Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Eighty-Two - Till I Can Get Mine

"Generally, over the course of a samurai's lifespan as a samurai, you'll see them shift a lot in their purchasing patterns, though some stick to a single pattern.

There are some who never have any points remaining, as they spend them as soon as they gain them. Others save them up, or try to reach a certain ceiling, then once they're reached it, then cease all expenditure until they're ready for the next leap upwards."

--On the Spending Habit of the Samurai, Sixth Edition, 2054

***

The next day was... quiet.

It wasn't like I could afford to do nothing, but nothing is exactly what I did. I think I slept a solid ten hours, grabbing Lucy close and not letting her go, even when she complained sleepily about having to get up.

I couldn't sleep without her close, and... I didn't want to admit it, but maybe that close call had rattled me a little. Having Lucy so close reminded me that I was alive. As long as Lucy was breathing then I'd be living too.

I still woke up early, at the kind of hour that Gomorrah would have praised me for. I got up, finally letting Lucy waddle off to the washroom with some grumbled complaints that had me smiling, at least a little.

Loading up on coffee as a decent replacement for breakfast, I slipped on some bunny-eared flip-flops, then made my way down to the garage. I'd ordered the cat carrier to bring my mech down there, with the help of my repair drone.

My mech was waiting for me in the corner of the garage. I stared at it while gently sipping at my coffee. "Yeah, still looks fucked," I said.

It is in dire need of repair. But I am rather confident that you could do it. It would take a lot of time, and a lot of effort, but you could manage.

"I guess," I said. I started to circle around the mech, eyeing it from different angles and making a mental tally of what needed replacing. It was... not as bad as it could have been. The frame was intact, the legs had a few scratches, but they were superficial. The body was mostly fine. A few bent bits here and there, but nothing expensive. The head was... fucked beyond repair. One of the Gatlings was just gone, and I wouldn't trust the side-mounted guns.

So, just one big chunk to replace, which would probably require taking apart a lot of the front of the mech to manage. I'd need a sort of jack to lift the head off. Maybe I could sell it off to the Family or something? There were a few decent sensors and such tucked into the head that someone might be interested in.

"Myalis, how many points am I sitting on?" I asked.

Point Total: 72,417

That was... a hefty chunk of points. "How much was the mech again?"

You paid twenty-thousand points for the Mark IV Mechcatular Nyanzerfaust.

I had enough to buy two more mechs just like it. But that would be silly. "Okay," I said. "Well, I don't want to lose this one, it's been good for me, but Lucy will get out the spritz bottle if I don't upgrade again to be safer. This baby was good against stuff up to the twenties. I think I'll see about fixing her up and using her for that kind of thing."

A reasonable choice. It also has some degree of automation. You've used it from afar a few times to serve as a guard.

"Yeah, that's a good point," I said with a nod. "Alright, here's what we're gonna do... do I have a catalogue that has garages in it?"

You have a Defensive Structures Catalogue that does feature a few structures that could serve as a garage, but they're more designed to be placed outdoors as temporary housing for vehicles.

"Yeah, I'm looking for something I can shove in here," I said with a gesture to the garage's rather bare wall. It was pure cinder block and cement, painted over with some thick off-grey paint. This floor was one lower than the offices where the prosthetics shop was set up, and one above Gomorrah's floor. The far corner actually had some walls up, and it looked like Gomorrah had finished setting up that car lift.

Otherwise, it was a lot of empty space, most of an entire floor's worth, though a few hover cars were parked off to one side. People visiting the prosthetics shop, maybe? There wasn't much else for people to do here.

"Okay, what can I get for a couple of hundred points? I just want a nice space to park my mechs, plural, with space for tools and maybe a jack and some crawlspace underneath."

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Hmm, I can see two ways to go about this. A Indoor Garage Catalogue for two hundred points would get you what you need. A space to place your mechanized vehicles as well as your bike, with plenty of storage, tool cabinets, lighting, and even some small equipment to manoeuvre larger parts around.

"But," I said leadingly.

But there is another, slightly more expensive option, from a Sunwatcher catalogue. It's called the Sunwatcher Vehicular Bay Catalogue, and it features a wide selection of tools and utilities to create a modular vehicle bay, one specifically designed for quadrupedal mechanized vehicles. Though of course there could still be room for more common vehicles. It would come in at a hefty four hundred points, but you might save on equipment costs moving forwards. This catalogue has a lot more in terms of automated machinery within it for the repair of mechanized vehicles like your own.

"More Sunwatcher stuff, huh," I muttered. Well, Lucy was threatening to spritz me still, so why not? "Okay, I like that one. Let's get it."

New Purchase: Sunwatcher Vehicular Bay Catalogue

Points Reduced to: 72,017

I nodded. "Right, okay, now we need to actually get something... let's aim for something with like, three bays? One for repairs, two for just parking mechs and shit in? Maybe just take up this one outer wall, though?"

Certainly. And your price range? Keeping in mind that the more you spend here, the easier time you'll have with the installation. Given enough points, I can install the bay directly into the structure of the overall building.

"And I'd want that because?" I asked.

Because your home isn't resistant to everything. This way there will at least be two sections of the building entirely resistant to most human weaponry.

Well, that wasn't a bad idea.

"Let's call it... uh... I guess it's three bays so three K? But no, I want one of them to be decently equipped. Maybe make it... five thousand points?"

Damn, it almost hurt to say that.

Okay, Catherine. A three bay garage unit, coming right up!

New Purchase: Sunwatcher Three Vehicle Bay with Mechanized Repair System

Points Reduced to: 67,017

I always expected a big flash or something impressive when I bought something large. But instead the bays were just... there. There wasn't even any displaced air, just the sense of something moving and suddenly the space before me was filled up and I was stepping back and away from a wall.

A good chunk of the floor was now taken up by a curvy building of sorts, or section I guess, since it reached from floor to ceiling without any visible gaps.

The walls were chrome, with a slight bluish tint to them, and where they turned, they did so with smooth, gentle curves. It reminded me a little of those modern building fronts corpos liked so much, only... this was done better. Organic, without really pushing it into the weird.

"Nice," I said.

There were three doors at the front, and unlike normal garage doors, these looked like they were designed to slide apart down the middle, each half slotting into the wall next to the entrance.

The doors opened with a faint hiss and the humm of an electric motor, moving aside to reveal... Well, two of the bays were just that, bays. Large, mostly empty spaces. The floor had been replaced, and I noticed a few drains on the ground. The back wall had cabinets made of the same chrome-y metal and there was a station to one side that looked like it had an in-built pressure washer.

There were hooks at the back, with a wall designed to hold dozens of tools, and a couple of long all-metal workbenches at waist-height.

Honestly, it looked like it would be the kind of space where working would be fun.

The repair bay was different. It reminded me a little more of something you'd see next to a Formula One pit stop. There were liftable platforms on the ground, controls on the walls, and several large servo arms hung from the ceiling, with different sorts of hands mounted to their ends. I saw what looked like grinders and welders there, some small enough that I imagined they could be used to snip a hair off someone's head while others looked like they were designed to peel off tank armour.

"Okay, yeah, that's a good start," I said. "Now... I think I need a new mech, and I can feel this one hurting my wallet already."

***

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