Chapter 51: Learning your APCs!

  “Samurai rides come in quite a few varieties. The first is just some kind of car. I mean, it’s an amazing fucking car! Still, it’s just a car. Sells damn well still! Mostly goes to execs and shareholders.

  Then you have the military vehicles and damn do those command a high price! Whenever one of them goes up for auction, every corp, country and their mum goes nuts!

  Finally, you got the crazy alien shit, stuff no one knows what the fuck it is or how the fuck it works or why the fuck it looks like that. Weirdly enough, those sell super well! Either scientists or insanely rich / insane collectors? No idea.

  I don’t ask questions, just take my commissions and make sure not to piss off my clients, on either sides!”

  –Interview with Saul Salesbury, diamond-class auctioneer and intermediary, 2047.

  ***

  “Honestly, I’m not sure…” Jackal answered after I asked about her own spending. “Maybe I should get a vehicle? Taxis are easy but also slow compared to ‘samurai’ speed you know?”

  I nodded in understanding. “Yeah, don’t really use taxis anymore, especially with the price on my head becoming so high these days. Don’t go out much either. If I get ambushed, someone could get hurt, you know?”

  “What if someone kidnaps one of your enforcers on a run outside since you’re not there? Could hold ‘em for fucking ransom or as an exchange or somethin’” She asked, more curious than challenging.

  “Then I’ll make sure to leave one survivor. No more than one though.” I said, pure, sharp carbon steel entering my voice. “Bounty hunters talk, especially to communicate how dangerous a target is and if they’re worth the price. I’ve always made sure not to be worth the fucking price.”

  Jackal nodded at me in understanding. “Smart. So, what do you use?”

  “One of the APCs we… liberated from the mercs. Had to repaint it so our allies wouldn’t shoot us down. I put an HFUG as a door gun and it has a roof-mounted auto-cannon, a bit cheap though.” I said with a shrug.

  Oddly, Jackal grimaced. “Got some point-defense on that thing? I mean, I know you could fucking survive getting shot the fuck down by some bounty hunter cunts, but your enforcers might not. Plus, potentially landing on civilians could get real fucking bad.”

  My eyes widened in realization. Was I ever as vulnerable as when I flew in those dead assholes’ vehicles? “Oh shit…”

  Lila looked at Jackal with concern. “You think it’s that problematic?”

  “Fuck yes. The cunts that’ll go after you can buy a fucking anti-vehicle railgun. I mean, I imagine it’s got chaff and ECM countermeasures, something to shoot down a missile in an emergency, stuff like that, but that shit won’t stop a fucking bullet. It doesn’t have the fucking armor for that shit! On top of that, if you’re the target and there’s a convoy, they might aim for your fucking buddies by accident. Better to have a clearly samurai vehicle, make yourself a target since you can take the beating.”

  My mind spun hard. “Fuck me sideways with a with a broken wine bottle, should’ve fucking thought of that shit…” Both the women looked at me oddly. “Just trying out some new material! Is it bad?”

  Lila ‘hmmm…’d, considering. “More gory that disgusting I guess is the issue? I mean, it depends which part of the wine bottle we’re talking, since people can stretch enough for an unbroken one, so the disturbing factor mostly comes from slicing up your bits to all hell.”

  “I really don’t get why you do the whole fucking animal thing, really.” Jackal added, obviously confused by the whole discussion.

  “Mostly because I’m not a fan of the homophobic connotations, like calling someone a ‘cocksucker’, which as a proud cocksucker I take offense to! Plus, adding zoophilia into the mix really brings shit up a notch. It doesn’t insult sane furries either since we’re talking real animals, not anthropomorphic ones. If they want to fuck animals and take offense, fuck ‘em. I mean, telling someone to ‘suck a cock’ isn’t nearly as impactful as telling them to ‘suck a dog dick’, or to ‘chock on a throbbing horse-cock’.”

  “Alright, alright, I got it…” Jackal answered with a grimace.

  “Not a fan? Sorry if…”

  “Nah, I’m not some fucking wilting flower, just not a fan of cock.”

  I silently ‘ahhhh'd' and noticed that Lila perked up at that! Interesting…

  “Although, yeah, I can see the animal thing now, might even use it! Not sure how though.”

  It took me barely a second to respond. “Drown in a pig’s cunt.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Damn, that’s good!”

  “For fuck’s sake, we’re trying to eat here!” Synthia shouted at us from two tables over.

  “Sorry! What were we talking about?”

  Vanguard vehicles.

  “Ah! Thanks, I imagine you got millions of options?”

  No.

  That surprised the hell out of me! Altany always…

  I have billions.

  I was glad she could see my brain chemistry and use my sensors to know how hard I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, yeah, I should probably get an APC of my own. I mean, I don’t really see myself going out in anything else, really. Although, my budget’s pretty limited right now… Think you can beat the one we use right now for what I have?”

  Altany’s avatar appeared in front of us, using my recon-drone to project on the table, mostly just to roll her eyes at me. The projection then curled up on itself and rested its head on the ultra super-fluffy tail. Had to admit, very fucking cute! It moved super realistically, especially since I’d splurged on the holographic projection.

  None of your catalogues are suitable for this task, but many can add onto the final product. To create a suitable vehicle, may I recommend the ‘Armored Flying Vehicle’ catalogue? It is rather broad, but that should serve you well in the future if you wish to buy a hover-tank, for example. The specification of ‘armored’ brought the price down quite a lot in fact!

  Although, if you wish, we can opt for the cheaper ‘Flying Armored Personnel Carriers’ catalogue. It will not be any less suitable, but should have a narrower focus and grant you less options in the future.

  “I mean, a samurai hover-tank might be good to have…” Lila commented, fantasies dancing in her eyes. Bitches did love cannons.

  I shook my head however. “Nah, if I leave, my enforcers are going to follow like, ninety-five percent of the time. Plus, we can stick pretty nice guns on an APC! Not as insane as a tank cannon maybe, but that’s what I’m here for. I don’t want a vehicle to do my job, I want one to keep my friends and I safe. I’ll take the class one catalogue of flying APCs… or wait, can I afford class two?”

  Yes. You currently have seven tokens, but haven’t spent them due to a lack of points.

  “You fucking what!?” Jackal asked after a very impressive spit-take.

  “Yeah, got like, five from saving Peach-Trees’ population? That’s over twelve thousand people, so I guess it added up, especially since I saved them from more than one thing… At least I think that’s the concept, right Altany?” I asked while grabbing for napkins to whip my face…

  Roughly speaking, yes. You earned five on that occasion, had three after operation ‘Inuit Secession’, resulting in eight. You spent two for Megabuilding Infrastructure Class 2 and Matter Reconfiguration Machines Class 2, then earned one today.

  This amount of tokens can make a very significant difference in your power-level.

  Jackal really wanted to interject. “That’s a fucking understatement. Mad, tier two is stuff humanity can’t do, like, at all. Tier three is an even bigger jump! Like, stuff we won’t be able to do after a fucking millennia! If you can, seriously, save up for that shit. It would take a truly fucking idiotic cunt to turn that shit down! Tons of samurai just do cleanup shit and never get enough tokens, or they simply kill armies of aliens and nothing else, letting everyone else destroy hives, which means less fucking tokens. You got way more than you should have” I could hear the silent ‘you lucky fucking cunt’.

  I raised my hands in surrender at that level of intensity! “Alright, alright! Sounds great, only problem is, I don’t have anywhere near the amount of points it’d take to get to that. It’s my limiting factor in general. I mean, I need a ridiculous amount of points. I got addicts to treat, ex-sex slaves to help, a building to repair and renovate, the fucking list goes on for a while.”

  She winced. “Yeah, I can get that. Still, when you get the chance, it’s fucking worth it.”

  “I believe you. Anyway, APCs! Got enough points for tier two, which is a good idea so my friends don’t die in a fiery crash that I can walk away from. Also, hey, if it keeps shots aimed at me, that’s what I’m all about. What do I have after the stuff we planned?”

  2,969 points, but you had 312 points left before, hence a total of 3281 points.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  I winced. That… that was not much. Actually, it wasn’t much especially for a fucking APC if I wanted one that could take a beating. “Hum… shit, alright, maybe I don’t need the shield upgrade right now, could put it off I think…”

  “Louis…” She said with a dangerous edge to her voice.

  “Hey! It’s spending on my survival, it counts.” I replied, glaring right back.

  She thought about it for a second, then shrugged and went back to eating. Jackal looked amused at our antics… Wait, Jackal! “Hey, do you need money?” Bluntness for the win!

  It took her a few seconds to deal with the whiplash. “Uh… Yeah? I mean, I got some from a couple corpos I ruined, but not a ton, why?”

  “Could I buy some of your points?”

  “Oh, hum…” She considered it for a few seconds before shrugging. “Sure, especially if it’ll help you and your people stay alive, that sounds good to me. Don’t really know what to do with mine at the moment and I got quite a few.”

  ‘Altany, know what the exchange rate is from creds?’

  In general, vanguards will exchange points for between thirty and thirty-five thousand credits per point.

  I opened a calculator app, checking the numbers. I had plenty of creds, so turning them into points sounded perfect! “How about… sixty-million creds for a thousand-five-hundred?” It was a fraction of my earnings, really, but it was what felt justified. Those creds wouldn’t go to my people, even though I honestly had doubts I’d ever run out after the first lease payments came through. I’d gone above average since, well, I had way too much money and Jackal needed some.

  Also, I subscribed to the theory that generosity granted amazing rewards in alliances, repeat business, and as for debts, the chances of not getting paid back in favor of other creditors they hated?

  Oh my, very little, they’d pony up. Also, Friendship! Is magic a real thing? Who knew, maybe a protectorate race figured it out. Anyway, couldn’t think of anything more magical than friendship, and that was worth more than a billion creds! If generosity increased the likelihood of making friends, that shit was priceless.

  Even from a selfish angle, having loyal allies and making positive connections just made sense.

  There was a game theory I’d found during my ‘people research’, called the Ultimatum Game. The basic idea? Coming up to somebody and offering to split two hundred bucks that appear when you agree. You make an offer about the split, the other can refuse or accept.

  There were several layers to it. The first was that offering them one dollar makes sense rationally and they would accept because one is more than zero, but then psychology and fairness came in and no one would accept less than forty-percent, even if you both get nothing when they refuse.

  The second layer came from keeping the wider view. If you offered them a deal weighed in your own favor, that would get you more cash right then, but you probably wouldn’t get a ton of deals. There may even be hard feelings and others might be warned off from you. On the other hand, if you made an unfair deal in the other’s favor, people would seek you out, you’d create someone happy and eager to make more deals with you. People would seek you out to make deals because you’re generous.

  Focusing on the deal right here and now, you might make a higher profit, but not getting tunnel vision did better in the long run. In real life, it did a hell of a lot more than just get you money. It helped make friends, created alliances, tons of shit. Unlike those moronic corpo-cunts that couldn’t watch past a quarterly and created suffering, ultimately to their own detriment, I acted generously whenever possible.

  I didn’t have the opportunity often before due to a lack of having much to spare, but it served me well in the past, many times. Humanity came to admire the trait since inception for a reason.

  Also, it felt good.

  “What the shit!?” Or it usually did. Did I fuck something up?

  “Is… I’m sorry if I insulted you with…” Jackal’s eyes went wide.

  “What!? No! Of course not, why…?”

  Lila interjected. “Like I said, he’s shit at people.”

  Jackal wide eyed stare went from me to Lila and back a couple times. Something like understanding passed in her eyes before she turned back to me. “Uh… Can you afford that?” She asked, still trying to regain her footing.

  I gave her an arched eyebrow. “Jackal, I bought a megabuilding and it wasn’t even half the creds I had. Did a short-sell during the incursion before people knew we had a samurai in the building, Laser Jack even helped the daemons Altany sent out to set it up with additional capital. I also ruined quite a few corporations connected to the whole fucking mess, along with a fuckton of execs and middle-managers. I have more money than I know what to do with. I mean that very literally too! Sixty-million is a fraction of my funds.”

  She stared at me for a bit, clearly in complete amazement of my intelligence and forethought along with my good looks and fashion sense! “How, in the ever loving fuck, does somebody like you end up richer than some fucking shareholders.”

  I bristled a bit. “Hey! I invested a lot of points into cyber-warfare! Also, I had a good plan… and Laser Jack’s AI’s assistance might’ve helped… along with the extra capital… Timing potentially, maybe, might have done most of the work… Maybe...” I looked away while Lila snickered behind her hand, doing a real shit job at hiding anything.

  My fellow samurai rubbed her face, something like exasperation or tiredness on her features. “I can easily spare four thousand, but I’m not taking a cred over ninety-million, no fucking way.”

  “I don’t mi–”

  “Nop! Not going to take a cred over twenty-two point five K per, shut your cunty little mouth.” The woman interrupted while pointing at me and keeping her face in her left hand. I raised my own in… Surrender?

  All the while, Lila just kept on not-so-subtly chuckling. “Alright, alright! Thanks Jackal.”

  “Please shut the fuck up…” She answered, tired but without venom or meanness.

  I did so, mostly to make her happy but also because I wanted to send out a text.

  Pandastic: Hey, want a hundred-million creds?

  Sherrific: The idea that I’m getting used to your crazy bullcrap scares the bejesus out of me.

  ***

  In the end, Johnny had less points than Jackal by a wide margin. He agreed to sell me a thousand points but also to loan me a thousand, which I’d pay him back at the next hidden hive extermination. “Alright Altany! What are we at?”

  With your completed transactions and the cancellation of your shield modifications, that puts you at 9681 points.

  “Alright, sounds good, how much for the tier two APC catalogue?”

  Due to its limited scope, the catalogue comes in rather cheap at 150 points, the tier two 1500 points and one token.

  I winced. “Any chance of getting something similar with Mole-Bear technologies? I mean, they were very advanced, right?”

  No.

  That made me hesitate. “Just… No? Why not? I mean, it’s a species catalogue, should have all their stuff, right?”

  Louis, they were tunnel dwellers.

  If I facepalmed as hard as I wanted to, I might have tested my skull’s enhancements to the limit. I settled for hiding my face in shame. “Yeah, let’s move on please?”

  “No fucking way.” Lila interjected with a massive shit eating grin. “I will make sure you remember for the rest of your life, my dear Panda!”

  I have a recording.

  “One: Fuck you. Two: Just buy the stupid thing.”

  As you wish. It’s already on the Altanet anyway. I wonder who uploaded it…

  New purchase: Class II Armored Flying Personnel Carriers!

  Points spent: 1650 points…

  Tokens spent: 1…

  Points remaining: 8031 points…

  I winced but rallied. This fucking thing would protect me and my friends, maybe even my family! It had to be perfect. “Fuck, alright, now that we got the catalogue, what are my options?”

  It depends very much on what you want your APC to do. Would you like fire-support capabilities? How many personnel should it be able to transport? How comfortably? Do you want them to have space?

  I thought hard on it while puffing on my vape pen. We’d finished eating a while ago and, for now, we were just chilling. The scouring was almost over and, well, I wanted to wait for my awesome new ride too. Plus, hey, I was visiting the Badgers! Had to say hi to my friend. Kirk’d been whisked away to a small bunkered up section and would be coming over soon enough.

  “I want… twelve to eighteen for carrying capacity? For guns… just make sure there’s a spot to slot in HFUGs as door guns? It should save on points right?”

  Yes, quite substantially. Having the appropriate mountings and supports will be important, and probably a modification of the original design, but should be very inexpensive.

  “Awesome! Ok, so, fire-support… Not really? Or… Maybe the bare minimum? I mean, I’m the fire-support, that’s my job. On the other hand… Argh, I’m really trying to save but at the same time… Yeah, I kind of want a big gun on that thing! I mean, HFUGs are big guns but that’ll be door gunners, you know? I don’t really need it now, but I don’t want to have to buy a whole new ship when I have the points, you know?”

  I believe I understand. A highly modular system? Something with more mountings than actual weapons for now, potentially even structural and armor modularity? That way you could upgrade the armor to a higher quality when you have the points.

  I took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. That had seriously helped my decision jitters. “Yes, that sounds wonderful, thank you Altany…”

  Lila piped up with a damn good suggestion. “Hey, I know you plan on that thing being able to take a beating, but you should keep in mind hyper-velocity shots. I mean, that’s what I’d use to take down a samurai’s ride! There’s a thousand ways to intercept or deceive missiles, but a big chunk of metal at ‘fuck you and your stupid fucking face’ speed is hard to protect against.”

  After a smile and thanks from me, Altany laid out the sci-fi stuff.

  That is a very valid concern. In that case, you should equip it from the start with a spatial-displacement employing auto-shielding device.

  Wouldn’t even try to pretend I knew what the fuck that was.

  The auto-shield will displace a triple-layered pure-carbon deflector. The first and last layers are a DLC, or ‘Diamond-Like-Coating’. This will create two extremely hard layers which will make the projectile lose substantial energy and force it to alter its trajectory as they break. The middle layer is made up of a carbon-nanotube sheet to catch it and, once more, severely modify its trajectory and velocity. The device will continue to displace more in the way until it is no longer a danger.

  “And all that calculating, it’s fast enough to do that with a fucking hypersonic heading for us?”

  Yes, excessively so. If you do not trust the device, at least trust that I am fast enough, since I can take manual control of it.

  I smiled, a lot more enthusiastic with so much less stress in the way. “Ok, sounds damn dandy darlin’!” I loved doing that thing where the first part of the word matched, what was that? Reverse rhyming or something?

  What will Robin think when he finds out you’ve called me darling? This could cause issues in your relationship! Also, without a human body, I believe I would make a very poor mistress.

  Lila laughed and Jackal snorted at Altany’s AI perfection enhanced delivery. “I didn’t call you ‘darling’, I said ‘darlin’’! Very big difference. Also, I never use a fake accent with Robin. Also-also, don’t sell yourself short Altany! If you put your mind to it, I know you would make an excellent mistress –for someone else, I prefer organic organisms in general–! Don’t worry about my relationship, worry about us getting shot out of the sky!” I answered with a smile.

  That is a reasonable order of priority.