INTERLUDE - BALLS

Interlude - Balls

"Oh, I think it's starting," Joshua said. He shifted in his seat a little next to her, taking in the stage up and ahead of them.

When the Nut Punchers had been invited to this thing, she'd decided that they really didn't have too much of a choice but to attend. Zoe and her friends were always down to kick anyone that didn't know where they belonged, but in the grand hierarchy of things, Samurai sat at the very top.

She hadn't been expecting the event to be so... corporate.

The badge around her neck, the plush but not very comfortable seats, the little finger foods and opportunities to mingle. Even the location only felt vibrant in the way that only very corporatized event-locations did. All they were missing were a few banners and a poorly-done tech demo and this would be the ideal corpo thing.

Zoe crossed her arms and leaned back into her seat, eyes scanning the crowd. There were all sorts here, but she supposed that was kind of the point. The place smelled. Sweat, the faint stink of some inhalable drugs, gunpowder, lots of body spray.

God, she could go for a good beating right about then. Smack some fool upside the head, maybe.

What even was the point of all this?

The Nut Punchers were doing fine. Better than fine, even. The government had cut costs on all of its security stuff. The cops were less funded than ever before. Corporate security was still high, but even that had taken a kick in the nads.

The global incursion, and more importantly to New Montreal, the previous incursion just a week prior, had turned things on their head. Now anyone that wanted a job could get one, easily. They just had to be willing to risk life and limb, but that was a small cost.

Better yet, the reconstruction had started already. Walls were going up, buildings were being repaired. New construction had stalled out, but there were so many maintenance projects going on that anyone even mildly inclined towards manual work had plenty to find.

That meant more credits in people's pockets. The corps and government had gone from being penny-pinchers to suddenly dumping trillions into the economy as if it was going out of style.

Maybe it was.

A lot of people had felt like the end times were near. She'd felt that too. The mega building they lived in was a few blocks from the edge of the city, but that didn't mean that she and the other Nut Punchers hadn't done the math on how long it would take a wave of aliens to make it to their doorstep.

Now though? Things were looking up.

It was always like this. Something big would happen. A bubble would burst, the corps and government would reel, and in their absence, her sort of people, the marginalized, the criminally inclined, the fun and cool sort of person, would step up and gain a bit more. Then the corps would find their footing and the status quo would return, only worse now that they were chasing something new.

She crossed her arms and glared at the empty stage. What a waste of her damned time.

"Look," Joshua said. He pointed to something off to the side of the stage just as the curtains moved and a woman stepped on. She was a Samurai, obviously. It wasn't that Stray Cat woman, but another cat-themed one. Tall, darker armour, cat ears, lots of hips swaying in the way she moved.

The Samurai crossed the stage, dragging an unfolding chair behind her. Somehow, she made just walking look dangerous. There was something in the mix of carefree and graceful in her motions that felt off in a way that had Zoe's hackles rising.

"Who is that one?" she asked.

Pete's eyes lit up for a moment. "Nya," he said.

"Nya? Seriously?" she asked. Her estimation of the woman dropped a few notches.

"Japanese Ronin. Samurai for a long while. Also known as the Nightmare of Kanagawa, the ocean-side cat, and Nya the... indomin-nya-ble. One of the top enforcers of the Asian Kiretsu samurai group. Ranked six hundred and twelve on the worldwide Samurai popularity charts."

Zoe hummed, arms still crossed. So, a big shot in the samurai world? Top one thousand was a big deal, at least as far as popularity went. There wasn't always a link between how popular a Samurai was and how dangerous they were, but the exceptions didn't prove the rule. The rest of her titles sounded dangerous too.

Nya shuffled around, then sat down. She gestured to the side, and there was suddenly an entire guitar in her hands.

Samurai tech? Teleportation? Miniaturization? Had she just bought that? Zoe couldn't tell, but as far as shows of force went... well, some morons wouldn't catch the implication, but she did. If Nya could summon a guitar, not much stopped her from summoning something else.

Then Nya started playing, and she was alright.

It wasn't anything too special, just the weird cat-eared woman plucking at some strings, playing a fast, complex, but still not too complicated piece without lyrics or accompanying music.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

It was a distraction, and it worked. Nya played for a couple of minutes, keeping attention on herself while people were clearly scurrying around in the back.

There were a lot of Samurai here. She'd seen a few herself, had talked to one of them directly, something that few people would get to claim.

The entire room hushed, and Zoe found herself sitting straighter in her seat.

Then Stray Cat strutted onto the stage.

The woman walked with extreme confidence, a level of surety in herself that Zoe wasn't sure anyone could match, not with any great ease. There was a microphone on a stand in the centre-front of the stage, and Stray Cat casually moved over to it, then pulled it off the stand.

"This thing on?" she asked before tapping the top twice. It filled the room with twin, bassy thumps. "Huh, guess so."

This wasn't the level of professionalism Zoe might have expected from someone working in a big corp. And that was worrisome. Corps acted in a certain way. Oh, sure, they tried to stand out as their own thing, but for the most part, a corp was always very easy to read. They'd put their own interests first, and in the end that made them predictable, as long as she could figure out what those interests were.

Usually it was credits. They didn't chase purer pursuits like the Nut Punchers did.

Strat Cat took in a deep breath, one that the mic picked up. "The city's been bleeding. Kinda feels like we all collectively took a kick to the ass, but honestly, it's not all that bad."

Zoe blinked. Weird start, but okay.

"Look, I like New Montreal. It's got its problems, like a lot of them, but it's also home to me, it's home to the people I care about. So, seeing us pull out of that last incursion without suffering too much? That was nice. Seeing up tough out the global incursion right after? Cool. We're doing alright. Phobos? Nailed that fucker. Lost a few good Samurai and a lot of normal folk because of it, but it could have, and would have been worse, so I can't say I'm not happy with the end result."

A casual reminder that Stray Cat and her allied Samurai still had a kilometre-long railgun somewhere in the countryside to the north of the city?

Everyone kinda knew the approximate location, but a lot of effort was going into hiding it. Like, a lot. No one could share photos, GPS maps didn't show anything, and talking about the place where the Big Gun was located led to run-ins with some Samurai AI that was prowling the net.

Apparently they were real polite, so that was neat. There was speculation that it was Grasshopper's AI.

"Look, I'm not here to play at being a saint. I know that everyone here is part of a gang, and while some of you might hold some moral high-ground and your whole schtick is that you're keeping your own safe--and I can respect that, I also know that some of the people in this room aren't what anyone would call 'good.'"

Zoe tensed. There were a few directions the Samurai could go with that.

If she was willing to shoot the mayor on live TV, then wouldn't it be a coup to kill the leaders and representatives of a few hundred gangs all at once?"

"I don't care," Stray Cat continued. "Well, that's not true. Actually, it's so not true that I dragged all of you here tonight. Right, sorry, I'm beating around the bush here, and not in a fun way. What I mean to say is that I don't care too much about you guys partaking in a bit of crime. Our legal system is a mess, the judicial system... Do we even have one? And the corps make anything that annoys them a crime anyway, so whatever. What I do care about is those of you pushing things a little too far."

Ah, there was the other shoe.

"So, here's the rules. From now on, if you push things too far, I'll come knocking. Same rules as the corps, actually, but there are more of you, and this entire show couldn't just be an email. Now, you might be asking yourself what that means. What's too far. I decide what too far is. Right now, too far is kidnapping people off the street and forcing new cyberware on them. Too far is enslaving people. Sex trafficking. Basically... anything to do with minors. Mostly though, too far is making the city worse."

Zoe worked her jaw. On the surface this was a wild claim, but it had some degree of merit.

"Right now, New Montreal is doing well. Like, crazy well compared to some other places. We've got a huge crop of new Samurai who kick ass, we've got some old-timers here that are vaguely helpful, and we're not starving. Ideally, I'd like to make this place better. The corps want something vaguely similar, since better means more profitable, the government, once it gets its head out of its ass, will probably want the same. So, that leaves you lot."

Stray Cat walked over to the edge of the stage and overlooked them all.

"Don't make things worse."

***