

RAVENSDAGGER

To Caffeine

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Podium Publishing.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Edgar Malboeuf

Cover design by Edink

ISBN: 978-1-0394-2797-6

Published in 2023 by Podium Publishing, ULC

www.podiumaudio.com

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter One

Feed the Machine

Chapter Two

The Scrounger

Chapter Three

The Little Meet

Chapter Four

How to Stall the End of the World

Chapter Five

Logistics

Chapter Six

Kitty Cat Palace

Chapter Seven

Home Sweet Fortress

Chapter Eight

The Cats Who Were Herded

Chapter Nine

Roundtable

Chapter Ten

Marketing Your Way Home

Chapter Eleven

Getting Ready to Get Hot

Chapter Twelve

Thousand Gardens

Chapter Thirteen

On the Up-And-Up

Chapter Fourteen

Resonating

Chapter Fifteen

Passionate

Chapter Sixteen

It’s Technically Not a Nuke

Chapter Seventeen

Kaboom

Chapter Eighteen

The Lowdown

Chapter Nineteen

Where the Heart Might Be

Chapter Twenty

Pit Bulls and Tacos

Chapter Twenty-One

The Calm

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jolly Old Day Job

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gonna Be

Chapter Twenty-Four

Setting the Table

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dinner is Served, and It’s You

Chapter Twenty-Six

Breach, Load, Charge

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Onward

Chapter Twenty-Eight

What Newton’s Good For

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Trench Run

Chapter Thirty

When the Trees Start Speaking Plant

Chapter Thirty-One

Gold Star

Chapter Thirty-Two

Meat Thinking

Chapter Thirty-Three

Long Road Ahead

Chapter Thirty-Four

The Next Move

Chapter Thirty-Five

A Terrible Mistake

Chapter Thirty-Six

The Survivalists Who Probably Won’t

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Trigger Happy

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Basement

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Interrupt

Chapter Forty

Oncoming

Chapter Forty-One

Rapid Return

Chapter Forty-Two

Earning the Tier

Chapter Forty-Three

Danger-Close

Chapter Forty-Four

Dirty Break

Chapter Forty-Five

Gear On

Chapter Forty-Six

New Plan: Kill Everything

Chapter Forty-Seven

Safe, Not Sound

Chapter Forty-Eight

It’s Never Easy

Chapter Forty-Nine

Those Who Love Cannons

Chapter Fifty

Emoscythe

Chapter Fifty-One

Gothic Public Relations

Chapter Fifty-Two

Contact

Chapter Fifty-Three

Mop Up

Chapter Fifty-Four

Essentially Doomed

Chapter Fifty-Five

The Calm Before

Chapter Fifty-Six

Wait for it

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Before the Storm

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Crackshot Cowboy

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Nyanpalm

Chapter Sixty

The Enemy Won’t Do as You Wish

Chapter Sixty-One

Go Kill the Thing

Chapter Sixty-Two

Getting Out of Hand

Chapter Sixty-Three

Burning

Chapter Sixty-Four

Climate Change via Mass Destruction

Chapter Sixty-Five

Raining Fried Chicken

Chapter Sixty-Six

Move Faster

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Becoming Strong Enough

Interlewd

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Getting Home

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Nice

Epilogue

About the Author

PROLOGUE

Some kids thought they could be cool.

Like, if they trained hard, if they just found the right gear or made the right friends, if they were given an opportunity, they could grow up to be a badass motherfucker, chewing nails and spitting fire.

I was one of those kids. Daydreaming of being awesome, of kicking ass. I’d find some discarded samurai super-gun. I’d discover that my parents were linked to one of the cooler cartels somehow and they’d take me in. Maybe I’d just start my own gang with the kittens as recruits.

It was all stupid daydreaming.

Weird how life twisted things around sometimes.

I paused midstep, then stood a little straighter to look out the window. Earth was below me. Just … the entire planet, hanging there. The part below us was brightly lit, stark white clouds over dark greens and brilliant blues. The place where I’d spent my entire life.

“You okay?” Gomorrah asked. She had paused a few steps ahead, Deus Ex—still in her pajamas—by her side.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just taking it all in.” There was this weird feeling of vertigo, my stomach doing little flips as I took in the world below. It wasn’t just the fear of the drop that had me feeling that way. A week ago, I’d been a nobody orphan; the kind of street trash that no one sensible gave a fuck about.

I’d come far in a few days.

“Let’s keep moving,” I said. “Clock’s ticking, right?”

There were thirty-ish hours left until the apocalypse started.

The girls nodded, and we continued down the dark gray corridor of Deus Ex’s home away from Earth. She stopped us in front of a pair of doors set against one wall: big bulkhead-looking things, like I’d expect to see in some futuristic submarine. “This is your way down,” she said. “Get in, grab on, and then enjoy the ride.”

The doors opened into rooms the size of broom cupboards, with slits against the walls and handles at about waist height. There was a sort of leaned-back chair at the rear too. “How, exactly, is this going to bring us back to Earth?” I asked.

“Gravity.”

I shook my head and got into the pod first.

“See you groundside,” Gomorrah said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Deus Ex, you’ll keep in touch?”

The shorter girl shrugged. “I’m busy, but I might have a few hours to spare, yeah. The trip over to Mars takes a week or so. I’ll be stuck in my ship that whole time with nothing to do but binge shows and take naps.”

“While we’ll be on Earth fighting for our lives?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Want to go fight for your life on Mars instead?”

“I think I’ll take my chances down below,” I said as I settled into the pod. The door closed with a heavy thump, and I felt it as the pressure changed. The walls unfolded, and clamps grabbed me around the waist and shins and arms. It was uncomfortable to be restricted so much.

Then the pod started to fill from the bottom up with some sort of goop. It rose and rose, cold as it seeped around my armor.

“What in the fuck is that?” I asked.

It’s a heavily oxygenated shock-absorbing liquid. You should be able to breathe it, and it will diffuse any impacts so that they don’t harm you.

Myalis was always so damned comforting. “That’s real nice to hear,” I said as the goop swelled up, then reached my arms. It was hard to move in, like gelatin. Then it swallowed my head, and I found myself holding my breath for a moment.

It didn’t last long. I trusted Myalis, even if she was a bit strange at times.

The pod clunked, and the wall before me lit up. It was a screen, one that showed the inside of a tube.

Something clanged, and then the tube shot up while I went down.

Then we left the station. I glimpsed another pod falling a little bit above me before I was rotated around. Jets of some gas realigned my pod with little spurts, and then I was falling back down to Earth.

A lot of kids really wished that they’d grow up to be badasses. I had been one of them.

Now I was falling out of a samurai’s space fortress back toward the Earth in a little metal casket moving so fast that the bottom of my pod lit on fire as it screeched through the air. A timer hovered on the edge of my vision, counting down to what might be the end of everything. There were few things as badass as what I was doing, I figured.

I would have traded it all for an afternoon spent cuddling in bed.

I held on while the pod shifted and rattled back down to Earth. My jaw started to hurt from being clamped so hard for so long.

Then something clunked, and for a heart-wrenching moment I thought I was fucked, but things started to slow down and the flames licking at the side of the pod gave way to hissing air and then clouds.

The next thing that I could see, once I was past the gray wall of cloud cover, was the tallest buildings in the city, reaching up toward me.

The sides of the pod opened and a set of thrusters fired off toward the ground, slowing me down further and pushing the drop pod toward a specific building.

The museum.

I landed with a heavy crunch and the front door of the pod blew off the side, all of the goop holding me in place sloughing off onto the landing zone right next to my home.

The clamps around my legs and arms and waist let go, and I found myself standing on the spot, entirely uncertain of what to do next.

Are you well?

“Uh,” I said. I swallowed, let my heart settle for a moment, then winced as something crashed nearby. A second pod. Gomorrah had been sent to the same spot as I had.

I stepped out of the drop pod.

It was, of course, raining. For once that seemed to help, washing off the gunk clinging to my armor. Gomorrah stepped out of her pod and glanced around, then to me. “That was fun,” she said.

“I don’t know. I liked the space shuttle a lot more,” I said.

She shrugged. “This was probably faster.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. A couple of minutes ago I was in space; now I was back on solid Earth. More or less. “Yeah, I guess so.”

There were a couple of vans parked nearby. Hovervans, with their sides opened to reveal a bunch of tools within, and a few construction guys were there, tool belts around their waists, coffee cups in hand, and jaws slack as they stared at Gomorrah and me.

Guess we had made something of an entrance.

“You getting renovations done?” Gomorrah asked.

“Yeah. Setting the place up for the kittens. It’s supposed to take a couple of weeks,” I said.

Someone stepped out of the building, then ran over. I recognized him as the contractor in charge of stuff. He’d given me his name half a dozen times, and I forgot it every time. “Miss Stray Cat,” he said, a bit out of breath. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I wasn’t expecting to show up here either,” I said. Did Deus Ex send me here on purpose, or was it just the nearest place with enough room to land?

“Are you here to see how the work’s progressing?” he asked.

“Huh? No. I was just … in space. Uh. You know that matter reconfiguration machine, at the back?”

He nodded. “The one Raccoon is taking care of?”

Right, another loose end to take care of. “That’s the one. Can a couple of your guys help Raccoon load these pods into it? I’m pretty sure they’ll fit if you cut them up a bit.” Would they even be able to do that? “If you can’t, just leave them somewhere.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” he replied with an easy, if nervous, smile.

I nodded to him and turned toward Gomorrah. “Think you can get your car over?” I asked.

“The Fury is on its way already,” she said. “What are you planning on doing?”

“Uh,” I said. I was supposed to have a meeting with a nonprofit soon, to go over the making and distributing of prosthetics. I had to bully Burringham some more about the sewers. I had to check up on Raccoon, tell her about the prosthetic thing, and get her a proper place to stay. I’d been meaning to look into schooling for the kittens, maybe therapy? They definitely needed that.

Knowing that I had … about twenty-nine hours until the world went to shit kind of put a damper on all of my plans.

Deus Ex sent an itinerary. There are two meetings that will take place before the end of the deadline. I suspect that you’ll want to attend both. The first is in five hours. A nighttime meeting with representatives from a few paramilitary groups and members of the city council and appropriately large corporate entities. The second is tomorrow morning, a meet-and-greet for all the samurai in the city. Seventeen have reserved places at the meeting so far. Both are organized by the Family.

“Interesting,” Gomorrah said. So Myalis had been sending to her too. Good to know.

“That leaves us with a bit of time to take care of other things,” I said. “Cool. Going to need every minute of that time.”

CHAPTER ONE

FEED THE MACHINE

The bigger they are, the more they’ll make fall.

Or something like that.

Look, I don’t exactly read a lot of books, all right?

—Three Swipes, comment about the unveiling of the Domus, 2052

“I’m heading home,” Gomorrah said.

I glanced over to her. “Just like that?”

She shrugged. “We’ll see each other in a few hours. The security around the church is tight, but it’s not tight enough to stop a full-on invasion. I have a few hundred points to spare.”

“That actually sounds like a decent idea,” I said. I glanced at the museum. The interior had been torn apart already, with workers crawling all around the inside moving junk into containers and others bringing in new materials.

I could probably speed that up considerably.

The problem was that I could only do so for the topmost floor.

I stared around. The museum was on top of the shortest building in sight. Only thirteen floors tall. Most of the buildings around were twice that height; some more distant buildings were considerably taller than that.

“Cat?”

I spun around to face Gomorrah. “Sorry, head in the clouds,” I said. “I might do something similar here.”

“You’ll want to reinforce the floors below too,” Gomorrah said. “Keep that in mind.”

“Right,” I said.

She nodded, then awkwardly tapped me on the shoulder. “Well, I’ll be seeing you in a little while. Try not to be late.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, don’t worry. See you at the meeting.”

She nodded back and took off toward the edge of the landing pad. The Fury showed up almost the moment she reached the edge, the door sliding open so that she could slip into the driver’s seat without having to miss a step. The car tipped away from the building, then shot off through the city.

“Myalis,” I said.

Yes?

“I don’t know where to begin.”

Hesitation doesn’t suit you. What are your current goals?

“I think we need to fortify the place. Make it so that the kittens and Lucy can stay here without being in any danger,” I said. The current renovations were all about making it livable. That was probably a mistake. They’d make the place nice, I was sure, but they wouldn’t make it alienproof.

There are catalogs for such things. Though you run into two possible issues.

“And those are?” I asked.

Time is the first obstacle. If you want to fortify the location rapidly, then you will need to pay an equivalent number of points to obtain materials that require less time to install. For example, a low-cost construction drone could build a decent fortification out of plainly available materials. It would mix its own cements, construct its own reinforcements, and build a secure area over time with commercially available materials.

“But that’ll take time,” I said.

Several weeks, for a location as large as this one. A drone of the sort could be ordered to assist human workers, improving on their designs and building things faster.

“And your faster solution?” I asked.

A prebuilt building could be purchased. In fact … this might be somewhat expensive, but if you tore apart the entire top floor of the building, you could purchase a new floor.

“Wait, like … the entire floor?”

You would need a construction drone to go over the anchoring points. But yes. It can be teleported in with nanometer precision. The same construction drone could be used to clear the top of the building, or at least assist the construction company on location in doing the same, and afterward it could work to reinforce the rest of the building.

“Huh,” I said. It would save a lot of time. And I was willing to bet that anything I ordered from a catalog would look better and be tougher than anything the locals could build. “We’ll need to account for the gun emplacement above, and for a few other things, I guess. Wires and pipes and all that.”

That is true. I can draw up a blueprint for the contractors telling them what to leave in place and where.

I nodded. “How much would that cost?”

The construction drones would cost two hundred fifty points per unit. You only need the one for now, though I would suggest purchasing a second andthird soon. The actual floor will depend entirely on what features you want. On the lower end, a simple building made of unhardened materials would cost one thousand two hundred points. The upper end is nearly limitless.

“We’ll want something that covers the whole floor, with a landing pad and all. We need rooms for all the kittens, and a room for Lucy and me. Kitchen, bathrooms. You know, all that stuff. Uh, probably glass too? I don’t want a bunker, you know?” I said. I was really just tossing ideas out as they came to me.

A tab opened in my augs, and a mockup for the top floor appeared, slowly spinning around. It was nice. A sharp slope, with long ledges next to the landing area and geometric lines cut into something that looked like metal plates, with a garden to one side and a second landing area near the roof next to the gun emplacement Longbow had left behind.

“That looks bigger than what we have now,” I said.

We can’t build down, so why not build up and out? This is all exterior architecture, without any furnishings on the inside. You will need to purchase those things yourself, though the fittings will all be in place.

“How much?” I asked.

Four thousand five hundred.

“Will it be tough?” I asked.

Reinforced titanium walls, designed for warships; a type of lightweight concrete made to endure extreme wear and tear; and transparent panels made of realigned crystal matrices. The entire thing would be quite difficult to damage.

I started walking toward the head contractor. “Send the blueprint to Lucy, get her input on things. She’s got more of a head for that, and more time too. Tell her it’s important.” I flagged the older guy down and he jogged over, an eager smile on his face. At the same time, I sent a text to Raccoon, telling her to meet me in a few minutes.

The contractor’s head bobbed up and down as I explained things to him. He seemed a little worried but eager to do whatever I told him to do, which was good enough for me.

At nearly the moment I was done with the guy, I got two texts. One was from Raccoon, telling me she’d be up in a minute. The other was from Lucy. She wanted to know if things were all right.

I sent her a quick things are okay, talk later while I stepped into the museum.

I paused and looked down at myself. My armor had changed to be an offensively bright yellow. “Uh,” I said.

You’re supposed to be wearing a high-visibility vest within the construction site. A helmet as well, but yours is of greater quality than the OSHA standard requires.

“So you made my armor turn yellow?” I asked.

It fits the requirements.

“It’s bulletproof,” I said.

Which also complies with security standards.

“Why do you even care about those?” I asked.

I don’t. I just wanted to paint a yellow cat on your back.

I sighed. Some things didn’t change. “You’re such a pain in the ass,” I said. I couldn’t help the bit of humor that snuck into my voice, though. Myalis was probably trying to destress me a little.

The interior of the museum was a mess of torn-down walls, stacks of materials, and piles of trash that hadn’t been picked up yet. The far end of the space wasn’t so bad, though. I found some security cordon tape blocking access to the room where Lucy and I had placed the matter reconfiguration machine.

It still sat pretty in the end of the armory, big and shiny and … next to a row of stacked blocks?

I walked over to the blocks and knelt next to them. They were about ten centimeters long and two thick and wide, little rectangular blocks of different colors with letters engraved on their sides: Fe, Co, Cr. There were some little numbers too, but I glossed over those. Some of the blocks were clearly canisters too. Were those gases?

It seems that Raccoon has been busy.

“What are these?” I asked. The stacks were actually pretty large.

Elements. Purified and reconstituted into usable blocks for material printing. They’re one of the possible end results that the reconfiguration machine can produce. An easy way to store metals, essentially.

I stood up and took in all the stacks of blocks. Some were by far more common than others. How much time had Rac spent feeding the machine?

“Well, that’s something.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE SCROUNGER

People used to mock preppers a lot. To be fair, the entire culture around the movement—if you can even call it a movement—was pretty strange. Paranoia that was being acted upon, lots of conspiracy theories, and strange people with too much time on their hands.

Then the aliens actually showed up, and the entire thing changed. Now it’s less a fringe group and more just … something everyone with a lick of common sense does.

—Interview with Liz Maybirb, Director of the Ready Community group, 2029

“Hey, boss!”

I jumped at the sound and turned to find a familiar face bouncing over to me. Raccoon looked healthy. Dirty, but healthy. She had overalls on, stained and covered in cuts and wrinkles. She was lugging around a backpack that looked like it would have been big on an adult man; it was huge on her and entirely filled with a clanging assortment of metal trash.

“Hey, Rac,” I said. I placed the metal ingot I had back onto the pile and reached down to rub the kid’s head.

She ducked under my hand and shot me a look that was soon replaced by a nearly feral grin. “You like my work so far?” she asked.

I glanced back at the stacks of metal. “So far you’ve been doing great,” I said. “Is this all you’ve been doing?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Started with the trash in this building, and I’ve been expanding out. The best thing about trash is that it’s a renewable resource. In a couple of days I can return to where I started, and there’ll be a whole new heap of it to dive through, you know?”

“Sounds … handy?” I tried. Dumpster diving didn’t sound like what I’d call a fun pastime. Or a safe one, for that matter. Then again, lately my newest hobby was making things that were trying to eat me explode, so I was going to keep my stone collection firmly inside my glass house. “I came over to see how you were doing, and to, ah, give you some news, I guess.”

“What sort?” Rac asked. She slid past me and to the large machine dominating the end of the room. With practiced ease she opened the hopper at the back of it, slid her backpack off, then started filling the empty receptacle up with scrap. The machine hummed, and a large progress bar appeared on its main screen, with smaller bars beneath labeled with the names of metals.

“Well, first, we’re going to tear apart most of the top floor of this building. I’m going to buy a new one outright. It’ll be teleported in place. Should be pretty neat.”

“Whoa,” Rac said. “That does sound kind of awesome. Like just … zap-bang and there’s a new building?”

“Part of a building,” I said. “Just the topmost floors. I asked the building crew to move the matter reconfiguration machine over to the room where Longbow’s gun is stored. I … need to send him a text about that, actually. Anyway, it should be safe.”

“Am I gonna be out of work, then?” Rac asked.

“For a few hours, maybe,” I said. “You have a place to sleep?”

“Usually just sleep there,” Rac said. She gestured to a corner of the room. I hadn’t really noticed the blankets in the corner. I’d kind of just assumed they were some random junk left behind. “I can find a place, don’t worry.”

“Right,” I said. “You’re welcome to stay here once everything’s in place. Ah, that’s the other thing. We’re going to start producing prosthetics. Like, cheap but functional ones. I still need to talk to someone about that, but we’ll probably start production tomorrow. It’ll likely use up a lot of the materials you’ve collected.”

The machine hissed, and the front opened to reveal a neat stack of bars next to some small, squarish tubes. Not all of them were metal. In fact, about half the ingots looked like they were plastic, and the tubes were clearly filled with some sort of liquid, or maybe gases?

It kind of made sense; if the machine was breaking scrap down to basic elements, then it would have to deal with some elements being liquid or gaseous or whatever.

“I can always collect more,” Rac said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Cool,” I said. “Besides, it’s for a good cause. You know, giving poor folks new limbs and shit?”

Rac nodded. I couldn’t tell if she was happy about that or not, not while she was meticulously placing the ingots she got into neat stacks.

“One other thing, the world’s going to end in, like, thirty-ish hours.”

Rac’s stack of plastic ingots crashed to the floor with a clatter. “It’s gonna what?” she asked.

“Turns out the aliens have been building a lot of hidden hives, and they’re all going to activate at about the same time. So we’ll be dealing with a massive surge of Antithesis trying to attack … pretty much everyone everywhere, all at the same time.”

“That’s seriously fucked.”

“I know,” I agreed. “We’re going to stop it, of course, but it’s going to ruin a bunch of plans, I bet. It’s why I want to fortify this place before we get flooded with aliens.”

“Shit,” Rac said. “You need help with anything?”

I was about to shake my head when I paused. “I might. Can you take care of shit here for me? At least until Lucy and the kittens move over? Also, I wouldn’t mind one more person keeping the kittens safe.”

Rac nodded, but her eyes narrowed and she looked at me judgingly. “You’re not just saying that so that I’ll stay with the other kids where I’ll be safe, right?”

“No?”

“Uh-huh.”

I grinned and jerked my head toward the door. “I’ve got some calls to make and some shit to look into. Stay safe, all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, no worries,” Rac said. “I think I’ve got time for another scrap run before I need to find food.”

We didn’t really say goodbye. Neither of us was formal enough for that kind of thing. I just headed out and paused in the corridor just outside the room.

“I need to make a call,” I muttered as I opened up a phone app from my augs. I paused. “Or maybe just send an email?”

To whom?

“Peter Silverbloom, the nonprofit guy.”

He’d been pretty nice during our last meeting. Even if that meeting had lasted all of a few minutes. If he was as legit as he wanted to appear, then he’d be willing to bend a bit to let me help him better. Also, he knew a lot of the more community-based groups in the city. If anyone would know how to get people ready for the oncoming apocalypse, it would be him.

I decided to call him. It was less impersonal than an email or a message. That, and I wasn’t so great with written words.

The line rang twice before Peter answered. “Hello?” he asked. He sounded out of breath.

“Hey, Peter, it’s Cat,” I said. “You all right?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. I had to jog a bit to catch the train. Sorry. I’m fine now. How can I help? Is this about the clinic?”

“Yeah, a bit,” I said. “I’m getting things ready for that on my end, but we might have a bit of a problem.”

“What sort?” Peter asked.

“You know those aliens that like eating people? We’re about to get swarmed by a fuckload of them from all sides across the entire planet, all at once. We have maybe a day to really prepare for it. So I was thinking that maybe we should focus on that kind of thing. I still want to set up a clinic, but I was thinking of maybe having it be at my place? It’ll be safer. I think a lot more people will be needing medical attention in the coming weeks.”

“Uh,” Peter said. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly, yeah.”

“Dang.”

I blinked. Dang? Really? This guy needed to be less nice. “Look, just call up whoever you think can help with this shit. I don’t imagine things getting better anytime soon, but maybe we can soften the blow a bit.”

“Will you be fighting?” he asked.

“Yeah. I don’t know the details on that yet. We might need volunteers to man the walls. Or to build walls to man. It’s going to be a whole thing.”

“All right. I’ll do what I can. Thanks for reaching out.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Get me the stuff for that clinic … say tomorrow afternoon? My place should be built by then.”

“All right. Thank you, Stray Cat.”

I ended the call, then leaned against the nearest wall, just basking in the sounds of the construction crew tearing the place apart. There were so many things to take care of at once.

I couldn’t wait for the Antithesis to arrive. At least then some of the weight on my shoulders would be lifted.

CHAPTER THREE

THE LITTLE MEET

In a world increasingly led by corporate and nongovernmental entities, it’s becoming clear that in order to secure its personnel, obtain the funding needed to operate, and remain at the top in terms of lethality, the modern army will have no choice but to change its fundamental structure.

This isn’t a new thing. Historically, many nations were protected by armed forces that had a more … mercenary edge to them. This is just a return to the good old days, when lining our pockets with coin was more important than decorating our chests with valor.

—General Blackmill, Treaties on the Future of Armed Warfare, 2026

Under any normal circumstance, I would have avoided the meeting like the plague.

Myalis had easy access to the guest list, and it wasn’t inspiring. Of the nearly three hundred people in attendance, three quarters were the sort of people I wouldn’t piss on if they spontaneously combusted.

Mostly, that number was made up of politicians from the city and the country and their entourages, and then there were a heap of C-suite representatives from just about every corporation that had business in the city. From what I could tell, the invitation, despite being sent out at the last minute, came with a sort of “you’d better be there” tone that everyone chose to respect.

The last quarter was the one I was most interested in. New Montreal had two dozen paramilitary groups based in it. Some of those were small, and most were just branches from one corporation or another, but others were more like Clenze Private Military, Inc. The same group that had cordoned off the incursion … was it just last week?

They wouldn’t be alone; the rest of the guest list was made up of representatives of various police, EMT, and firefighting companies in the city, as well as a big group from the army.

I rode my hoverbike around the building that was hosting the event. It wasn’t anything too special. A midtier hotel in one of the less busy parts of New Montreal, which wasn’t to say that the traffic wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t smack in the center of downtown.

I let the hoverbike guide itself to a landing spot inside the hotel on autopilot. I still wanted to learn how to fly the thing properly, but I had too many things on my mind all at the same time to really have time to worry about that.

“So, are the best of the best waiting for us already?” I asked as the bike slowed to a stop. There was a parking level right in the middle of the hotel, with car elevators to the side where people could park their vehicles and have them disappear below and out of sight until they called them back up. I didn’t bother with any of that and just brought my bike over to the side of the nearest entrance and deployed the kickstands.

For a certain definition of “the best.” It seems as though most corporations have heeded the call and have sent some representatives here, but only a few of them are actually what you would consider important members of the corporation. The political side of things is mostly filled with interns and assistants. Only the military and paramilitary representatives are actually well ranked.

I shifted my shoulders to loosen them a bit. I really needed to have Lucy play with my back some more to get rid of some of the stress. “Why are we only getting the dregs here?”

I suspect that the message calling for this assembly was couched in terms that suggested its importance but didn’t divulge the entire truth of the incoming mass incursion.

“Trying to prevent people from panicking?” I asked. I’d heard that kind of excuse before. It made some sense, but it never entirely sat well with me.

It’s more likely that it’s to prevent people from trying to profit from the news.

That made a lot more sense.

I ignored the valets and hotel staff milling by the entrance. The place was nice, but it lacked the elegance and … classiness of the hotel that Deus Ex had dumped the kittens in. I wasn’t exactly an expert in that kind of thing, though. The entrance was still nice. A tall ceiling, some benches with plants dotting the room here and there, and a long reception desk at the rear. It was all done up in chrome and black faux-marble. Very 2040s.

A hovering sign with arrows and QR codes floated in the middle of the lobby.

2000h—City/Corp-wide Announcement from Laserjack, hosted by the Family

2030h—Mixed Armed Forces Meeting, hosted by the Family

2100h—Open Forum on Contingencies and Collaterals, hosted by the Family

Looking at the QR codes automatically downloaded a map of the hotel, with the meeting rooms highlighted for me already. “Right,” I muttered. “Who’s Laserjack?”

A Vanguard member of the Family who generally works along the Eastern Seaboard of North America. He specializes in social technology.

“Not lasers?”

The name does seem to be somewhat misleading.

I hesitated. There was a large digital clock above the lobby counters that read 20:05. I wasn’t exactly on time. Did I want to step into the political meeting now, or wait a bit and join the military meeting later?

I could do both meetings, but I wasn’t sure if my patience would be able to handle that much sitting down and listening.

The choice was made for me. A woman in a uniform walked my way. She looked somewhat familiar, tall with orange hair, the Clenze logo on her breast. “Stray Cat,” she said before snapping a quick salute. “Pleasure to meet you again.”

“Uh, hey,” I said. “You’re … Major Hunt?” the woman towered a head above me, and even her happy grin didn’t make her any less intimidating. Hell, I was the one in the power armor; it wasn’t fair that she be scarier.

“You remember my name. It’s an honor. We were told that there would be samurai in attendance, but I didn’t expect this many.”

“Well, I just know of two so far,” I said.

She nodded. “Laserjack, Sam-o Ray, Cause Player, Grasshopper, Gomorrah, and now yourself. More firepower and danger in one location than I’ve ever personally witnessed.”

“Gom’s here?” I asked. That was great. I wasn’t entirely sure if she would show up to the event at all. The only other samurai on that list that I recognized was Cause Player, and I hadn’t seen him since the mini-incursion over in Black Bear.

“I believe she’s waiting by the meeting room for the Mixed Armed Forces meeting,” Major Hunt said. “Most of the other samurai are there, with the exception of Laserjack.”

“Right, he’s hosting that other meeting,” I muttered. “Mind showing me the way to the fun meeting?”

“Certainly,” Major Hunt said. “I just stopped to greet you. It behooves one to keep in touch with those who are particularly talented at killing xenos.”

“Uh-huh,” I agreed.

She started walking back across the room, as if expecting me to keep up. I had to jog to catch up. “Do you know what all of these meetings are about? This all seems rather unprecedented.”

“You haven’t heard yet?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We haven’t. If the higher-ups know, then it hasn’t been disseminated to my level yet.”

“I guess it’s just a small spoiler, then, since the whole meeting will be about it. We’re expecting a mass incursion.”

“Soon?”

“In a few dozen hours,” I replied. “It’s not going to be a normal one. No big rifts in the sky with aliens pouring out. Just a lot of aliens showing up all over and spreading.”

“Like a stealth incursion?”

I nodded. “Like that, but everywhere and all at once. If we’re not on top of it, we’ll be dealing with hundreds of little hives across the world.”

“That … is troublesome,” she replied. “Depending on the severity, that could mean anything from a worldwide halt to all industry while the hives are burned out to a near-extinction-level event.”

“I think the whole goal of these meetings is to try to encourage things to be on the less shit side of things,” I said. “I figure with a dozen samurai at the helm, things are going to go pretty well, at least around New Montreal.”

The major didn’t say anything, not for a bit, but her brows did draw together. “Having more officers at the helm doesn’t always help as much as you would think,” she said. “Sometimes all that means is that there are more chances that everything will be pulled in the wrong direction.”

With those ominous words hanging in the air, we arrived at the meeting room.

I was expecting some sort of auditorium, with seats lined up toward a stage.

Instead, the meeting was going to take place in a large room dominated by a huge oval table. About forty chairs sat around the table, with little microphones in front of them and a few pitchers of cool water set in strategic locations.

Some were filled already, by mercs and people in neat uniforms, and, of course, by a few samurai who couldn’t help but stand out from the crowd.

I waved to Gomorrah, who was near the far wall, with Franny next to her, then continued to take in the room and its occupants.

The weight on my shoulders only grew heavier.

CHAPTER FOUR

HOW TO STALL THE END OF THE WORLD

Words like “Caucasian” and “African American” became far too loaded and controversial, not to mention inaccurate as time progressed. So, in order to alleviate some of the issues that came from the use of these words, a system was created that properly categorized a person based on ethnicity, origin, and appearance.

It worked similar to the Dewey Decimal System that categorized books, with multiple sets of numbers meaning different things. The system could accurately convey a person’s history and ethnicity in a single string of letters and numbers.

This was widely viewed as a terrible idea and was quickly discontinued.

—Lecture on the Sociological Impact of Titles in the Information Age, Professor Adams, 2029

Major Hunt pointed to a seat near the middle of the table. There was a little hovering placard in front of it that had my name on it. Well, it said “Stray Cat,” which was sort of my name, at least in present company. “That’s your seat,” she said.

“I guess so. Where are you sitting?” I asked.

“Back room. There’s a feed of this meeting room. It’s where all the less-important people are sitting and listening in,” she said.

“A major doesn’t rank high enough to participate?” I asked.

“Not here, no,” she said. She smacked me on the shoulder before moving past. “Good luck, samurai. And remember, the first priority is making those xenos burn.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. I watched her go for a bit, then moved over to my designated seat. It happened to not be too far from Gomorrah’s, so I was able to see her mask and nod as I sat. We were just far enough apart that conversation aloud would be awkward, though.

Gomorrah nodded back, then turned to Franny. “Want to go hang out in the back? I’m sure they’ll make room for you.”

“Better back there than up here,” Franny said. She patted Gomorrah on the shoulder. “I’ll see if they have anything worth eating around here. I’m feeling peckish.”

Gomorrah whispered something back, but I chose not to listen in—that is, until she turned back toward me. “Did you handle everything that needed handling?”

“Not even half of it,” I said. “You get your own stuff in order?”

Gomorrah took a deep breath, then let it out as a long-suffering sigh. “No. Not everyone took the news as well as I would have liked. Then again, I could hardly expect them to. The nuns are already run ragged taking care of the people we saved from the sewers. We’re going to end up with a lot more people who need saving in the next few weeks.”

“They do a lot of post-incursion stuff, right?”

Gomorrah nodded. “They’re still sending some sisters out to deliver blankets and supplies to people from the last incursion. The timing here is kind of terrible.”

“Huh, yeah, I guess. Anything I can do to help?”

“Kill the aliens fast?”

I chuckled, and a moment later, Gomorrah joined in. “Should have seen that answer coming,” I said. “Hey, change of topic. You know any of the other samurai here?”

Gomorrah gestured to the end of the table. Cause Player was there. His armor had changed. It was still green, though a darker shade, and it looked a lot more streamlined and angular than last time. A bit more scuffed too. The number 117 was stenciled onto his right breastplate, and he seemed to be talking to a bluish hologram hovering over his hand.

“Right,” I said. “Haven’t seen him since Black Bear.”

“It’ll be nice to have him around,” Gomorrah said. “He’s versatile, and I think we might need that.”

I nodded along. There were a few others in the room. One in the corner, lurking in the shadows. He, or at least I figured it was a he from the shoulders and stance, had form-fitting black armor on, with lots of belts and straps across his torso. He had a long polearm hanging over his shoulder too, some high-tech thing that I couldn’t guess the function of.

“I don’t know him,” Gomorrah said as she followed my gaze. “The woman on the ceiling is Grasshopper.”

“Ceiling?” I looked up, and blinked.

There was indeed someone squatting upside down on the ceiling. She wore light brown and beige armor, covered in little spikes. Her helmet had two large black spheres on the front. They looked like comically oversized eyes from below. She turned her head, almost mechanically, and faced me.

Grasshopper raised … lowered a hand, and waved.

I waved back.

“She’s a range specialist,” Gomorrah said. “Been around for a couple of years.”

“Neat,” I said. “Not a celebrity sort?”

Gomorrah shook her head. “She’s known, but she doesn’t run after attention. Mid–twenty thousands on the leaderboards.”

That still placed her way higher than I was on the popularity charts.

“Who’s he?” I asked, pointing to someone not too far away. I wasn’t entirely sure if he was a samurai at all. He wore armor made of white plates, decorated by thin black lines that seemed to almost be painted on. They formed an intricate, almost tribal pattern across the armor. His helmet was on the table, leaving his long brown hair free.

He turned my way and grinned, showing off perfect teeth. “I’m Sam-o Ray,” he said. “You can ask, I don’t bite.”

“Uh, hey,” I said. “I’m Stray Cat.”

“Pleasure to meet you, little sister!” he said. His voice was the kind that couldn’t be contained, and it boomed out of him with genuine geniality.

“And I’m Gomorrah,” Gomorrah replied. She nodded to him and he smiled right back, unaffected by the frowning mask she wore.

“Ah, I am meeting so many companions today. It’s a good day, despite all the news, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said. I didn’t quite know how to deal with someone so optimistic and happy. Well, no, Lucy could be that way, but I wasn’t going to deal with this guy the way I dealt with her. “So, those patterns on your armor, is that for, like, a shield or something?”

He blinked, then tilted his head back and laughed. “No! No no, little Stray Cat. These are my tatau. I have them printed onto my armor as they are on my skin. I would much prefer to be without the armor, but my pride won’t stop a bite, and besides, it’s cold around here.”

“Huh, that’s neat,” I said.

Sam-o Ray nodded. “I thought so too.”

I was going to ask him a few more questions, just shit to pass the time, when someone cleared their throat. A man was standing at the front of the table, gesturing to others to find their seats. He was a tall fellow, with a well-tailored suit and a crown sitting atop his head.

“Hello, everyone,” he said. His voice was transmitted across the room to a few speakers tucked away in the corners. “My name is Jolly Monarch. I’ll be the one directing this meeting.”

Another samurai? He did have a few interesting scars on his face, but his darker skin hid them well. I guessed that the crown was something of a giveaway.

“We don’t have all that much time, nor do I want this to go on for too long. As of right now, every hour we have has to be used to its utmost, and that means wasting as few as possible. For that reason, we won’t be going over introductions and will begin right away. We’re a few minutes ahead of schedule, but everyone who will be here is here already.”

Jolly Monarch gestured, and a hologram flicked to life above the table: Earth, floating in empty space while rotating in a slow circle. Red dots started to appear on the surface, mostly around that big space that I vaguely recognized as Russia, then spreading out in every direction like a ripple. The last place to be covered in little dots was South America.

“Sometime in the next twenty-four hours, we expect to get hit by approximately three thousand stealth incursions.”

“Fuck,” someone lower down the table said.

Judging by the murmurs from the nonsamurai around us, they hadn’t all gotten the memo. I glanced around, taking in a lot of people in suits and more in military-like uniforms. There had to be reps from half a dozen PMCs in the room.

“Our focus,” Jolly Monarch said, “will be this area.”

The holomap changed to a view of New Montreal from above, as well as a big circle around the city. It extended out maybe a hundred kilometers in diameter.

“The New Montreal area is, in terms of sheer space, minuscule. But it also represents the location where nearly a hundred million people live. Our task is to set up a defensive perimeter around the city to keep it safe while also preparing strike groups that will head out and destroy any hives in this area.”

A second circle appeared, maybe twice the size of the first. As the hologram panned out, it overlapped with some other circles next to other cities to the south, east, and west.

“Now that we’re all on the same page,” Jolly Monarch started (it was pretty damned clear that we weren’t, but he seemed eager to plow past ) let’s figure out exactly how we can stall the end of the world. Shall we?”

CHAPTER FIVE

LOGISTICS

A plan’s complexity is tied to a logarithmic increase in the difficulty to provide logistical support to the pawns involved in said plan.

—Tin Man, professional RTS player, 2025

It was incredible how a meeting that would literally determine whether hundreds of millions of people lived or died could devolve into something so incredibly boring in the span of a couple of minutes.

Jolly Monarch and his AI had scanned the environment around the city and had plotted out the best locations for fortifications, outposts, defensive structures, and rally points. The plan looked pretty sound to me, but a few of the generals and military sorts had questions about it.

The biggest problem was that the plan assumed that every available soldier, police officer, and hired gun in the city would be willing to man the walls. That was almost stupidly optimistic. Of the two dozen groups in the room, about a quarter were vocally reluctant to participate at all, another quarter would only work for good pay, and yet another quarter were being real quiet about their opinions, and I had the impression they were as likely to bolt as they were to stay and help.

Interestingly, the plan didn’t give any of the samurai present fixed locations. Instead, we were told that we’d be called in, as available, to handle any large surges in the oncoming incursion. Jolly Monarch had some sort of Family-based system that could predict who would be best where, more or less.

So, I could expect to either volunteer to stem the tide or be called over to wherever things were at their worst to take some of the burden off the normal folks manning the walls.

The meeting was supposed to last an hour. By the third, I was practically nodding off in my seat.

Jolly Monarch knocked his knuckles on the table. I wasn’t the only one to jump. “And that’ll be the end for the meeting today. We have nearly every construction crew in the city heading to the outskirts in the morning. If things go well, by the end of next month there should be a wall all the way around New Montreal. Payments, shifts, and deployment orders will be sent out from the offices of the Family. Feel free to email us any additional concerns and needs.”

The older samurai adjusted his crown, and then with a nod to the lot of us, he backed away from the table.

I was caught a bit flat-footed by the sudden end to the meeting.

Generals and PMC leaders stood up, some forming little cliques that whispered between each other. In the center of the room, an AR hologram of New Montreal continued to circle around slowly.

It only took me a moment to spot the museum. It was clear that the projection was somewhat real-time. Half the upper floor was outright missing, and I could make out tiny pixel-wide figures moving around.

The museum wasn’t on the edges of New Montreal, but it wasn’t in the center either. Jolly Monarch had highlighted areas of higher and lower risk, and we were bordering one of the higher-risk parts.

That last incursion a few days ago had wrecked that part of the city, and any defenses that might have been there were in bad need of replacement or repair.

“Cat?”

I glanced to the side and found Gomorrah standing next to me. “Hey,” I said.

“You all right?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, just a lot on my mind. Sorry. I think it’ll get easier in a few days, you know?”

“Once all we have to worry about is an unending tide of man-eating monsters pouring out of the countryside to eat us all?” Gomorrah asked.

“Yeah. That’s a lot easier to handle. Mentally, I mean. Just kill the aliens. No politics, no dealing with people, no making hard choices. Well, not super-hard choices, at least.”

Gomorrah tilted her head to the side, just a little bit. It was a gesture I’d caught her doing a few times, her thinking pose. “I guess so. There is some beauty in simplicity. I’m not sure if it’s okay to look forward to such a destructive event. But I’ll admit that I’m itching for a fight too.”

“More things to burn?” I asked.

She sniffed. “I’m not some barbarian.”

“You’re a burnbarian.”

Gomorrah stared at me. I could feel the judgment wafting off the mask.

I can say with rigorous certitude: that was terrible.

I chuckled and got to my feet. “Well, that lifted my spirits a little. So, you brought Franny along? Is this your idea of a date?”

“It’s nothing like that. I think she was as nervous about staying at the church as I was. Heavy as the conversations here are, they’re still less stressful than dealing with the people back home.”

“Ouch,” I said. “You need a place to stay? We can kick some of the kittens out of their room at the hotel.”

“You’d evict a child from their room so that I have a place to stay?” Gomorrah asked. “I don’t know if that’s cruel or hospitable, honestly.”

“I mean, you could have the couch too. They’re kids, they can sleep on the floor.”

“Truly you are the embodiment of motherliness,” Gomorrah said.

I snorted. “Fuck off, I’d make a great parent and you know it.”

“I shudder to imagine.”

“So, that kind of shit aside, I think I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to be spending a whole lot of points tonight. Going to secure that museum, make it a safe spot for the kittens and Lucy. Maybe something of a base, you know?”

Gomorrah nodded. “That’s not a terrible idea. I don’t think this situation will end in us losing the city, but if it comes to a protracted siege, then a samurai-secured place or two wouldn’t hurt.” She went quiet for a moment until I received a call from her.

I answered while shutting off the exterior mics on my helmet. “Yeah?”

“Also, between you and me. I suspect the meeting tomorrow morning between all the local samurai will be putting a lot of pressure on us to perform the way the Family thinks is best. They can’t force you to spend points you no longer have, though.”

I hadn’t considered that. For that matter, I didn’t think the Family would really push us that hard. Then again, they did have something of a stick up their asses sometimes. “Thanks for the heads-up,” I said. “I’m heading back there now.”

Gomorrah nodded and extended a hand to shake.

I pulled her into a quick hug instead, with a few good pats on her back for good measure. “Give Franny a hug for me,” I said as I started to head out.

I could feel her eyes rolling behind me.

Sam-o Ray gave me a nod on the way out, but other than that, no one slowed me down as I headed out of the hotel and to the parking garage where my hoverbike waited for me.

What sort of big purchases are you aiming to make?

“That depends, I guess. What’s my point total at?”

Current Point Total: 10,494

I nodded as I swung a leg over the bike and made sure my coat was sitting right. “All right. First priority is the museum. I want it secure as hell. Did you get into contact with Lucy about it?”

She’s been playing with designs for the last few hours, between watching over the kittens and asking me about your status. She has more or less chosen one design and has been making minimal adjustments to it for the past hour.

“Cool,” I said. “Tell her to finish it up. We’ll be installing it tonight. Right, after that … I want construction and repair drones. Maybe with their blueprints? I want to be able to fix up the rest of the building. It’s less urgent, but it’s still a priority.”

You don’t own the rest of the building. It’s possible that the other owners will complain.

“Let them,” I said.

Noted. A single construction drone provided with limitless resources could properly reinforce the tower in the span of several weeks.

“I want to do more than that,” I said. “We need to do more, and faster. Turrets. We need a blueprint for something small and easy to install. Maybe something that doesn’t need to be reloaded? Like lasers or something.”

A small laser emplacement, with a solar cell for power generation and a connection to the city’s grid might work. A blueprint can be drawn up for something small enough to be built from your fabrication machine.

“That sounds perfect,” I said.

Though something so small will have a difficult time against anything in the third tier and above.

“That’s fine. We’ll upgrade things as we go.” I shot out of the parking lot and beelined for the sky. “For now, let’s just get a good, secure place where we won’t have to worry about aliens.”

CHAPTER SIX

KITTY CAT PALACE

There’s value in memes, you know?

It’s a bitch to quantify it, but it’s there. Anything that’s instantly recognizable by a large number of people has value. Maybe not value that can be instantly transformed into capital, but cultural and social value, and sometimes that can be worth a lot more than just money.

—“So You’re a Meme, Now What?,” pamphlet, 2024

I hovered over the museum, some hundred meters over the top of it, my arms crossed so that my elbows were leaning against the handlebars of my bike. Below me, the last of the contractors were moving away, large hovering dumpster trucks flying with all the skill and precision of whales while smaller hovercraft darted away.

Renovating the museum would take weeks.

Destroying it had taken hours.

The one was much easier than the other, and I bet if I were a more poetic sort of soul I’d find something meaningful to say about that.

“Is everything ready?” I asked.

It’s unlikely. While the contractors are professionals, they were in a hurry to execute your orders.