Save Scumming

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Nine - Sleep In

I slept. It seemed that I had a lot of focus on getting some sleep lately, but I think that's just how things were working out.

Jane's little futon wasn't the most comfortable space in the world to sleep on, but it wasn't any worse than some other places I'd fallen asleep before, and at least there was a warm body there. That counted for a lot.

Not that anything fun came of it. I slipped into a T-shirt and not much else, then conked out almost as soon as I was under the covers.

Jane mumbled a little, but she really didn't seem to mind being forced into the position of little spoon.

At some point she stood up and went to work, and I just slept on. When I woke up it was to an immediate sense of disorientation and confusion, then... safety?

I don't know if it was because I felt safe in Jane's shop in particular, or if it was the guns in ready reach, but I didn't feel like I was in any immediate danger on waking up. I did have some time to think though, while tangled up in Jane's sheets. The sleep had done me good. It gave my brain time to settle on a few things. Not a plan of action, exactly, but more like a sense of what to do next.

I got up. I was considering walking out in just my T-shirt to surprise Jane, but it sounded like she was with a client, and I wasn't about to put on a free show for strangers, so I got dressed properly, then opened Mister Couchtop's box.

He was grumpy. "I'm sorry," I said. "Look... just don't shit on the bed, and I'll order some kitty-litter online. Do you want a burger? God, I could eat."

He didn't seem to care much for the idea and instead started to move around and sniff things. I left him to it.

Jane was, in fact, with a client. A middle-aged man that could have been just about any corpo office worker. He barely looked up at me as he finalized his purchase of... what looked like at least six rifles and the mags to go with them. Well, whatever. I let Jane finish ringing him up before letting her know I was there.

"Your futon's not that bad," I said.

"Oh? There's other words I'd rather you use to describe it than 'not bad,'" Jane said. "But I'll take what I can get. So, have a good sleep?"

"Yeah. It let my brain work things out a little."

"Uh-huh?"

"Yeah. So, I'm a time traveller."

Jane blinked, then looked at me properly. "You sure you get enough sleep back there, Beanstalk?"

"I did," I said. "And no, I didn't roll off the bed and conk my head on the floor. I'm serious. It's my magic. What I got on hitting D-rank. I can time travel. Uh... don't freak out about it?"

"You know what they say about extraordinary claims and extraordinary evidence?" Jane asked.

I shrugged. "You have three little moles on your inner thigh that look a bit like a dog's head?"

She snorted. "Beanstalk, there are a lot of fine ladies that have seen the inside of my thights. That doesn't prove anything."

"Oh," I said. "Well... okay, that was my number one piece of evidence, actually. Anyway, look, it doesn't matter if you believe me or not. Just keep it in mind if you see me doing stuff that doesn't make too much sense. Like... ah, do you know anyone that does training for corporate hit squads?"

"Sure," she said, entirely unphased by the change in subject. "What's this got to do with time travel?"

"I didn't fully explain why I came here, did I?" I asked.

"We skipped that, yeah," Jane said. "Believe it or not, you're not the first friend that's shown up at my door who needed a hand."

I did believe it. Plain Jane was a whole lot of... well, everything, but she also felt honest and reliable. I could see why someone would lean towards simply trusting her when things were a little rough. "Yeah, so, uh, yesterday, a hit-squad from Seraph kicked in my door and kidnapped me."

"Seriously?"

"Well, it didn't happen, because, you know, time travel. But they did show up in this timeline. Look, it gets complicated."

Jane narrowed her eyes, then made a little 'go on' sort of gesture.

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"I'm dealing with a full squad of E and D-rankers, at least, and a single C-ranker. They're wearing some pretty serious gear. I don't know the names of it, but I'm pretty sure we can find pics of what Seraph gives their normal soldiers online somewhere. I need to practice close-quarters combat against people in that kind of gear."

"They piss you off that bad?"

"They broke into my house at fuck-off o'clock in the morning to kidnap me, and they kicked my cat."

"He looked fine?"

"Different timeline," I said. "It didn't happen in this one."

"Okay. Let's say I don't think you're insane, what do you need, exactly?" she asked.

I smiled. "I need some training while I look into some things. I'm mostly just letting things play out for now, to see the reaction if the Seraph group doesn't find me. The corp I work for is aware. I want to see what they do about it, but I don't think it'll be much."

"And do you want training?" Jane asked. "Like CQC?"

"To take out at least five, maybe more, guys in armour, on high-alert, with guns," I said.

"That sounds impossible," she said.

"Yeah, well I have a lot of attempts. It makes impossible far more likely. Do you think you can hook me up with anyone?"

Jane considered it, then shrugged one shoulder. "Yeah, prolly. I have a few people I know that are in that exact line of business. They'd be able to give you a few lessons, but this feels like it's on short-order."

"Call them all up," I said.

"And what do I get out of it?" Jane asked.

"My appreciation," I said. "And all of them money I have, which is a lot."

"You're just going to dump that cash like that?"

"It won't matter once I travel back, will it?" I asked.

Jane started. "Fuck! You and I banged in another timeline? That's how you know about my thigh mole!"

I flushed a little. "Uh... yeah, maybe?"

"What the hell, Beanstalk! That's messed up."

"In my defence, you came onto me real hard."

"Heh, I bet you came real ha--"

"Okay," I interrupted her before this could go down a route that I wasn't ready to handle at the moment. "Okay... if you can find someone, that would help a lot. In the meantime, I need to go buy a few things and... shit, my bike is back home. I'm going to grab a taxi and go get it. I'll be back in an hour or two. Keep an eye on Mister Couchtop, would you?"

"I'm not a cat-sitter," Jane said.

"He's a sweetheart," I lied before heading out.

First thing's first, I called an auto-taxi with my spare burner phone. It arrived surprisingly quickly, and then I was off towards home. While I did that, I connected to the net over my augs. I didn't want to trust the Orchid Lux connection in my augs too much, but damn if it wasn't super convenient. Plus, I didn't have problems with that corp in particular. If anything, I was probably a valuable customer with them. It would take something for them to turn on me.

I walked past my place a couple of times, looking for anything overly suspicious. Normal amounts of suspicious shit was going on, but nothing I wasn't used to after years spent around here.

So I went in, grabbed my boke, checked it over real quick for trackers, then started to feel hella paranoid when I found nothing.

Had Seraph just given up?

I rode back to Jane's place, only stopping at a grocery store to buy a few essentials and a disposable kitty litter. I shoved it all into my bike's bags, then made a second stop at a drive through for breakfast.

All in all, it was two hours before I was back. I found Jane at the counter, yapping with some client, one hand stroking Mister Couchtop who had resituated himself on her counter.

He liked her. I decided to take that as a good sign, though he jumped down and followed after me, meowling like mad. I don't think he was taking the change of situations all that well.

Poor guy. But this was just for a loop or two. It would all be good soon.

I just needed to prepare myself. Once I was ready, once I knew more, I'd start kicking Seraph's ass, and all would be well with the world.

***