I stumbled into the residence, fully intending to colpse on my couch, only to find it occupied.

  “Squiddy, what are you doing here?” I asked, as I sunk into one of the cozy chairs o her. “Didn’t I give you aire floor iower to set up an apartment?”

  “It’s two floors above the peors,” Sharron moaned. “I’m worried about the radiation.” I stared at her a moment, unsure if she was joking or not. Nyx had assured me those geors were some of the safest I could buy. “And Issi and the kids aren’t there,” she tinued.

  “Right… well… t your blessings. You retreat to that radiation bathed floor of yours when they get to be too much, I’m stuck with them,” I muttered.

  “And you love it!” she replied with a smile.

  I didn’t deny the allegation. Instead I just sunk further into the chair a my stress slowly drain from my body. “Seriously, what are you doing here?” I asked again. “I feel like I haven’t seen you since you volunteered to help fill in for Brood at The Family.”

  “Four months!” Sharron moaned. “It’s been four months since Brood died, and I swear things are worse off than when I stepped in to help.” She kicked her legs, swinging her into a sitting position so she could look at me. “Did you know that someone broke into the home of Jacob Attler, the CEO of Global Rare-earth and Industrial Mining Corp, and threw him out of the window. Based upon the ck of security footage we’re one hundred pert sure it was a samurai”

  “I heard,” I replied. “It wasn’t me,” I added quickly.

  “I know that, and so does the rest of The Family,” Sharron said after a sed. “If you had do not only would you have left the security footage, but there would have been bears spray painting the pce the police arrived.”

  “True…” I muttered. “I thi what he deserved.”

  “You and about half the samurai iy. Unfortuhe backsh against Global has beey severe. Hiding an antithesis incursion, and then having several samurai die because of it, is a sure fire way to attract the ire of other samurai. Pretty much the entire board of directors have been reduced to iured servants, and the pany is fag liquidation because of their as. Which wouldn’t be an issue, if it wasn’t one of the five stro corps iy. Its downfall has pletely destabilized the power dynamic,” Sharron expined, rubbing her eyes.

  “I don’t see how that’s our problem,” I said with a shrug. “It’s up to the mayor, and city officials to sort this shit out.”

  “Calgary doesn’t HAVE a mayor. It has a corporate cil, a corporate cil that’s down one of its stro members. Add to that the fact that some samurai are running, or involved in other corps…” Sharron trailed off.

  “It means the Family ’t ighe fug issue,” I cluded. “That’s a wonderful clusterfuck you’re involved in. You should quit,” I advised.

  “I’m holy sidering it,” Sharron mumbled in reply. “The problem is that it would just dump extra work ohers, and I already feel bad enough fht and Barricade not being able to see their families due to this shit.” She sighed, “How are things around here?”

  “Well, as you know the peors are finally set up, as are the hydroponid food reprocessing floors. Jane was pletely freaking out for a couple weeks, until the school actually opened up, and now she’s calmed down a little bit,” I expined.

  “Fuck… I fot about the school. I guess that’s why the kids aren’t here right now,” Sharron muttered.

  “Yup. They’ll be done soon, and then you deal with the little bundle of energy that is Issi as she attempts to summarize her entire day of learning into thirty seds,” I said with a smirk. “Other than that… the people in the area have actually started allowing my beavers to fix up the surrounding buildings, and install slightly more secure shelters. Guess installing the Fabricators bought me a little bit of good will. Well… that, aing up that deal with Jessup so they sell their goods.”

  “I’ve heard the biggest seller is Teddy bears. You even gave them a way to prevent feries,” Sharron said with a smile.

  “Nyx did all the work. I just bought a cheap identification catalog, the blueprint for a chip, and provided it to the people. They slip it into their products, and people ’t terfeit because the chips are too plex to duplicate. Nyx even has a website that shows every bear, so people browse.”

  “Look at you, thinking like a little corpo,” Sharron said, sliding forward so she could mess up my hair.

  “Stop it… I don’t take advantage of the people, they get the full profit,” I annourying to swat her hand away. Once she backed away I frowned. “Now that you’ve said that, I feel dirty.”

  “You don’t care, you’re just happy to be helping these people,” Sharron said, leaning back agai there for a minute or so, just rexing, when Sharron broke the silence again. “How’s Hoppy?”

  “She hasn’t been to The Family tely?” I asked in surprise. Sharron just shook her head. “Well, what I say about her? She’s a good girl, and Brood’s death hit her hard. First time fighting antithesis and she watched five people die, kinda hard for someohat’s never had to deal with it before. I really didn’t mind taking over as her mentor but those were some big shoes for me to fill.” I shook my head. “She seems to be doier tely. Had some new ideas for a unity outreach project, but didn’t want to share the details with me yet.” I paused as a thought came to me. “Fuck, I should check to see how Arae and Psmanx are doing,” I muttered.

  “I’ll enquire when I get back to the office,” Sharron assured me.

  “Enquire when the fug antithesis incursion is supposed to happen while you’re there! It feels weird to go so long without fighting aliens,” I grumbled, “and I’m running out of pces to put bears.”

  “You COULD turn off the maes,” Sharron replied, giving me a disappointed look. “You must be approag a thousand now. Plus the IFVs, and that horrible ship you have floatihe roof of the garage.”

  “You sound like Jane! I bought more supply trucks to keep the matter refiguration maes running. Plus, I never know when I could use more bears.”

  “You ’t evehat many! Between yourself, Bob and Spooky you only handle like two hundred fifty max!” Sharron reminded me.

  “But now I have repts!” I insisted. When I gnced over I saw Sharron putting on a disappointed face, one remarkably close to the one Jane used. “Fine… I’ll shut them down for a while and only work on the IFVs, which are way behind, at least until I find another pce to store them”

  “Hoarder,” Sharron snorted. I started to turn and tell her off when the door burst open and the kids piled in, yelling, followed by a frazzled looking Jane. Issi immediately squealed, and attempted to climb over the back of the couch so she could tell Sharron about her new school adventures a fra of a sed sooner. I didn’t mind, we could catch up more ter.

  —

  “You’re sure about this?” Mirage said, croug dowo Zetta in the disaster zone he called an office.

  “Positive. They hid their tracks well, but all of those PMCs that refused to sign with the other cil members after their tracts with Global Rare-earth were celled were bought off by Applied System Dynamics, and their associated corps,” Zetta replied. “Think they might have even had a samurai help cover up the transas, they were pretty hard to track down.”

  “Why would a glomerate out of Denver spend so much to poach our PMCs? Is Denver fag a PMC she?” Mirage asked idley.

  “No, it’s quite the opposite actually. It seems like they’ve been deals to provide PMCs with their test teology, in order to attraahey’ve probably got one of the rgest, and most well armed, PMC forces on the ti right now.”

  “And now they’re poag talent from us,” Mirage sighed. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry abht now. Losing twenty pert of our PMC forces is going to hurt us the ime there’s an incursion.”

  “Should I tell the others?” Zetta asked.

  Mirage paused, sidering for a sed, then shook his head. “No, they already have too much to deal with. I’ll make some inquiries about hiring rept troops. I want you to keep a for any other unusual activity around the city, PMC reted or otherwise.” Mirage stood up and brushed off his pants, face taut. “Ever sihe fias the mountains our situation has been shit. I inally thought we were just unlucky, but I’m beginning to believe someone’s fug with us, and I don’t want to be caught on the back foot. You find ANYTHING, you let me know. Got it?”

  “I got it,” Zetta nodded.

  “Good,” Mirage replied as he turo leave. “I really hope I’m wrong about this.”