Nora stared at me for a moment. “Is that some sort of joke?” she finally asked.

  “Unfortunately not. There’s a blob of what looks like pstic explosives studerh one of the heavy artillery ons on the south wall.” I took trol of the squirrel and backed away from the empt. It art of aire artillery battery built directly into the city’s perimeter wall. I summoned a couple extra squirrels to check the rest of the ons, before fog on Nain. “It appears to be a perimeter gun, for dealing with swarms that nd outside the city.”

  “Shouldn’t we report this?” Nora asked.

  “We will, I just want to check the surrounding empts first,” I replied. As the first squirrels arrived on location I directed them to the other artillery empts, almost instantly disc additional explosives. Surprisingly, that seemed to be the extent of the damage. The surrounding anti air empts were untouched. “So good news? It only appears to be the external fag defehat are promised. I think. At least I don’t think they’d fire something of that caliber into the city. Bad news? It’s the etery that’s been promised.” I took several stills, added exact coordio each, ahem over to Nora. “Those are the ohat are promised. you send the data to Hel please?”

  Nora nodded slowly. “You think this is only sabotage?” she asked.

  “We only hope,” I mumbled. “That’s why we’re out here cheg. This is directly above the southern industrial district, so it could have been done by that nutcase that Helen and I apprehended, but I doubt it’s pletely isoted. We’re only twenty pert through our survey and we’ve already found something.”

  “So now what?” Nrumbled. “We just leave it there, and move on?”

  “I don’t know how to disarm them, do you? Sihey didn’t detohe explosives shortly after pnting them, I only assume the pn was to wait until a ter time. We’re better off leaving the bomb disposal to an expert, and w to identify any other issues,” I expined.

  “If you think so,” Nora said hesitantly. “I still think we should keep an eye on things here, just in case.”

  “I leave a couple squirrels around, and send some bears to back them up, if you’d like. It wouldn’t be hard to keep people out of the area until the explosives are dealt with,” I suggested. “Make things safer.”

  “I would appreciate it,” Nora admitted, giving me a small relieved smile.

  “No problem,” I replied, sending the and to the bears. It only took a miil a Kodiak flew past us, disg the bears to secure the area around the empts. “Now that’s sorted out, let’s tih the survey. If there’s any more explosives out there, I want to find them before they bee an issue.”

  Nora just nodded, and turned back to her monitor.

  —

  “How many?” Hel asked. Nora and I had just finished pulling our sed sixteen hour shift on the marsupial, finally finishing the survey and I thought we should report the results, so I tacted Hel on the bridge’s biggest monitor. Apparently she wasn’t happy with the results.

  “Eightees, all on the southern wall, and all outward fag ons. Mostly artillery positions, but several anti tank empts too,” I reported as I slumped in my chair. “We reported them as we discovered them, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Didn’t you send people to disarm them all?”

  “I did, but I’ve been so busy trying to keep the different fas within the Family from pletely splintering, that I just approved the disposal as soon as the request came in,” Hel said, grabbing her forehead. She looked as tired as I looked. I couldn’t imagine dealing with all the egos floating around that HQ. “Nothiroyed though?”

  “Everything appeared to be operational, at least acc to my engineers. You’ll need someone else to go over the work and trol system,” I replied.

  “Good. Please keep these results to yourselves for now,” Hel said as she sat back, “I don’t want to cause a flict.”

  “From who? The Corps? The Citizens?” Nora asked.

  Hel sighed. “Well, them too, but I’d be more worried about one of the fas. They’re ag like children! If one of them found out the defenses were sabotaged, I’m sure they’d find a way to use that information to try and bolster their position.”

  “That’s fine, I didn’t pn to share it with anyone anyways,” I reported tiredly. “I doubt you keep it hidden for too long though. Many samurai, myself included, have ways to haetworks.”

  “Yeah, well the work was built by Zetta, and he’s promised to maintairality,” Hel replied, smiling for the first time. “It’s one of the things that’s made my job manageable. That, and the fact that you’re not a member.”

  I frowned. “I’m not sure if I should feel insulted by that or not.”

  “Please don’t,” Hel said with a chuckle. “I certainly didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that you’re outside the flict. Both you and Humboldt have entered more i few months than most samurai have entered in years. You’re both well knoowerful, pared to most of your peers, so if you joined one side it would definitely influehe bance of power.”

  “Eh… Even if I was a member, I probably wouldn’t get involved. I don’t like politics,” I told Hel.

  “Yet you still yelled a Mirage,” Hel pointed out, “and itted bears to the city’s defenses. People would have taken that as you supp the anti-corporate fa.”

  “Well, if the anti-corpos want to e and try and recruit me, I’ll go tell them to fuck themselves too,” I decred. Hel shook her head slightly, a slight smile on her face. “So… how are things going on your side anyways? Any progress oing people to work together?”

  “Unfortunately not,” Hel replied, sloug in her chair. “One side wants to support the incumbent corporate board, and the other side wants to restore some sort of democratic representation to the city. They only seem to care about pushing their agendas.”

  “You know, the timing of this flict seems a little suspicious,” Nora cut in. I turned and looked at the girl, who was obviously fighting desperately to avoid falling asleep. Head propped up by one hand, eyes half closed. That hadn’t occurred to me, maybe because that was just ahing that would have supported Mirage’s crazy theory about someoag the city.

  I gnced back at Hel. Based upon the surprised look upon her face, I guess that idea hadn’t occurred to her either. “No one would be stupid enough to mess with a samurai in order to try and disrupt a city,” Hel muttered. “But I’ll ask Zetta to look for suspicious unications to our members, just in case. If someone is stirring up trouble, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Niggled, “Heh, Hel to pay.”

  “Sorry, her of us have slept properly in a couple days. We accelerated our schedule, and automated as many of the checks as we could after finding that first set of explosives,” I expined.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Hel immediately dismissed Nora’s interruption. “It’s my fault. There were only two people iy I could have asked to do this, and you were the only oually avaible. I do appreciate that you two accelerated the checks, once you found those initial explosives. We still have no idea who phem, or who sent our friend.”

  I cocked my head. “He still hasn’t given anything? After weeks in custody?”

  “Well, we did... but nothing helpful. We interrogated him for several days straight, but it was Helen that mao finally drag some information out of him, by befriending him, with a little help from her tech. He works for a merary agency, which was hired by a mysterious third party. Paid in cash, and instrus delivered through dead drops. We're trying to track it back, but it's unlikely we'll find anything,” She shook her head. “Anyways, you and Nora have had a rough couple days, and I appreciate the work. Thanks for cheg in, but try a some sleep.”

  “Alright, thanks,” I muttered, trying to suppress a yawn. “You should try a some rest too. You ’t solve all the city’s issues in a single day.”

  Hel smirked, “I try. Take care.”

  As Hel disected I looked over at Nora. The girl gave me a wide, goofy grin. “We did goht?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “we did good.”