Stray Cat Strut - Volume Eight - Chapter Sixteen 

Chapter Sixteen 

***

I leaned back a little in my stool. “So, Doc, how have things been, besides the whole Phobos situation?”

Radikal blinked owlishly, then casually shrugged. “Things have generally been well. There’s always a slow return to some form of normalcy after such a big event. And the Phobos incident was one that the Nachtwächternetzwerk willingly chose to embark in. There’s some political barking about our Storm device, but it’s hardly the first time we’ve built or purchased something capable of causing mass destruction.”

“Yeah, I can see why people would bitch about it, but it’s kind of pointless to whine about one nuke when you’re sitting on a stockpile of them,” I said.

“Exactly, yes,” he said. “In any case, the state of things is returning to the way we like them.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“There are fewer threats of human extinction this week than there were in the last. Our doomsday clock has slid back several microseconds.”

“Doomsday clock, huh? What hour’s it at?” I asked.

Radikal chucked. “Twenty-three fifty-nine.”

“Ah, well shit,” I said as I reached up to rub my face. “You know, I started to go to school this week. For the first time in... anyway. Uh, learning that we’re so close to everything going tits up kind of makes that seem like a waste of time.”

The doc shook his head. “No. I believe, firmly, that there is a serious need for us Vanguard to have real, stable lives. I’m not a top-tier one myself, but I have been a Samurai for ten years now. Eleven? Ah, it has been a while. I’ve seen some young souls become Vanguards and lose a great part of themselves as they race to the top. They come to their senses eventually, or they’re the kind of person for whom such a high level of power feels natural, but I think that taking things slow and keeping a firm grasp on your humanity is important. If your way of doing this is to attend school and be surrounded by normal people, then so be it.”

“I don’t think there’s much risk of me forgetting my humanity or whatever. Or leaving normal people behind,” I said. I had the kittens to look after, and Lucy to keep me... more or less grounded. 

“Ah, I shouldn’t have presumed. Forgive me,” he said. “In any case, what is that I see behind you? The leg of a mechanized system?”

“Huh? Oh, that’s the leg of my mech. One of them. It’s... kind of semi-taken apart. There was this nasty fucking model thirty-something that took a few bites out of my mech and left it all sorts of fucked. I’ve been fixing it since. I have another to use in the meantime.”

“Ah, a mechanic! Perhaps you’d fit into the Network better than you think. We support a number of more engineering-inclined Samurai.”

No way was I gonna head over and embarrass myself in front of the Germans.

“It’s just a hobby,” I said. “Don’t go looking at me if anything breaks down.”

Talking with Radikal was... nice? The guy had this sort of ‘awkward scientist’ vibe in the way he dressed and moved, but it didn’t feel that way at all when he talked. I guess I was stereotyping him based on his looks or something, but as we chatted about this and that, he never really dropped the ball.

Before I knew it, half an hour had passed. He’d told me a few stories about some of the people he worked with, and I got to tell a few about how shit had gone down around the Big Gun.

“I actually don’t know what we’re going to do with it now,” I said. “The army’s still stationed all around it, as far as I know. I think they’re building up an entire ass base right next to the Big Gun? It’s not a really great place for that, but... actually, it’s not terrible either.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” he asked.

“Gros Baton. That little French-Canadian kid? He still lives in his hometown, and that’s a stone’s throw away from the Big Gun’s site. So they at least have a Samurai within shouting distance if anyone tries anything. Not that I think anyone will.”

“It would be difficult to steal an installation as large as the Big Gun. However, don’t underestimate the willingness of some to try,” he warned.

“I guess it might be worth it. Things got to be worth a few billion, right? But like, the other half of the gun is useless without a samurai to operate it.”

“Yes, certainly, but the portal system isn’t. I can imagine some corporations paying quite the sum just to have images and blueprints of such a device to throw at their research and development teams.”

“Would they get anything out of it?” I asked. “Shit was the collaborative work of a dozen samurai. It’s not something that’s going to spill its secrets just like that. And if it did, then it’s still like, a few decades ahead of any tech we have,” I said. We being humanity in general, of course. 

“It’s only a few decades ahead because we’ve spent decades catching up,” he said sagely. 

“Are we actually catching up?” I asked. “Feels like this shit is pure sci-fi stuff.” I gestured around vaguely at all the stuff around me.

Radikal just nodded. “We are. You are, forgive me for saying so, still quite young. It’s normal that you haven’t internalized the change, but it is happening, and at a pace that is startling. It is merely that in the last few decades, change had been happening in a sort of wave.”

“A wave?” I asked.

“Yes. You may be too young to have noticed it, but ever five to ten years now, there’s a great breakthrough in one field of science or another. Usually something that propels a corporation into prominence, and usually something linked to a Vanguard.”

“Okay,” I said. “And that’s the start of a wave?”

“Yes, a wave,” he said. “Because there is then a race to apply this new technology to everything. It becomes a craze, usually going too far before it recedes and a new normal is achieved.”

“So like... hover cars?” I asked.

“A good example! The technology was innovative when I was still young, and it was applied to everything. Now it has been scaled back to more reasonable productions. Mostly automobiles and some utility items. No one speaks of flying cities anymore, not since Atlantica was built at great expense and proved to be problematic in practice.”

Right, that big floating city over the Atlantic ocean. Kind of a hot mess from what I remembered, but also like... kinda popular as a nation-less citystate for some folk.

“Obviously, when the Nachtwächternetzwerk built our flying base of operations, we utilized similar, but more advanced, technology. Afterall, the purpose of technology is to better allow you to accomplish a goal. More efficiency, more effectiveness, lower cost and upkeep. These are all factors that come into play when adopting something new. In that respect, the goal of the Protectors is slowly coming to fruition.”

“Their goal?” I asked. “Ain’t that just to keep us alive?”

“No. Don’t you recall the words your AI companion first spoke to you?”

I blinked. “I think I was impaled with a metal pole at the time,” I said. “And I wasn’t expecting a voice in my head.”

He didn’t even hesitate at the admission. I guess he had been a samurai for longer, so my origin story didn’t sound too special. “Each AI says something slightly different, I believe, and there’s the linguistic difference as well. Mine said, ‘Ich werde Ihnen helfen, die Menschheit zu erheben, damit Sie Ihre Heimatwelt vor der Bedrohung durch die Antithese verteidigen können,’ or something similar. Essentially, ‘I will assist you to uplift humanity so that you may defend your homeworld from the Antithesis threat.’ That is not the same as assisting humanity itself, but assisting me, and you, to assist humanity.”

“I guess I get it,” I said. “It’s giving a gun to a cop for him to keep the place safe, rather than doing it yourself.”

“That analogy works... to some extent, yes.”

“I’m not good at those,” I admitted. “But yeah... I guess we’re helping in our own way?”

He nodded. “As long as we’re not giving people too many tools with which to kill themselves, I think we’ll be fine. There will be more need of us in the future. Take this moment of calm for what it is; time to let yourself learn and unwind and sharpen the skills that you will need later, because later always comes sooner than you might think.”