Stray Cat Strut
Chapter Forty-Nine – For Shying Out Loud

Chapter Forty-Nine - For Shying Out Loud

"Those immigrants, are they any better than the alien invaders? They come to our lands, despoil us and our wealth, and spit on the traditions and values of or forefathers! They are a plague upon all good people!

No better, I say! They are no better than the aliens themselves!"

--Speech at a Mississippi rally, three minutes before an active Antithesis hive cancelled the event, 2036

***

"Um," Shy said, which from her was basically the equivalent of a whole sentence.

"Yeah?" I asked. We were heading to the kitchen. Well, I was heading to the kitchen. Shy was tagging along, hands together and eyes darting around as if she was in a hive looking for the next alien about to try to eat her head... which was actually a fair amount of caution to have. The brats living here could be worse than some Antithesis.

"Where is, ah, Samurai Tankette?"

"No clue," I said. "Deus Ex left me a note thing with her address. I know it's in New Montreal, so probably not that far. I'm grabbing a snack for the road. Want something? We've got every kind of soda."

"Thank you?"

She watched as I opened the fridge, then found two energy drinks for the road. I was enjoying being able to consume twenty-times my daily allotment of caffeine without having to worry about what would happen to my liver three years down the line.

Shy glanced in the fridge, then slowly pointed to one of the cans.

I grabbed a six-pack, and shoved them into her arms. "Dinner is served," I said. "Alright, let's go! I've just got to tell Lucy that I'm heading out, so she knows to call me if shit goes haywire here. You can go down and wait, if you want."

"No, it's... okay," she said.

I think she regretted that five minutes later, because I spent four of those five minutes kissing Lucy goodbye.

Honestly, if it wasn't for Shy showing up, I might have put off the whole plan for this evening and just... stayed there to keep on kissing Lucy, but needs must.

Shy and I rode the elevator down, then got into the Bastion. I did a quick system's check, mostly because I'd been skipping it a lot and that wasn't a clever thing to do too often, especially with anything that could move this fast in the air. I trusted Myalis and her Protector tech with my life, but that didn't mean it didn't require some amount of maintenance and could just be ignored.

Everything turned up green enough for my liking, so we took off, and I punched in Tankette's address into the onboard navigational system. Tankette, as it turned out, lived way off on the far northern shore of New Montreal. Not too far away from the school, though it was still a five minute flight from there.

Her neighborhood was an area filled with fat, low apartment complexes.

It was probably not a bad spot to live, actually. It was just outside of the New Montreal walls, but a smaller, lower wall protected the area. There were nicer homes on the edges as well, with actual lawns and shit behind their own, more private set of walls, but Tankette's address pointed us towards one of the rather plain apartment blocks.

It was one of fifty near-identical buildings. From above, the only difference was the occasional roof garden or the placement of a few AC units, otherwise, it was just more of the same building next to copies of itself.

As the Bastion lowered itself, I was able to guess which one was Tankette's home.

There was a tank parked out front.

It wasn't the cute little thing she'd been riding around in during the whole Big Gun thing either. This tank was a full-on main battle tank. It had small, armoured turrets on each corner, four sets of tracks, and a bigger turret squatting in the middle with a gun that looked like it might be able to punch a hole even in the Bastion.

The apartment building looked pretty normal otherwise, though. I was sure that she wasn't allowed to park that there, yet there it was, blocking a good chunk of the road.

I found a spot a little further back to park the Bastion in, then set up some commands for the ship to take off and fly circles around the block for a while, at least until recalled.

It was one thing to piss off some admin at the school. It was a whole other thing to piss off a samurai friend's neighbours by being too big of a cunt.

"Alright!" I said as I hopped out of the seat. "Let's see how Tankette is feeling about unexpected guests."

"Y-you didn't tell her?" Shy asked.

"What we'd be showing up? Nah. Why would I?" I asked.

The look of horror on Shy's face was actually kind of cute, in a morbid sort of way.

"Come on! She's nice. I'm sure she won't mind."

Shy made a high-pitched squealing noise, but followed after me. I did get a message from her AI, though. "Lady Shy would like to inform you, discreetly, that she does not like being put in this sort of socially-awkward situation. She is trying to improve her social capabilities through slow, careful exposure."

"Ah, well, shit, way to make me feel like a dickbag," I said. "Look, sorry. If you want, I can put the whole thing off? Or you can stay in the Bastion. I won't even mention that you're here?"

Shy took a deep breath in, then let it all out. "No," she said. "I'll come."

"Alright," I said. I gave her the most reassuring smile I could manage. She was... well, nice? In her own shy little way. Not a bitch, at least. Or maybe I was just projecting and she was the world's biggest bitch, but she just kept her mouth shut so no one knew it?

We stepped out of the Bastion then the ship took off on its own, washing hot air over both of us. I gestured towards Tankette's apartment, then started that way, Shy hot on my heels.

We arrived within to find... a pretty normal entrance space? It was a corridor, with stairs in it, and an elevator. Some repainted section on the wall hinted at some graffiti once, but it was clean otherwise. Maybe a bit muddy by the entrance? It smelled like cleaning stuff, the cheap kind.

"Second floor, apparently," I said.

We took the stairs up, because it wasn't so far, Tankette's place was the fourth apartment down. They had carpet on the second floor. It was... clean as well, but I still felt a bit icked out by it. Who the fuck used carpet? That shit should have disappeared and stayed disappeared thirty years back.

I knocked on Tankette's door. It had a little mat just outside that said 'All Are Welcome' which... yeah, that looked like something she'd have.

The door opened a bit, and I found myself looking into familiar eyes. "Oh!"

The door shut, then reopened sans-chain. "Hey," I said.

Tankette was in a flower-patterned blouse, with a long skirt and an apron. She might have looked very... '60s mom' if the apron wasn't covered in a repeating pattern of emoji faces. "Come in! This is a surprise. Honey, we have guests!"

There was a shuffle deeper in. "Is it the kids?" someone asked, a man.

"No, it's one of my, ah, coworkers! And a friend?"

"Oh, right," I said. "This is Shy. Shy, Tankette."

"Hello, dearie! Now, why are you standing there? In, in, come on, the sofa won't sit itself. Do you like tea? Oh, who am I kidding. I'll get you a soda. There's a roast on too! Real meat. It's alien, but I've been told it tastes almost exactly like chicken."

I chuckled. "So, when not buying tanks, you're buying roasts?"

"What else?" she asked.

I stepped into her apartment and looked around. It was... nice? Not exactly upper-class or anything, but it was pretty decently large? Looked like a two bedroom, one bath kind of place, with a full kitchen and a living room squeezed into the entranceway. It smelled nice.

There was a very small tank sitting in the living room. Like, a mini-one. With a gun turret on top, and armoured plating, and everything. There were a few plates sitting atop it.

The wall at the back of the living room was a floor to ceiling bookshelf, with some books, sure, and lots of framed photos, even some of those gimmicky .GIF photo frames. And model tanks. Lots of model tanks. Ranging from what looked like the second world war, up to more modern things.

"Nice place," I said.

"Oh, it's home," Tankette called back from the kitchen. There was some noise there, pots and pans banging together as she moved them around. "We're thinking of moving, actually."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes! We came to live here once my oldest moved out. It's smaller and the rent is far more affordable. Ah, but now that things have changed a little, I was thinking somewhere a little more spacious might not be out of order? With room to park my little tanks?"

"That makes sense," I said. "Maybe you can check out the place Gom and I live in? It's got some floors to spare. I figure I wouldn't mind having you as a neighbour."

I, being an evil, evil bitch, was already plotting to use her as a free nanny.

***

A note from RavensDagger

Two things...

First, check out Selkie's Kickstarter thing! It's so freaking cool. I got a copy for myself, but figured I ought to share it here as well! 

Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/btdem/beneath-the-dragoneye-moons-complete-collectors-edition-set

I love this so much. If I ever finish one of my longer series, I'm gonna try to do something similar, if only because I want cool hardcovers for my own shelves~

Second thing...

SPORE IS BACK! 

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54658/sporemageddon

At long-long-long last, the story is back on RR! 

Daily posts until the end of Volume Four. That's a chapter a day for a whiiiile!