Chapter 45: Baby-Maker

  “All this incursion business truly highlights the obvious way our future’s going to look. Underground is the only step forward that makes sense!”

  – Melon Tusks, campaign for the ‘Tunnel Vision’ project, 2029, before the invention of hovercars.

  ***

  “No.”

  Portia looked at me like I slapped her! “What do you mean ‘no’?”

  I gave her outfit another look and, yeah, no. There was no way in fucking hell we were going to the Badgers with her wearing that. “As in, you need to go change before we go there.”

  She bristled, but didn’t meet my eye. “I wanted to make a good impression, what’s wrong with this dress?”

  “Portia, I wouldn’t go through that section of the city in an armored convoy with you wearing that.” I clarified flatly. The damn dress was stylish and figure hugging. Some sort of well tailored black corpo-chic thing, clearly something that’d been on a runway at some point. We’d get jumped the moment we entered any other gang’s territory!

  Robin bailed me out, as always. “It just looks too good on you, dear. I didn’t dress my best because we’re going to meet some people with less fortunate backgrounds. It’s not nice to upstage everybody for a friendly meeting, you know? It might also attract the wrong kind of attention.”

  Portia colored a bit but eventually agreed, switching to what she called her ‘lab cloths’. Truth be told, it still looked more expensive than I’d like, but a lot less ‘please mug me’. Comfortable slacks and a dark shirt that didn’t hug the curves as much. Much better.

  We set off in our ‘definitely not sunday’ cloths. I wore my old leather jacket that I miraculously found while searching what remained of our apartment. The one Altany got me was tailored way too well, it’d look too expensive.

  Searching the ruins of our old life got… rough. A ton of Robin’s DIY shit got trashed. We barely recovered a few of Alice’s drawings, Rachael’s collectable crap she found –or stole– a bit everywhere ended up pretty much trashed…

  My mom’s old stuff was a lot of army gear, made to last but… Yeah, I lost a few things…

  Anyway! Focus on the present! Had to get through this.

  The problem with true ground was that everything reeked of desperation, which led to violence. As a gang’s lead enforcer, I could walk through without too many issues with an escort. Six militia guys with good weapons and armor surrounded my family. I’d made sure my kids and Robin had discreet bulletproof undersuits. Wish I had the points for more…

  Since the kids were coming on this little outing, the escort also included Bella, camouflaged at a respectable distance, and Katy in full stealth. Lila had her power-armour in a quick deployment suitcase, some kind of spy thing to bring power armour and pull it out whenever necessary. My recon drone overlaid my shotgun with an image of a normal earth version. It also helped hide my extra bulk.

  I had my full armour compressed and hidden under baggy clothing, jacket included. I’d look like I was hiding some shit, which made me less conspicuous in these parts.

  Would some people call this extreme paranoia? Yes.

  However, my kids were coming to see uncle Kirk, also known as ‘Baby-Maker’. I didn’t give a fuck about looking paranoid at the moment. They walked in the middle of our formation, Jack in Robin’s arms even though we were still in the building.

  When we arrived at the elevators, I stopped everybody and turned to Portia. “Misses Nykas, I feel a need to mention something.”

  “Yes, mister Larose?” She turned fully towards me, back straight and chin raised.

  “The person we are going to meet is a friend of mine. A very good friend. He’s the one who allowed my husband and I to conceive and Lila to carry. I know you signed an NDA, that you agreed to a bunch of punitive measures if you reveal any info about him. However, I need to add something.” As I pinned her with my most intense stare, she recoiled a bit.

  “There is no alien, corp, monster or fucking god in this universe that may ever keep you safe from me if you endanger him. Am I making myself clear?” Even with how shaken she looked, Portia stood strong, no hesitation in her gaze. Tough woman. Her type usually folded with the slightest threat of violence, used to letting underlings deal with that stuff. Maybe I underestimated her.

  She nodded, which I answered in kind. Good. I turned back to the service elevator and signaled everyone to get in. “Alright, let’s go meet Baby-Maker.”

  To my utter shock, Portia gasped and squealed in delight! She started fidgeting like a schoolgirl about to meet a crush… “Oh, dear, the Baby-Maker? Really? You know him? What’s he like? I didn’t even know he lived in the city, oh dear… Do you know what his setup is like?”

  As always, I thanked my lucky star for Robin’s social acumen as he fielded all the questions and let me focus on other stuff, especially since I gaped at the ‘what the fuuuuu…’ show behind me. Kind of distracting to see a woman that distinguished get insanely giddy.

  The elevator went down, and down, and down. We could see outside through steel grid doors. Deep, deep below, massive mountains of trash dotted the dark landscape. The underground didn’t have much light, but true-ground? Almost pitch-black under the hex-plates shadows and without city or corp-installed lights. Before we passed by the understructure entirely, our elevator stopped.

  Bella got out, her long rifle over one shoulder. The few homeless people who squatted in the area at the moment gave the woman a wide berth. “Taking overwatch position.” She called out after finding a nice spot and activating camo.

  A few minutes of going down one of the hexplate’s pillars later, we finally arrived on true ground. I waited as Katy moved out from behind us, all stealth systems active. In the dark, with how small she was, people would be hard pressed to see the visual distortion. “Creeping around, ready to assist.”

  Bella and Katy kept sending each other updates on our surroundings as we walked. The protected center of our formation looked profoundly unconcerned as they chatted. Alice was excited to see uncle Kirk again. The little genius had a talent for science! Kirk gave her tips and little lessons over the mesh. Rachael just liked exploring outside the building, no matter how gross or rundown the places looked. Robin would meet up with some old friends.

  And Portia kept unnerving the shit out of me with her excitement…

  We had to move through a shanty-town, full of trash-mountain salvagers and low budget gangers. I did my best to be recognized. People knew me around here, which meant they knew I wasn’t to be fucked with lightly.

  We’d been walking for a while when the realization that I should’ve asked Rodrick to take down the bounties hit me. It might be a drop in the bucket at this point, but still… What triggered such an obvious thought?

  Louis, it appears a group of opportunistic bounty hunters have identified you. Not true bounty hunters, to be clear, simply low level gang members with the idea of cashing in when they recognized you. None of them are Kais.

  I swore under my breath. It happened from time to time when I left the building. I used to focus on watching my surroundings, taking cabs everywhere, that sort of thing. In this case, there were just too many of us to get on a cab. Automated ones wouldn’t go where we needed anyway. Hell, non-automated cabs wouldn’t take us with our rep…

  Rocking up in an armored troop transport with big guns would end with the Badgers shooting at us out of caution. We could remedy that after we came and met them in person this time. We’d have to put gang colors on them and explain. Problem was? If we did it over the mesh, it’d look like trying to trick them into a surprise attack. We had to go meet them in person.

  Real low, I started sending orders. “Tell Bella and Katy. Can you connect me to their augs?”

  I can, would you like to initiate a voice call?

  I informed the rest of the group to be quiet and on guard before trying to deescalate this bullshit. Seriously, it’s not like they wanted to ambush little old me all alone in the ‘woods’, I had a fucking militia squad with me! Fucking suicidal idiots…

  The instant connection without their consent might make the morons think twice. “Yo, this is Panda, I wouldn’t recommend trying me right now.”

  Bella sent me a feed from above, showing probably the lowest budget ganger I’d ever seen! He had one of those super cheap polymer SMGs that might blow up in your hands after a few magazines. The moron jumped before answering. “Oh yeah? Why’s that, we got you surrounded!”

  He didn’t. There were eight of them in two trios and a duo, converging on my position. Altany tagged all of them and showed me outlines through the walls. “You don’t. As to why you shouldn’t, it’s because my family’s there, which means I’m not feeling particularly merciful. I’m not gonna let your idiots get close enough to take a shot. If you don’t want to die along with your buddies, I suggest telling them to back off.”

  I got a quick signal from Katy that she arrived in position, helping me calm down quite a bit. I told her to go ahead. The image on the feed suddenly showed someone new, holding a long, buzzing knife to the moron’s throat. Through his mic, I could hear Katy’s threat. “No matter what, if you don’t back off, you’re dead.”

  The man froze in his tracks. He didn’t speak however, and the self-destructive jackasses were getting closer. I didn’t want my kids to see a massacre, so I sent a message to Bella. She answered promptly. “Going subsonic, adjusting…”

  Without my super ears, I probably couldn’t have heard the whistle of her bullet flying through the air. I could easily see the hole she punched between the guy’s legs on her feed though. Threatening a man’s balls did wonders for peaceful cooperation!

  A moment later, every team backed off. Katy waited until we exited their territory to extricate herself invisibly.

  I let out a relieved sigh as we moved away from that particular slum. “All clear.” The militia guys visibly sagged in relief.

  “Did that happen a lot?” Portia asked, surprisingly.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  My head turned back to look at her. “What?”

  “This sort of situation, someone trying to attack you. Did that happen a lot before you became a samurai?”

  Meh, why not answer. “Kinda. I usually took precautions, like taking cabs I could threaten into not selling me out. Didn’t get out of the building much though. Attacks in the building? Yeah, but in a community like ours, strangers stick out and we kept an eye on them. Bounty hunters weren’t exactly welcome in general for that matter. Most of the violent attacks came from corpo-sec however, or bounty hunting PMCs assaulting the building. They underestimated us usually, which helped to prevent needless deaths.”

  Since Portia didn’t interject and listened attentively, I kept going. “Bounty hunters talk to each other online, thank the mesh. They usually share info on how hard a target is, if the price is worth it, the risk to reward ratio basically. I made sure that ratio sucked. That led to increases in my bounty however, so we still got attacked. Outside the building, I got opportunists and, yeah, I ended up having to fight my way out a couple times, which sucked. Thankfully, I have great enforcers who know their stuff. It’s not the first time Bella’s been overwatch and she’s great at it. She says you can see an attack coming if you know how to read the flows and movements of people from above.”

  We were getting closer to our destination, so I focused on the entrance ahead. An abandoned metro-station project, the little building went deep underground. At the entrance, I could see a few guys looking at us wearily. I knew a few super old LMGs would be pointing at us from inside.

  I raised a hand and waved, trying to look as friendly as possible. “Heya, it’s Panda, here for Baby-Maka!” They recognized me quickly and lowered their weapons. The darkness that permeated everywhere under the hex-plates made visibility absolute shit.

  “Nice gear, fella, got a hookup? Partage avec un bon ami? / Share with a good friend?” One of the guys said as he waved back. Dudieu, big Haitian dude with a strong Creole accent, which mixed oddly with ground slang. We still understood each other well enough.

  “Ptêtre, ?a vient d’un samurai, y eu une attack des osti d’aliens… / Maybe, comes from a samurai, there was an attack from the fucking aliens…” I said, replying in french to make things easier. He gave me a sympathetic look.

  “‘Perdu du monde? / Lost people?” I only replied with a nod, looking away. It took a few seconds before I could answer, my voice a bit thick as I admitted how many I couldn’t save…

  “Mille-cin-cent… / One-thousand-five-hundred…” I ballparked, not wanting to remember the full number or the full list…

  We arrived in front of them and Dudieu came towards me. Knowing the guy, I didn’t feel any need to defend myself as he hugged me. With his size, even at my height he fully enveloped me. “J’suis vraiment désolé. Mes condoléances… / I’m so sorry. My condolences…”

  A few squeezes later, he let go, having clearly felt my armor but feeling no need to mention it. The Badgers were another community like ours. They took care of each other, which meant he’d know how fucked up I felt about the whole thing. They were survivalists, living in their semi-bunker under the city.

  Kirk, or Baby-Maker, made up a lot of their funding. The biohacker had an impressive talent for genetics and exchanged his services for all sorts of things.

  Robin came forward and put his hand on the huge man’s forearm. “Vous ?a va? Besoin de quelque chose? / You guys ok? Need anything?” My husband said with a horrible accent. There was a reason we spoke English to each other. His Creole apparently sounded better, which just made no sense to me!

  Sadly, I didn’t speak Creole, hence being left out of the conversation as they haggled for the price of entry. Had no idea how it worked! Robin wanted to be generous, in part for bringing a stranger but also because we had in abundance for once. He planned to overpay massively, helping relations between our communities.

  However, if that was the case, why the fuck were they haggling!? It didn’t make sense! He already overpaid! Argh!

  Altany summoned a big metal can of 7.62 ammo in Robin’s bag before he took it off. They usually accepted payment in resources rather than credits.

  Before we went in, Dudieu turned to me, throwing a furtive glance at Portia. “Est pas dangereuse? / She’s not dangerous?” He asked, clearly apprehensive.

  I decided to answer in English so the woman would hear. “You’ve got my word she won’t endanger Baby-Maker.” I said before turning to her and giving a look that said clearly and plainly that she better not make me a fucking liar.

  The woman nodded, serious and thankful. I could tell she appreciated me vouching for her. I had my doubts she fully understood the implications of someone like me, with a reputation, vouching for a stranger. It’d have to do. She’d probably have to work with him directly for our plan to heal Peach-Trees’ residents.

  We left the big man behind along with the militia guys. An armed escort in allied territory would look bad, and they’d defend the entrance while we were down there. I thankfully didn’t lose contact with Katy and Bella as we descended deeper and deeper.

  The Badgers settled deep enough that they could probably survive a nearby nuke! Whether they’d survive the hexplates falling? Debatable but… maybe?.

  Rachael looked everywhere at the graffiti, improvised shelters, little food growing operations, everything! She loved seeing new things. I couldn’t blame her. The whole family’d gotten the chance after the incursion since we moved up, but a mega-building was a mega-building. My eldest’d been here before, but apparently the novelty didn’t wear off.

  The place smelled a bit mildewy and damp, with a strong undertone of weed. When our little group arrived at the unfinished tunnel, people started greeting us as we passed. The walls were covered in improvised apartments constructed from anything they could get their hands on. Really, those things were marvels of hippy engineering, demonstrating the infinite power of duct tape and tie-wraps! Still, more living space than corpo pod places! They’d repurposed the old rooms built for station staff as infirmaries, markets, animal pens, etc…

  The apartments continued deeper in the tunnel, which ended in an abandoned dig site after a while. On the other side, we found a closed off area, protected by a couple guards.

  Since this wasn’t my first visit, they let us into what would have been a servicing station for metro-cars without much fuss. When we finally entered Baby-Maker’s lab, Portia gasped!

  The place wasn’t well lit or inviting, but still impressed with its ingenuity. The cave was separated into two floors connected by a long ramp. Both were covered in cobbled together scientific equipment that… did stuff. Honestly, even Alice would know better. It looked cool?

  As we entered, a gaunt man in an electric wheelchair started towards us, a young assistant on his heel. “Uncle Kirk!” Alice shouted, unable to wait, before running and jump-hugging him!

  “Oh my god, Alice! It’s so good to see you IRL! I didn’t expect a visit for a while! How are you sweetheart?” The scene warmed my heart, but something nagged at me. The assistant came to us, a young woman with a bookish air about her.

  “Hey, nice to meet you, I’m Baby-Maker’s assistant. I’m learning so much from him and it’s good to meet his friends.” She said with a smile. I lowered my voice and came closer.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked, very aware that he didn’t use to need help. The girl gave me a sad smile.

  “He… can’t reach the equipment anymore. Kirk can still type, but not much more than that.” I nodded, concerned. His ALS was getting worse. He self-treated, but without much success…

  Then, I remembered the reason for my visit, and a smile spread on my face.

  Portia approached the wheelchair bound man, a shy smile on her face. Kirk had to start the conversation with Alice sitting on his lap. Knowing her, she wouldn’t budge from there. “Hey, don’t think we met before, I’m Kirk.”

  Oddly, the woman gave a shallow bow! What the ever loving fuck? “Hi, I’m Portia Nykas, bioengineering researcher, big fan of your work.” That got Kirk blinking a few times. He chanced a glance at me which I answered with a little nod.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet a real expert! I’m surprised my little workarounds could impress someone with, you know, actual expertise.” He said with a chuckle.

  “Oh, don’t sell yourself short! My work is so constrained by patents, trying to sell to investors, pre-existing solutions and allowed materials! I’ve seen your dark web paper on repurposing any baseline NH family viruses to modify macrophages, it was fascinating! I’m sure you have tons of tricks you keep to yourself, of course! Gosh, I need to ask even if I know you won’t answer, how’d you get around the missing chromosome issue when creating eggs with male stem-cells? I absolutely cannot figure it out! You’ve stumped my husband and I on the problem for a while! I mean, your results speak for themselves yet it seems impossible! I even had the chance to work on samples from a few of the offspring you created in my own time and I can confirm they’re perfectly healthy and normal! Labs tend to use carrier genetic material, but you…”

  Everyone stood in stunned silence for a few seconds at the massive word vomit. Portia stopped herself after realizing how much she’d gushed. Kirk did answer however. “Well, your problem is that you ignore junk DNA. There are a lot of goodies in there if you’re willing to look and experiment. I won’t share my way of doing it, no offense…” Portia nodded violently and he continued. “As an example, the…”

  I tuned out the super technical conversation. I was vaguely aware that they were talking about his field of expertise. Specifically, helping gay couples produce children. He did it for free with the Badgers and helped them raise funds by offering his services discreetly. However, Kirk needed to be careful.

  The big pharma corps liked their monopoly, a lot. Plenty of his equipment came from scrap-heaps, reassembled and cobbled together. He’d customized most of it to his own needs even!

  Everyone who knew of his existence and location also knew to shut the fuck up. Biohackers offering medical services impossible to get without being an exec tended to get raided for… various reasons. Thankfully, the Badgers would be an extremely fucking hard nut to crack for any corpo squad dumb enough to try in their bunker!

  I let them prattle on for a while. Rachael explored the changes to his lab without much interest. Alice listened with rapped attention on the other hand! Robin chatted with the assistant, probably doing some social obligation stuff I didn’t get.

  When the discussion died down, I piped up. “So, Kirk, I gotta ask, could you cure cancer?” He turned to me with concern.

  “Oh shit, someone in the family?” I blinked in confusion before clarifying.

  “Hmm? Oh, no, I mean, hypothetically, could you?”

  “Well, yeah, of course.” That stomped me for a moment.

  “Wait, really?”

  “Sure. We already have a dozen ways to cure cancer. In my case, I’d probably repurpose an HIV variant to modify a person’s immune system to recognize the cancer as foreign, which would make the body deal with it as it should have in the first place.”

  That… Ok, I didn’t get the technical side of things, but still felt a tiny bit miffed. “Why don’t you?”

  He gave me a sad smile. “Every cancer and every person is different. A single patient would take me weeks if I had the equipment and the proper tools, which I don’t. I need to properly identify, quantify and analyze their immune system within their DNA, create a mod that would modify it to see that specific cancer’s genes as an ‘enemy’, then modify an HIV variant to deliver that specific patch. I mean, it wouldn’t take that long if I had pro-level shit, but that stuff is super well tracked, I don’t want a pharma death-squad coming to get me. Curing cancer is, like, one of their big ticket items. That shit’s worth a fat stack of credits for each patient!”

  That… made sense. My mom’s death might have been on my mind when he said that. I calmed down my irrational little spark of anger before continuing. “So, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I could get you pro-level shit. Like, really fucking amazing equipment. Hypothetically, of course. Would you be willing to cure some cancers as repayment?”

  Kirk narrowed his eyes and looked at me suspiciously. “That would, hypothetically, depend on where you got the equipment. Like I said, that stuff is well tracked.”

  I nodded with a smile. “I could, again, hypothetically, guarantee no one would come looking for it. Not even the people who created it.”

  Kirk’s eyes narrowed even more. “Doubtful… but you don’t lie… In a hypothetical situation where you would guarantee such things, of course. In such a completely made up scenario, I’d be amenable to that. How many?”

  My smile widened while I played around with a little model of a DNA helix. “Everyone in Peach-Trees, in exchange for the equipment.” Kirk started to cough, hard. Did he choke on his own spit?

  “For equipment!?”

  “Yes. Oh, almost forgot, also for curing your ALS.”

  Kirk ended up needing his assistant to slap him on the back. When he regained his composure, the biohacker stared at me in wide eyed confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about, Louis?”

  My smile widened even more as my tail uncoiled from around my waist. I had my armor reform in its full glory. The animated eyes on my helmet made Alice chuckle, the little shit. “There was an incursion in Peach-Trees. I stopped it with the help of some friends. I just so happen to have some extra points to spend on a good buddy!”