Ch. 97 - Are you sure that's a Scout?

  "You'd think all aug-gear would always automatically label samurai, considering the danger to adjacent life they represent. Practically, your chances to even meet one on the street are so low, no corp would invest money into that function."

  – Random online personality, streaming to a chat full of bots and trying to make it big, December 2043

  ***

  HQ of La Superciudad, Madrid

  Catalina Mariquita, CEO and master of corporate-imperial La Superciudad, true owner of Madrid, knew how wonderfully devious stereotypes could be. Indeed, her lovely secretaria, Ana María—stereotypically common name, stereotypically attractive lover, accomplished actress—served as a perfect example:

  Ana María gleefully went to work, distracting Catalina's rivals from her trembling hands with her usual elegant aplomb.

  Guiris idiotas.

  The arrogant fools masquerading as American CEOs, had finally deigned to share the news of the escaped samurai. She really could've used a few extra days to get her ducks in a row, but they'd thought it a good idea to prevaricate and pretend their people would be able to fix everything if they just waited a little longer.

  Como siempre.

  While Ana María artfully occupied the ever-probing eyes and ears, Catalina collected herself and got to work rearranging her entire strategy in light of this new information. Her assets needed sorting. How much of La Superciudad could she afford to cede as bait?

  Two furious samurai. Mierda.

  Aaah…in the end she was only kidding herself if she pretended that she hadn't made herself exactly as much a fool as those ignorant Americans she so liked to disparage. Had she not taken the same gamble, blinded by the impossible profit of owning samurai?

  At least she had prepared contingencies to pacify angered samurai, as any commander of businesses worth their salt would. But unlike most, Catalina bet not on patsies and sacrificial lambs for survival.

  Now, she supposed, it was a race to see which of her and her associates' contingencies would prove effective, and which of them would wind up dead.

  ***

  Undisclosed holding facility, north north-east of New Montreal

  By the time we arrived at the facility we'd only added stealthy surveillance, fresh clothes, and a few other trip-related things to the list.

  Thinking back, we probably could've saved a few points by just abandoning the quads, instead of disposing of them. But something in me rebelled at the idea of leaving anything usable for our kidnappers. I would've been compelled to booby trap them, for obvious reasons.

  See how well you do at kidnapping people with pipe bombs up your asses, I seethed, as memories of finding Leah flashed through my mind. My fists clenched with the half-remembered crunching of rib cages and broken heartbeats against them.

  I sighed. Pipe bombs and booby traps were probably not a smart idea when you were trying to make your enemy less skittish.

  ***

  Another topic I'd brought up with Leah was the idea of mixing the organic with the machine to give her walking spider Class II spinnerets on its legs. It would've made for some rather powerful close quarters combat options, I thought, to be able to sling silk with eight legs. Non-lethal too, which would've been interesting for our eventual arrival in the city. We distinctly lacked options in that department. Unfortunately, integrating a metabolism into the inorganic was too expensive to really consider at this time.

  But then, if somebody actually tried going after a mechanical spider of obviously alien nature—say, of Vanguard tech—then they're probably not fit for survival.

  Would that be assisted suicide, or just suicide? I wondered, scratching my jaw.

  ***

  The spider was going to be way big. It could crouch low to the ground, sure, and be quite sneaky, but it still had six meters of leg. Times eight. And the abdomen would be three meters of incompressible height.

  And then it had a cannon of naval caliber.

  Along with several grenade-tossing tubes and more large-caliber rifles.

  And a bank of electrolasers energetic enough to light up the sky, to defend against aerial threats.

  …

  "Leah, are you sure the thing's a scout?"

  She looked at me and tilted her head.

  "Yes? Why?"

  "No, nothing. It's fine," I answered with a twitching smile.

  What the fuck was Warforge Technologies, if that counted as a scout?

  ***

  I glanced sideways at Leah, who was balling up my old silk threads across the facility's court, the ones with which I'd kept an eye out against intruders early on, to make space for her Daddy-Long-Legs. She'd pressure-washed the insides of her suit and had put it on again, which I both appreciated and hated.

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  She looked stunning in the thing, especially now that I allowed myself to really pay attention to the way the golden lines highlighted her otherwise blacked-out curves. She was a work of art, honestly.

  But naked Leah had been wonderfully distracting. Cleaned, showered, and massaged, she'd smelled so very alluringly that I'd only barely kept up, stumbling along that delicious scent trail. I did, with a little less raw effectiveness, return the favor. I was still topless. Something that drew Leah's eye with pleasing regularity.

  I tickled the underside of the stem of the antenna that was, of course, pointed at her, until it twitched away. That helped take my mind off of that particular track, and I moved towards the edge of the concrete to join Leah in getting rid of the soaked and dirty silk inside and outside the facility.

  ***

  We tried to do our housekeeping without leaving traces that would tip anyone off about our capabilities—such as my silk-weaving—but I wondered if that wasn't a futile endeavor. Even if the everpresent clouds and rain were in our favor, some might've still managed to observe us out there. If nothing else, the big plasma explosion would've tipped them off.

  I pursed my lips. Well. What's done is done. At least the thought of engaging somebody who can cause that level of damage within a day or two of escaping captivity, should scare them shitless.

  …That'll keep the normies around us safe for a little bit, I hoped.

  ***

  We'd leave the used-up Hummingbird behind, along with a Foxteeth, as bait. Stuff them into an Antithesis's gastric juices, as a way to explain the lack of useful genetic markers on them.

  It suddenly hit me that I was a complete unknown. There was actually nobody on Earth who had a record of my current DNA. Aden's, sure. Any medical service I'd visited as Aden had records of Aden.

  Right.

  I'd known that I was anonymous, since I'd woken up. But it was kind of a vague thing? It hadn't really meant much.

  Huh.

  I…didn't really know what to do with that realization. Would I need to claim my old identity, just to take possession of my old stuff?

  I flushed slightly, and smiled, as I realized that I'd already decided to move in with Leah.

  Oh.

  Was that going to be at her place or at the orphanage?

  Would she even let me? I wondered. I'd have to ask her, but I figured so. She did say she'd "take me and make me hers" after all.

  Awawa. I shivered and heated up. Again. Leaned my forehead against the cold concrete of the staircase walls as my thighs rubbed against each other.

  I had it bad for the gorgeous Valkyrie of a woman. And, she did for me too. A silly giggle leapt from my throat as I hopped in place, all giddy with happiness.

  What to do, what to do… Ah, yes. Spy stuff.

  Energized and in love from my toes all the way up to the tips of my antennae, I clapped my hands and got back to work. I needed to set up the boosters and a few stealthy drones for long term observation of this facility.

  ***

  Quickly gathering up the last of the silk, I threw it on top of the pile outside and had Tynea spawn a plastic box full of small electronics and spy drones for two hundred points total. The signal boosters would link with each other via low-powered lasers and connect to the uplink outside.

  I replaced every fire alarm with them and watched as tiny disguised lenses rotated to create an optic network for the stealth drones; little discs—so light I couldn't feel them sitting on my palm—rose to the ceiling, and attached themselves there with soft pads of microscopic hooks that bit into tiny cracks in the concrete.

  The tiny quad-copters had extremely silent rotors, undetectable even to my antennae; their rotor-wash inverted on itself in a complex vortex, the geometry of which I needed the Quanta to decipher. It did create a lot of induced drag which slowed the drones dramatically, but they could follow a person and they'd be none the wiser.

  Maybe one would even manage to hitch a ride and tag an intruder for us?

  ***

  I skipped over to Leah, who was taking a break and relaxing inside the cocoon. She was naked and her goop suit lay in the little cove I'd originally made for the food jars and water bottles. When she saw me, she smiled at me, and waved me in once I'd detached the Myriad.

  She welcomed me with a warm hug, one that pulled me right into her lap. I straddled her legs, knees on either side, and laid my head on her shoulder. My bust lifted hers, but I enjoyed the soft weight and smooshiness of the situation as I pressed a kiss to the side of her throat. Leah hummed contentedly and squeezed me around the waist, tight enough to bend my spine a little as my body conformed to hers. I loved it.

  There was a sense of completeness here. We were back in our quiet, peaceful world, skin to skin as we'd been during our first hours together. It was incredibly relaxing.

  After a few quiet minutes, Leah spoke up; languidly. "I realized I was probably seeing this cocoon for the last time while I was cleaning up."

  "Mm." I nodded. "It's…a bit big to bring along, probably."

  "Yeah." Her voice carried some melancholy. But there wasn't any stress.

  "I guess it just really feels like home. Safe. Very safe."

  I giggled a bit as I nodded again. Leah had taken up my habitual, emphasizing ellipses, huh? Adorable.

  "I can see that. It was our safe space after all. The one place in the facility where nothing happened except lots of healing."

  "Yup. And it's hella comfy, too." Leah said as she bounced me playfully through the power of clenching glutes, until I jiggled and giggled.

  I leaned back to share a smile, and quite enjoyed the glide of breast against breast. Leah's tight hug meant that there wasn't really much room for air to slip in. Just lots and lots of skin. It wanted to make me feel frisky, but I decided to just relax. Leah did too, even if she grinned at my hardening nipples and squished harder.

  In lieu of moaning appreciatively, I asked a question to stay on track. More job to do, I reminded myself.

  "Say, Leah, want me to weave us a new cocoon when we're home?"

  She tilted her head, which was definitely cute, and her eyes glittered interest at me. Also cute. I mentally poked myself to Stay on track, already.

  "Yeah. That would be awesome!"

  I smiled at her enthusiasm and nuzzled her nose. I wondered for a moment if the enthusiasm to keep cocoons around indicated problematic levels of trauma, but…would that be surprising, really? Nor could I see any way in which giving us a safe, familiar environment to sleep in would cause issues. We already knew we needed therapy.

  ***

  "Leah, which is home? One of your orphanages? Sister Lana's, maybe? My place?" I asked. "Your apartment?"

  Leah froze, eyes growing wide. Uh-oh. She'd stopped breathing and her body was suddenly extremely tense under my palms.

  I rose up to cup her cheeks and kissed her, then blew softly up her nose, which was such an unusual sensation that it shook her out of it.

  "Sorry. I just…remembered the kidnapping." She heaved a heavy breath. "Home's not my apartment anymore. Honestly, just thinking of that door gives me the shivers."

  "Mm." I nudged her nose with mine. "So either my place, or your orphanage?"

  "Yeah." Thoughts spun behind her eyes. "Or maybe somewhere else entirely? I don't have an orphanage, since I'd move between multiple groups from multiple organizations. But…I'm closer with some than others. And, it might be a good idea to relocate Sister Lana's orphanage to a place we'd be in more control of. Yes," she said, gaze sharpening, "especially with big stompy tanks around. I want our own place, Tinea, with lots of room to expand. A place where we can gather all my Littles together."

  "Oh?" I asked, eyebrows rising.

  "Yeah! Outside the city, even. Not far, though. Close enough to travel there in a few minutes, but far enough that we'd have privacy and space."

  "That…" I mumbled, thinking of the open woods near my apartment, at the edges of the suburb I'd lived in, "that sounds like a plan."

  "It does!" Leah exclaimed excitedly, shifting under my thighs.

  I giggled and found I rather appreciated the vision of distracted-girl jiggles.

  I…might've forgotten to kick myself back to attention this time.

  ***

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