Chương 109: Book 2 - Chapter 29 - Bad Neighbour

"It didn't take long for Helen to become bold," I murmured, while inspecting the hourly squirrel update.

"It's only been a week since we talked and she's already sending her Guiding Light cronies to a lot of the southern sectors, but they're not recruiting, they're just… watching. What the fuck are they doing?" Would you like my opinion?

"Absolutely. Not knowing is kind of driving me nuts," I replied, not taking my eyes off the surveillance images. I suspect they're performing an impromptu population census of the sectors. If Helen's AI, Sisyphus, really did convince her the undercity's population needs to be kept under control, they'd need to actually keep track of the population, in order to know where and when to act.

Since the city does not keep accurate records concerning the undercity residents, they'd need to either put up some sort of surveillance, or to perform this monitoring manually.

"That's pretty morbid, but I guess that makes sense," I mumbled. After a few seconds a thought occurred to me, and I shut down the squirrel report.

"I'm still flooding the south with squirrels, can we use those to perform our own, impromptu census?" I can, but I'll have to take control of the squirrels, and reposition them in order to get more accurate numbers.

"That's fine," I replied.

"Can you also perform some calculations, and try to determine which sectors would qualify as 'high risk' by Sisyphus's standards?" Within a 99. 9999654% probability. I'm sorry, without knowing exactly what data Sisyphus is using, I cannot be more precise.

"Look, I would have accepted sixty percent, so your insane standard will be more than enough. Just let me know when you've identified some high risk sectors." What exactly are you planning to do with this information?

"If there are any sectors in the danger zone, I'll drop some bears in there before Helen can make her move, if not I'll just continue building up my forces. As soon as I'm ready to make a move, I'll reinforce the highest risk areas first," I replied, as I jumped down from the pallet of excess iron, which I'd been sitting on. I really needed to put some seating in here somewhere. If you interfere with Helen, she may take it as an act of war.

"Possible. If she does, so be it," I sighed.

"Some part of me hopes that she just backs down though. If she just wanted to cull people, she wouldn't wait for that threshold to do it… but I expect that's wishful thinking." I don't have enough data on Helen to let you know how she'll react. The best I can do is perform those calculations, and let you know her most likely targets.

"That's alright Nyx," I replied, as I headed over to check out the status of production.

"I don't expect you to know all the answers. Just get me what you can." Sending the preliminary results to your augs now. I'll have more precise results for you in a couple of minutes. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. I took the massive file Nyx sent, and started digging through the mountain of data, metrics and in-depth analysis provided for each sector.

I managed to get halfway through the second page, for sector one, before completely giving up and checking the summary page.

"So, based upon your analysis, sector eighty-six is close to the threshold, but hasn't exceeded it," I said, while reviewing the results.

"I guess that makes sense, since they seem to have several relatively benevolent gangs in the area." I skimmed the rest of the results, there were a couple of other moderate-risk areas, but nothing else at this level. The Guiding Light does have a higher than regular presence in that area, but since the squirrels have only been in the area for a couple of days, I do not have enough of a historical record to say anything for certain.

"I don't need confirmation. If they're focusing their operations there, I should too." With a quick thought, I started rearranging my troops.

"I think dropping two squads of bears in there should help stabilize the situation, or at least make it more difficult for Helen and her goons to aggravate the locals. If not, I can quickly reinforce them with the IFVs" I turned, just in time to catch two of the IFVs take off, heading towards sector eighty-six.

"I wonder how long it'll take Helen to respond?" I mumbled to myself. Less than five minutes later, I received a call to my augs. The caller's information was hidden, but Nyx identified them in an instant: Helen.

"Hello Helen," I casually said, "How can I help you today?"

"Cut the bullshit, Evelyn. You know why I'm calling. Why are there bears in my territory?" she asked. Her voice was low, and even, but I could still hear the anger in her voice.

"I believe I promised that I'd stay out of your territory until I was ready to protect the southern sectors. I can't protect them all, but I'm willing to take over eighty-six for now."

"Bullshit! That wasn't the nature of our agreement, and you know it," she paused for a moment, "You never planned on honoring our agreement in the first place, did you?"

"Honestly? Not really," I replied casually.

"I was hoping that I wouldn't have to take action, and have time to finish flooding the undercity with surveillance and protection, but I'm not going to take chances with people's lives."

"You can't save all of them," Helen growled.

"Your overconfidence will doom this city!"

"You need to learn to chill the FUCK out," I replied through gritted teeth.

"I've flooded the undercity with surveillance, and I'm slowly building up ground forces, there's no need for your crazy purges anymore. How about you disband your group of crazies, and just concentrate on fighting the antithesis the old fashioned way, okay?"

"I will protect this city, and I won't let you get in my way," the woman hissed.

"Give me a fucking break. Look, if I can defend the people without any unnecessary losses, why not let me? In the end, everyone benefits." There was a long moment of silence.

"Yo, Helen, are you still there?" I asked.

"I can't trust you. You'll overextend, and make mistakes," came back a quiet reply.

"You need help, Helen. I don't even mean asking other samurai for help, but you need to learn to let go of this twisted idea of keeping the population under control. It's not necessary."

"I'll prove that you can't protect everyone," she replied quietly.

"I don't like how you said that… Helen? She hung up. Fuck!" That last part sounded like a threat. I knew, based on her previous plans, Helen wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders, but she sounded a little unhinged by the end of our conversation. She really didn't take a disruption to her plans well. The worst part was I didn't have a clue where Helen might target. I'd just have to try and keep an eye on everything.

"Nyx, can you please let Jane know that I won't be in for dinner…" I said with a sigh, "I have a feeling it's going to be a very long night."