Chương 76: Book 2 - Chapter 5 - A Whole Lot of Headaches

"I'm pretty sure when I went to bed last night, I didn't have enough materials to produce any bots." After a night out with Sharron, I slept in, for the first time in recent memory. When I came out to the garage, ready to get to work, I found it was a lot busier than when I left. You didn't. You're now networked with all the squad leaders, remember? Because you were concerned about your manufacturing and surveillance capabilities one of the squads took your semi out and collected materials while you were sleeping.

Another squad leader then took the initiative to begin producing squirrels for you.

"And they managed to produce several dozen squirrels in that time?" I asked. The Class II Industrial machines can have a six foot square printing area, and since each squirrel is only a foot high you can squeeze a lot of bots into a single run.

"I can see that," I replied, looking at the veritable ocean of squirrels in front of me. Unlike Angeline's squirrels, which were constantly in motion, these ones were standing at attention. Wide-Eyes seemed to be pacing back and forth in front of the lines, inspecting the tiny troops. While the first machine was producing squirrels, the second was performing updates on some of your troops. As of now, two squads worth of regular troops have been upgraded, along with their weapons.

"Wait, just the basic models? I'm pretty sure I bought the blueprints for heavier models in each group." About that, Heavy is behind the truck. You should call him over and take a look. I did so, and was surprised by the change. Most of my troops were around three and a half feet tall, but Heavy was now approaching five feet in height, three feet in width. He looked like a fridge.

"Fuck me, I didn't expect to have to look up at him. This upgrade was worth it, right?" The 'Heavy' trooper should be able to take punishment equal to, and in some cases exceeding, what Bob is capable of. The new armor plating is much more resistant to thermal, kinetic, chemical, electromagnetic, and concussive damage. The new frame also has a point for a shoulder-mounted weapon, which may be useful in the future.

Unfortunately they also weigh a ton compared to regular troops, so it'll be difficult to transport them en masse.

"Or upgrade them," I replied, as I pulled on Heavy's arm. The big bot didn't even shift an inch, despite my improved strength.

"We'll run two squads through the upgrade process, followed by the foxes and weapons, then heavy models. It'll be slow, since each production cycle takes over four hours, but I'll feel safer once everything has been modernized." Understandable. What about the squirrels?

"I… don't think I can command enough squirrels to cover a significant area, even with my upgrades. I'll have to implement commanders, just like for the bears, going forward. I think I may be able to handle this many, and surveillance of this district, with Wide-Eyes' help." I'll adjust the squirrel production plans going forward. With a thought I had one of the bears crack one of the garage doors, and then sent the squirrel horde scampering out into the streets.

I could faintly hear the yells and gasps of people outside, but I ignored them and had the garage door re-secured after all the squirrels left. A staggering amount of information started flooding into my brain, images and sounds, until I temporarily severed the data connection.

"How the hell does Angeline deal with something like that?" If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Multiple brain enhancements, multitasking along with increased processing and retention, at minimum. I'm sure it doesn't look impressive, but that level of control required a lot of time and effort.

"No kidding." I rubbed my head, trying to ease the sudden headache I'd developed.

"I need to set up some rules, so the squirrels only send important data back." What are you looking for?

"Start with any violence. I know there's a lot of that around, but I'd like to be kept apprised of any issues. Second, anyone passing out pamphlets, or refering to the 'Guiding Light' repeatedly. Unfortunately, as cult-y as they are, according to Jessup's information the Guiding Light's people weren't wearing a uniform while recruiting, which makes tracking them down harder." Perhaps keeping an eye out for vehicles may also be useful.

Very few people seem to have a working model down here, so it would be easy to flag any active civilian vehicles as suspicious.

"Good point, let's do that too." Once I'd created a crude set of rules, I braced myself.

"Here goes nothing." I reconnected to the data stream, and this time it was much less overwhelming. A few updates for fights and gunfire came in, but nothing super important. There were actually fewer incidents than I expected. I was just about to start planning my next steps, when one of the feeds caught my attention. It had Ripjack, who I thought would have been driven off by the other gangs after my last run-in with him, meeting with Salvador, leader of the Carnage, and Null, of the Void Walkers.

Three assholes the district could do without. The only reason it was flagged was because Ripjack backhanded some random ganger with his 'new' claw.

"I've had some of my girls watching the area, she doesn't seem to have more than a dozen of those bots defending the area. They're tough, but nothing a coupla' rockets can't take care of. Our sponsor up above wants a sample of her tech, but they don't need more than one or two. There must be some sweet salvage in that bunker of hers, it's all ours once we break in," Null said. The woman was sitting on a stack of crates, crates which looked entirely too new to be from the undercity, while typing on a tablet.

After a minute she looked up at the other two leaders, pushed a lock of purple hair out of her face and smiled.

"Our sponsor doesn't even want the rifles, just bots, which is even better. With those we'll control the entire undercity." I frowned. I honestly thought the local gangs understood they shouldn't fuck with me, after I had Ripjack's arm forcibly removed last time. It wasn't like their followers were the bravest bunch either, whoever this 'Sponsor' was really got them riled up.

"Mother… Nyx can you hack that tablet and let me know who the fuck she's talking to? With any luck it's those 'Guiding Light' nutjobs creating trouble and we'll take care of two issues at once." Unfortunately, the connection leads back to a temporary endpoint topside. Local surveillance cameras are dead, along with the device's camera, but I've been able to access the user's Augs to get identification. Frank Morgan, contractor to Corona Technologies.

They specialize in advanced weapon R&D, with a particular interest in Samurai technology.

"So some corp wants to start a war, just to get access to my catalogs? And they think they can get away with it?" They have plausible deniability, you've started fights with the gangs before. You even broadcast one of the incidents.

"Well, the asshole deserved it." I checked the feed again, the three leaders cracked one of the crates and took out what looked like some sort of RPG. I shook my head, "I can't believe they gave these psychos heavy weapons and expected them to play nice with them. I'm going to have to confiscate them before they blow holes in the city. Fuck! I can't believe I have to deal with this right now." You certainly chose an interesting place to live, that's for sure.

"Nyx, I need you to go through Corona's network and find evidence of this operation, along with any others performed against other Samurai." Done. The data was not on the main network, or any active connection, but I was able to assemble the records based on leftover data sent between executives. Seven different operations were found.

"Fuckers. Just send it to Broodmother and Barricade, I'll have to let the Family look into it. I'm going to be busy dealing with this… explosive situation." That was a terrible joke.

"Shut up, I'm just trying to deal with the the fact that I now have two different groups fucking up my neighborhood." I stared at the image, trying to figure out my next step.

"The Guiding Light will have to wait. Thankfully they're not an immediate threat, and I'm still rolling out squirrels, so I can't take immediate action anyways. These three, however, just might start firing rockets into a populated area, if I'm not careful. They still seem to be in the planning stage, so I'll just have to make a move before they do."