- Urban Dictionary, 2041
Samurai. The people, like me, chosen to defend Earth from the Antithesis. People who, despite being given overwhelming power and technology that could eclipse anything on Earth, chose to use said gifts to make the world a better place. And one of these bastions of humanity’s best traits had allegedly kidnapped Scurvy’s former lover.
I leaned back on the bed, slowly running my hands through my hair. That…was not even close to what I thought she would have called me here for. A request to deal with a few hives, perhaps a call to assist some others outside of Arizona. With my expectations thrown to the wind, I had to take a second.
Only once I had recovered did I turn my gaze back to Scurvy, and I couldn’t help but blurt out the first thing that came to my mind on reaction. “Okay, that statement is loaded.”
I had expected maybe a laugh to bring some brevity to the situation. No laugh came. Just a focused look and flat expression. “You understand why I wanted you alone for this?”
“Uh-huh,” I replied. “But I think you’ve missed at least…three, maybe four major explanations of context.”
“Was hoping for a straightforward ‘yes’ or ‘no’ before giving that, but… I guess it’s important that you know what you’re throwing yourself into.” Scurvy had to collect herself for a moment, taking a deep breath before breaking into the full explanation. I’m sure there were some uncomfortable memories associated with all this.
“It was three years ago. I wanted to bury the hatchet with Penny. Figured that after so many years apart that we’ve matured and could reconnect. Things obviously wouldn’t be like they once were, but there was still just so much I wanted to apologize for and… I missed her, to be honest.
“But she had disappeared. Completely. I had been casually keeping track of her whereabouts as a sort of insurance policy, in the case that something bad ever happened. Nothing too crazy; about all I knew was that she was living in the southern part of Phoenix, kind of at the borders of the undercity. But before I knew it, that information was gone. I had another Sam’ in the info business look into this and it was full wipe in every sense of the word. ID, financial reports, internet presence, all of it gone, even that Facebook page that her mom had set up for her and ended up never using. It was as if Penny Tucker had never existed.”
“Have you tried contacting her parents?” I asked.
“Her mother was killed during an incursion, far after we had broken up. I was able to contact her father, but he was just as lost as I. Apparently Penny had stopped contacting him five years ago, two before I started my investigation.”
“Were they on good terms? Her and her family?”
“Aye. Not thick as thieves, but close enough that Penny checked in with them all every couple of weeks,” she replied. “Mr. Tucker didn’t think he or his wife said anything that may have made her drop contact.”
I rolled those pieces of information around in my head. Everything she had said so far would make sense as to her being kidnapped, but there was one final possibility I wanted to address. “Could she have become a Sam’ herself? Wiped the slate clean?”
Scurvy shook her head. “I doubt it. Initializations usually happen when someone kills an Antithesis Model, and Penny and I collectively gunned down hundreds in my incursion. Even beat a Four to death directly with a crowbar. If that didn’t make her a Samurai, nothing would. Plus, we had several conversations about what type of Samurai she would be if given the chance. Only ever using the tech to revitalize the environment and create more resistant agriculture and the like. None of it matched this type of ghost trick.”
“Okay, five years ago Penny disappeared without a trace and her entire presence on and offline was completely wiped with it,” I repeated back. “Call me stupid, but I’m still missing why you think a Samurai specifically was involved.”
She leaned forward, an intense look in her eye. “Because it’s too clean, Max. The data wiping. That Sam’ I was talking about, he told me that no matter how good someone does with their purging, there’s always some sort of trail of breadcrumbs to follow. Be it some corporation’s customer data kept deep in a server or a random connection to the wi-fi of some random phishing scam, there’s something to track, no matter what. The only thing on Earth that can beat a Samurai’s Cybersecurity Catalog-”
“Is the catalog of a different Sam’.” If she said her data hunting friend couldn’t find anything, then there had to have been another Samurai involved. Scurvy’s been at this for what, twenty years? Any friend she made was probably far from wet around the ears, and the chances of a corpo giving them the slip was then hysterically low.
“The only thing that may have a connection to Penny is some random locational data pointing to a part of the undercity. Literally just coordinates. I asked a local to investigate down there without giving the full story, and he was just as stumped as I.”
More and more hopeless the request seemed with every word that left Scurvy’s mouth, and it was starting to get me irritated. Get me angry. “So. We’re dealing with someone who was taken five years ago and has had every indication of their presence wiped. That already would be a tall order since Phoenix is a city of ten of millions, and it's very plausible that such a trail would be long cold by now. But the culprit is also a Samurai who is proficient enough in cyberwarfare to entirely avoid the detection of several high-tiers. And you, someone with probably dozens if not hundreds of different connections, decided to ask the rookie who can punch good.”
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“Well, when you put it like that-”
My scoff and sneer cut her off. “Might as well start prepping the funeral service now, then.”
The atmosphere of the room turned to ice, and Scurvy gave a look of genuine contempt. “She’s not dead.”
“Look, I’m just being realistic.” A noticeable amount of venom was coming through in my reply. “If you wanted to find your friend, you should have put a Samurai on the case who actually knows what they’re doing. Or, shocker, maybe you could have hauled your ass over to Phoenix and-”
“Do you think I haven’t been bustin’ my ass trying to find Penny?! I’m sorry, I’ve been busy making sure coastal cities aren’t overrun every fuckin’ hour of the day! Sometimes people can’t always be where they want to be and have to make do.”
“And sometimes people just fuckin’ die! Have you considered that?! People die all the time, be it in incursions or gang wars or of rabies or something! Will our moping ever bring them back? No! So we might as well just move the fuck on!”
That last sentence came out in a scream, the visceral, screechy type that made your throat itchy and sore afterwards. Scurvy was briefly taken aback at my outburst, piercing through even her own bout of anger, and the aggressive, hateful eye that glared at me made way for a different emotion. One I couldn’t recognize at the time due to my seething, billowing rage.
Max.
Cal’s words cut through the anger.
I want you to fully process what you just said.
Did he think I was stupid? Of course I knew what I just said. It came out of my own mouth. People die and sometimes we just have to-
…Oh.
I’d basically told her to get over the death of a close friend, lover even. Someone she held irreplaceable memories with. I…was being flippant about death.
Various images flashed into my mind involuntarily, and I was dragged back into those sensations that I really didn’t want to experience again. Back to the bodies inert on the streets of Targ. Back to Barrett, his corpse burned black from the fire he weaponized in his last hurrah. Back to…
To…
“Fuck…I…” One hand fiddled with my hair, the other gripped onto the fabric of the bed. Hard. I couldn’t dare to lock eyes with Scurvy again, but the brief glimpse I got of her face revealed the emotion that she had started to feel. Defeat. Resignation. Pain. All emotions I had started to feel myself amidst a torrent of shame. “I’m sorry, I…Fuck.”
“I think…” she eventually pushed out. “We’ve both gotten a bit worked up.”
We watched each other from beneath our sullen heads in silence, one that continued for several minutes. Too afraid to continue the conversation, but equally terrified of ending the call on such bad terms. Neither of us wanted this outcome, but were too paralyzed to make the first move back.
After who knows how many minutes of that agonizing silence, I finally managed to work up the courage to ask a question, the one that had been sitting in my mind since I first received Scurvy’s invitation: “Why…did you come to me about this?”
Scurvy stared at me for several, uninterrupted seconds, then reached for her booze again. Just like when I first entered the call, she simply chugged the bottle. Gulp after gulp of the amber ambrosia disappeared down her gullet, before finally releasing her mouth and letting out a gasp for air. Then, came her answer:
“I don’t know.”
Her response didn’t exactly clear up my question, but I waited in silence. I had a feeling there was more than just three words, and I was right.
“I could spout some reasons if you want, ones that are still technically true. You’re covert, and don’t scream your identity wherever you go, making you hard for our culprit to track. You’ve been out of Phoenix since before you initialized, making it way less likely for you to be compromised. All valid reasons, but I only came up with those afterwards.
“The real truth is that it’s all just gut feeling, really. Something about our fight just spoke to me, and made me think, ‘Yeah, this is the right person’. Led me to believe that us two are, in a way, kindred spirits. You’re exactly the second person I’ve told this whole story, and despite everything that just happened my heart of hearts knows this was still the right decision.”
“I… I know this is an unreasonable request,” she continued. “The odds are slim at best. But… if you could at least give it a chance. Just a few days, maybe.”
I grit my teeth. This request was bullshit, and the task was impossible. It was set up for failure. And who’s to say that I wouldn’t be immediately outclassed if I did find the Samurai in question? There was no benefit, and this entire ordeal was a waste of my time.
But…
“Send me the locational data. I’ll check it out tomorrow."
Luckily I had plenty of time.
A glimmer of hope reappeared in her eye. She didn’t smile, but some look of gratitude flashed across her face. “Just do your best, Max. That’s all I ask.”
“I will… Maria.”
Our call ended there, the little box in my augs cutting to black and leaving me back in the motel room I had bought for the night. I practically collapsed onto the bed and let out a pent-up sigh. “Fuuuuuuck.”
Quite the conversation.
“Tell me about it.” I spent the moment in silence, but a thought hit me that I was simply to mentally drained to completely blow off. “Cal, you’re never gonna hear this request from me ever again, but I think I need a drink.”