Chapter Ninety-Nine - Daddy-Long-Legs

"The 'Hatchet' is silent, sneaky, and very, very deadly.

It just doesn't take a beating very well.

Why's it part of our line-up?"

– The CEO-equivalent of Warforge Technologies, probably. Somewhere not on Earth.

 

***

 

In Leah's words, I was hella kissing her.

The moment I'd arrived—two Threes on a ragged sled of silk in tow—I'd grabbed her and stuck my tongue down her throat. Figuratively, anyway. She rather didn't seem to mind the mild aggressiveness I displayed in my quest to blow the annoyance away, judging by the way her shoulders rose while her hands cradled my face.

Or by the panting excitement in her breath. My body responded to her energy and lightning surged through my brain until I thought I might've been risking a stroke.

There was a snapping of teeth somewhere just behind me, and I kicked the distraction hard enough that it thumped into the wall a few meters away.

Eventually we broke apart and she looked at me, her red hair wild and her rosy lips swollen. It was quickly becoming my favorite look, all things considered.

She raised an eyebrow at me even as she pulled me closer by my waist.

"Not that I'm not happy to be your scratching post every now and then, but what's got you so needled, Tinea?"

I blushed and looked away with a pout, totally aware that I was being a recalcitrant little brat and secretly enjoying Leah's amused twitch of a smile.

"Muuu… Stuff." I looked the other way, pouting even mightier with a giggle dancing on my diaphragm, just waiting to be let out to play.

Leah's other eyebrow joined her first. "I see. Will I need to employ special strategies to get you talking, missy?"

Missy. Awww. A brilliant smile broke out on my face, simple happiness making me giddy with the discovery that for the first time in my life somebody was playing with me in that specific way. The realization filled my heart and I found myself bouncing on my toes, happy tears blurring my vision, and I all but jumped Leah as I peppered her face with lots of tiny kisses.

Leah giggled and stroked my back, inadvertently reminding me of the gear I'd glued there, which calmed me down a little. But all the bad mood had already been driven away. The painful tightness that still stuck around somewhere in the back of my mind from the first…murders I'd committed in more than fifteen years, justified as they were, was gone.

"Just old shadows," I said. "Don't worry about it. Therapy stuff. We'll talk about it once we've got a place to settle down, yeah?"

Leah studied me, gentle seriousness in her gaze as her eyes wandered back and forth between mine. "Okay." She nodded before she gave me a much more chaste kiss. "Let's get moving, then."

I smiled back at her and replied with a simple "Yep!" before handing her the Sleeve, Sentinel, and active-defense-horseshoe-thingy to add to the other stuff she'd already gathered, along with the Myriad itself.

Leah went outside and her veil snapped into place to guard her against the light drizzle, and her pod with the autocannons moved to stand between her and the edge of the forest as she got ready to summon her Daddy-Long-Legs. She also left the Myriad next to the pile with all the things we were taking along, and I commanded it to stiffen up. It was now a stationary missile battery I could command remotely.

Happy that she was well protected, I turned to look at the two Threes.

I snorted when I saw them ineffectually claw at the concrete. I'd kicked them into the wall, and the impact had allowed them to free one leg each. Now they were trying to get to me, gnashing triple-hinged jaws and all…and just rotating in place with their uneven efforts, chasing their own tails, so to say.

Now, to properly poison them…

Hmm. Would it be best to prepare the jars and lock the Antithesis in the pantry with them? Make it look like they were trapped in there and broke into the slurry containers?

And maybe have one placed up here with a jar or two, so it looks like it was trying to carry the food home when it died. Yeah, that seemed like a plan.

I quickly picked up the bundle of aliens, separated them, and strung the two beasts up to hang from the ceiling near the wall, where they wouldn't bother anyone. "Yup," I dusted my hands off after a job well done, "that'll work."

Happier and more motivated than before, I hopped down the stairs to inject the slop with the pulvinophages that would eventually trap our kidnappers for us to…pursue and process.

 

***

 

Leah stood there, chin resting on her thumb, tilted head and half-crossed arms, engrossed in the schematics and lists her cybereye showed her.

"I think that's it, Ypsi, dear? Anything to add?"

Nope! It's all good, Leah! Ypsi said enthusiastically, with a double-little-girl-thumbs-up so adorable that it infected Leah's smile with enough fluffy sweetness that, had Tinea seen it, she'd probably be fawning all over her right now.

Leah snorted at the image, tickled every time she thought about the…change to Tinea's behavior, how it had become a lot more real and dynamic since Leah had claimed her. And been claimed in return.

Claimed. Hard. All the way…mostly. Leah bit her lip as she suppressed another ridiculous squeal, pinching the bridge of her nose trying to keep the schoolgirl giddiness in check, even as the corners of her mouth rose unbidden and uncontrollable.

I regret nothing!

Oh god. She really was adopting Tinea's playfulness, wasn't she?

But…if that let her experience more of that sinfully cute behavior the girl freely displayed every other minute…

Worth it. Yup.

Giggling, Leah straightened up and looked around the court one last time. Everything was in order.

"Okay. Implants, knowledge-download, then Daddy-Long-Legs?"

Yes! Um, if you want to spend a few hours familiarizing yourself with the spider's movements, then you probably don't need the download until you go to battle. It'll only teach you how to use the spider properly. The piloting implant already allows you to move the legs and stuff!

"Ah, so the knowledge download is for advanced maneuvers?"

Yup! The tank will be your body and moving it will feel natural, but you won't have the instincts to, say, jump in the right direction to dodge until you train that kind of thing! That's what the download would be for. Also, there's some specialized controls that you'd have to leave to the autopilot until you figure them out! Like, countermeasures, mine-laying, special attachments that you can buy later, how to properly use the tactical computers beyond their automated functions.

"Huh… How long would it take for the skill-download to complete in a pinch?"

Faster than you can blink! Um, it's just the installation of the implant that'll take a moment.

"And that's the piloting implant?"

Leah smiled as Ypsi's virtual avatar nodded decisively with a very adorable big-girl expression.

Yup! It won't let you learn general stuff like a proper learning implant, but if it's about piloting Warforge Technologies, it'll be fine!

"Well then, let's get the implant and we'll leave the purchase of the download for when we need it."

Oki!, said the virtual girl with another thumbs-up, her dress switching to something a little frilly and faintly maid-like. Um! Please sit down and, uh, rest your head on your arms! This is one of those uncomfortable ones. I'm very sorry!

"That's okay, Ypsi. The discomfort has never lasted long with anything you've recommended, yeah?"

Yup! Ypsi does her best! She's very polite and helpful, after all! Also, here's the purchase! In Tinea's style.

 

Cost	x	Item
200	1	Class I Warforge Technologies General Piloting Implant
200		Total
18358		Combined Remaining Points

 

Giggling, Leah sat down and placed her crossed arms over her knees, and then followed up with her forehead. Moments later she flinched when there was a hot, sharp sting almost right on top of the location of the last one, and she just breathed deeply as she waited for the echo of the blinding split-second migraine to fade.

Squinting uncomfortably, she groaned as she slowly climbed to her feet again, glad once more for the suit that just didn't let any mud absorb into it, or even stick to it. She rubbed her remaining eye with the ball of her palm—one did not want to try the same with an artificial eye. They're not very squishy, and bruises at the back of the eye are no fun—and stretched herself after that momentary bit of torture.

"Ypsi, wanna show me a sketch of what my brain looks like?"

Um, sure! Is this good enough?

Leah's eye displayed a three-dimensional model of a typical human brain with three artificial objects in it. At the back of the brain, with a myriad of tiny, almost imperceptible connections to various regions in the brain and into the brainstem, was a small dense carbon wafer, shaped and flexible enough to follow the contours of the cerebral cortex around it.

And seated right between the halves of the brain in a spot that wasn't all dense with brain matter, sat a tiny oblong pill connected to a small umbrella-looking layer of complicated geometrics just above it. The pill was labeled 'Polylaterality'—that was the name of her old implant, the one that handled her prosthetics up to and including the piloting pod. The new one was simply labeled 'Piloting implant'—no special name there, apparently.

Both also connected back and forth to either half of her brain with lots of little tendrils and wires.

Leah's lips curved once more. "Yeah, that's enough to sate my curiosity. Thank you, Ypsi."

You're welcome, Leah!

Hmm. What else? A new eye?—Don't really need it. The pod does an amazing job with its HUD, so better augs will have to wait… Well, that was it then, huh?

She backed up, braced her hands excitedly at her hips, and grinned. "Alright, Ypsi. Go ahead, let's see the big one."

Oki!

 

Cost	x	Item
15880	1	Class I 'Hatchet' Warforge Technologies Skirmisher, customized Scout, partially armed
15880		Total
2478		Combined Remaining Points

 

And then it was suddenly there. From one moment to the next, unannounced and with no warning, a gigantic spider simply…existed in front of Leah, half a meter above the ground.

It landed on its feet and smoothly caught its weight with a light bounce of its body as golden filigree grew and curled across the blackbody surface. White-edged joints released gently misting vapor that followed the pull of gravity to flow down along the long, long legs and settled on the ground.

Little lights winked on across the front of the thorax where organically shaped, almost flowing, lenses hid the forward sensorium. The entire vehicle lit up in a wave of pinprick illuminations before all color disappeared—even the graceful, golden curves—leaving nothing but an indistinct stark black hole in the shape of a spider to sit on the concrete.

Then a large bay opened up at the front of the abdomen, just above the joint where it connected to the rear of the thorax, and Leah's maintenance drone parked itself inside. Two more hatches fell open underneath the bottom of the abdomen—a small round one that led into the tiny living area, and a roughly rectangular one, several meters long, which hid another bay. This one for the pilot's pod that Leah would use as the spider's cockpit.

Leah bit her lip as she slowly walked around the giant construct.

"Ypsi, can you have it light up a little again, please? I want to be able to see it properly. Just a little, though."

I can do that! Here you go.

The little stars across the spider's body appeared again along with the golden curlicues, and Leah almost moaned from just how neat it all was. The legs were clearly aerodynamically shaped to support its ability to run at a hundred and thirty miles per hour. Its entire volume was sleek and even the bulbous abdomen…just…looked fast.

Urgh. Leah couldn't find her words. She wanted in!

But the robotic gantry had already moved the cannon underneath the torso and was dismantling its carriage so that Daddy-Long-Legs could pick it up instead. Yeah. She'd have to wait just a moment.

Dang it.

Okay. Food. Food was important and she was hungry anyway.

Alright.

 

***