Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Boo-Boos and Body Bags

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Boo-Boos and Body Bags

"It's easy for the average person to forget that the idea of a dedicated emergency-response force is actually relatively new.

Firefighters have been around for millenia. Policing forces for almost as long. But paramedics and emergency services only fully modernised with the 1966 White Papers to push them along.

Current EMT training is less than a hundred years old. It's a developing system that's far from perfect, and still had much room to improve.

Which is why the Toronto Paramedic Services is now instituting obligatory firearms training into its basic paramedics training courses."

--TPS Newsletter, 2028

***

The first thing I noticed was that my mech now had a scattering of scuffs all across its armour.

The small-arms fire hadn't penetrated anything. At least, I didn't think it did. There were some parts, especially on the side that wasn't finished being repaired, that lacked the sensors that would let me know if anything was damaged.

While plugged into the mech, that entire side read as a stream of errors and unresolved issues. A few more holes poked into it would get lost with all of the other warnings.

I ran my metal hand over the surface of the mech's ribs. A few bits of melted bullet clinked off the surface. That was going to need some looking at. I was pretty sure the stealth stuff would be mostly unaffected, but this might also mean a few tiny black spots that weren't camouflaged when I moved.

"For fuck's sake, I just fixed this thing," I muttered.

Add about twenty-six hours to the repair time

"Just for these scuffs?" I asked.

And because of the damage to the not-fully-repaired leg. Some of the warnings you chose to ignore were highlighting issues within.

I cursed under my breath, but... yeah, that was par for the course. In an ideal world I would have finished everything, then ran the mech through some light testing before going back in and fixing anything that needed touch-ups. Then I'd be able to call it properly done. This was... not entirely ideal.

I turned away from the mech and took in the scene on the street. It was, in a word, bad.

When I arrived I'd initially been more focused on finding Rac and making sure she was alive. I discovered her firing blindly at a warmech designed to take on heavy riot protection duties. It had a cannon that would turn her into a smear and it was rolling right at her.

So I'd taken it out, and the other two light mecha. Ripping apart the gun emplacements on the APCs and technicals parked around here was quick and easy too, and that left nothing but some security drones and guys with small arms.

I'd made a bit of a mess cleaning up the mechs, but the place was already far past being just messy. I took in a few bodies. More injured.

A few mercs had crawled out of cover and were helping their pals. I had a lot of them giving me looks, but as long as I wasn't aggressive, I was pretty sure they wouldn't run just yet.

"Myalis, why aren't emergency services here yet?" I asked.

Because there was a battle that took place which featured several large mechanised assault vehicles?

That... probably made sense, yeah. The average paramedic probably didn't want to fuck with this entire situation, and I really couldn't blame them. "Send them the all-clear. Let them know that there are two samurai on the scene keeping things clean."

Sent.

"Hey!" I called out, and more than one head rose to look my way. It helped that Myalis had caught on to what I was doing and my voice was projected from the mech. "Called in paramedics. Try to keep the injured alive until they arrive. Someone check up on the dead, line them up over to the side there. And someone start clearing out the middle of the damned road. We don't need to slow down the ambulances when they do arrive."

There was a pause, none of the mercs moving quite yet.

"Well, get to it!" I snapped.

That actually had them jumping into action. It looked like there were maybe half a dozen merc outfits here, maybe more. Some looked like one-car teams. Just buddies that loaded up into a single van and rushed over. A few others looked like more professional outfits.

What the hell were they all here for? Fights broke out all the time. This was New Montreal, the police didn't give a shit, and neither did anyone else. But usually that was between gangs, not mercs.

I turned towards the other side. The PMC guys were doing the same as the mercs. Moving their injured to one side. It looked like they had at least one medic in their bunch, and he was probably earning his pay right now with the number of injuries to tend to.

"This is a bit of a mess," Gomorrah said as she came up behind me. I could feel her approaching.

My gear might have been fireproof, on account of how often I worked with her, but I still had a bit of exposed skin in this loadout, and I could feel the heat wafting off of Gomorrah's gun still. The end was glowing, and there was a faint waver in the air above it.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Think you can do me a favour?"

"That would depend," she said evenly.

"Keep an eye on this whole bunch for me? I'm going to go check on Rac. Myalis, can you set the mech to auto-pilot and, uh, patch Atyacus in?"

Certainly. I'm certain he'll appreciate the permission.

I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but I figured that Gomorrah's AI wasn't likely to try and fuck me over. Worst case, I'd come back to find the thagomizer on my tail replaced by a flamethrower or something.

Or there would be religious iconography all over the mech. "Don't give my mech one of those golden rapper chains with the crosses," I said before I took off.

"Huh?" Gomorrah said after a moment's pause.

I was already heading over to Rac, though. The girl was standing off to the side with her friends. Coco, the big woman with the cyber arms, was leaning onto that Garter guy. She was also grinning creepily.

Rac looked like shit. All of her friends did, actually, and I didn't miss how Coco was injured, even if it didn't look all that bad, considering.

"Hey," I said as I came over.

"You're Rac's friend!" Coco said. "From last time. You're a samurai!"

"Uh, yes, and yeah," I agreed.

"Coco... likes Samurai," Rac explained.

"Hell yeah, I do," Coco said. "Sign my tits!"

I blinked. "Do you have a pen?"

Coco's face fell. I don't think I'd ever seen someone look so sad so quickly before.

"Ah, I'm sure we can find a marker," I said. Coco's grin came back, a little more reserved, and a little more pained. "Myalis, got something cheap for... little boo-boo wounds?"

Yes. I have boo-boo treatments, Catherine.

I caught a little box out of the air, then read the package before rolling my eyes. Boo-boo treatment: 1x Dose. I tossed it to Coco and noted that it had just cost me a whole point. It looked like it was mostly just a bandage and maybe some antiseptic powder. "Put that on your leg before you bleed out," I said. "The paramedics will be too busy once they get here to look at you."

"Thanks," Coco said. "So, last time... why didn't you tell us you were a samurai? Rac, why didn't you tell us you knew a samurai?"

"I have my reasons," Rac said. She sounded perfectly petulant about it and wasn't meeting her team's gazes.

I noticed that Rac was looking a little pale, and her hands were shaking, just a little. I wouldn't trust her with a gun right now. It looked like she was crashing from the adrenaline. I sent Myalis a quick text, and felt something settle in the pocket of my coat. I pulled it out, and handed the can to Rac bottom-first. "Drink," I said. "You need some sugar in you, and something cool."

Rac hesitated, but took the can. It didn't take a genius to know that it wasn't normal-grade shit, not with the anime-style cats on the can, but she took it anyway and drank up.

Food would do her good. At least, that's what I'd do for a kitten if they were distressed. Food was a good way to remember that things weren't that desperate. "So, I never really expected to get a call from you. Happy you did, because this looks like a clusterfuck and a half, but, uh, what happened here?"

"We were on a job," Garter said. He was standing a lot taller now, trying to look more professional than the relaxed cool guy mood he was in last time.

"A job?" I asked.

"We were getting your prosthetics," Rac said.

Everyone looked at her.

I slowly turned and took in the carnage. "What? All this shit for some prosthetics?"

"And your pay," Rac said. There was a bit of accusation there.

I tossed my arms up. How was I supposed to know that a bunch of people would go nuts over twenty points? The goal was to get info more than anything, not start a small war. "Man, people are stupid," I said.

***