Chapter 349
Where did I even start? I leaned back in the coffee shop and glanced through the pages of details Hope sent me. To be frank, we had almost nothing. The armor was stolen, they tracked it to a derelict apartment building in East End, and then it just disappeared.
Of course it was East End… where else would it be? That place was just full of trouble. Part of me almost expected it to be a warehouse in Portside though. Or maybe some subterranean cave somewhere in the city. Rats liked their sewers.
The squad had already scanned the place from top to bottom. I could go by and sweep the place too, but I had little faith I’d be able to turn something up. The apartment building was probably just a stopgap for the thieves to destroy the trackers. I doubted there’d be anything there.
That being said, just that information gave me a few avenues to pull from. Traffic cams, for one. It looked like Joshua was already on that angle, but Luna could probably—ah, right. She was still asleep. I’d have to wait for that.
Maybe I could get Saint to ask around—nope, couldn’t do that either. And Mira… probably wouldn’t add anything to the situation, to be honest. There was no need for violence at the moment.
It was fine. I was totally okay moving by myself once more. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. It’d just—it’d take me a bit to figure out where to go from here.
Why would they steal the armor in the first place, though? To sell? Moving that kind of hot item through the city wouldn’t be easy. Everyone and their dog would be on the lookout once this became public. I imagine Ligh would put a fat bounty on any information leading to the arrest and reclamation of Crusade property.
I stared up at the ceiling. Were they even in the city still to begin with? This kinda thing—it was best to skip town as soon as it was done. Sticking around was asking for trouble unless they planned to hide under the lamp. In which case, there was a not so small chance they were Crusader themselves which was… uncomfortable.
Whatever. I could try my contacts first and see if anyone heard anything. Hopefully, by then, Joshua would turn up something on the feeds. The Fang had a massive network anyway, and I’d been planning on stopping by for the contract.
After thinking things through, I called Hope. “Hey, how do we know they’re still in the city?”
Her line cut sharply and then came back. The sound of heavy breathing and a groan of pain came across. She’d only left thirty minutes ago... “Uh—Ligh figured it out somehow. He guaranteed the rats are still here somewhere.”
Right, well… that was probably true. I wasn’t sure how his bullshit worked, but it did work. Okay, so they were still here. That narrowed down the scope a bit. Instead of the whole world, it was just one city.
”Thanks… you said we had unlimited access to Crusade assets?”
”Within reason.” She coughed lightly and a crunch came through the line. A scream followed, though was abruptly cut short. “Shut it, slag. I’m on the phone.”
”S-s-sorry, m-ma’am—” A whimper cut off the person’s words. I used a Perk I’d barely had a use for since getting—Background Noise. My surroundings faded slightly, and I focused in on the quiet voices from her side. “I-I swear I didn’t hear anything. T-Tornado just paid me to run surveillance. T-that was it—“
”What did I just say?” Hope asked. Another crack came through and the second voice went silent.
“Think I could get a jaeger?” I could take this chance to scan it with Technical Expertise. The last time I was around one, I hadn’t had the Perk. Now, though, it’d be nice to have its schematic since I was making more and more robotics stuff as the days passed.
“Hmm…” Her voice went quiet like she was talking to someone else. “Zuku wants a jaeger.”
A third voice spoke up. Sounded like Commander Ligh himself was on the case. “Shend it. Whatever you guys need.”
She pulled the phone closer to her face. “I’ll have some aspirants drop it off. Where at?”
“Uh—“ I dropped the Perk and thought through my plans for the rest of the night. “The gym. I’ll be by in an hour or so.”
”It’ll be there. I’ll send Dev by with it.” The line abruptly cut off.
Nova… looked like I’d have an unwanted companion following me around. That narrowed down a few paths. I’d have to hurry up. I hung up and left behind my barely touched cup of coffee.
— - —
I slid into the booth across from Ishimaru. The man casually flipped a page on his newspaper. The holographic lights built into it flared brighter as the static nanogenerators created just enough power to keep the thing running. “Chiwa.”
”Ah, yes, hello.” I remained silent for a moment to let him finish his reading. I wasn’t in any particular rush anyway. I’d already run by the gym to drop off my armor, so no one should know I was here.
A minute later, he casually folded the paper and set it down on the paper. He tapped on a scrambler. “Buisness or pleasure?”
”Like I’m here for anything else?” I pulled the contract out and slid it across the table. “You see my text?”
He tapped the side of his head and his chrome eyes flashed with light. He slid a piece of paper over to me. “Like I could miss it… I got another one written up.”
I picked up the new contract and—“The heck?”
It just said ‘Jade Fang gets fifteen percent off and the Jade Fang will provide support.’ That was it. It looked like something a three year old would write up, not an actual contract a lawyer would churn out.
”I wrote that. Pretty good, right?” The old man smiled. He actually looked pretty proud of himself. “Bengoshi was busy, so the one between us and you was written by someone else. He didn’t have quite as good of a grasp on the situation.”
”Is this—is this going to be okay?” Hell, the company name wasn’t even on this. The first contract was way too overboard, but this was the exact opposite. Not that it was a bad thing for me. If anything, this was an easy to get out of the contract.
”It’ll be fine. Just don’t screw us, and I’ll ensure we don’t screw you.” He shrugged and tapped the contract between me and Kuzo. “This is all done?”
”Chek. Got it signed and ready.” I signed the one he handed me too. After tacking on a quick Cold Moon Solutions, of course.
He stashed the pack of papers into a bag of his own and leaned back with his arm sprawled out over the top of the booth. “You look like you have something else, Shiro.”
”Just a little thing.” I squeezed my fingers together. “You know how I’m still with the Crusade?”
”Yosh.” He pulled his arm off the back of the booth and crossed his hands on the table. The laid back feeling he’d been giving off vanished. “Something come up?”
”Um… someone stole Crusade armor.” I sighed. They would probably look down on me leaking this kind of thing. “A whole shipment.”
”That’s…” He frowned and rubbed at his chin. “It wasn’t us.”
”I didn’t think it was.” The Blue Crusade and the Jade Fang had a good thing going. As long as they stayed out of each other’s way, there was a tacit agreement to overlook certain matters. “You heard anything? Something about a hot package, even?”
”Dozens. All sorts of stuff has been moving through Aythryn City as of late.” He shrugged. “I’ll ask around.”
”I’d appreciate it.” I figured the Jade Fang angle would strike out anyway. I was just using it as an excuse to deal with the contract. “How’s the Fang?”
”Busy.” He looked around the room and his voice dropped down to a low pitch. “Keep this to yourself, but the Matriarch is… she’s about to step down.”
”Oh?” She was getting on in years. I’d never actually seen or spoken to her, but I’d heard of her through the respectful tones of the Fang and my parents. She was a living legend in the city.
“She’s turned… sentimental, as of late.” He waved a hand and patted the bag with our contract still in it. “Her daughter has started taking matters off her mother’s hand, but the Fang has been acting on the matriarch’s whims recently.”
”Is that a bad thing?” Usually, acting on whims had a bad context.
”No.” He shook his head sharply. “The matriarch has led the Fang well through difficult decades. Her last moments as the head should be full of joy.”
With a new matriarch taking over, the Fang was sure to change in the coming months ahead. I needed to watch myself until things settled down. Or, conversely, I could double down on my Fang relations and try to get a spot with the new leader. As if I didn't have enough on my plate.
“Anything I could help with?” Regardless, the matriarch had indirectly taken care of me through the Fang. It was best to never bite the hand that feeds.
“I don’t think—“ He paused for a moment. His eye flashed and a message popped up into my HUD. “Maybe, actually.”
It was a picture of a jade statue of a dragon coiling around a sword. Names covered each and every scale of the jade statue. “What’s this?”
”Something the Fang lost years ago.” He waved a hand. “She put a five mil bounty on it.”
5 mil?! No—it went deeper than that. If she wanted it that bad, then there was more than just money to be gained from finding it. It looked like the kind of thing half the people in the city would be after though. It wasn’t something I could just stumble over. “I’ll keep an eye out, then.”
”It’d be appreciated.” He nodded to me. “What about you? How’s it going?”
”It’s going.” I shook my head to clear. “I almost have that hover bike done for you guys.”
He leaned back and some of the tension faded away. ”What are you going to call it?”
“I—“ I hadn’t come up with a good name yet. I couldn’t just keep calling it hover bike if I planned on selling it commercially, could I? “How about… Clouder? No—Roughrider? Cloudstrider? Hoverinator?”
”Roughrider isn’t bad.” He took a sip of water and tilted his head to the side. “CMS Roughrider.”
It’d be the flagship product of Cold Moon Solutions once I got everything back up and running. I needed to get an actual production line set up to start cranking them out… and maybe get someone to buy raw resources from if I could. Topping up with Transmutation would work, but only for so long.
The nice part was I didn’t have to worry too much about contracts and taking over operations. The company operations were practically dead by the time I bombed the place, and cash flow was almost guaranteed already with my product and connections.
Roughrider could definitely work. It spoke of the bike’s ability to work in more tight and rugged conditions than traditional hover craft. And, to be frank, it’d be great for marketting.
At the end of the day, I wasn’t going to sell it as a civilian vehicle. The price would be good for civilians, but the kind of people that cared about flyers wouldn’t care about price. I was better off marketing it as a tactical or military vehicle and capitalizing on its mobility and ability to outfit an entire unit easily. Once I dumbed down the controls, that could also be a selling point.
I wasn’t a marketing genius though. I’d have to approach Saint about it and see what he thought. For now—“Roughrider it is. Chek, I like that.”
“I’ll get some guys to test it when you drop it by.” He waved an easy hand. “No rush. Equipment purchases have stalled with what’s happening.”
”I’d expect nothing less.” Most people in the Fang were probably holding their wallets tight while watching and waiting to see how things went with the new matriarch. “Well, it’s been nice.”
”Good luck finding that shipment.” He turned off the scrambler and picked his newspaper back up. I saw myself out.
— - —
AN: I don’t remember where, but I got asked if I used text to speech a couple days ago because of all of my homophone mess ups. I totally forgot to answer, so here it is. No, I don’t use TTS. I’m just stupid. When I’m writing, I mess them up a ton for some reason.