It's About Saving Yourself Ch 10

Sorry for the late upload. work was exceedingly ugh. But I powered on through!

The vast majority of the chapter was written in July 4th. Cause I had the day off.

Was right back to work Friday, and that was really heavy. Hence, late. Ish.

Anyways. Obviously, next up is Kaiju Slaying.

Hope you like the chapter, and do please drop me a comment! Lemme know what you liked and didn't and all of that!

Also, scene at the end is basically lifted somewhat out of my childhood. That felt weird to write, lol. Still, hope it adds verisimilitude.

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I snuck through the 6th Street Chop Shop, my head simultaneously cold and overstuffed.

[Wait a bit.] Kiwi said, bringing my careful steps to a halt, a second later three red silhouettes appeared on the other side of the door I had been about to walk through.

[Creating distraction.] Lucy said, and I heard sparking, grinding and crashing, followed by yelling and cursing. The three silhouettes ran in the direction of the noise.

I slunk forward and wasted no time moving through the now unoccupied space, climbing the stairs and going into the office that oversaw the mechanic’s workshop. Once there, it was child’s play to deploy the interface plug out of my cybernetic pinky finger and connect it to the terminal.

‘Okay then.’ I ‘said’ into my own mind. ‘You’re up APEX.’

+Done!+ She answered cheerfully and immediately . +Did I do good!?+

I couldn’t help the smile that bloomed beneath my gas mask. ‘The best.’

“Data acquired; virus planted.” I subvocalized. “Heading to exfil point. Becca, begin distraction.”

[Fucking finally.] Rebecca groused. Scant seconds after that I heard the rattle of a machine gun along with her favorite warcry. “COCK SUCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEERS!”

The shop downstairs gained a lot of holes, several pieces of very expensive equipment were ruined, four cars that were being worked on would need to have a not insignificant chunk of their engine replaced, three men were knocked back a few steps as a bullet ricocheted off their shoulder, and two bullets punched through the wall to the office I was in, one thudding through the desk I was crouched behind, spattering me with bits of shattered plastic, the other breaking one of the terminal’s monitors.

“Oi, watch where you’re shooting!” I hissed.

Maniacal laughter was my only answer.

I sighed. ‘Apex, help her with that distraction, would you?’

The deafening rolling bombardment of a dozen flash bangs sowed further chaos outside.

I swallowed a snort. ‘Good girl. Now hack the eyes of anyone in here that would see me.’

There was immediate cursing and confusion from the whole of the shop.

+Eyes hacked!+ Apex said cheerfully.

‘That would see me, Apex. As in, wait for them to be about to spot me.’ I chastised lightly as I strode out and made my way to the back.

+If everyone is blind, nobody can see you!+ Apex giggled back, and, in all honesty, I couldn’t really fault her logic. I could feel her smile at my acknowledgment, which was slightly disconcerting. I was not yet used to having her join me in my cyberware and brain bits.

I had felt a little reticent to let her run around in my head. Not out of fear, she was, essentially, my daughter, and she hadn’t yet hit the rebellious phase where she hated me for not being cool, so it was mostly smooth sailing. But I hadn’t wanted her to be too dependent on me, too used to a flesh and blood body. She was a creature of the Net, and she should not lose that edge due to spending too much time in my head.

Her answer was that the Net was very, very noisy, and my head, while not quiet, had a calming white-noise that she found relaxing.

Deciding to take the allegations of my empty head in the spirit they had been meant, I allowed her to come in and out of my head as the whim struck her.

I’d feared that the drone I’d built to be her body would go to waste, but as it turned out, she had no trouble multitasking, being fully capable of being in both my head and the Drone at once, and would only really need to choose one or the other once there was enough distance that latency would cause issues.

I ducked around a stumbling 6th streeter, and walked out, taking care to pie corners as I exited the building.

It was honestly difficult not to become complacent when Apex had my back. But all it would take would be one asshole who jailbroke his cyberware to have an autistic mode, and most of her capabilities to help me would be neutralized.

Her drone body descended, flared its thrusters to arrest its free fall, and hit the 6th streeter on the roof with the souped-up cattle prod she’d asked me to install. The only sound he was able to make was a strangled grunt as he spasmed, he was then put to sleep as the drone jacked directly into his system and performed a Neuralware reset, putting him to sleep for the next fifteen to twenty minutes.

The drone soared back into the air, clutching a large, unwieldy rifle in its spider leg armatures. An SOR-22 if I was any judge.

I squinted at her drone body while I went back to the hole in the fence I’d used to crawl into the lot. ‘And what are you planning to do with that thing?’

+Thing? What thing? There is no ‘thing’ here.+ She replied in a sing-song voice.

I huffed. ‘Well fine, keep your secrets.’

Apex fed me the drone feed on my HUD, showing Rebecca disengaging safe and sound, and the 6th Street gangsters being unable to leave because Kiwi or Lucy hacked the sliding gate so it would not open, and they didn’t know how to operate it manually.

I called Padre Ibarra, who picked up on the second ring. [Yes, Alex?]

“Job’s finished, Padre. Here is the information, and the worm has been added to their system, most likely with them none the wiser.” I said, sending him the encrypted data package.

“Please do, pleasure as always.”

The jog to the parking lot where Falco drove by to pick me up was a quiet one, relatively speaking. I got into the van as Apex landed the drone on the roof, and the car sped off.

“Yo Alex, this machine gun is preem!” Rebecca shouted, shoving the M2067 Defender into my face and smacking me on the gasmask with it.

I’d modified the weapon by adding an anti-grav module I appropriated off a Wyvern. Yes, that anti-grav module was several times more expensive than the gun it went to support, but it made it so Rebecca could lug the thing around with her slight frame without trouble.

“Glad you liked it.” I said, taking off my gasmask. “So, where are we headed for the after-job celebration?” I asked as I doled out equal shares for everyone.

Bar mine.

“Lizzie’s!” Falco called out from the front.

“Hey, how come you always wanna go there!?” Rebecca groused and crawled to the co-pilot seat.

“I’m still drinking free!”

Lucy leaned back and stretched, drawing my eye like a magnet pulls iron filings. “I don’t know about you ‘Becca, but I enjoy the royalty treatment.”

Kiwi shrugged. “Personally, I can take it or leave it.”

“Can’t we go to the Coyote?” I asked, trying to get comfortable. “I’d rather not deal with all the catcalls I get at Lizzie’s.”

Kiwi snorted, Lucy rolled her eyes, and Rebecca cackled and asked. “So, when’re we gonna be done with all these milk runs? I wanna get some real action!”

Kiwi shook her head. “Honestly? I’ve been enjoying these, quite relaxing.”

“What’s it matter anyway? We’re making the same as with more dangerous work.” Lucy said, then dodged the empty can Rebecca threw at her.

“I was nearly snoring!” She said and turned back around.

I furrowed my brow in thought. I had been doing lower paying jobs to get Apex used to Edgerunning. She’d yet to disappoint.

But she wasn’t yet blooded.

The jobs I’d picked had been easy enough to do while causing only minor casualties and avoiding fatalities entirely. I’d framed it to the others as a way to let some of the heat we’d been building up as a crew die down, and that I needed less risky jobs to test out my new drone’s operating system.

So far, only Kiwi had figured out that I was taking a pay cut and eating into my savings, so they wouldn’t be affected financially.

This was not sustainable. But I wasn’t certain about having Apex claim a life. Not yet.

A NiCola Crystal bounced off my helmet. I glared at the culprit. “What?”

“You’re bringing the mood down, choom!” Rebecca said and threw another soda can at me.

This one I caught and with a growl I said. “Don’t make me spank your bottom red again.”

Rebecca blew a raspberry at me.

I opened NiCola Cream and sipped it as Falco drove us to Lizzie’s. ‘Hey Apex, bring my car to Lizzie’s would you?’

+On it!+ She answered cheerfully, my head warmed up and felt lighter as she left, the roof making a ‘thunk!’ sound as the drone detached from it and flew off on its errand. The others noted it but having long grown accustomed to the drone flying off at random, they didn’t bother asking about it.

We were greeted with the fanfare of returning heroes. The girls and I claimed a table where I could sit with my back to the wall, facing the entrance, Falco went to the bar, a Mox lady at each arm.

Thankfully, the Mox were more restrained when I entered with my crew. There were still a few catcalls, but they largely didn’t offer a free lapdance with ‘VIP service’ in the back. It was far more relaxing than being here alone.

One of the waitresses came by and dropped off our regular orders. A tab opening in our name with some hefty discounts. It paid to be seen as a friend of the gang.

Rebecca took a chug of her drink. “Nah Alex, for real. How much longer do you need to check that drone of yours? It’s nova! It took out anyone who was getting ready to shoot back at me, it drops bombs from high up, and it’ll smack a gonk like some flying ninja! What’s there to be worried about!?”

That my three-month-old digital daughter was driving it, and I was reticent to have her endure the trauma of taking a life.

Damn paternal instincts.

I sighed. “Yeah okay. I’ll look around for something more your speed, ‘Becca.”

“Hell yeah!” She cheered and quaffed the rest of her drink, jumped on the table and shouted. “Oi! Whose slit do I gotta lick to get a drink and some decent music playing here!?”

Two minutes later she was juggling her pistols to the cheers of the Mox and other patrons.

I swear. Every conversation I’ve had with her about proper gun safety goes in one ear and out the other.

As Kiwi went out for a smoke break, Lucy sat next to me, crossed her legs and asked. “What’s got you so worried anyway?”

“Pardon?”

She sipped her drink and looked up at me through her bangs. “We can all feel it, Al. ‘Becca is just loud about it. Something’s got you…not spooked, but weary. While we do have some crews and people gunning for us, we’ve handled ourselves well enough. Our Rep is solid, we’ve been making good money, and we’ve started working for the good fixers. By every metric we’re doing great, so we’ve been trying to figure out what’s gotten to you.”

Well, there goes proof positive that I wasn’t as good a liar as I thought I was. I chewed on the inside of my lip for a while, putting my thoughts in order before speaking. “We’re getting to the point where we become too big.”

She tilted her head. “In what regard?”

I tapped my metal fingers against my glass. “We haven’t failed a job yet, we keep getting bigger, better paying jobs. Nihil novi sub sole, we need only look to how it’s gone for other crews in the past to see where we’re headed. We’re getting to the point where we’ll be offered an extremely high risk, high reward job. If we don’t take it, our Reputation will be ruined, we’ll be the big shots that got cold feet. Fixers will still work with us, but the pace at which we can find work will be slowed down significantly. If we take the job, then the next one will be more dangerous, and the next, and the next. Eventually, not all of us will come back.”

I quaffed my drink, grimacing as it burnt my throat. “I’ve been trying to think of something that will give us, pardon the pun, an edge. Or something I can do so we can retire, make enough money that we don’t need to continue running the Edge. Or set up some kind of steady, passive income that would do the same.”

My first plan of having a friendly incredibly deadly AI was quite thoroughly shot. Purely because I found myself wanting better for Apex.

She deserved better.

Fuck, I was not cut out to be a parent.

Unfortunately, I was shit out of ideas for a viable plan B. Asking Apex to game the stock market for me would not work, Netwatch kept an exceedingly close eye on that. The merest whisper of an AI, at least not one that worked for them, would bring them down on Apex like an anvil on the world’s most potentially dangerous puppy.

Lucy’s chuckle brought me out of my mental spiral. “Seriously Alex, you need to learn to relax a little.” The smile she directed at me was warm. “Its…It’s nice that you worry about us to that extent, you remind me a little of Dorio, to be honest.”

“Oi.”

“But if there’s one thing you’ve shown us…is that you don’t have to do everything yourself. You can rely on us, like we can rely on you.” She elbowed me lightly on the side. “So, relax a little bit, enjoy the night, we’ll think of something tomorrow.”

I grimaced. I was a chronic procrastinator, if I allowed myself to put things off then they simply wouldn’t get done. That was part of the reason why I was so careful managing my schedule.

Then again, worrying constantly about it hadn’t gotten me much. I sighed and leaned back on the seat. “Yeah…you’re right.”

Lucy snorted but left me to my thoughts.

I hung out for a while, but once Apex texted me that my car had arrived, I excused myself. When I got in the car, I noticed the Drone on top was conspicuously missing the rifle she’d pilfered, as the car grumbled to life Apex used the CrystalDome panels and show her Net Avatar floating about, pulsing happily as she spoke. +Want me to drive us home?+

I hesitated and shook my head. Taking hold of the steering I said. “No, I’ll drive. There’s something I need to show you.”

I stopped at a stop n’ rob along the way and picked up a NiCola variety pack. After that, I drove in silence to Rancho Coronado, past the city limits, to a hill in the Badlands that overlooked the municipal landfill.

I exited the car and sat on top of the hill, then looked at Apex’s drone body while patting the ground to my left.

The drone hesitated, turning its sensor suite this way and that, its spidery legs moving slowly as it stepped off the car and gingerly walked on the ground until it reached my side. It sat down but did not retract its legs into its body.

I popped open a NiCola Peach and took a swig of the cough drop drink with the vague apple aftertaste. I finished the drink in silence and tossed the empty can at the landfill, meaning I was technically not littering.

I popped a NiCola Fire and drank that. Trying to put my whirring thoughts in order.

I was most of the way through a NiCola Classic when Apex could take the silence no longer, the drone’s sensor suite focused on my face. +Dad? What are we doing here?+

In answer, I took a sip of my NiCola, wishing for something stronger. But my father in my last life had never once drunk an alcoholic drink in front of me until I was sixteen, and I figured that was a good example to follow. Apex was not a normal child, but she was at her core, human, the example I set would be the standard she’d hold herself and others to, it was my duty to set a good one.

“Apex. I am about to say some things. You might disagree, you may be confused, you may have questions. I ask only that you wait until I am done to ask them.” I took a deep breath, taking in the weirdly nostalgic effluvia of putrefied synthetic meat products, pickling vaguely vegetable-like organic slurry, and of course, the occasional corpse. “I have so far protected you from the more unsavory aspects of mercenary work. To the point that not only my finances, but the crew’s reputation has likely suffered because of it. And having taken the time to think about why that is…I see that I wanted to prop up the polite fiction that I was a good person. I wanted to continue to be your hero, Apex.”

Unable to bring myself to look at her drone, I said. “I am not a good person, Apex. I am not a hero, an ally of justice. I try to be good for you, for your grandma and uncle, for the crew. I try to be overall a positive for the Mox, but that last one is not because they’re family, that’s transactional. I am good to them, they’ll be good to me, or the good I provide will dry up. To most people, I am just neutral, neither good nor bad, a passing acquaintance. To my enemies, I am a monster, an unfeeling creature that will end their lives at the slightest provocation.”

The drone fidgeted as I quaffed the rest of the NiCola and opened another one. “I am angry at myself for bringing you to life only to force you by necessity into isolation. I will not mince words; I refuse to insult your intelligence by doing that. My plan was to make a soldier, someone who would do as they were told, who would follow orders without thought or conscience. Who would kill when I said kill, ruin lives when I said hurt, and hold not a speck of regret for their actions. I tried to make an attack dog without humanity, without remorse, one whose only purpose would be the destruction of my enemies.”

I finally looked at her, giving the drone’s cameras the warmest smile I could muster as they whirred and clicked. “And instead…I made a daughter. An intelligent, happy, go-lucky child. A prankster who enjoys singing and dancing to the best of her legless ability. Who will hurt those who seek to harm her just enough to incapacitate them, treating them with a kindness that I myself had long forgotten.” I reached out with my flesh and blood hand and patted the top of her body’s chassis. “Honestly? I’m glad things did not go as planned. I got the much better deal.”

I finished the NiCola and crushed the bottle in my cybernetic hand. “That said. Doing things as I’ve done them so far, is no longer sustainable. I am forced now to stop pretending to be a hero, or even a good man. I will have to take more dangerous jobs again, jobs where I simply do not have the strength to take the soft approach. Some of the more lucrative jobs are the killing of key personnel. Defending a key location from any who would attack it. In the coming days, I will be forced to take lives, Apex. Because they’ll be trying to end mine to achieve their own objectives.”

I popped the last NiCola in the variety pack. “That said. While you will see me do awful things, and I’ve resolved myself to no longer being a good man in your eyes. I still want better for you, Apex. I will not tell you to kill, the ending of another’s life is not something that you should do lightly. But please understand, it is a possibility. And you need to get your thinking done now, because if you stop to think in the middle of a firefight, things might happen that you will come to regret for a very, very long time.” I studied the can in my hand for a long moment. “It’s not fair of me to put this on you, Apex. But the world isn’t fair, and my hand has been forced.”

I sighed, set the can down next to me and battled the urge to run away. “That…that is all I had to say, Apex. Do you have any questions?”

Apex remained quiet for a few seconds. But considering the speeds she could work at, that was a telling pause. Her drone body fidgeted, its sensor suite taking in the landfill and the Badlands. +So…we’ll only be killing bad people?+

I thought on that for several seconds. ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ were social constructs, I would most certainly be evil in the eyes of most of the Animals that I’d slaughtered for hurting my mom, most of which had been uninvolved in my personal grievance. I understood, at least in part, that I’d broken many a family due to my rage fueled revenge spree. Everyone had a reason for their actions, simple statistics dictated that some of those we’ll kill will have entirely justifiable reasons for mercenary work.

I would kill them regardless.

“I plan to do my utmost to make sure that is the case.” I said instead.

The drone hopped up on its legs and paced back and forth. +Then…then we’ll be like Robin Hood. Doing bad things, to bad people, so we can help good people.+

I held back a snort. Yeah, Apex was mature for her age. But she was still a child. No matter that she had matured quickly due to the circumstances of her ‘birth.’

“Something like that.”

+Then…Then that’s okay.+ She said, turning to look at me. +Mister Mustang should have been the one to kill Envy. We just need to be like Mister Mustang. Doing bad for good things.+

I blinked, remembered the list of shows I’d had her watch when she was still ‘growing up,’ and snorted.

“You know. I can’t help but agree. Him not finishing Envy off never stood right with me either.”

The Drone jumped into the air and got right on my face. +I know right!?+

What followed was a long conversation about anime during the drive home.

Apex was, of course, wrong when she said that Alphonse was the better of the two Elric brothers. But I loved her, wrong opinions or not. Because that’s what family was all about.

I shouldn’t have drunk all of those NiColas though. I really needed to use the restroom.