Chapter Fifty-Seven - Post-Victory Celebration

Chapter Fifty-Seven - Post-Victory Celebration I took a taxi to the edge of City Centre, then another from a different company out to the edge of the city. Then a bus--after buying a hoody and a backpack to disguise myself from a roadside stall--and finally walked the last half block to Full-Auto Stranger-Danger. Was I being paranoid? Yes. Did I care? Yes, obviously. "I'm back," I said as I came in. It was approaching nine, and Jane was more or less closing up shop. Not that she had normal business hours. Jane perked up. "How'd it go?" "Not bad," I said as I moved over and slumped onto a stool. I was way too warm. "Need to get changed into something normal." "Not before you give me the deets," Jane said. "Hmm... I think I impressed her. She's got a lot of family shit going on, and wants help handling it." "Really?" "Yeah. She thinks that one of her two brothers is behind the kidnapping." "Holy fuck," Jane said. She clapped her hands, giddy. "This is some soap opera shit. Go on?" "Change first," I said. "And go find some plates and cutlery. I've got gifts!" That got Jane to move. I found a bag with all of my stuff that I'd left here, then changed in a hurry before Jane could get back. I was just tugging down a sweatshirt as she returned with plates and some plastic forks and knives. "Man, it's going to be a travesty to eat this on paper plates," I said as I placed a box on the counter between me and Jane. I opened it, and immediately the scent that came out of the box made my stomach gurgle. My body didn't remember it, but I sure as shit did. I'd repeated the Save like... thirty times, just to taste everything on the menu (and I suppose to talk to Ojou some more to get more clues about what was going on). I'd tried every wine, cocktail and drink, every desert, every main plate. I wasn't into men, but I'd marry Chef Marino. Man cooked a mean... fucking, everything. Jane looked ready to say something snarky when the scent hit her. She blinked, then sniffed. "What is that?" "Supper." "I... ate," she said. "Uh-huh," I said. Then I did the nicest thing that I had ever done and probably ever would. I gave her the larger half of the steak and plopped it onto her plate. Then a handful of those weird not-fries. The millefeuille could wait. Jane sniffed at the steak. "Damn... is this magic?" "Comes from a B-rank world," I said. She whistled. "Cooked in the fat of a kind of pig-like monster found in another B-rank world, atop C-rank charcoals that give it a unique, smokey flavour." I stopped to swallow, because my mouth was watering. "Just try it." Jane sawed at the steak with her plastic knife, and by the grace of Chef Marino it came apart like soft cake. She poked the piece with a fork, then plopped it into her mouth. A minute later, Jane was crying. She wasn't a pretty crier. Her face was all scrunched up, and there were fat, ugly tears running down her face. She hadn't uttered a world, or taken a second bite. "If you don't want the rest," I said. Jane took another bite, then another. She didn't stop crying though. It made things a bit awkward. "This," she said, her voice small. "This is better than sex." I nodded, understanding. "The millefeuille is better." Jane agreed. She needed a few minutes once we were done, to wash up her face and settle herself. "Damn," she said. "I... I'm not brushing my teeth tonight." "I... yeah, I get that," I replied. "I'm holding my shits in too. Just so that can be in me a little longer." "And now you've crossed the line into way, way too much information," I said. Jane laughed. "I'm kidding! Gods tho, the rich bitches up in City Centre eat this every night?" "No, I don't think so," I said. I considered what to do with the bit of sauce left on my plate, then gave in and licked it clean. Screw it, magic-rich foods were worth every crumb. "Anyway. Ah... right, the meeting. Fran's family sucks, but she's willing to hire me to keep an eye on them. And there was a nice bonus for saving her too. I might lean on you to help me find a nice bike. I need a way to get around the city." "Something legal, I take it?" Jane asked. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. "Yeah, preferably. Call it... twenty-k on the budget? Maybe I should look at a used car app or something first." Jane shook her head. "That's way too much. I'll poke some friends. Might get you a better deal." I was very flush with cash. Or I would be as soon as I secured a dead-drop with Ojou's cash. "I might need some help making this whole gig thing look professional." I looked up and stared at Jane, whose makeup had run. "Or... maybe not." "What's that mean?" "Nothing?" "Bitch, I'm hella professional." "Mhm," I replied. "But really, though. Thanks for the dress. That worked out well. I... haven't told you about it, but I've been working towards something. Something pretty big. Mostly I figured I'd need to get more experience and become stronger before I can tackle it, but it's the kind of problem that just being strong won't fix, you know?" Jane nodded along. "I get that." "Yeah. So I need cash, lots of it, and contacts. I think Ojou might be a good one. If we figure out who's responsible for what in her family, that might be a good starting point. Having the heir to a big corp owe you one is... good." Jane and I chatted for a bit, talking about what had gone down, but eventually I decided that it was late. I was... happy with the day. So I set a Save, then took a cab back home. It was about time to start another week-long goonin-- ... Uh. A week-long future-scouting mission. I made it home, tossed off my shoes, removed my pants, then flopped backwards onto my bed where an angry Mister Couchtop joined me. "No food left in your bowl?" I asked the fat cat as he settled on my chest. "Mow," he replied. I reached up and started to scratch him behind the ears in that way he liked. Miss Ojou... I still had the taste of that food on my tongue, and that brought my mind wandering back to her. Kinda felt a little bad for the woman. Not that bad, mind. She lived in the lap of luxury, far above the normies of the world. Hard to sympathize too hard. Still, her family was ass, and I could get that. Would I help her? Honestly, I didn't have any real reason to help her directly, only it made a lot of sense for me to get her on my side for who she was and who she knew. I didn't have a list of the corporations involved in the Breach, but I knew that some of them were. I couldn't even name all the companies out there, not even just the big ones. Fran could, I bet. Plus she'd have a much better lay of the land, and contacts. Stopping the Breach would probably be harder than just pointing a finger at one person. It would probably be harder than just killing one person too. So, help Ojou, for now. Get closer. Use her. I didn't like it much, but it wasn't like she wasn't getting something out of it too. Jane was my 'in' on the less lawful side of things. Ojou my in on the top end corporate, and my work at Luna Corp was giving my real ID cover and training. Yeah, I had a path to move on, but I was still worried that I wasn't being proactive enough. There were eight and a half months left until the big breach. How powerful could I realistically become in that time? C-rank was... maybe doable. If I really pushed. Would a single C-ranker more be enough? It had been all-hands on deck during the breach. B-rankers had died. So no. Strong wasn't enough. But strong wouldn't hurt, either. This week, during Operation Goon Week Two--name pending, I was going to focus on a few things: the movement of important CEOs, Miss Ojou's progress, the appearance of weaker E and D rank dungeons around the city, and the movement of big-name rankers. The goal would be to create another timeline of exploitable events. It had worked last week. Pretty well, even. I wanted to see if I couldn't repeat that again. Plus, it'd be a nice long week of R&R, with maybe some magic training tossed in. And I'd see if I couldn't figure out how to get my bike-driving license, and maybe aim to get some decent cyberware. Fifty-K was a lot of cash, but modern, top-quality cyberware? Yeah, that stuff was expensive. I could burn fifty-k on one piece of gear and still not have the top. "Ah, I think I needed the break, Mister Couchtop," I said. ***