(Rewritten) Ch. 40 – Up-Gunning

"If you have to ask yourself if you should, or shouldn't do something, you ought to first ask if you can afford to do, or not to do it."

"But what if it's something you shouldn't do, but have to?"

"Then ask yourself who'll suffer if you don't, and who'll suffer if you do. Can't make everybody happy. In fact, some people deserve a good shafting."

– Road Rash, excerpt from his guest speech during a Family seminar on Implied Vanguard Responsibilities, October 2052

***

They were easy indeed, and the ambush went off without a hitch. These most basic hunters of the Antithesis swarm weren't scary to the prepared—especially if I'm the one who gets the, uh, drop on them. Terrible choice of words, but hey, at least I could joke about it without going clammy…

Rabid vegetables dealt with, we paused yet again for Leah to buy her gun.

"What kinda gun are you going for?"

"I want to take advantage of the muffler, and use the points that would otherwise go into that kind of functionality to improve its other characteristics. So, a kinetic gun, I think. Also lets me use your bullets, right?"

"Sure."

"Ypsi? What have you got for me?"

"Here! This is neat!" Ypsi replied over our group call.

She showed us two items, a rather stubby smoothbore weapon with an irising variable barrel in a bullpup design, a sash harness with multiple straps and a few pouches for magazines and hand grenades. There was also a robotic arm with a three-fingered mechanical hand.

"The weapon is a modified Class I Warforged Penhecker. I did away with the railgun parts of it, since you wanna use Tinea's bullets with the muffler! But like her Sentinel, this one can also fire 40mm ammunition. So it's a grenade launcher, too! And then, as a bonus, I was able to use the left over points for this harness and an itty-bitty robotic arm. It can help you hold the gun properly, reload it for you, catch you if you trip, and even toss grenades for you! But it might break if it has to catch you from a proper fall, it's not that strong. Oh, it can even use a melee weapon while your hands are full!"

"Oh? Wow, that sounds useful. How is it so cheap?"

"The harness is really simple! It's basically all in that arm. Which is only Class 0 Earth tech, even if it is industrial-grade. It has a microcontroller, so you have to use operator's software on your eye to program and command it. That's not really very convenient."

Ypsi, adorable Ypsi with her contrite and shy voice making Leah go all mushy. It looked like Ypsi had her totally wrapped around her fingers. I tugged on Leah's until she turned to me and I could dazzle her with a smile.

"Don't worry, there's plenty of software on the internet; I'm sure we can find something suitable, and I can throw together two or three quick macros for the arm to follow. We can customize it from there until we've got proper routines, or you don't need the arm anymore."

"You can do that?"

"Yep," I said, pointing at my face. "Freelance coder of many years. I've programmed more than a few malfunc—, I mean, manufacturing robots."

Leah snickered at my slip-up. "Oh, cool. Think I should buy it?"

"I'd say so. It seems like you're getting a pretty good deal, all things considered. The weapon is light, appears to be highly adaptable based on what I've been able to do with my Sentinel, and you get a little henchman to go with it."

"Alright, I'll take it, then."

Purchased:

Total cost: 155Remaining points: 43

Two plain boxes appeared, of the same size. Leah opened one and revealed the gun, while mine held the harness and robotic arm.

All items followed Leah's gear aesthetics; blackbody bodies forming alien arches, decorated with graceful golden lines, and scary accents of white vapor misting from white adornments.

"Harness first?" I asked, holding it out towards her.

"Yeah, gimme. Thanks."

She put it on and sorted out the small variety of straps. Four held it in position; two solid shoulder straps to carry the weight and crossed at the back, and two horizontal, softer bands. One wrapped around her throat like a choker, and the other was a wide and comfy-looking band that cinched itself around her torso just below her chest. Extra straps connected the choker and the band for more stability to support an active robotic arm.

The whole thing quite emphasized the redhead's assets.

Sexy. "Is this bondage thing becoming a theme with us, Leah?"

"Hmm. I believe it takes at least three incidents to define a trend, does it not?"

"That…could be arranged," I said, narrowing my eyes at her.

She gave me a toothy grin, and I could see the dare in it. I squinted harder. "Leah. Are you sure you want to risk challenging the natural rope factory here? I'd win."

Leah snorted at me, and said, "Can you really tie my arms behind my back, if I don't have any?"

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

Laughing, she answered, "I don't know if I should be looking forward to that as much as I might be. Something to think about." She reached out and smoothed a hand down over my hair to my shoulder. I wanted her to do it again, with a softer and warmer hand made of flesh. "Let's get home first, though."

I laid off, smiled at her, and said, "Alright. The harness looks good. It flatters your Amazonian stature. Robot arm?"

She removed it from my box, and studied it. It was an abstract, alien copy of a human arm, decorated with golden swirls. Even the hand's three identical fingers were lined with white plates resembling fingernails. Leah manipulated these through an apparently pretty annoying, elaborate process via her cybernetic eye, and the fake fingernails extended into talons with that characteristic vapor steaming from them.

The arm's base formed a kevlar plate—cushioned on the inside—that curved around her ribs on the right side to partially cup her boob, a little like a woman archer's chest protector, but larger and thick enough to stop a bullet. There were several clicks as it secured itself mechanically against the harness.

Neon-white lines traced the harness once the arm connected with it, and I watched as the combo went through a calibration routine where it reached for every slot of the harness. Once it was done, it folded itself up beneath Leah's boobs.

Underneath Leah's left shoulder was a holster suitable for the Foxteeth, which she slotted it into.

She also moved the few magazines she had from their silk pouches to the harness, and experimentally drew the Foxteeth first with the robot arm, then with her own while she let the arm reload the sidearm for her. It was obvious that Leah was getting a bit frustrated with the long sequences of commands she had to go through for each action.

"Okay, Tinea, this thing is really clumsy to use. Better than nothing, but it's already pissing me off. Can you do your thing?"

I nodded, and used my aug to connect to it and read out its technical details as well as a list of Earth manufacturers that produced its industrial cousins. Via the uplink I found a cracked version of a suitable driver, which I downloaded happily into the arm's memory.

Hmm. I was pretty sure I should've been able to just plop the driver somewhere into my brain and literally pull it apart… Later.

"Tynea, I don't have the time to really dig into this driver. Could I ask you to adapt it to the arm, or adapt the arm to it? I want to be able to give Leah macros for the arm, and for her to have an easy way of designing them herself, without needing to study up on that kind of thing."

Certainly. Here, I found an open source interface that's remarkably well designed. Almost makes me think a samurai developed it. I've added several functions to its API, and this is the format in which the arm accepts instructions. There, all set up. The easiest method of training the arm is to manually move it from position to position, and tell it what to do where.

"Alright, thank you."

I activated the interface and it immediately popped up. There was the old 'record' button, with the message that I'd be guided through the process of setting up a routine for the arm to follow.

That itself was simple. My cerebral augmentation let me swish my way through the interface, and with Tynea's ability to heavily optimize my rough drafts, I quickly set up macros for reloading weapons, drawing, firing, and stowing the Foxteeth, stabilizing a larger gun like an extra hand, and even one that would try and catch Leah if she tripped. Even setting up the force threshold parameters was less bothersome than I was used to. I rounded out the collection with a grenade-throwing one, before I pinged Leah's eye with instructions to access everything.

"Mhm, thanks," she said. "Ypsi's placed them as icons in my HUD. This is really…not what I imagined samurai tech to be, to be honest…"

"It's Class 0 stuff, isn't it? Tynea?"

"Yes. The arm is Earth technology, but crafted with Protector precision. You could get a Class I arm for around eighty points that would be far more intelligent, durable, and faster. Alternatively, a Class I automation protocol would replace the interface and macro for only twenty points, Leah. That'll help with other robotics in the future, too."

"I see." Leah smiled. She looked a lot less disappointed with that explanation. "Something to look forward to."

She'd already grabbed her gun and inspected it, let it synchronize with her eye, and checked out how the arm helped her hold it stable with one of the macros.

"Remember to add the muffler to it." I reminded her, grinning at the enthusiasm she displayed playing with the bullpup.

Encouraged by my maybe-tease, she commanded the smaller weapon unholstered and held up for her. She moved the muffler over to let it attach itself underneath the barrel, where it once again readied itself for use.

Finished, she held a rather remarkable gun in her hands. As a true Warforge Technologies product, it was all graceful, badass alien beauty that combined itself with an unsettling, undefinable something that had my hackles up. Like there was a constant drone in the background pinging my instincts. As if it wanted to paralyze me between staring and running, gawking and hiding. The strange shiver-shadow of the muffler's active effect would fit right in.

It was something, alright.

I turned the effect that let me see Leah's face through her visor off, and there stood somebody you really didn't want to mess with. It wasn't just incredibly obvious that she was a Vanguard, but beyond that, she radiated unapproachable death.

It was kind of surprising, really. Leah was a welcoming kind of person, somebody who engaged often and easily, who took care of, protected, and guided children as a way of life.

But the figure standing in front of me had thorns.

Huh. I had to appreciate how little I knew Leah, even after all the intense closeness we'd developed. And I found I was excited to see more of her various facets and traits. I wanted to get to know who she really was, in all kinds of settings.

"Ready?" Leah's voice shook me out of my contemplations.

I turned the x-ray vision on again so I could see her eyes. "Yeah. There's a Four hiding in the trees not too far away. It's probably not the only one, either. We'll need to check above our heads all the time, carefully. Can you see into the thermal spectrum with that eye?"

"Barely. It's really more of a personal computer than a proper spy-eye, but yes, I have some range into the infrared."

"Wanna follow me again? I'll take us to the Four and highlight it. I want to check how well we can detect ambushers."

Leah grinned and manipulated her new industrial robot arm to point ahead.

I grinned back, and started walking. In the other direction.

It was only until she groaned that I could suppress my snickering.

***