Chapter Nine - Carpooling

  "You know what gets attention? Rage bait.

  You know what our AI is good at producing? You got it! Rage bait.

  Hell, even this entire post is nothing but rage bait.

  We are gonna make billions."

  --Tim Jobs, moments before being shot at the 2029 World Telecom Conference

  ***

  "Where are we going, exactly?" I asked as I hopped into the pilot's seat. Only two of the others had followed me all the way to the cockpit; Hedgehog and Princess.

  Knight was sitting in the back somewhere, stowing some stuff she'd brought, and Shy was... off being herself. Gomorrah was riding along in her own car, as planned.

  "You don't know?" Hedgehog asked. I could sense a lot of judgement in his tone there.

  "I know in the sense that I know where we're supposed to be. I don't know in the sense that I don't know where that is, exactly," I replied, then I frowned because that sounded even stupider outside of my head than it did within.

  "I think I know what you mean," Princess said reassuringly, which didn't reassure me much at all.

  I shook my head and ran through the pre-flights. It wasn't something I bothered to do every time, but since we were going to head off for a longer trip, I figured that it might be best to make sure that everything was in the green. "We're going to visit the Royal Canadian Army's base in New Montreal to meet up with Lieutenant Colonel Juno and a bunch of soldiers. Honestly, we can probably just follow Gomorrah."

  "They'll be garrisoned at the old 2nd Division Support Base Valcartier, then," Hedgehog said.

  I glanced over my headrest at him. "You know the place?"

  "Somewhat. It was marked as a historical site, so it still exists below the city plate in that area. North-east end of the city. But when the Royal Army privatized, it was turned into a rent-a-night motel."

  "Is it still the army's then?" Princess asked.

  Hedgehog nodded. "They repurchased it a while ago for cheap. Probably still lost a lot on the deal, overall, but that's how things go."

  "Sure," I said as I flicked a few last switches. Those were decorative, probably, but they made a real satisfying click-clack noise when I flipped them. "Get seated, the two of you. There are belts if you feel like it."

  I opened the Bastion's PA system and gave Knight and Shy the same head's up. There were plenty of seats in the back that had belts and the like to keep them secured.

  "Gomorrah, you hear me?" I asked as I linked into some shared comms.

  "Loud and clear," Gomorrah replied. "Since you're the slower of us, why don't you take off first? I'll follow along and run a patrol route around you, just in case."

  She justed wanted to fly circles in her little muscle car, but I didn't poke fun at her for it. We all had our hobbies. "Got it," I replied. "Taking off now."

  The Bastion, fortunately, had some pretty good cameras mounted all around it. I linked my augs into the ship's systems entirely, then watched from six different angles at the same time as the ship rose in response to a slight shift of my foot on a pedal.

  We moved nice and slowly out of the parking garage. The moment the front of the ship was out, I had to make a slight adjustment to fight the winds howling by and, of course, the usual and constant New Montreal rain.

  I blinked, and at the same time, a bunch of teeny-tiny wipers flicked over the cameras that were starting to get rained on.

  Once we were out fully, I opened a GPS and quickly copied over the name of the place from Juno's last message to us. Then I gave the ship a bit of throttle and pulled up and over the middle lanes of hovering traffic.

  I was aware of the Fury coming up behind. She kept pace for a while, then shot ahead and started to do large circuits up ahead, only sometimes flying back to rejoin us before scouting out again.

  I kept a nice, steady pace, following the semi-transparent yellow line my GPS painted across the sky and only deviating once when I saw a flying drive-thru that was designed to serve larger trucks.

  I could tell that both Gomorrah and Hedgehog were deeply unamused, but Princess thought that hanging off the side of the Bastion to grab our order of drinks from an open-mouthed service worker was hilarious, and I got an extra large mocha-mocha ice cap with extra chocolate and whipped cream out of it, so it was worth it. Enough calories there to last me the week.

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  It wasn't too long before we were at the base and flying in a big circle around it while Gomorrah get clearance to land.

  Apparently, there were rules and old laws about just casually flying over military installations. I wasn't sure if they counted for much, but the base did, presumably, have a few AA installations.

  It was a strange spot. The mega city plate that New Montreal was built on just had a large, square hole in it, with straight sides and a few large off-ramps leading down into the pit. The base itself was in the shadow of half a dozen skyscrapers and older mega buildings.

  I imagined that a few of those belonged to the military, probably. The base was too small to store anything really fancy, though there was a line of wheeled tanks all parked nice and neat to one side, and there were a few larger mobile bases as well.

  Zooming in with one of the targeting cameras on one of the belly guns, I was able to make out rows of soldiers doing jumping jacks outside, and more running along a track.

  Must of sucked to be working out in the rain, but it wasn't me, so whatever.

  "We have clearance," Gomorrah said. "Park yourself next to me."

  The Fury tilted, then dropped down, spinning through a tight little circle before coming down for a smooth landing on four unfolding wheels.

  I brought the Bastion down after her, a little more sluggish, but that was fine. She parked in an open space in the middle of a muster field, and I came down right next to her.

  Once the landing gear finished hissing, I started to unlink myself from the ship's systems. "Well, that's the first, easy, part of the trip done. Who wants to go out and meet the stuffy old army folk?" I asked.

  "We should all go," Hedgehog said. "It'll make for a better show of force."

  "Eh, sure," I replied. I squeezed past, then slung my coat on and slipped my helmet back on. Didn't want to get my hair wet.

  The side doors of the Bastion came down with a pneumatic hiss and we stepped out as a group. We might have been able to pull off a badass entrance, but Shy was nursing a coffee and walking with her back hunched over, and Princess was... Princess. Her dress looked extra floofy today.

  We were greeted by a few familiar faces and a lot more who weren't. I recognized Lieutenant Colonel Juno in the lead, and a few steps behind him, Major Tinwhistle.

  "Hey," I called out.

  "Hello, Samurai Stray Cat," he replied with a sharp nod. "Welcome to CFB New Montreal, everyone. I'm glad to see you've arrived early."

  "Yeah, we're just about ready to head out, and the grunts get mighty annoyed if you make them wait too long," Tinwhistle said. She gave us an almost feral grin with that.

  "Cool. The sooner we go, the better," I replied. "What kind of, ah, force are we dealing with, here?"

  "Nothing too extravagant," Juno replied. "The Seventy-Seventh Recon Company, under Lieutenant Moreau." He gestured back to someone that I only vaguely recognized. "My Fifth Battalion, and Major Tinwhistle here managed to... borrow some vehicles to form a half-battalion-sized force."

  Tinwhistle's smile only grew. "Two MBTs, a mobile command centre, six wheelies, and all of my little engineers."

  Juno eyed me. "It's enough firepower to make a statement," he said. "Though it isn't anywhere near what you would need to mount a defence of a city the size of Quebec. If things are bad, we're going to need more."

  "Yeah. But if things are bad, then we'll just be the advanced force, right? Is what we have enough to mount a half-decent defence?"

  "It's nearly four hundred able-bodied soldiers," Juno said. "I'd like to think that'd enough to mount some sort of defence, yes."

  Fair enough. "Alright. Well in that case, you guys bring the muscle, we'll bring the explosions."

  "Can't you share a few?" Tinwhistle asked. "I haven't had fun like the Big Gun in a long time, now."

  "We'll see," I replied.

  Hopefully, this would be enough cavalry to keep things stable, at least.

  ***