Chương 154: Book 3 - Chapter 1 - We Return to our Heroes…

I stumbled into the residence, fully intending to collapse on my couch, only to find it occupied.

"Squiddy, what are you doing here?" I asked, as I sunk into one of the cozy chairs next to her.

"Didn't I give you an entire floor in the tower to set up an apartment?"

"It's two floors above the power generators," Sharron moaned.

"I'm worried about the radiation." I stared at her a moment, unsure if she was joking or not. Nyx had assured me those generators were some of the safest I could buy.

"And Issi and the kids aren't there," she continued.

"Right… well… count your blessings. You can retreat to that radiation bathed floor of yours when they get to be too much, I'm stuck with them," I muttered.

"And you love it!" she replied with a smile. I didn't deny the allegation. Instead I just sunk further into the chair and felt my stress slowly drain from my body.

"Seriously, what are you doing here?" I asked again.

"I feel like I haven't seen you since you volunteered to help fill in for Brood at The Family."

"Four months!" Sharron moaned.

"It's been four months since Brood died, and I swear things are worse off than when I stepped in to help." She kicked her legs, swinging herself into a sitting position so she could look at me.

"Did you know that someone broke into the home of Jacob Attler, the CEO of Global Rare-earth and Industrial Mining Corp, and threw him out of the window. Based upon the lack of security footage we're one hundred percent sure it was a samurai""I heard," I replied.

"It wasn't me," I added quickly.

"I know that, and so does the rest of The Family," Sharron said after a second.

"If you had done it not only would you have left the security footage, but there would have been bears spray painting the place once the police arrived."

"True…" I muttered.

"I think he got what he deserved."

"You and about half the samurai in the city. Unfortunately the backlash against Global has been pretty severe. Hiding an antithesis incursion, and then having several samurai die because of it, is a sure fire way to attract the ire of other samurai. Pretty much the entire board of directors have been reduced to indentured servants, and the company is facing liquidation because of their actions. Which wouldn't be an issue, if it wasn't one of the five strongest corps in the city.

Its downfall has completely destabilized the power dynamic," Sharron explained, rubbing her eyes.

"I don't see how that's our problem," I said with a shrug.

"It's up to the mayor, and city officials to sort this shit out."

"Calgary doesn't HAVE a mayor. It has a corporate council, a corporate council that's down one of its strongest members. Add to that the fact that some samurai are running, or involved in other corps…" Sharron trailed off.

"It means the Family can't ignore the fucking issue," I concluded.

"That's a wonderful clusterfuck you're involved in. You should quit," I advised.

"I'm honestly considering it," Sharron mumbled in reply.

"The problem is that it would just dump extra work on the others, and I already feel bad enough for Bright and Barricade not being able to see their families due to this shit." She sighed, "How are things around here?"

"Well, as you know the power generators are finally set up, as are the hydroponics and food reprocessing floors. Jane was completely freaking out for a couple weeks, until the school actually opened up, and now she's calmed down a little bit," I explained.

"Fuck… I forgot about the school. I guess that's why the kids aren't here right now," Sharron muttered.

"Yup. They'll be done soon, and then you can deal with the little bundle of energy that is Issi as she attempts to summarize her entire day of learning into thirty seconds," I said with a smirk.

"Other than that… the people in the area have actually started allowing my beavers to fix up the surrounding buildings, and install slightly more secure shelters. Guess installing the Fabricators bought me a little bit of good will. Well… that, and setting up that deal with Jessup so they can sell their goods." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"I've heard the biggest seller is teddy bears. You even gave them a way to prevent forgeries," Sharron said with a smile.

"Nyx did all the work. I just bought a cheap identification catalog, the blueprint for a chip, and provided it to the people. They slip it into their products, and people can't counterfeit because the chips are too complex to duplicate. Nyx even has a website that shows every bear, so people can browse."

"Look at you, thinking like a little corpo," Sharron said, sliding forward so she could mess up my hair.

"Stop it… I don't take advantage of the people, they get the full profit," I announced, trying to swat her hand away. Once she backed away I frowned.

"Now that you've said that, I feel dirty."

"You don't care, you're just happy to be helping these people," Sharron said, leaning back again. We sat there for a minute or so, just relaxing, when Sharron broke the silence again.

"How's Hoppy?"

"She hasn't been to The Family lately?" I asked in surprise. Sharron just shook her head.

"Well, what can I say about her? She's a good girl, and Brood's death hit her hard. First time fighting antithesis and she watched five people die, kinda hard for someone that's never had to deal with it before. I really didn't mind taking over as her mentor but those were some big shoes for me to fill." I shook my head.

"She seems to be doing better lately. Had some new ideas for a community outreach project, but didn't want to share the details with me yet." I paused as a thought came to me.

"Fuck, I should check to see how Arachne and Plasmalanx are doing," I muttered.

"I'll inquire when I get back to the office," Sharron assured me.

"Inquire when the next fucking antithesis incursion is supposed to happen while you're there! It feels weird to go so long without fighting aliens," I grumbled, "and I'm running out of places to put bears."

"You COULD turn off the machines," Sharron replied, giving me a disappointed look.

"You must be approaching a thousand now. Plus the IFVs, and that horrible ship you have floating near the roof of the garage."

"You sound like Jane! I bought more supply trucks to keep the matter reconfiguration machines running. Plus, I never know when I could use more bears."

"You can't even use that many! Between yourself, Bob and Spooky you can only handle like two hundred fifty max!" Sharron reminded me.

"But now I have replacements!" I insisted. When I glanced over I saw Sharron putting on a disappointed face, one remarkably close to the one Jane used.

"Fine… I'll shut them down for a while and only work on the IFVs, which are way behind, at least until I find another place to store them""Hoarder," Sharron snorted. I started to turn and tell her off when the door burst open and the kids piled in, yelling, followed by a frazzled looking Jane. Issi immediately squealed, and attempted to climb over the back of the couch so she could tell Sharron about her new school adventures a fraction of a second sooner. I didn't mind, we could catch up more later.

—"You're sure about this?" Mirage said, crouching down next to Zetta in the disaster zone he called an office.

"Positive. They hid their tracks well, but all of those PMCs that refused to sign with the other council members after their contracts with Global Rare-earth were cancelled were bought off by Applied System Dynamics, and their associated corps," Zetta replied.

"Think they might have even had a samurai help cover up the transactions, they were pretty hard to track down."

"Why would a conglomerate out of Denver spend so much to poach our PMCs? Is Denver facing a PMC shortage?" Mirage asked idley.

"No, it's quite the opposite actually. It seems like they've been offering deals to provide PMCs with their latest technology, in order to attract more manpower. They've probably got one of the largest, and most well armed, PMC forces on the continent right now."

"And now they're poaching talent from us," Mirage sighed.

"As if we didn't have enough to worry about right now. Losing twenty percent of our PMC forces is going to hurt us the next time there's an incursion."

"Should I tell the others?" Zetta asked. Mirage paused, considering for a second, then shook his head.

"No, they already have too much to deal with. I'll make some inquiries about hiring replacement troops. I want you to keep an eye out for any other unusual activity around the city, PMC related or otherwise." Mirage stood up and brushed off his pants, face taut.

"Ever since the fiasco in the mountains our situation has been shit. I originally thought we were just unlucky, but I'm beginning to believe someone's fucking with us, and I don't want to be caught on the back foot. You find ANYTHING, you let me know. Got it?"

"I got it," Zetta nodded.

"Good," Mirage replied as he turned to leave.

"I really hope I'm wrong about this."