A young Lady's Journey to become a Hive-Queen

“The importance of sewer maintenance has been one recently discussed a lot, after there had been an incident in New Montreal, which has left the city with quite the debacle. Outsourcing on top of outsourcing had ended with the sewer maintenance falling in the hand of a gang of volunteers, which once shut down by a Samurai for their kidnappings of innocent people, had left the entire system entirely broken. The costs of repairs are astonishing.”

- Minister of Infrastructure, New Savannah, 2057

When we headed out of the room we immediately drew a lot of attention, which I guess was understandable. Before we just looked like cheap hookers, now we looked like actual Samurai. Not that I didn’t still look inviting, but there was a noticeable difference in style, which also changed the way people looked at us. For the most part anyways, I could still feel some leery gazes on me which I didn’t mind. To my surprise Jenna seemed to be getting less leers now, which was probably at least partly the point of the design. They would never fully vanish, of course, there were always more people with their head firmly down in the gutter.

True to her word, Jenna summoned two more Sentinels once we had left the room and were back in the long and roomy hallways. They were quite a bit shorter than the one she had when we had first met her, and they also were more than just a spindly bot with the Egyptian Jackal Sentinel head.

These new Sentinels were quite feminine in shape, although it was clear that that was mostly for aesthetics. They were pretty enough to be admirable, but not enough to overshadow Jenna at all. They had a similar Jackal head, although this time with more… feminine features, I guess. Longer ears, thinner snout. Both had rather large shields, although not quite the tower shield that the other bot had used, and each had one Scimitar like blade at their hips, and a long Pike in their hands.

“Damn! Quite impressive,” I said with an approving nod.

“Thank you,” Jenna said with a warm smile, “I did most of the design myself, although Cleopatra helped with the finer details.”

We made our way back to the outside when I received a call from Chloe. With raised eyebrows I accepted, then pulled the entire call into my communications suite, which… was a very fucky experience. My mental self appeared in a virtual room with a split perspective, which was… a very strange thing to experience. I was both outside in the real world and in the virtual realm that I now found myself in. Like, fully there. It wasn’t that my attention was split, although I guess that was true, but I got full input from both ends as if I was two people now.

The call was a big conference call and soon I saw multiple people pop into my virtual realm in the form of video windows. I could fully pull them into this thing, but from the warning I got it wasn’t a good idea unless they had similar augmentations to my own.

“What’s up?” I asked when everyone had connected.

Chloe looked at me, eyebrows slowly raising. “God damn, Seraphine, that fits you perfectly.”

“Thank you,” I said with a warm smile, feeling tingly from Chloe complimenting me.

“Should we give you two a room or can we carry on with the call,” Fortress said with a slightly disgusted look. Interestingly her meta-data finally gave me a name: Clara. It did fit her well.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said with a snort, “Way to ruin the mood. But yes, what’s up?”

Chloe cleared her throat, blushing fiercely as was typical for my favourite cuddle bug.

“Yeah, uhm, okay. So, Martin was checking things. He specialises in recon and shit and he dug around a bit with Jordan’s help about the weird happenings in the area. We thought there might be some food storage that drew the aliens in, but there was nothing on the plans. Well, there is nothing on the plans, but there is something under the gate. Something that shouldn’t be there. Martin found it while the drones were sewer diving, but we can’t get in. I offered to blow it up, but Fortress offered a different solution. Seraphine, can you get your Reaver in there?”

I raised an eyebrow, “I mean, sure, I can. Kaysa?”

That should not be an issue. It would depend on the specific section of the sewage system, but generally it should be spacious enough at its current size. That doesn’t mean it can’t run into any potential issues.

“Yeah, fair. I can send Snuffles down there and have it check if you want. Gimme the route?”

“Here,” Martin said and transferred some data packages.

They ran straight into the firewall of my new communications suite, before they were finally forwarded to me. Kaysa put it on in front of me, outlining the way Snuffles had to take.

I nodded, “Aight, simple enough. Snuffles, fetch.”

My Progenitor Reaver was currently busy eating her fair share of biomass outside, but at my command I saw her gulp down the remains, before she took off into the direction she needed to go.

“Snuffles?” Chloe asked, obviously amused.

“I mean, she needs a name right? And she just kind of felt like a Snuffles to me. Anyways, she’s on her way now, should be arriving shortly.”

Chloe nodded, “Good. Once we know more we can sit down and see if there is anything we can do.”

Shrapnel nodded, “Until then take a break, relax a bit. I’ll organise a guard rotation, if you wanna be part of it feel free, but don’t over do it. Today was long.”

We all nodded in reply, then one by one people started to drop out. I decided that this was a good opportunity to check in with Castas and the Shelter, see how they are doing.

Dialling him and putting him on in my Legion Control’s Communication Suite, I didn’t have to wait long for him to pick up.

“Yes, Princess?” Then I saw his eyes widen, “Damn. You certainly changed in the last couple of hours. Nice new look.”

I smiled at him, “Thanks! Did get some upgrades and stuff. Wanted to see how you are faring at the moment. Anything going on that I need to know about?”

“Uh… Not really? Right now things are calm around here, couple aliens, but nothing we can’t handle. Mainly thanks to the gear you left us. Your friends are fine, the Shiver addict is still busying herself with my men, so morale is up. Tina has really gone to town on the whole admin the joytoys stuff. Got a couple plans laid out for the future. In negotiations with her group to make shit work. Truth be told, if she wouldn’t be a friend of yours I probably would have kicked her out already with some of the shit she wants, but we are working our way through the details.”

My smile fell, “I advise you to not touch her.”

He raised his hands, “Oh no, I ain’t doing nothing like that. Last thing I need is a Samurai or two coming in and killing every single one of my men. And I am as lenient as I can be. Doesn’t mean I will just lay down on everything, if you expect that.” He looked… I didn’t want to say anxious, but a bit concerned at that comment.

I shook my head. “I told you you can hash out your deal. Just don’t try something stupid and I don’t need to come in and feed you to Snuffles.”

“I don’t think I want to know who Snuffles is, do I?”

“You do not.” I said with a smirk.

“Oh, reminds me,” he said, obviously trying to change the subject, “Some other Samurai came here. He found your other friend, Sarah I think her name was? Saved her from some xenos and dropped her off before he wandered off again. No clue who exactly it was, didn’t look like gang or local for that matter. Seems to have the poor girl quite smitten though, not that he seemed too thrilled about it.”

That was… good news, honestly. If we had some other Samurai running around keeping people safe that meant I didn’t need to worry too much. Then again, he seemed like the type to not stick around too long from what Castas said. And of course knowing that Sarah was safe was a big relief. I admit to not really having thought about her so far, so to know she wasn’t busy being dead from overdose, or worse, alien, was quite the relief.

“Alright. If he turns up again, let him know I want to talk to him, yeah?”

“I can do that.”

“Good. Anything else I need to know about?”

Castas looked… uncertain. “Well… Far be it from me to ask for favours from a Samurai, but… I told my guys to make sure people don’t go around ODing in other shelters. Where I have people around in any case. It has me spread quite thin, so I was hoping that you might be willing to help us out a bit after. Some gangs have started poking around. Don’t need you running around, mind you, but… Give and take, y’know?”

He had a point. He was spending a good amount of time and influence to help my little plan along, keep people safe, and what have you. And if he was willing to do a proper job I didn’t see a problem with him being in charge. Certainly didn’t want to see more upheaval in the wake of a gang war, that was for sure.

“Only fair. But if we go that far I want some more structure. Joytoys doing their thing is great and all, but there are some things you should probably get under lock and key if we start making waves. Drug trade is the biggest thing, obviously. I don’t care about the profits, do what you want with that, but make sure you at least make sure that the cheap shit doesn’t get thinned to oblivion with trash, sell it on your own dime. People won’t be happy, true, but if they make trouble feel free to refer them to me. Snuffles is still growing and could use some food.”

From his expression I knew he wasn’t happy, Crows hadn’t been big in the drug trade before and they would certainly step on some toes. But then again, he came to me, and it would give him more money and influence in the long run. “Thanks, Princess. I’ll make sure to get everything sorted on my end. Although… I might need your… convincing arguments in person.”

“That I can do,” I said. Shouldn’t be hard to make some idiots understand that they were no longer at the top of the outer district food chain.

He once again nodded, that seemed to be his favourite gesture, then disconnected.

“Well… That went better than expected.”

You do realise that your interference in the politics of both the Red Crows and the district at large will have quite the impact, yes?

“Yes. That is kind of the point. I just don’t like that some gangs are already poking at them. At the end of the day though, I’m the one with the biggest weapons. And Red Crows seem to be competent enough to be allowed to be in charge.”

That is certainly one way to approach the problem.

“Kaysa, I realise that you are super smart and alien and whatnot, but these types of things are what I’m good at. Gangs will always exist and you can almost bet that most can’t see further than three days. Hell, I can’t, in most cases. So if you want to make sure that the people you want in charge stay in charge and fully support you, you have three options: Be as good a girl as you can, kiss their feet, bend over whenever they want and hope that’s enough. Be some kind of genius that can ensure they get more money and become more influential every day. Or be the one with the biggest guns. I tried the first, am too stupid for the second, but I sure as shit can do the last now.”

Very well. Once this inevitably backfires horribly I am here to help you figure out where you went wrong.

“Wow, the trust you have in me," I said with a smirk.

I am simply stating the obvious. Don’t make the common mistake of thinking people are stupid simply because they don’t see things your way. The other gangs will not take kindly to your meddling.

My amusement vanished with a sigh. “I know, Kaysa. But I hope that the knowledge that I can and will feed them to Snuffles will be enough.”

With my talks done and not much else to do Jenna and I finally arrived back outside again, not that we really had anywhere to go. Things had slowed down considerably, people were still standing guard and such, but in most cases they seemed to relax just a little.

Looking around I tried to decide what to do next. I know Shrapnel had said that we were on break, but honestly, I was feeling itchy. With the entire momentum of the day and non-stop action it felt weird to just… stand here and not fight aliens.

Jenna seemed to have similar issues, looking around and unsure what to do with herself. I was just about to offer her to sit down somewhere when my growing unease was disrupted by a “Yo.” behind us. Chloe, Shrapnel, and Fortress were on their way over to us. Seeing Chloe immediately made me feel better and I raised my eyebrows at her new getup.

She too had found some time to upgrade her gear, although hers went into a different direction than my own, or even Jenna’s. We had paid careful attention to fashion, Chloe on the other hand was the opposite of that. Her getup wasn’t ugly, don’t get me wrong, it fit her very well and really underlined her fighting nature, but it was more function over form. She had switched her more revealing normal clothes she had worn to our appointment for some traditional military style underarmor with thick padded pants that had lots of pockets, a nondescript hoodie or similar, but without the actual hood, and on top of that her old armor, although with new additions. Of course everything was somewhere between dark grey and black, which fit very well to her dark brown hair and rather light skin tone.

Her weaponry had also changed. Oh, her old pistol was still at her hip in a comically large holster, but she now had a rifle that someone probably could have mistaken for a normal human grade military rifle if they didn’t know weapons well, but which quickly revealed itself to be anything but on a second glance. It was long, had two barrels stacked over each other, a sleek and slightly alien design, and from the size of the barrels it could fire some pretty big bullets. It didn’t have the same dark green golden look that her pistol had, more a rather commonly used dark grey colour scheme.

“Damn,” I said, openly looking her up and down, “You certainly have changed. Looks good on you though.”

“Thanks,” she beamed, then came over and gave me a hug which I gladly reciprocated.

“Anything going on?” I asked her with a wide smile once we separated.

“Not really, no. Waiting for your pet to scout the area. Was thinking we might want to check in with Castas?”

I smiled, “Already did. Got to talking about business, so I’ll need to head over eventually and see what exactly he wants. He seems to be good for the district and I much rather have him in charge than anyone else.”

She raised an eyebrow in reply and I shrugged.

“Well, I want things to be better but I’m not the kind of person to take over, so I need to figure out how to make it work for them so they can do my job for me. Things right now are really unstable and some gangs are already trying to take over, so I’ll see what I can do to stop them. Last thing I need is a gang war in my district, and I’m not exactly a leader type.”

“At least you recognise your shortcomings,” Fortress muttered.

“Well, of course. I don’t know shit from piss when it comes to leading a gang. I mean sure, I make sure the joytoys under me are happy and shit, but that is hardly an actual leading position. I’m more like a problem solver for them. I can solve the problems of the district, but that doesn’t mean I can, or even want to, lead it. So best thing I can do is make sure the people who can do a proper job are in charge. In this case probably Tina for the joytoys and Castas for everything else. He knows what he needs to do to make things happen, all I’m doing is telling him the rules I want enforced and what he can expect in return.”

“And what can he expect?” Chloe asked.

“I make sure the other gangs leave him alone, he makes sure the people are safe and cared for. That simple.”

It took Snuffles over an hour to get to the point Martin had found, mainly because she couldn’t fit through most of the parts that Martin’s drone could use. We spent most of that time fighting off the smaller groups of xenos and trying to relax a little between the waves of aliens. I spent a good amount of time with Chloe and Jenna, just chatting idly about inane stuff, or in silence.

There was one total surprise though, much to the horror of Dominium Fortress. One of the soldiers actually had the balls to ask me for some alone time, which… I mean, I was a Samurai and could easily register my displeasure if I so choose, but personally, I just found it utterly adorable. The young man was of course a nervous wreck, beet red and looking everywhere but at me, hopping from one foot to the other. From the looks his mates gave him I was pretty sure that it was some kind of dare or something, truth be told I hadn’t really paid much attention to them even if I probably could have listened in with my new ears.

He seemed an honest enough guy and I wasn’t about to ruin his rep in front of his peers, so I accepted, which had everyone gawking at me with wide eyes. Well, I did make sure to tell them that this was an exception and everyone else had to book some time through Vic before I would even consider them. It was good marketing, especially considering the sudden slew of notifications from the brothel. This was probably not the last soldier type I would have my fun with. It did make me think about my rebranding a bit though, especially since Chloe was still there and… I mean, she didn’t seem to mind, the opposite really. From the look she gave me she wouldn’t mind me jumping at all of them, which I wasn’t quite sure what I should feel about.

What also surprised me was that the notifications from the brothel weren’t your standard fare, instead of fixed dates and appointments they were simply requests that I was free to schedule at my own discretion. What was an even bigger, and quite welcome, surprise was the price tags now attached to my time, with a much bigger cut for myself. Victor probably wanted to keep me happy and had already done all the changes and stuff. I shot him a quick message telling him he should at least keep 25% of my earnings. If this continued I wouldn’t need money anymore quite soon, and if it was keeping him happy and honest I didn’t mind lining his pockets a bit. I did of course tell him about my plans in quick summary and made sure he understood that the 25% of my earnings could easily be revoked if he would start throwing fits. Not that I wanted to put him under my thumb, but I also didn’t want him to start doing stupid shit.

Nevertheless, back to Snuffles and current events.

Not long after I returned from my fun time with the soldier boy, who seemed utterly too happy considering I am quite good at my job, I got the notification from Snuffles that she had arrived at the strange walls that Martin had found.

Snuffles notifications weren’t digital pop ups or messages or something like that, instead it was more like a tug at my attention. Not enough to actually derail my train of thought, more like… Imagine you walk along a street and see something from the corner of your vision, it was similar to that.

I quickly gave her the order to deal with the wall which she did quite quickly. True it was a concrete wall, but Snuffles was Snuffles, and Snuffles was awesome, so she dealt with the obstacle quite quickly. And, of course, it wasn’t some kind of reinforced concrete used as foundations for megabuildings.

Once the dust had cleared I saw a large room filled with total darkness. Well, I say that, but Snuffles had senses nearly as good as my own, so a bit of darkness wasn’t something that would stop her. And if I understood Kaysa correctly Snuffles was on the weaker side when it came to senses, so higher class Hexclaws could and would utterly outrank even my stupidly good vision with ease.

The room itself was mostly empty, but there was some technical equipment in the middle and along two of the walls. From thermal imaging courtesy of my most favourite alien attack dog, it was either in use, or had been in use quite recently.

That is strange.

“What is, exactly? The fact that the room shouldn’t exist, that it doesn’t have food in it, or that the cables look far too old to properly work with the quite modern looking machinery in there?”

While I spoke I made sure to include everyone in the virtual network again, calls dialled, and I started to put out as many of the senses and data points from Snuffles perspective as I could. They probably wouldn’t really be able to properly understand them, but I mean, sight alone was already quite the indicator.

The machinery in this room is used for power switching, supplying modern machines with power from older power couplings. Their use is quite common in the more antique parts of cities. The strange thing is that the power lines running out of this room and the machinery itself is, while not made by the protectors, at least based on their designs.

“... Which means they have Samurai tech down here. Question is what for though. And whose tech is it?” Shrapnel asked, voice full of confusion and displeasure.

“I don’t think a Samurai got it. Kaysa said it wasn’t made by protectors, so they built it themselves. They may have gotten blueprints, but even then, most Samurai who don’t buy things with points and instead build them, do so with a creation engine, at least according to Atlas. So they would still be protector grade, even if they are made with earth materials. These don’t fit the bill.” Chloe explained, gaze focused on Snuffles' video window.

I ordered Snuffles to follow the power lines. It did some doing, she had to get through some doors that weren’t exactly meant for something with her proportions, but she did manage with a little bit of rampaging. Finally she found an even bigger room, this one occupied with more machinery, most of it along the walls, although two giant machines stood in the center of the room, lights blinking and idling, obviously working.

“Fuck!” Shrapnel said, “I’ve seen shit like that before. Those are lures, even if mangled ones. Looks like big ones too, no wonder everything in the district was trying to get to us.”

That produced a moment of silence.

“But who would put them here?” Fortress asked, “Like… They should have known how bad of an idea that was, right?”

“They look like salvage,” Martin said, pointing at the image, “Look at this. Probably some Samurai bought them in a fight and they were left behind and then later found and brought here. Most of the interfacing stuff isn’t Protector grade and I can promise you that they do not run on Protector networking. The antenna is all wrong. Probably switched out to a system that they could use.”

“The question still remains: Who would go through this much effort to put these here? And why? Like, this looks not like something some hobbyist in a garage can just tinker up. This is alien tech.” I asked, frowning. I didn’t like the implication of this at all.

Indeed. This is not something someone without at least some idea on how the technology works could accomplish.

Kaysa’s comment once more left the room silent. She was talking in the virtual network for this call, which I was grateful for.

“I mean, right now that doesn’t matter,” Jenna said after a moment, “We need to figure that one out later and deal with whomever is responsible for this, but right now we need to turn it off. We can’t just stick around the city gate all the time, while the range of the thing is vast, it doesn’t reach through the entire city. We need to make sure we can go elsewhere to kill the xenos.”

I nodded at her logic, and so did most of the others. None of us was really happy about this, but this was something we needed to deal with, definitely.

“I agree. Cut the connection and let's head out. I’ll leave some drones behind to see if someone comes knocking,” Martin said with a nod, then popped out. The rest quickly followed suit.

I had Snuffles cut the cables, using the Hard-Light emitters of course, no need for her to electrocute herself. Once done I gave her the order to return and turned to Chloe and Jenna.

With a yawn and a long stretch that had Chloe distracted for a moment I looked at them. “Well… I think it’s best we get back to the redlight district. Question is, how?”

Chloe sighed and wistfully looked over to the remains of her once awesome ride. Even in its current state it still had quite the majestic look to it.

“Well… Maybe we can ask someone to drive us there. Otherwise I will need to get another ride…” she said wistfully.

I rolled my shoulders before I nodded, “Well, then. Let’s try to find a ride and see if there isn’t a party in the redlight district.”