Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Four - Back to Cat

Chapter Four - Back to Cat

- This quarters going to be the first where our profits arent increasing.

- You mean were losing money?

- No, I meant that our profit margin isnt going to be bigger this quarter than it was in the last one. Were still in the black.

- Thats unacceptable. How am I going to explain to the shareholders that were making less profit?

- Were still making billions.

- Yes, but were making less billions than we were before, and thats not going to fly. Figure something out.

Private anonymised discussion on the Nimbletainment C-Suite Chat, 2057

***

Is this how it usually goes down? I asked Rac as the two of us followed her... I suppose they were work friends.

The crew didnt waste much time once Garter had laid out the mission. We all just got up and got going. I wasnt sure where we were going, exactly, but the others seemed to know. We pushed through a door at the back of the Barber Shop and into a service corridor lined with cubicles and stacks of boxes. It was a lot less glamorous than the main section of the bar, but the music still carried in here.

Yeah, Rac replied. Most of the time the jobs are pretty cut-and-dry. Go somewhere, scare someone. Steal something from a corp. Stand around and look scary. Sometimes we escort stuff. She shrugged. Its alright work. Mostly its good because its fast. Half a day, a few hours.

That made some sense, I supposed. Rac was often back home, so whatever work she was doing here had to be quick.

Raccoon hasnt come on any real dangerous jobs, Coco said as she glanced back at me. The woman was a good half-foot taller than I was, and a whole lot broader at the shoulders. But we dont usually take on jobs that are that bad.

Mostly because no one wants to take the risk, Garter complained. Even if thats where all the good moneys at.

Jerusalems hand twitched, then he looked my way and tilted his head to the side.

Jerusalem has sent you a link to a limited party chat. It seems like its what the team uses to communicate. Specifically with Jerusalem himself.

So hed text into the team chat? Yeah, that made some sense. Gimme a sec, I told him. If this chats safe, Ill join it.

Nothing will get past me.

I opened the chat, shifted it to the corner of my vision so that it wouldnt be too annoying, then adjusted its opacity until it was only barely visible. Got it, I said.

Jerusalem gave me a thumbs up, then a line of text appeared in the chat.

Spider: The good money is in the bigger jobs.

Spider: The bigger jobs take a long time. Or theyre dangerous.

Spider: I like danger. But not right now.

Whats wrong with danger right now? I asked.

That earned me a look from Garter which practically shouted are you a dimwit. Didnt you notice the incursion? The big walls theyre building on the edge of the city? The conscription? The club was half empty. A month ago the place would have been booming at this time of day.

Lots of good folk got themselves zeroed, Coco said. You didnt notice.

Oh, I said. I noticed, yeah, just... guess I didnt think about how that would impact the... whatever youd call this kind of job.

Merc-work is fantastic right now, Garter said. That is, if youre willing to sit on the front line for an hourly rate and pop aliens. A lot of low-risk work right now. So a ton of us have signed on with different merc companies and PMCs to go stand on the walls and blow up aliens and immigrants.

Immigrants? I asked.

People from outside the city, Coco said. Every damned shelters packed to overcap, there are more hobos on the streets than ever, the undercitys crawling with them. Every hotel, motel, flophouse and shithole apartments taken. Its all those damned rural people trying to squeeze into our city and taking our shit.

I decided not to comment on her opinion there. Although, on the surface it made sense. New Montreal was surrounded by smaller cities and hundreds of little towns. All those people had to go somewhere. They couldnt stay out in the country when there was such a massive incursion going on, so they came here, to the big city, where the walls would keep them safe and where the locals were oh so welcoming.

I kinda got where Coco was coming from too. New Montreal was a crowded shithole at the best of times. Packing it full with a few million extra souls wasnt going to improve anything.

Spider: Waters down across most of the city.

Spider: Lots of corps are laying people off too.

Spider: Things arent good right now.

Spider: Things are only going to get worse.

Alright, enough whining, Garter said. Weve got a job, people. Itll put credit in our accounts and food in our bellies. We cant complain too hard, can we?

Garter pushed through a door at the end of the corridor, and I was hit with a wonderful bouquet of rotten eggs and unrefrigerated meat. I placed a hand over my nose and blinked a few times as my eyes watered.

The looks I got from the others, the sly little smiles and the motion of Jerusalems shoulders, suggested that they knew what we were walking into. And that was some enclosed back alley. We were closer to the centre of the megabuilding, and there was a large shaft running from the top to the bottom of the building. A vertical tunnel filled with hundreds of AC units and balconies on every level where trash was dumped into large containers.

There was a hovering truck above, currently grabbing onto one of those containers with a pair of heavy-looking forks. A few chunks of trash fell off the edge and I followed them down with my gaze as they dropped down and down and down into the abyss below the building. There werent enough lights down there for me to guess at where it all went.

Probably just under the city. I imagined there had to be a pile of lost trash down there tall enough to be a mountain by now.

Maybe someone tossed something flammable down every so often, to burn some of it down.

Theres my baby, Coco said as she moved over to an old minivan parked halfway off the edge of the balcony. It looked like it was just barely hanging on there. Cocos eyes flashed and the hovercar rumbled to life, the sliding door on its side screeching open even as she popped the driver side door open and climbed into an extra-wide seat.

Get in, Garter said as he hopped in himself. The back of the van had a couch along one side, and a couple of fold-out seats near the back. There were also some suspicious looking crates and the back of the passenger side seat had a gun rack welded to it.

Jerusalem slipped to the front, sitting next to Coco with his knees folded up to his chest, and I found a place on the couch next to Rac while Garter slammed one of the unfolding seats down and then kicked the door closed.

Right, jobs on sub-two, under Nimbletainment Six, Garter said.

Is that the corp were hitting? I asked.

Nah. NBs big, this is some numbers-company. Not that Id look too deeply into it, he said.

I, however, have looked into it. The job was given to Millenium Animal from a self-proclaimed gangster. The warehouse in question is being rented by a corporation whose name is a series of numbers. Its owned by another numbers corporation, which is in turn owned by a conglomerate. But digging deeper, the line of ownership ends at a Nimbletainment subsidiary. It seems like its mostly a corporation set up to provide deniable resources to undisclosed projects.

So, what are we going after? I asked.

We dont want to know, Garter said.

Experimental smart ammunition.

Coco lifted us off, and instead of climbing like I expected, we dropped. The van had some lights on the front which flicked on and illuminated the interior of the tunnel as we descended.

Jobs about as simple as it gets, Garter said. We rock up to the warehouse, Jerusalem disables their security, Coco breaks the door, and then we let our local pals rob the place blind.

What about corpo security? I asked.

Barely any out and about right now, Garter said. Most of them were moved to keep corpo assets safe from the aliens. Its the only advantage we have right now in all of this incursion shit.

Good thing too, Coco said. Cost of ammo tripled. Fuel costs have skyrocketed too. Its getting hard to be an indie merc right now.

Garter shrugged in an easy what can you do kind of way. At least with so many mercs working for corps right now, its easier than ever to get your rep up. Once everything cools down well be the top of the top, you know?

Uh-huh, I said.

This wasnt the experience I was expecting it to be, but it was interesting all the same, and I was already along for the ride.

***