Queen Violence

Chapter Thirteen - Philosopher's Cat

Derek led Sharp and I out back. I was on the floor again, Sharp having let me down so that she could switch to that red jacket the others were wearing. Hers didn't quite fit her right. It was mostly the right size, except that the arms were a little short and the coat didn't cover her entire torso. Still, it fit well enough not to stand out.

The back of the office was a small alley, one wide enough to hold a few sheds pressed up against the back walls. A tall, barbed-wire covered fence blocked the end of the alley, and at a glance I figured that it was one of those that could be opened remotely.

"Do you know how to ride a bike?" Derek asked.

"Uh, yeah, I've ridden one before," Sharp said. "I'm not the best at it, but I can manage."

It might be a good way to get her to level up Body or even Reflex. With the level of danger posed to cyclists on the roads around here... yeah, it was a good training method.

"Cool," Derek said. He set a large plastic container down. It had the packages we'd be delivering. He unlocked one of the sheds, then pulled out two bikes. They had little sidecars fixed next to them, designed so that they could fold up and lock into place on a saddle rack behind the seat. Otherwise, the bikes looked rather ordinary, with a battery pack under the seat and a small engine near the pedals.

"Cute!" Sharp asked as she took the handles of the bike Derek pushed her way. The bike was the same red as their jackets, with the company's logo slapped on here and there.

"Yeah, they're alright. We have a van for bigger deliveries, but these are good enough for getting around the cleaner districts. We might park them in Fenway and then grab them again on the way back out of South Boston."

"Because they'd get stolen?" Sharp asked.

"Because they'd get stolen," he said with a nod. "Can't have shit in Bostwon."

Sharp shrugged, not disagreeing. They worked together to unfold the sidecars, then Derek split the load of packages to deliver between them. The sidecars would probably keep them safe. I hopped up onto the one on Sharp's bike, then sat back down. The view was pretty low to the ground, but it would be more comfortable than gripping her shoulder while riding around.

"Alright, so, the job's usually pretty easy, especially the lower level bits. Just get to the delivery point, drop shit off. Be nice, be obvious about who you are, and you won't have problems. We'll start with the package in Bookline."

"Alrighty! I'm ready," Sharp said. She put a foot on the pedal and stood up, clearly ready to just head out.

Derek eyed for a moment, then shrugged. "Cool. Follow me."

The gate opened with a grinding screech of metal on metal, then we were out and onto the side streets of Brookline. The HOA gang had some very clear ideas about how traffic should work, which included keeping it slow and steady. It was probably one of the nicest districts in Boston Two for cyclists.

Still, Derek wasn't slowing himself down on Sharp's behalf, and he had longer limbs and probably a few years of fitness training giving him a significant boost. By the time we reached the second intersection Sharp was breathing harder already.

"Have you figured out the electric motor yet?"

"Yeah," she muttered. "But I'm worried it'll run out of battery later if I use it too much now."

Derek overhead and looked our way. "What was that?"

"Uh, how good are the batteries on this thing?"

"They're so-so," he said with a little wave of his hand. "You can recharge them here and there at bike rental spots. If you're real desperate, you can steal one of those electric rental scooter batteries, but I'd be careful about it, they sometimes have anti-tampering shit. I've heard horror stories."

"Oh, that would suck," Sharp said.

"You too weak to pedal?" he asked.

Sharp shook her head quickly. "Nope! It's hard, but I won't let a little pain stop me!"

"You're a real bundle of positivity, aren't you?" he asked.

Sharp was quiet for a while, then as we were crossing an intersection, she nodded. "Yeah, I think I am. There was a course on philosophy at the orphanage. It was more about being happy to be a working stiff kind of thing, but the person teaching it left some books behind, and I ended up reading a few. And... yeah. I've decided that I'm going to be happy."

"I don't think that's something you can just decide," Derek said with a laugh.

"Why not? Everything I was supposed to learn was about how life is meaningless unless I work hard to give it meaning, and the best way to work hard is to work for something bigger than myself."

"Yeah, I guess," Derek said. "I'm more of a free-spirited kinda guy, I take things as they come."

"That's okay too, but it means that you'd never be a good corporate employee. The problem is that... I don't think life has any particular meaning. You just... do what you have to. And I think that makes a lot of people sad, because it means you're gonna keep getting up, keep working, keep eating and sleeping, and in the end you'll die, and that's all there is to it."

"You're really cramping my style here, Sharp," Derek said.

I, for one, was... somewhat impressed that Sharp had thought things through this much. For one thing, I hadn't thought her capable of basic philosophical thought. And I didn't expect her to have reached any deeper conclusions about anything. "And how does this play into your philosophy about being happy?"

Sharp smiled. "It's not that bad," she said, to both me and Derek, I think. "If things are meaningless, then so is sadness, isn't it? If life is just lived to die, then why would you want to live that life and not be happy? So I woke up and chose optimism."

"You're a weird one. You might fit right in with some of the other couriers."

Sharp giggled. "Thanks!"

It didn't take long to arrive at the first delivery location. A small, turn-of-last century duplex. All redbrick with a yard so small that Sharp could reach from one end to the other if she laid down flat across it.

Probably the kind of place that cost tens of millions though, being that it was so close to downtown Brookline and was nonetheless a single-family home.

Derek pointed to a locked box on the side of the house. "You'll be getting one of these. It's a phone with an app on it. It unlocks those boxes. Put the package in and then lock it up again. Don't forget to lock it."

"Okay!" Sharp said. She ran over, did as Derek asked, then was back on her bike a minute later. "That was easy. Why... why don't they just use normal delivery services though?"

"Our services lose something like one out of every thousand packages. We're insured, generally deliver things a day earlier, and in fancy neighbourhoods like this one, we stand out a lot. If you're big into appearances, then that's a pretty big bonus."

"I guess," Sharp said. "Feels like it might be a bit much for me, but I'm not the usual customer either."

"Same here. This is way outside of what I could afford," Derek said. "Oh, and I forgot. We have... deals with the BPD across the city, and a lot of the gangs. Not all, mind you, but most of them. Some areas we're the only ones who'll deliver. Well, us and the other couriers."

"There's others?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "And if you see them, prepare for a fight."

Sharp laughed, then her laughter petered off. "Wait, are you serious?"

"You'll find out. Come on, two deliveries in Fenway, and I'm ten minutes behind my usual time already. Chop chop, kid."

I hung on to the sidecar as we took off as quickly as Sharp could pedal towards Fenway. Derek pulled ahead, but he was kind enough to wait at every intersection. "Hey, uh... I better get a... level out of this," Sharp said to me as we were catching up.

"Is something wrong?"

"This seat is hurting my butt and my legs are on fire," Sharp said. She wiped some sweat from her eyes. "Ah, it'll all be worth it, right?"

"And here I thought you just said you were an optimist."

"I am! Which is why I haven't given up yet!"

I snorted, then spun around and laid down atop the box. The wind was nice, and the sun was out for once. If I had nothing better to do, then I might as well work on levelling up my Cat stat by taking a quick nap.

***