Stray Cat Strut 6 E-Book

RavensDagger

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

Seitenzahl: 645

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Confronted with corruption and crime, cyborg samurai Cat LeBlanc fights to protect a city targeted by aliens, in this action-packed cyberpunk adventure.  The megacity of New Montreal is under constant threat by the Antithesis, aliens who have transformed the landscape to produce swarms of creatures that feed on everything in their path. The city's infrastructure is in disrepair, and the politicians and corporations responsible for its maintenance have been slacking off, leaving angry citizens to fend for themselves. Cat LeBlanc is supposed to be on vacation, spending time with her girlfriend, Lucy, and their clowder of adopted children, affectionately known as "the kittens." Unfortunately for the young samurai, duty calls, requiring her to take a more active role in addressing the city's woes. Cat has no patience for political games or corporate bureaucracy, and she'd prefer to spend her time supporting a nonprofit clinic by producing free prosthetics to help those in need. But samurai tech has far greater value on the black market, enticing depraved gangs to loot the clinic. As Cat and fellow samurai Gomorrah follow the twisted trail of thievery, they learn they're not the only ones trying to track down the stolen goods. Rac, the teenage "kitten" living with Cat, has joined a crew of mercenaries looking to make a big score—only to find themselves the targets of a private military company.  Now it's up to Cat to get Rac out of harm's way and uncover who was really behind the prosthetic theft, all while the Antithesis prepares another invasion . . . The sixth volume of the hit LitRPG sci-fi series—with more than 17 million views on Royal Road—now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook!

Leseprobe

BOOK 6

RAVENSDAGGER

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 © 2025 by Edgar Malboeuf

Cover design by Roger Pinheiro

ISBN: 978-1-0394-8726-0

Published in 2025 by Podium Publishing

www.podiumentertainment.com

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE: STARING

CHAPTER TWO: LIKE A RACCOON TO A TRASHBAG

INTERLUDE: A ROAMING RACCOON’S REASONABLE RELATIONSHIPS [PART ONE]

CHAPTER THREE: STRANGE ANIMALS

CHAPTER FOUR: BACK TO CAT

CHAPTER FIVE: FUNNY BUSINESS

CHAPTER SIX: FINE LITTLE FIGHTER

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE KIND OF WORK THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY

CHAPTER EIGHT: CHECKING OUT THE STINK

CHAPTER NINE: USELESS CRAP

CHAPTER TEN: THE STINK

CHAPTER ELEVEN: SMILING FACES

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE TASTE OF BOOT

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: LONG DAY

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: MAYORAL IMAGE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: EMPIRICAL

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: BOARD MEETING

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A HOME VISIT

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: HOME

CHAPTER NINETEEN: HARDWARE

CHAPTER TWENTY: UNSUB

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: ETERNAL OPTIMISM AND PETTY SPITE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: DRESS FOR STRESS

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: FREE AND COMPULSORY

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: RUDE, CRASS, COMMON

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: COTTAGECORE SAMURAI POWER-COUPLE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: STRAY CAT’S CUT

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: NUN TOO SOON

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: MASTER OF NUN

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: UN-CONVENT-IONAL INTERIOR DESIGN

CHAPTER THIRTY: CAT NAP MISHAP

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: THE SKINNY LOWDOWN

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: RAT HUNT

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: CLEANING UP

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: SOMETHING’S DIRTY DOWN IN CLEANTOWN

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: OUTFOXED

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: SLEEPY

INTERLUDE: A ROAMING RACCOON’S REASONABLE RELATIONSHIPS [PART TWO]

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: THE CALL

INTERLUDE: A ROAMING RACCOON’S REASONABLE RELATIONSHIPS [PART THREE]

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: BOO-BOOS AND BODY BAGS

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: SHOTS, SPOTS, STRETCHERS

CHAPTER FORTY: CREATIVE KLEPTOMANIA

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: RECREATIONAL URBAN WARFARE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: TRASH PANDA FEELINGS

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: FINDERS, NOT KEEPERS

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: JAMS AND DRAINS

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: CORPO SHIT SHOW

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: GETTING DOWN TO YOUR BUSINESS

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: FELINE FRINGE

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: RECREATIONAL RESPIRATORY DETERIORATION

INTERLEWD

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: I SPY WITH MY MEATY EYE

CHAPTER FIFTY: A DATE AMONG GHOSTS

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE: LIVE, LAUGH, LOBSTERS

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO: CAT NAP WRAP

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE: WHO LET THE WORMS OUT?

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR: IT’S FUN TO PLAY WITH THE PMC, EH?

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE: I MEANT TO DO THAT

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX: COUNTRY CAT, CITY CAT

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN: HIT EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT: BURN SILENT INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE: HOT HIVES IN YOUR AREA!

CHAPTER SIXTY: HOW TO SKIN A CAT

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE: WITH GREAT CATS COME GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO: MINIATURE WARGAMING

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE: MEALS REFUSING EXIT

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR: NEW HAIR DAY

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE: YOUR AVERAGE ROLEPLAYING GROUP

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX: PEANUT BUTTER AND LESBIAN TIME

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN: TANK YOU (FOR THE SANDWICHES)

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT: DO NOT THE PRINCESS

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE: NICE?

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

Lucy sat on the front porch, wearing a one-piece swimsuit that was made of the bare minimum possible amount of material and sipping from a drink through a long swirly straw. She was wearing a healthy amount of sunscreen and lounging on a cushioned chair with a little umbrella set up next to her.

Cat and Lucy didn’t really have a porch, but the large landing space at the front of their home, nestled between the two large paws of the massive cat-shaped penthouse was vaguely porch-like, she supposed.

There was no sun out, because this was New Montreal, and the best they could hope for was an evening without rain, but it was the image that mattered. Plus, this was kind of fun overall.

“Ouch, fucking, fuck,” Cat said, and Lucy bit her lip in an effort not to laugh.

Catherine, in a fit of … Catherine-ness, had decided that she’d be the one to fix her giant warmech. The large quadrupedal vehicle was parked in the middle of the landing space, and Cat was standing on a small scaffold set up next to the front-left of the warmech. Next to her floated a “repair” drone, which she’d bought to basically do what she was already doing herself.

“Do you need help?” Lucy asked.

Cat glanced back, lips drawn together in a frustrated line. “No, I’m fine,” she said.

Lucy nodded, then took another long pull from her straw. She thought she’d tire of seeing the liquid spin around in little loops before reaching her mouth, but it hadn’t happened yet. Nor had she tired of watching Cat bend over to get into the guts of the mech.

Cat was wearing denim overalls, a sports bra, and about half a gallon of grease and oil. Her hair was stuck in a dirty ponytail to keep it out of her face, but that hadn’t saved it from some of the liquids that occasionally squirted out from whatever she was working on.

“Hey, Myalis,” Lucy said. She had a nice relationship with the AI. Myalis wouldn’t help Lucy unless she thought that in doing so, it would help Cat—the AI was very firm about that boundary—but at the same time, Myalis didn’t mind chatting.

As far as Lucy could tell, it was a little strange for a samurai to talk to their AI as if it was a person, but Cat had imprinted hard on Myalis and treated the AI like an old friend, so Lucy felt like she had to reach out as well. Cat’s friends were Lucy’s friends, and vice versa.

Myalis’s voice replied right in Lucy’s ear, overriding for a moment the music that Lucy had been idly listening to.

“Yes, Lucy?” Myalis asked. Her voice was always rather neutral. Feminine, but not … attractively so?

That was probably for the best, Lucy figured. If Myalis had one of those really sexy accents, then she might be in trouble. “How’s it going with Cat’s project?”

Myalis took a moment to respond, as if she had to think on what to say. Which was silly, Lucy realized. Myalis had probably guessed what Lucy would ask before the thought had crossed Lucy’s mind, and already had a million answers prepared.

“All things said, it’s going quite poorly. Catherine doesn’t have the ‘knack’ for mechanical work. She is also not very good at following the instructions from the repair drone. Nonetheless, even with several setbacks, the work is progressing, and she is making fewer mistakes than anticipated.”

There was a clink-clank from where Cat was, then a lot of swearing.

“Fewer doesn’t mean none, I should note,” Myalis said.

Lucy held back an inappropriate giggle. It would have upset Cat. “So, is this a new hobby? I don’t mind the butch-mechanic girl look, it’s hot, but I’m pretty sure Cat’s not doing this to try and … seduce me, or whatever.”

“I suspect that this is mostly happening because Catherine is not good at taking breaks. The prospect of sitting on her laurels, even after a few very active weeks, makes her feel powerless, so she has decided to do something, even if it’s somewhat counterproductive. Of all the things she chose to do, apparently fixing the damage on her warmech by hand came to mind first.”

“Hmm,” Lucy said noncommittally. She supposed it made some sense. Cat was under a fair bit of stress, even if she was doing nothing much at the moment. They’d only arrived back from Burlington a day and a half earlier.

That meant one night celebrating her return with the kittens, then a later celebration with Lucy in their room, then a whole day spent cuddling and fucking and then cuddling some more, and now, this morning, Cat had left and decided to become a mechanic.

Lucy sipped, and her straw made that loud slurping noise that meant she was fresh out of juice.

She sighed, then kicked her legs to the side and, with some effort, got to her feet. Her thigh and calf muscles sometimes still hurt, but she’d been assured that it was plain old muscle soreness from overuse, not anything nefarious. It was nice, being able to overuse a muscle on limbs she thought she’d lose the use of.

Walking over to Cat, she paused by the bottom of the scaffold and looked up. “Hey,” she said.

Cat paused in the act of scrutinizing two … metal thingies. “Huh? Oh, what’s up?”

“I’m getting another drink. Do you want anything?” Lucy asked.

“Uh. Grab me a can of something sugary,” Cat said. “You know what I like.”

“Oh, I do,” Lucy purred—she’d never pass up a line like that …

Cat stiffened for a bit, then grinned. “Ah, uh, hey, can you do me a favor while you’re in the house?”

“Sure,” Lucy said.

“I printed some parts. I need them,” Cat said, “for the … twisty bit, and the rod-shaft gizmo.”

“Ah yes, the rod-shaft gizmo,” Lucy said. She smiled. Cat was really getting into this new hobby of hers. It was cute. Like one of the kittens trying arts and crafts.

Cat huffed. “I just started this. You can’t expect me to know what I’m doing.”

“I’ll go fetch your rod-shaft gizmo,” Lucy said with a chuckle. “And after, maybe we can talk about lunch? It’s a couple of hours to noon, but I’m peckish.”

“Yeah, sure,” Cat said. “Could eat too, I guess.”

Lucy shook her head. Cat was starting to hyperfixate a little. She returned to her work and Lucy stepped off, heading back into the home.

It was incredible how different the air tasted just past the entranceway. There was no kerosene scent, and the air had a crisp, clean taste to it within the museum.

She sighed as she caught herself calling it the museum again. The habit just wouldn’t die.

The kittens, Lucy discovered, were spread out across the main room. Half of them were zoning out, staring at nothing and probably scrolling their media feeds. The other half were running after one another and making a mess. She plucked a console out of Bargain’s hands as he slipped by and gave it to Nose, who smiled thankfully and then called Bargain a dick before running off the other way.

She’d have to see about getting some sort of cleaning android, because getting the kittens to clean up after themselves was a lost cause. “You’re gonna get fat,” she sing-songed as she walked past Daniel.

He was on a couch, legs kicking over the edge—which was a new habit he’d gained recently, much to the annoyance of anyone passing close by—and he had a Meshgear helmet on. It wasn’t so much being plugged into the Mesh that was the problem as it was the extra-large bag of chips open next to him.

He flashed her the finger, then very conspicuously grabbed a chip and ate it.

Lucy shook her head and moved into their kitchen, where she set her cup down, refilled it from a big bottle in the fridge, added more ice for good measure, and found a can of something sugary for Cat.

Then, finally, she went to the room in the back that held their printer.

It had been going nonstop lately, printing out the laser turrets they’d been selling to any buying corp or giving away in equal measure to smaller settlements.

She didn’t expect to find someone in the room already. “Rac?” she asked.

The teenager jumped, and Lucy recognized the look that flashed across her face as guilt. She’d seen it on plenty of kittens before.

The girl wasn’t truly one of the kittens. She was too independent and carried a different past. Yet, she was still embraced in their home, one of Cat’s rescued strays.

“What are you up to?” Lucy asked.

“Uh,” Rac said. “Nothing?”

She was standing next to the matter printer, and it was pretty obvious she’d just stuffed something into the bag on the floor next to her.

“Uh-huh,” Lucy said. “Did that just print off some parts? Cat sent me to pick them up.”

“Maybe?” Rac said.

The machine beeped, which sounded like an affirmative, so Lucy circled around Rac and opened the hood up.

There were a number of parts still steaming in the printer bed. One of them looked pretty shaft-gizmo-y, so she assumed that was what she was here to fetch, but there was also a small, neat stack of what looked like very large shotgun shells, which Lucy imagined wasn’t what Cat had ordered up at all.

Lucy eyed Rac, and Rac stared at anything but Lucy.

“Well, whatever,” Lucy said as she picked up Cat’s part. It was still warm. “I’m on vacation, so don’t start too much trouble, please,” she said.

Rac seemed relieved at that.

Lucy wondered how relieved Rac would be if she knew that Lucy was definitely going to be keeping an eye on her now.

CHAPTER ONE

STARING

Let sleeping tigers lie.

—Cooler Versions of Shitty Old Proverbs, fifth edition, 2057

“Hey, bot, pass me the clickity thing,” I said with a gesture toward the repair drone.

The drone was hovering there, silent and unmoving, though I knew it had some sort of propeller thing going on because there was a constant wash of warm air coming out from its bottom. I’d purchased it when I picked up my new hobby. I’d never really been able to afford hobbies before, so this was a cool change of pace.

Technically, the repair drone could get my mech up and running in a fraction of the time it took me to do it.

Also, it wouldn’t mess up the repairs and break even more stuff, or lose its temper while doing it. It had the schematics for the mech in its little robot head, and could fix nearly anything wrong with it, especially with access to my matter fabricator to make parts.

But that would rob me of all my fun.

The drone passed me a tool—was it called a ratchet?—and I leaned into the mech and slotted it over a small bolt.

I hadn’t jumped into this new hobby entirely unprepared. I’d bought a cheap bit of software from Myalis that gave me step-by-step instructions on how to fix this particular mech. At the moment, it was telling me what to undo and where, and which part needed replacing.

It was kind of like a big three-dimensional puzzle, but one designed by a mad scientist who’d taken a fat snort of cocaine just before they got creative.

Every part of the mech was small and intricate and linked to others, which meant that replacing one piece required me to take apart a dozen more.

I was positive that the mech had been built this way to make it as strong as possible or something. It also made it insanely fucking annoying to fix. Kind of fun, though. After spending some time thinking about what to even do with time off, I had kind of picked “repairing stuff” on a whim. But I wasn’t regretting it. Not yet.

You know, when most people pick up a new hobby, they generally start themselves off easy, then work up to harder challenges.

“Cowards,” I dismissed, mostly because I knew it would bother Myalis.

Maybe you should work on something more your speed? Like a Jenga tower? That would have mechanical properties even you could understand.

I laughed. “Low blow,” I said. I chewed on my lip while flicking the ratchet around, and then the bolt I’d been working on came free and the part I wanted to replace fell … right in between the armored plates of the mech.

It clinked and clanked on its way down, and I just stared into the dark crack where it had gone.

“Fuck,” I said.

I’m adding to the total projected time until the warmech is repaired once more.

A little counter that had been gently dropping as I worked flickered, and the 36 climbed up to 39.

“Three more hours?” I winced.

Oh. Let me correct that.

A small “DAYS” appeared after the 39.

“You really don’t have any faith in me, do you?” I asked.

I do have faith in you, Catherine. I’m mostly teasing you to keep your mood up. You’re unusually motivated by antagonism, even of the more friendly variety. But I do think that if you set your mind to it, you’ll master this in due time.

I felt myself flushing a bit, then shook my head. “Never mind that. Hey, repair drone, fetch that part, would you?”

The drone hovered above the spot where the part had fallen, and some parts along its side unfolded. Soon a small line snaked out from the drone and into the crack, the tip lighting up faintly with what I imagined was a camera-light combo. It had little grippers too, for grabbing on to wayward parts.

The repairs so far had mostly involved taking things apart. I’d removed a few armored plates and disconnected a handful of parts, which gave me some access to the front left section of the mech where one of the Gatling guns had been.

The gun itself was … probably somewhere in Burlington still. It had been ripped clean off by that not-a-dinosaur, hence the repair job.

“You up for taking a break?”

I glanced back to see Lucy returning with a tray. It had a can of soda on it, next to the part I’d sent her out for.

“Just a little one,” I admitted as I leapt off the scaffolding and landed in a crouch next to her. “Thanks,” I said as I took the tray and set it down. I turned back to her and swept my gaze up and down. Lucy was always a pleasure to look at, but seeing her in a little one-piece swimsuit was just … nice. Very nice.

Myalis swatted away one of the many spy drones that had been buzzing around all afternoon. While I was pretty sure they were out here mostly to see what I was up to and to snoop on the warmech parked out front, I still felt a little jealous thrill at the thought of others seeing Lucy in her current, less-than-fully-clothed state.

“Wow, I can feel you staring,” she said, lips quirking into an easy smile. “But two things. First, you’re covered in oil and gunk. And second, I’m still sore.”

I laughed. “Yeah, fair,” I said as I leaned back against the scaffolds and popped the tab on the soda. “Myalis says that it’ll only take me another … month and a week or so to finish fixing this bad boy.” I gestured to the mech with a thumb.

“A month and a week,” Lucy said. “Isn’t that a long time?”

“Eh. If I really need it, then I’ll let the drone fix it up. How long would that take, Myalis?”

Approximately three hours.

“Under a week,” I said to Lucy. Look, I had some pride, and I wasn’t above lying to Lucy to make myself look less incompetent.

She grinned like someone who knew that, and who—luckily for me—thought it was more amusing than anything else. “Hey, thought you should know, but I saw Rac in the printer room. She was making stuff for herself, I think.”

“Oh?” I asked before taking a sip from the soda can. “Well, whatever. She’d been the one bringing in the most materials for the recycler. Only fair that she gets to use some of it.”

“I think she was making shotgun shells,” Lucy said.

“Wait, really?” I asked. I frowned, then navigated through my augs’ menus to connect to the house’s network—which I dared any non-samurai to try breaking into—and then to the printer itself.

The machine was exactly as smart as I’d expect from a Protector-made machine. It had logs of every item it had ever made, and who had picked each one up. There were some from me, a few from Lucy, and a heap from Rac.

Lots of turrets, which only made sense. We’d been producing and selling those on the side for a little bit. A lot of them were probably scattered around rooftops in Burlington, and while I didn’t doubt that a few would get picked up and resold by someone unscrupulous, they were basically free to make.

If Rac had nabbed a few herself, then I wouldn’t have batted an eye. I … wasn’t exactly paying her. Sure, free rent and a room with however many meals a day she wanted at my place was nice, but she was a little more independent than the kittens.

Still, there were a lot of recent prints on the list that had me … curious about Rac’s activities.

“Heavy plasma shotgun?” I read. “Myalis, how did she get the design for the printer to make that?”

You purchased a Heavy Plasma Turret Emplacement Blueprint several days ago. The gun she printed is technically meant to be mounted on a turret, so it was included in the blueprints.

“Well, well,” I said.

Not only had Rac bought the gun, she’d also gotten ammo for it—a lot of fucking ammo for it—multiple times across a few days.

There were a handful of other things. Some guns, a few prosthetics, but nothing insane.

I let out a long-winded sigh. “I need to look into this, don’t I?” I asked.

Lucy shifted closer to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Probably,” she said. “I can take care of a few of your projects … if you promise not to add too many more to my plate.”

“Projects?” I asked.

“You were helping someone become mayor, you promised to set up a free or nearly-free prosthetics clinic, you still need to do something about the Sewer Dragons … I think I’m forgetting a few loose ends,” Lucy said. She blinked, then looked at her arm, which was covered in a layer of grease.

“You might want to avoid touching me,” I said. “I’m greasy.”

She shrugged. “We have very nice showers.”

I considered things for a moment, then let out a groan and melted into Lucy. “Fine. I’ll be moderately responsible,” I said.

Lucy laughed. “How about you do things at a reasonable pace? One problem a day?”

“I think some of these things are more than a one-day issue,” I said.

“You know, Myalis can serve as a glorified secretary if you ask nicely,” Lucy said. “Myalis, make sure she has at least half a day off. Cat’s technically on vacation. And how is she going to find time for her new hobby if she’s running around all day?”

Duly noted.

I frowned. “Lucy, stop telling Myalis what to do. She’s my extraordinarily overpowered bullshit AI. You’re only supposed to use her to annoy me and for kinky stuff.”

I’d really rather not.

Lucy gave me a peck on the cheek, the cleaner one. “If I feel like it,” she said, which could have meant anything.

I glanced at the mech where the repair drone was still fussing at the section I had opened up. I could dive back into it. Actually, that’s what I felt like doing, but at the same time I was already feeling the guilt that came from not doing shit tugging at me. “Right … where’s Rac now?” I asked.

Myalis helpfully let me spy on our friend by giving me Rac’s real-time location. She was a few blocks over, taking a public tram across the city.

“I should go check on her,” I said. “Person-to-person, you know?”

“After you take a shower,” Lucy said. Then she smiled. “I’ll clean your back if you do mine?”

Well, I could hardly refuse that.

CHAPTER TWO

LIKE A RACCOON TO A TRASHBAG

The population distribution in modern cities means that approximately 40 percent of all inhabitants of a city live in a “megabuilding.” These are not to be confused with more traditional apartment buildings or megacondos (wherein each housing unit and the building as a whole are owned in part by its tenants).

Megabuildings are micro-cities, semi-enclosed environments with their own cultures, beliefs, companies, and sometimes even currencies. There have been recordings of massive cultural clashes, and even of megabuilding inhabitants going to war with other nearby structures.

Most of all, however, megabuildings are profitable for those who own them.

—The Mega, An Exploration of Megabuilding Culture in New York, Detroit, California, and elsewhere in the NA Region, 2046

I stretched my back as I walked into the bedroom, hands on my hips and spine twisted backward until something popped into place and I let out a long sigh. Showers were nice.

“Right, so where’s Rac now?” I asked Myalis.

New Montreal Center. She just got off the public transportation network.

Damn, and last time I checked was nearly an hour ago. I’d almost forgotten how incredibly shit the public network was. But it was also cheap as hell and could get you nearly anywhere within the lower city.

I picked up some underwear from the floor—they were probably clean—and started getting dressed. “So, if I’m gonna go pay her a visit, think I should go in casual?”

“I wouldn’t,” Lucy said as she walked in after me. She was dressed already, with a big towel wrapped around her head. “But maybe you don’t need to go in with power armor either.”

“Yeah, that might be overkill,” I agreed. So I found my skintight armored suit and slipped it on. Fortunately, it was bullshit alien tech, so the material could expand and contract as needed and I wasn’t caught bouncing on the spot trying to get it to fit like too-tight jeans.

The suit was able to absorb a fair bit of damage; it would do for a little walk around town. Plus, I had my jacket lying around, which was a bit better armored.

“Where’s my helmet?” I muttered as I looked around.

Lucy snorted, but she bent down and used her foot to kick my helmet out from under the bed. It didn’t roll far, what with the cat ears atop it making it a bit too unshapely to roll.

“Thanks,” I said as I scooped it up. I started to tie my hair up in a quick one-handed bun while I moved toward the door, helmet under my arm. The blue tint on the tips of my hair was fading. I’d have to reapply that stuff soon. “See you in a bit!” I called back.

“Love you!” Lucy sing-songed. “And remember, half days!”

Considering how it was already past noon, I imagined that meant that I could only “work” for the next few hours. But checking up on Rac would hardly, I imagined, count as work. How much trouble could one kid possibly get herself into?

I slipped my helmet on and moved through the museum, only stopping when Nose and Tim ran past me screaming at each other. Which actually reminded me, I wasn’t armed!

A slight detour took me to the armory, which was … actually, kind of pitiful. I had like, four guns and an entire room to store them in. I picked up my handy old Trench Maker, mostly because it was a gun I was fairly comfortable with, and tucked it into a thigh-holster. Then I hesitated over whether to grab anything else.

In the end, I decided that I’d probably be okay with just the hand cannon. If anything needed a bigger gun than that to deal with, then I’d just buy one on the spot.

My bike had, at some point, parked itself in the garage below the museum, because it was just handy that way. So I headed down while checking my map to see where Rac was at now. “Any idea where she’s heading to?” I asked aloud to Myalis.

She has visited a specific club three times in the last few weeks. Though I haven’t broken into their security to see why, who she might be meeting, or what she’s up to.

“Yeah, best not to,” I said. “If she was one of the kittens, then I’d want to know, in case she was being misled or something, but she’s not my responsibility.”

Which is why you’re currently riding on a course to intercept her?

I didn’t dignify that with an answer. Rac might not have been my responsibility, and I had no right to tell her what to do or anything of the sort, but … well, the brat was a friend, and I did feel like I had to take care of her a little.

Fuck, maybe Lucy was right and I did need therapy or something.

But instead of doing that, I kicked on my hoverbike and took off out of the parking garage, which was surprisingly empty. I supposed that the lower floors of the building weren’t quite in a state to be used yet, but still.

The aerial traffic was as bad as usual, but I skirted below it, shooting across the city in an almost straight line. New Montreal was a steel skeleton of jutting metal bones. Neon glows marked the starts and ends of buildings hidden in perpetual smog. Sure, the city had been hit by two incursions in as many weeks, but that didn’t stop it from glowing.

If there was one thing that would mark the end of New Montreal, it would be the disappearance of its billion-and-one ads. But they held strong for now, filling the air with thunderous jingles and swaying gifs of seductive flesh and mouth-watering meals.

I hated the holographic ads most of all. Maybe it was because they had only started to appear in bigger numbers as I was growing up, so they hadn’t been as common when I was a kid, but still, it felt unnatural to see a massive dancing woman rendered by a thousand drones using a skyscraper as a pole while text hovered around her. Was I getting old-people opinions now?

Rac wasn’t on the upper levels, according to my map, so I soon had to dive, and as I did so, the ads changed. They were less … tantalizing? I didn’t know much about the psychology of neon, but the ads meant for those living in the penthouses and traveling in hovercars were loud and yet subtle. You might see a flash of thighs or some high-end augs, but the company logos were small, the product hinted at.

Here, on the lower, ground levels, the ads were more straightforward. I parked on the same level Rac was supposed to be on, letting my bike land on the sidewalk of a multi-level highway next to a repeating gif of an animated woman giving a man head. The text “Want Fuck?” glowed bright next to me.

Parking there was probably some sort of violation. Actually, it was definitely some sort of violation, but I was pretty much certain I wasn’t gonna get in trouble, so I decided not to give a shit. No one sane fucked with a samurai’s ride.

Myalis updated my map, turning it into a more three-dimensional representation of the area, which was needed. Rac was currently riding an elevator up a building called HOUSE-FOUR-THREE, a massive brick of a building with the exterior painted entirely in dull grays except for the billboards covering its surface and the thousands of air conditioning vents poking out of its sides. It was the kind of place that I might have expected to live in, once.

Ten thousand miniature apartments, all jam-packed together, with a few floors in the middle connecting to the maze of buildings around it, and a handful of stores and shops tucked within so that anyone living in one of these never had to leave the complex.

I’d heard stories of people being born, raised, and dying in a single megabuilding without ever stepping foot outside.

The doorway into the building pinged my augs, asking for my age, date of birth, official name, gender(s), marital status, and credit card information, but then its rudimentary software bumped into Myalis and it shriveled up like a dick on ice and allowed the doors to open.

The interior was nothing but beige walls and graffiti. Judging by the scrawl, there were at least two gangs in this building competing for turf. Paint was caked over paint, one gang gleefully defacing the mark of the other only for the same to happen to them in turn.

My ability to read street signs was a bit rusty, but it looked like one gang was made for Karens, and the other was a younger group of native French, at least judging by all the tabarnacs I was passing.

What kind of shithole was Rac spending time in?

“Which floor is she heading to?” I asked.

She’s heading to the fourteenth floor. But she will then need to take another elevator down to B2 in order to reach the club. That elevator leads up to the floor you’re on. I can override it with ease.

I nodded. “Yeah, that seems nice,” I said.

I pushed deeper into the building, past a few tweakers and some folk shuffling along until I came to an elevator bank some ways in.

I stood there, arms crossed and legs set while the tiny icon representing Rac rose and rose until, finally, the doors opened before me and I came face-to-face with the girl herself.

She was standing in the back of the elevator, eyes glazed over for a moment before she blinked her augs off and took me in.

“Heya, Rac!” I said.

INTERLUDE

A ROAMING RACCOON’S REASONABLE RELATIONSHIPS [PART ONE]

“Heya, Rac!” Cat said.

Rac stared at the woman in front of her with growing horror. She found her breath catching in her throat, and her mouth filled with the electric tang of adrenaline, like licking a battery, but across her entire body and all at once.

But then she hid it with a grin.

Rac was an expert at not letting anyone know what she was thinking. The barrier had to stay up, because when it went down, bad things happened. When she lived in the undercity, it was a daily requirement. Never let anyone know how sick you were, how close you were to breaking, or how many credits you had.

Maybe she’d gotten a little soft in the last week. Life had gotten better. A lot better. She wasn’t even sure if it was entirely real yet, and Cat’s appearance right here and now might be the dream turning to a nightmare.

But no. She’d long ago learned to operate past that kind of thing. Self-delusion wasn’t a weakness of hers.

“Hey,” Rac said. “What’re you doing here?”

She eyed Cat up and down real quick. The older girl was … strange. Unique, maybe? Half the time, Rac wasn’t sure what to think of Cat.

Which she supposed was normal, in its own way. Samurai were supposed to be strange, so it would be weirder if Cat wasn’t bizarre.

Right now, Cat was in a skintight suit that reminded Rac of netrunner gear, with a heavy trench coat atop that and her neon-pink scarf around her neck. And the cat ears, of course. Hell, Cat barely looked like a samurai at the moment. Some of the better-off, more experienced punks had similar gear. Not the street punks like Rac, but the bigger players.

Cat smiled, all teeth and eyes that squinted. Cat’s grins were always lopsided, the burnt side of her face never quite moving right. “Why can’t it be a coincidence that we happen to meet in some elevator in a shithole mega-apartment about a quarter ways into the city?”

Rac’s grin didn’t waver—she even chuckled a little—but she could feel the sweat starting to cling to her back and armpits and palms. The backpack she was wearing suddenly felt ten times as heavy. “Yeah, funny that way,” Rac said.

She knew the charade would end soon, and then shit would get real, but every minute she kept playing along was one more minute she stayed alive.

Those were the rules, usually.

Then Cat, because she was Cat, decided to change the script and toss the rules out on their ass. Her smile grew less sharp, her ears turned forward and up a little, as if they were entirely natural ears instead of very high-end prosthetics. She stepped into the elevator, then leaned against one of the walls, boots crossing at the ankles. “Alright, look. I’m not angry. I’m not even disappointed,” Cat said. “I’m mostly curious.” Cat crossed one arm across her chest. The other was left limp by her side, forgotten.

Rac worked her jaw, not meeting Cat’s eyes.

Cat was … fuck, Rac didn’t know where to start with Cat.

Rac had been a nobody, of the sort whose corpse someone would stumble over some day. She was beyond just inconsequential, and the world knew it.

Then two samurai had waltzed by, broke all the rules, and decided to give Rac more than she could ever hope to have. Rac wasn’t going to wax philosophical about it or anything.

When shit went bad, she worked through it. That’s how she’d made it so far.

When shit got good? Like really, really good? Like working for a samurai, living in a penthouse, enjoying three fat meals a day, and having a nice gig?

Rac wasn’t prepared for that.

“Did I fuck up?” Rac asked.

“Rac, I don’t even know what you did,” Cat said. “I was legit when I said I was worried.”

Rac hesitated for a moment, but Cat wasn’t corpo. Cat wasn’t a bad liar, because she didn’t lie.

“I found work,” Rac said. “On the side.”

She waited for Cat to tell her off, but it never came. “Huh. Alright. Is it safe? Safe-ish? You know, I realize that I’m not actually paying you, which is kinda fucky. Sorry, I just hadn’t thought about it before just now. If you want …”

“No,” Rac said with a shake of her head.

She had a safe place to sleep, and as much food as she could eat.

She hadn’t let anyone know—except Lucy had known anyway, because that chick was scary—but in the first couple of days that Rac stayed with Cat and her kittens, she’d worried herself sick. It wasn’t going to last, she knew, so she needed more.

“I don’t need you to pay me. I’ve got … I’ve got a job, of sorts.”

“Does it have anything to do with that?” Cat said with a gesture over Rac’s shoulder.

She was pointing to the stock of the gun sticking out of Rac’s backpack. The gun she’d printed with Cat’s alien-tech machine. The rest of the backpack contained mostly ammo and a few necessities. First aid kits, some gear she thought might be handy.

She’d named the gun Heptee, because saying “Heavy Plasma Turret Emplacement” was far too wordy.

“Yeah, a bit,” Rac said.

One of Cat’s eyebrows rose. “Well, what’s the story? I’ve got all day. I’m on vacation right now.”

The tone she used to say “vacation” was somehow terrifying. It was the same way a hardcore punk might say they were “taking out the trash” or something. A word filled with shitloads of implication.

“Alright,” Rac said, making sure she sounded more excited than she felt. She was a damned fine salesgirl, if she said so herself. “So, I was looking for work. You know, just something to make a few credits. I asked around, and I found a decent gig.”

“What kind of gig?” Cat asked.

Rac shrugged. “Security work. Stand next to some low-tier suit and look tough. I made Heptee a couple of days ago.” She pointed a thumb at the gun over her back. “Keeps anyone from picking on me even though I’m small. Job went well, so I got some cred, and that got me in the door. I work with a little crew now. Or I’m trying to. This’ll be my second gig with them.”

She was glossing over a lot. The entire truth was that Rac was now, technically, a mercenary.

She wasn’t sure about all the legalese, but basically, as long as someone had a merc contract, they could sign up as a contractor-for-hire. There was a whole system in place. People needed shit done, and mercs were the answer to a lot of problems.

Crews would form and break up all the time, but mostly they were together to do a gig or two before the members would leave to join another group or do their own thing.

The system was easy enough. Rac was a step above the lowest tier, as a tier-one contractor. Nothing special, in the grand scheme of things.

“You’re going to a gig now?” Cat asked. “Along with … Heptee the very big plasma gun?”

Rac nodded her head once. Was that it? Cat would tell her to head back, and Rac would be out of a job.

She … kinda liked the work. She kinda liked the idiots she was working with. But Cat’s word was the rules.

Cat tilted her head to the side, then she smiled. “I’ll come with you,” she said.

“W-what?” Rac asked. That wasn’t the reply she’d expected.

“Yeah, it sounds fun. Besides, I’m on vacation. What sort of gig is it? Security again? If it’s actually too boring I might dip.”

Rac swallowed. “You can’t come,” she said.

“Why not?” Cat asked.

Rac was stumped. Why not? She had about a million reasons why not, but her lips went ahead and said the stupidest one before her brain caught up. “You’ll embarrass me.”

Cat stared. “I’ll what?”

“Uh,” Rac said.

“Wait, do you think I’m not cool?” Cat’s voice was low, her words clipped. She crossed her arms and stared with narrowed eyes. Rac had never seen her so offended before. It was kind of scary. She’d once seen Cat hang a guy by the neck over a bottomless pit only to drop him, and even then she’d done little more than shrug and grab the next guy. Even then Cat hadn’t seemed as annoyed as she did right here.

“No, no, you’re plenty cool,” Rac said. She waved her arms from side to side to dispel any other thought.

Cat’s mouth worked. “Holy fuck, you don’t think I’m cool. What the hell, Rac? I’m plenty cool.”

“Yeah, super cool.” Rac nodded.

“I’ve got like … guns, and a cool trench coat. And I have a giant fucking mecha.”

The mecha was kinda cool, Rac had to admit. “Yeah, you’re cool,” she said.

“Damnit, Rac, stop rubbing it in.” Cat ran her fingers through her own hair. “Unbelievable. Myalis, do you think I’m cool?”

And there she went, talking to her AI as if the AI was just … there in the elevator with them. It was super unnerving.

“Well, screw you, I bet you’re not cool at all,” Cat said.

Rac almost started to defend herself before she realized that Cat was directing that to Myalis too.

Cat snorted, then the elevator thumped and started to move. “Right, let’s go see these friends of yours. You can present them to your entirely very cool big sister Cat.”

Rac felt her heart drop. There was no way Cat would be able to pass herself off as just a normal merc. The first time someone insulted her she’d blow their brains out and then … well, actually, that would be somewhat normal merc behavior.

Maybe this wouldn’t be all that bad?

Rac tried to look confident as she walked.

Before, in the gutters and the undercity, she had to make herself small, inconspicuous and unimportant, like her namesake. There, but not important enough to bother with.

Up here, heading to the Barber Shop, the attitude was different. She had to look like she belonged.

“You’re going to need some sort of ID to get past the bouncer,” she said. “He’s this big full-borg guy who doesn’t fuck around.”

Cat shrugged. “I could take him,” she said.

She hadn’t even seen Molotov and she said she could take him. Then again … Rac knew Cat could take him, and that wasn’t something Rac wanted. “No. He’s actually kinda nice? But he’ll sound the alarm if he thinks you’re corpo or a samurai.”

Cat grunted. “How’d you get in? I doubt they carded you.”

“I’m a merc,” Rac said. “Once I had my status changed, he let me in no problem. You need someone to vouch for you to become a merc though.”

“Could probably fake it,” Cat said. Then she frowned. “Really? Huh. Well, that’s actually kind of clever.”

Rac pursed her lips and half-turned to look at Cat. “What is?”

“Apparently mercs mostly use paper. Easier to destroy, and not something Myalis can just break into. So, that idea’s out.”

Rac nodded along. “I think you could get in just like a normal person going to the bar, but not if you’re with me. Maybe if you try to pass yourself off as a specialist? For like, a job?”

“What sort of specialist? An infiltrator? A sort of cyberninja? Oh, I can totally use Myalis to pass myself off as a Meshrunner, no problem. Or some sort of frontline alien-killing badass. I’m pretty decent with bombs too. And stealth.”

“Uh-huh,” Rac agreed. Cat probably could get away with all of that, but it wasn’t the kind of shit that an actual merc did. Well, maybe some of them, but the work of an average merc like Rac was a lot less complicated. Her last couple of jobs had been standing around looking tough, or helping load up some crap into the back of a van in a hurry, or escorting someone through a rough part of the city.

Cat, being a samurai, did the kind of crap that legends did all the time, but most of the people in New Montreal were as far from legends as they could be.

Rac heard the Barber Shop before she could see it. A low, distant thrum of bass-boosted swing music from last century. She could smell it, too, a faint stink to the air that was unique to this one level of the megabuilding. It was piss—which wasn’t unique—but also booze-filled vomit and sweat and cigarette smoke.

They came around a corner, and the front of the Barber Shop was right there. A big rotating door, painted in blue and white and red, with Molotov the bouncer standing next to it, massive arms crossed over his chest.

“Hey, Molotov,” Rac said as she came closer. The music was louder now, so she had to raise her voice. She had a feeling Molotov could still hear her. The entire upper half of his head was prosthetic. Borg eyes in a chrome skull. It stopped around the upper lip, where he had a long, rather awesome beard and mustache that he tucked into his three-piece suit.

His eyes twitched down, scanning her, then shifted back up toward Cat. “Hey, Rac. Who’s your friend?”

“She’s a specialist,” Rac said. “Lookout specialist. Thought we could use the extra hand today, and I wanted to introduce her to Millennium Animal.”

Molotov eyed Cat for a long, long time, then he gestured them in. “Behave, little Raccoon,” he said. “And your friend too. The Barbers don’t like trouble.”

“Yes sir,” Rac said hurriedly. If he wasn’t going to question things, she wasn’t going to linger.

They slipped through the rotating door, and the music hit her like a slap to the face. Loud swing music accompanied a woman on a far stage swaying her hips and multiple fox tails while she crooned through a song.

The bar was split into three distinct areas. There was the big central dance floor, with the stage and its musicians and a few holograms of men, women, and anthropomorphic animals in suits and nice dresses from over a century ago dancing along the edges, and to the left was the bar itself, with a bunch of round tables and a counter that ran the length of the room.

The place wasn’t as busy as she’d seen it before, probably owing to it still being early in the day. Still, there were some three dozen or so people around the bar and the floor, some in nice anachronistic suits, others with varying amounts of animal parts worn either as clothes or elaborate prosthetics, and a few just … normal street people, like she could have seen anywhere.

The right side of the bar was where she dragged Cat. There was a dividing wall, the bottom half fake wood, the upper bulletproof glass. Behind that were the booths, which was where business happened.

“Who’s Mister Millennium Animal?” Cat asked.

“He’s the one who hands out jobs,” Rac said. “He’s a troubleshooter. People give him jobs and he gives them to the crews that hang out here.”

“And what’s with his name? Sounds samurai-ish.”

“It’s because he’s old,” Rac said. “Apparently he was born in like, 2000. And the ‘Animal’ part is, uh.”

They entered the booths section, and Millennium Animal was right there. He was a fox today. A well-dressed, dapper fox, with a little fedora on and everything.

“You didn’t tell me he was a furry,” Cat hissed.

“Aren’t you?” Rac asked. She glanced at Cat’s ears, then the tail hidden under her coat.

Cat’s mouth worked, and Rac noticed her cheeks warming up before she glared. “I’m not,” she said.

Rac shrugged. “Okay. Whatever suits you.”

Millennium caught sight of her and waved even as the mask he wore twisted to give the impression of a smile. “Little Raccoon, you’re right on time. And you brought a friend too. Nice ears, ma’am.”

“Thanks,” Cat bit out. “I’m Rac’s … big sister, of sorts.” She walked right up to Millennium and stared him down, ignoring Rac’s quick attempt to gesture for her not to do that.

Millennium was big in the Barber Shop. He’d been here since forever ago, and while he was definitely … weird … he had one of the best reputations for troubleshooting in New Montreal. A lot of people didn’t pick him for jobs, mostly because he kept things on a smaller scale, but he also refused a lot of clients. He also almost exclusively picked which mercs he was going to work with.

It was practically a fluke that she’d gotten in with his current crew of low-tier mercs, and that was only because of her name.

And right now, Cat was glaring at him as if he was some double-digit alien threatening to eat a baby.

Millennium took it in stride. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, Miss Big Sister of Sorts? I’m Millennium Animal. It’s a pleasure to meet you, especially seeing as how you seem to care so much for our dear Raccoon here.”

Cat’s anger subsided a little, and she glanced at his outstretched hand for a moment before shaking it.

Rac sighed. She wasn’t about to shoot her boss.

“Call me Cat,” Cat said. “And I’m not a furry.”

“As you wish,” he said with a shrug. “A lot of us would rather identify as the animal within rather than be identified by the community without, and that’s perfectly acceptable as well. In any case, how can I help you?”

Cat seemed to be caught flat-footed for a moment before she shook her head. “Look, I just discovered Rac was doing … something with you, and I was worried. I wanna see what you’re all about. Make sure it’s on the up-and-up.”

Rac’s prediction had been right. This was embarrassing. She wanted to curl in on herself and die a little, but that wouldn’t have been good for her image, so she kept her face neutral and her back straight.

Millennium laughed. “It’s anything but that. And it’s not entirely safe, either. I run a good crew, and I pick my jobs. The price isn’t the best, but the work is as safe as it can be.” He shrugged again, and somehow his ears and tail moved in such a way that he looked way more innocent than Rac knew he was. “As we used to say when I was young, it is what it is. Now come, sit. Today’s job is nothing complicated, and if you’re as comfortable with that handgun as you look, then maybe you’ll want to sit in on it?”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Cat said.

Rac held in a groan. Not only did she have to introduce Cat to her friends, but now Cat would be babysitting her on a job.

“Can’t see why you’d want me on a job, though. You don’t know me at all,” Cat pointed out.

“Free labor is free labor,” Millennium pointed out with a fox-like bark. “I don’t look gift horses, or cats, in the mouth. Now come, I’ll show you to Raccoon’s friends, and you can determine on your own that she isn’t so unsafe.”

“Hey! What makes you think I’d work for free?” Cat asked before she set out to follow him.

Rac considered maybe just silently running away, but no, she couldn’t do that.

CHAPTER THREE

STRANGE ANIMALS

No one wants a career! Do you think you want to work for the same bosspunk for thirty years of your life?

Gigs are the way to go! Work for more credits, work when you want, if you want! And the day your boss steps on your toes? You’re off to the next gig!

—Gigs-R-Us ad, 2031

I wasn’t sure if I liked the Barber Shop. The music was weird as hell, and while the chick with the fox tails had a killer voice, I could still pick out the synth notes when she started to croon. I suppose that was one of the downsides of having really good cybernetic ears.

Plus, the place had too many people wearing too much faux-fur for me to be comfortable.

She spent time around people dressed like that, yet thought I wasn’t cool? What the hell?

I’m sensing that you dislike the aesthetic.

“Mm-hmm,” I muttered. Rac glanced up at me, and I waved her concern off. “Show me to your friends, Rac. I’ll try not to be too uncool around them.”

It probably shouldn’t have bothered me so much, but it did anyway. Maybe my ego was a little more fragile than I’d like to admit. But … well, fuck it. It wasn’t cool to be so worried about what others thought about you anyway, so I made an effort to let it go.

It’s just that I thought, for some reason, that at least in Rac’s eyes I was the badass older sister she never had who could solve all of her problems by blowing them up. I guess I wasn’t quite there, though.

Sucked, but that’s what it was … at least for now. There was still time to impress the brat, even if it really, really didn’t matter.

“Don’t be weird around them,” Rac said.

“I won’t be weird,” I growled. “Have some faith in me.”

That would be misplacing her faith.

“Oh, shut up, you,” I muttered. Rac gave me another look, but I ignored it. Myalis was being extra sassy right now, probably because she knew that this was embarrassing for me, and she knew that I knew that it was silly to be embarrassed about it to begin with. She loved this kind of circular thing.

Rac led me to a booth some ways into the bar-slash-club, where the music from the dance floor wasn’t quite as loud. There was a wall cutting off some of the noise, and a row of fake plants along the other walls partially hiding some of those foam sound-buffer things that cut off vibrations.

The booth Rac led me to had two people sitting at it already. One was a massive woman with a plastic half-mask on her face that made her look like a gorilla. The look was only made more gorilla-like by her arms and upper back. It looked like she’d had some pretty extensive cybernetic work done. Her shoulders were huge to compensate for the size of her arms, which were also massive. They ended in hands that looked like they could crush melons with no effort. Or a person’s head.

Those are interesting. A human design, but based on a Vanguard’s discarded prosthetics. They’re about ten years behind the current technological trend, mostly used for carrying heavy weapons.

So, she’d gotten her hands on military surplus? Or, rather, her hands were military surplus.

The guy next to her was a lot less daunting to look at. A skinny runt of a guy, maybe a year or two older than Rac and a bit younger than me. He had a skintight suit on with a leather jacket thrown over that. He was wearing a full-face mask, with little mandibles and some hints at more eyes on it.

Not cybernetics, just a customized piece of high-tech gear that gave him a spidery look. He gave me a peace sign with a freakish hand—too many joints, fingers that were too long—then scooted over so that Rac and I had room to sit.

“Guys, this is Cat, she’s … sort of like my big sister, I guess,” Rac said. I smiled at the lot of them and nodded. They were listening, but not really passing judgement just yet. “Cat, this is Coco, and that’s Jerusalem.” She gestured first to the gorilla woman, who shifted to the side to raise an arm up and over the table so she could wave, revealing a banana peel decal on her inner arm, and then to the spider-looking guy, who gave me a thumbs-up.

“Yo,” I said. “So, is this the whole crew?”

“Nah, Garter’s not here yet,” Coco said. “Where is he, anyway?” That last was directed to Jerusalem, who tilted his head to the side, then he made a trio of quick gestures, ending with a “three.”

“Does he not talk?” I asked with a gesture to the guy.

“He’s mute,” Coco said.

Jerusalem shrugged, which I guessed was his usual response to the question. Then he continued to stare at me for a while before he recoiled. He looked like he’d just been shocked.

“What is it?” Coco asked.

Jerusalem made a few more complicated gestures in the air that I couldn’t understand.

But apparently Myalis could.

He’s telling Coco about his recent encounter with your automated cybersecurity systems.

I didn’t want to give away the game, and I was kinda shit at subvocalization, so I ended up opening a text app in my augs. My what?

Me. He tried to slip into your augmentations, and he bumped into me. Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything more than what a decently good cybersecurity system might do. I didn’t even chase him, just gave him the digital equivalent of sticking his fingers in a mouse trap.

Jerusalem shook his head as he finished telling Coco what happened, and the big woman just laughed. “Well, maybe you should know your place then, huh?” she asked. “Raccoon, what’s your big sister do?”

“She, uh,” Rac said. She looked at me, then back to her friends, and the silence started to stretch just a pinch too much.

“I’m stealth and infiltration,” I said before she could demote me to lookout.

“Same as Jerusalem, then,” Coco said. “You coming with us on today’s gig?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Probably, even.”

“That case, you might want to let Jerusalem connect you to our network. We use it for comms. And he uses it to send text messages to the lot of us. I’m assuming you’re literate?” she asked.

“I can manage,” I said.

I glanced over as a guy walked over to our table. I didn’t lean that way, but even I could tell he was an objectively handsome man. He had that model chin and wavy blond hair, curled up at the front in a messy-but-not sorta way.