Chapter Ninety-Seven - Are you sure that's a Scout?

"You'd think all aug-gear would always automatically label samurai, considering the danger to adjacent life they represent.

Practically, your chances to even meet one on the street are so low, no corp would invest money into that function."

– Online personality, streaming to a chat full of bots, trying to make it big, December 2043

 

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By the time we arrived at the facility we'd only added stealthy surveillance, fresh clothes, and a few other trip-related things to the list.

Thinking back, we probably could've saved a few points by just abandoning the quads, instead of disposing of them? But something in me rebelled at the idea of leaving anything usable for our kidnappers. I would've been compelled to booby trap them, for obvious reasons.

See how well you do at kidnapping people with pipe bombs up your asses, I seethed, as memories of finding Leah flashed through my mind. My fists clenched with a half-remembered broken heartbeat against them.

I sighed. Pipe bombs and booby traps were probably not a smart idea when you were trying to make your enemy less skittish.

Another topic I'd brought up with Leah was the idea of mixing the organic with the machine to give her walking spider Class II spinnerets on its legs. It would've made for some rather powerful close quarters combat options, I thought, to be able to sling silk with eight legs. Non-lethal too, which would've been interesting for our eventual arrival in the city. We distinctly lacked options in that department. Unfortunately, integrating a metabolism into the inorganic was too expensive to really consider at this time.

But then, if somebody actually tried going after a mechanical spider of obviously alien nature—say, of Vanguard tech—then they're probably not fit for survival.

Would that be assisted suicide, or just suicide? I wondered, scratching my jaw.

We'd also talked about stealth—the spider was going to be way big. It could crouch low to the ground, sure, and be quite sneaky, but it still had six meters of leg. Times eight.

And the abdomen would also be three meters of incompressible height. And then it had a cannon of naval caliber.

Along with several grenade-tossing tubes and more large-caliber rifles.

And a bank of electrolasers energetic enough to light up the sky, to defend against aerial threats.

…

"Leah, are you sure the thing's a scout?"

She looked at me and tilted her head.

"Yes? Why?"

"No, nothing. It's fine," I answered with a twitching smile.

What the fuck was Warforge Technologies, if that counted as a scout?

I glanced sideways at Leah, who was gathering together my old silk threads across the court, the ones with which I'd kept an eye out against intruders early on, to make space for her Daddy-Long-Legs. She'd pressure-washed the insides of her suit and had put it on again, which I both appreciated and hated. She looked stunning in the thing, especially now that I allowed myself to really pay attention to the way the golden lines highlighted her otherwise blacked-out and almost invisible curves. She was a work of art, honestly.

But it had also been wonderfully distracting. She'd smelled divine and so very alluring out of it that I'd kind of only barely kept up, stumbling along that delicious scent trail. Even if I had, with a little less raw effectiveness, returned the favor. I was still topless. Something that drew Leah's eye with pleasing regularity.

I tickled the underside of the stem of the antenna that was, of course, pointed at her, until it twitched away. That helped take my mind off of that particular track, and I moved towards the edge of the concrete to help with the soaked and dirty silk.

We created a pile of it, ready to be burned, and then entered the building itself. There was more silk attached to the walls, ceilings, and floors. Mostly dry, and still well-stuck. I needed to use my spinneret's dissolvent to take it all down without causing obvious damage that would hint at my capabilities.

Which in itself was possibly a futile endeavor, depending on whether somebody had been observing us, but I figured the weather and clouds would be in our favor.

I pursed my lips. If nothing else, the big explosion would've tipped somebody off. 

Well. What's done is done.

And at least the thought of engaging somebody who can cause that level of damage within a day or two of leaving some sort of possibly empowering chrysalis, should scare them shitless. 

That'll keep the normies around us safe for a little bit. I hoped. Long enough to improve security, at least.

Leah moved on towards our cocoon to pick up that silk tube with the old steel-coated brass balls, and anything else we might take along. I figured we'd leave the used-up Hummingbird behind, along with a Foxteeth, as bait. Maybe stuff an Antithesis with it as a way to explain why the used weapons had no useful genetic markers on them?

Right. 

It suddenly hit me that I was a complete unknown. There was actually nobody on Earth who had a record of my current DNA. 

Aden's, sure. Any medical service I'd visited as Aden had records of Aden.

I'd known that I was anonymous, of course, since I'd woken up. But it was kind of a vague thing? I was aware of it but… Uh. It hadn't really meant much.

Huh.

I…didn't really know what to do with that realization. Would I need to claim my old identity, just to take possession of my stuff back in my old apartment?

I flushed slightly, and smiled, as I realized that I'd already decided to move in with Leah.

Oh.

Was that going to be at her place or at the orphanage?

Would she even let me? I wondered. I'd have to ask her, but I figured so. She did say she'd "take me and make me hers" after all.

Awawa. I shivered and heated up. Again. Leaned my forehead against the cold concrete of the staircase walls as my thighs rubbed against each other and my core slicked itself all over again.

I had it bad for the gorgeous Valkyrie of a woman.

And, I realized once again, with a big smile, she did for me too. A silly giggle leapt from my throat as I hopped in place, all giddy with happiness.

What to do, what to do… Ah, yes. Stealth stuff. 

Energized and in love from my toes all the way up to the tips of my antennae, I clapped my hands and got back to work. I needed to set up the boosters and a few stealthy drones for long term observation of this facility.

Quickly gathering up the last of the silk, I threw it on top of the pile outside and had Tynea spawn a plastic box full of small electronics and stealth-capable flying drones for two hundred points total. The signal boosters created optic links via weak lasers and would allow the drones to remain connected to the uplink outside, even below-grounds.

I replaced every fire alarm with them and watched as tiny disguised lenses rotated to create an information network of laser-based highways for the drones.

Which were tiny quad-copters with extremely silent rotors. I could barely sense them through my antennae. The air washing from their impellers seems to invert on itself within a complex vortex, the geometry of which I need the Quanta to decipher. It created a lot of induced drag, slowing the drones dramatically, but even Class I sensors would have a hard time detecting the moving air from more than half an arm's length away.

The little discs—so light I barely would've felt them sitting on my palm—rose into the air, all the way to the ceiling, and attached themselves there with soft pads of microscoping hooks that bit into tiny gaps in the concrete. The signal boosters reoriented more lenses and included the drones in their network.

Once they'd all settled, nothing looked out of place. The "fire alarms" looked in order, would hold up against basic scrutiny, and even did the job of the real alarms. The drones could follow a person and they'd be none the wiser.

I figured we wouldn't miss anything happening within the facility.

Job done, I skipped over to Leah. She was currently inside the cocoon, sat back and relaxed, studying the insides of it. She was naked and her goop suit lay in the little cove I'd originally made for the food jars and bottles of water. When she saw me, she smiled at me and waved me in. I climbed in to join her and she welcomed me with a warm hug, one that pulled me right into her lap.

The Myriad bunched again and this time I just commanded it to detach, figuring we'd be safe down here. For a bit at least. It opened up at the front and slipped from my hips to fall into a puddle of connected segments and panels behind me.

I straddled Leah's lap, knees on either side, and laid my head on her shoulder. My bust lifted hers, but I enjoyed the soft weight and smooshiness of the situation as I pressed a kiss to the side of her throat. Leah hummed contentedly and squeezed me around the waist, bending my spine backwards a little as my body conformed to hers.

I loved it. I soaked in the contact, drank the shared body warmth, felt it suffuse my entire front, and wrapped my tail around our shoulders and necks, creating support and adding floof for a more comfy snuggle.

There was a sense of completeness here. We were back in our quiet, peaceful world, as nude as we'd been when we first met. It was incredibly relaxing.

After a few minutes, Leah spoke up, her voice languid.

"I realized I was probably seeing this cocoon for the last time while I was cleaning up."

"Mm." I nodded. "It's…a bit big to bring home, probably."

"Yeah." Her voice carried some melancholy. But there wasn't any stress.

"I guess it just really feels like home. Safe. Very safe."

I giggled a bit as I nodded again. Leah had really taken up my habit of speaking in emphasizing ellipses, huh?

"I can see that. It was our safe space after all. The one place in the facility where we slept, and where nothing happened to either of us except lots of healing."

"Yup. And it's hella comfy, too." Leah said as she bounced us through the power of clenching glutes, making me jiggle and giggle.

I leaned back to share a smile and quite enjoyed the glide of breast against breast. Leah's tight hold meant that there wasn't really much room for air to slip in. Just lots and lots of skin on skin.

It was making me feel a bit frisky, but mostly I just decided to bask in it all. Leah did too, even if she grinned at my hardening nipples and squished harder.

In lieu of moaning, I asked a question to stay on track. Job to do, I reminded myself.

"Say, Leah, want me to weave us a new cocoon when we're home?"

She tilted her head, which was definitely cute, and interest glittered at me in her eyes. Also cute. I mentally poked myself to stay on track, already.

"Yeah! That would be awesome!"

I smiled at her enthusiasm and nuzzled her nose. I wondered for a moment if the enthusiasm indicated problematic levels of trauma, but…would that be surprising, really?

I couldn't see any way in which giving us a safe, familiar way to sleep would cause us issues. We already knew we needed therapy.

Hmm. Might be necessary to see how we do sleeping away from this cocoon, though. Just to get a sense of how hard we've been hit. Yeah. That seems right.

Come to think of sleeping… "Leah, which is home? The orphanage? My place? Your apartment?"

Leah froze, eyes growing wide at the mention of her apartment. Uh-oh. She'd stopped breathing and her body was suddenly extremely tense under my palms.

I rose up to cup her cheeks and kissed her, then blew softly up her nose, which shook her out of it.

"Sorry. I just…remembered the kidnapping." She heaved a heavy breath. "Home's not my apartment anymore. Honestly, just thinking of that door gives me the shivers."

"Mm." I nudged her nose with mine. "So either my place, or your orphanage?"

"Yeah." Thoughts spun behind her eyes. "Or maybe somewhere else entirely? I don't have an orphanage, since I move between multiple groups from multiple organizations. But it might be a good idea to move Sister Lana's orphanage to a place we'd be in more control of. Yes," she said, gaze sharpening, "especially with big stompy tanks around. I want our own place, Tinea, with lots of room to expand. A place where we can gather all my Littles together."

"Oh?" I asked, eyebrows rising.

"Yeah! Outside the city, even. Not far, though. Close enough to travel there in a few minutes, but far enough that we'd have privacy and space."

"That…" I mumbled, thinking of the open woods near my apartment, at the edges of the suburb I'd lived in, "that sounds like a plan."

"It does!" Leah exclaimed excitedly, shifting under my thighs. 

I giggled and found I rather appreciated the vision of jiggles myself.

I…might've forgotten to kick myself back to attention this time.

 

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