Stray Cat Strut
Chapter Fifty-Six – Fill The Sky With Fire And Smoke

Chapter Fifty-Six - Fill The Sky With Fire And Smoke

"A horrific crash today near Bali as a commercial airliner, Flight MG587 was struck by a flock of flying Antithesis in mid-air, causing both engines to go out. The aircraft made an emergency landing over the city slums.

In other news--"

--Report on flight MG587 crash, 2024

***

We rejoined Gomorrah at the same cafe, and I discovered a fresh drink waiting for me already. Good service. I made a mental note to leave a good review as I sat down across from Gomorrah. Nya spun a seat around and sat backwards on it, arms folded on the backrest, and Shy took a more careful and deliberate seat as well.

"Is it done?" Gomorrah asked.

"Mhm!" I replied. "At least, my bit, bombs tossed all over. More or less where you asked."

Shy nodded, then it was Nya's turn, and she reached down and plopped a paper back onto the table. "Taa-nya!" she said, all proud. The bag had a logo very similar to my own, only with the cat eyes closed and its tongue sticking out. The bottom of the bag was wet with blood.

"I'm afraid to ask. What is that?" Gomorrah asked.

"It's a surprise, nya!" Nya said.

Gomorrah's expression pinched, but she reached over, took the edge of the bag, and looked in. She stared for a moment. "That's the head of Maximilian Strout. C-suite for Rama Corp. I knew he'd died when there was an alert from his bio-cyberware that went out and that I intercepted."

"You intercepted it?" I asked.

"Rather, Atyacus did. We didn't want emergency medical services appearing on site just as we set things off."

"Ah, fair," I said. Didn't need to blow up the paramedics. That was a war crime or something. "So, what are we waiting for now?"

"To send a message," Gomorrah said. Her eyes flashed (which was objectively very cool) and I got a ping on my augs. There was a message there, written in the same style as Myalis' own message just the day before.

MESSAGE FOR PUBLIC BROADCAST

Subject: Rama Corp LLC - Ceasefire Violation Response

Context: Rama Corp LLC, a mid-tier corporate entity operating within the bounds of New Montreal attempted to use the New Montreal Gang Ceasefire as a means of self-enrichment. While the corporation was not, specifically, within the bounds of the New Montreal Gang Ceasefire, its actions nonetheless constitute a breach of the standing agreement.

Their recent operations, which included the deployment of corporate military forces to take control of previously-gang operated territory within New Montreal, knowingly profited from the forging of the New Montreal Gang Ceasefire.

Proceedings: Effective immediately, Rama Corp LLC will be penalized for infringing upon the New Montreal Gang Ceasefire.

SCOPE OF ENFORCEMENT: Total.

ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY: Samurai Gomorrah, Samurai Shy, Samurai Stray Cat, Samurai Nya

ENFORCEMENT WINDOW: Immediate.

I nodded along. A bit... formal and legalistic, but if even I could make sense of it, then it would work. "I think that'll do it," I said.

"Can we change 'Samurai Nya,' to 'Ronin Nya?'" Nya asked.

"Consider it done," Gomorrah said. She turned to Shy, who only nodded mutely. "Very well. Message sent. We only need to give it a few moments to disseminate. I imagine that most of the better-organized gangs will be paying some amount of attention to things as they stand."

"I bet they are," I said.

Gomorrah leaned to the side and plucked something out of a small purse. It was a detonator. She looked over us all, then placed it on the table and slid it over to Shy. "I'm aware that you've been a samurai for longer than Catherine and I, but you've been part of our little group for a smaller amount of time. Would you like to do the honours?"

"Oh? Um, okay?" Shy said. She took the detonator, turning it this way and that, then looked up. "Now?"

"At your convenience," Gomorrah said. "Unless you wanted to order a drink, first? Anyone need the washroom?"

Shy shook her head, and then proceeded to pull on the detonator trigger. There didn't seem to be any safety.

I sat up a little straighter as I noticed a bright light outside, and then I snapped my attention to the Rama Corp LLC building, or the few floors the corp occupied.

Glass fanned outward in glittering sheets, flung ahead of a blooming sphere of fire. Flames roared out, and a split second later the café shuddered under the weight of the shockwave. It felt like a cargo hauler tearing past overhead, the kind of booming noise that makes bones vibrate and jittered drinks across the table.

The shakes wore off soon enough, but the flames didn't. A cascading wall of fire had turned the top three floors or so of the building into a torch.

Gomorrah sighed, picked up her mug of steaming coffee, and took a long sip.

"We were very measured in our response, I hope that the gangs and other corporations won't take this as a sign of weakness." Gomorrah took another sip. Her eyes were locked on the fire.

I decided to give her a moment. Looked like she needed it. "I'm sure the media will put two-and-two together. This will be in the evening news, I bet. It's more interesting than any political fuckery. People are going to dig, and find out about the ceasefire. News is going to spread."

"Nya-haha, but news will also tell people not to mess with it, yes?" Nya asked.

That was a fair point. Despite the evacuation of civilians keeping casualties to hopefully just one (the man whose head was still on the table) what we'd just done was pretty damned visible. I imagined that more than the potential loss of life, the loss of... what did they call it? Face? Yeah, the loss of face for the corp and probably all the corps associated with it was pretty rough.

Also, the credits.

I wasn't an expert on anything business-related, but I was pretty sure a headquarters that spanned three floors atop a skyscraper didn't come cheap.

"Stocks," Shy said.

I looked at her, then frowned as I looked at the still-burning building. What was in those little sticks Gom had given us? And Stocks?

Out of mild curiosity, I opened a browser on my augs and then fumbled around looking for information on the stock market. I didn't know much about it, but I could read a simple graph. Rama Corp LLC had had a few ups and downs, but it was generally trending upwards for the last two or three years. And within the last hour its stock value had dropped so low that I was pretty sure it was in the negatives. It didn't look like a dip, it looked like a straight line to nothing.

"Can't be good for the company, that," I said.

"I imagine not," Gomorrah said. "We'll have to be careful. Tanking one small-fish corporation won't do anything to the value of the credit, but do it too often and we might start having an international impact on the economy."

"You know enough about the economy to tell?" I asked.

She chuckled softly, her attention finally turning away as the flames started to die down and leave nothing but smoke. "I know enough to know that I am clueless about it, and that it's big and complex."

That made more sense. I had Gomorrah on a nice, gilded podium in my head as someone reliable and smart, but she couldn't know everything, even with her fancy nun education.

"So," I said. "What next?"

"You need to keep organizing the conclave," Gomorrah said. "And we... need to find something to do with that head. Unless you have plans, Nya?"

Nya shook her head. "I was just being a bit silly," she admitted. "Nya... does not actually know what to do with a person's head. It's kind of gross."

"Trash it?" I asked.

"I don't think you can do that with human remains."

"Like, legally can't? Because it'll fit in the trash," I said. "We could bring it with us. Encase it in like, resin or something, put it on display as a warning."

"That's a little too... biblical for me," Gomorrah said.

I shrugged. "Sure. Didn't say I wanted to be the one to do it."

We kind of just sat there for a bit, watching the fire. Eventually a few hovertankards came around and started to spray the side of the building with foam and water, putting out even the smoke.

"Did that fuck up the building?" I asked.

"It was mostly pyrotechnical," Gomorrah said. "Some smoke damage, and the exterior walls were blown out, but the fire was more... fire than heat."

"Sure," I said. No clue what she meant, but she was the pyro, so I'd take her word for it.

It was a good thing it always rained in New Montreal.

***

A note from RavensDagger

Yo! New SCS Fanfic doing numbers! Check out Deep Cleaning the Deep Sea!

I think it's actually set in the ocean... is the ocean a deep sea? ... curious birbs enquire!

Anyway, here's a link:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/112003/deep-cleaning-the-deep-sea-an-scs-fanfiction

And the blurb:

Macy Adams is...unusual. Not in the normal neurospicy way. No, she likes something that is seen as very odd for 2056: The ocean. With most of the life in the ocean being dead and the rest being hiding Antithesis hives, it is firstly not a safe place and even more so? It has nothing of value for most people.

Macy is bent on changing that, even if she doesn't have the power to. So, when she initializes as a Samurai during one of her dives, she sets out to clean up the seas and maybe, just maybe, bring back everything that was taken from it. Of course, there's a lot of Antithesis in the ocean, so she's got a long way to go.