It's a bit of an inside secret, but there's always a room or two in every hotel and equivalent lodging service perpetually ready but never open. The two worst customers to not have a room for are spoiled corporate hotshots and short tempered Samurai.

  -Jade Lanak, COO of Stay Away Lodgings, 2051

  Getting a room was surprisingly easy. The receptionist initially gave me a hard time, going on about additional fees for not having a reservation and going through eight separate membership options, but the quick intervention of my handy-dandy space AI sped up the negotiations significantly, although I did have to ask her to keep quiet about the whole Samurai thing. Less than a minute later, with the help of a sizable tip, I had a door key in hand and was happily sauntering down the slightly run down walkway of the motel.

  Opening the door, I was greeted by a room that was…fine? Seen better, but also seen worse. Had the usual beds, TV, night stands, and tables, but the place just had this air of tackiness to it. The color of the walls was slightly too yellow. The door creaked just enough to notice, but not enough to be an issue. The TV only played those dumb filler channels with AI-generated soap operas, but that was basically standard for every room I'd ever booked. Which I could count on one hand, but what I was seeing did match.

  Most importantly, they did indeed have a bathroom with a shower. My brain failed to calculate exactly how fast my clothes were thrown off my body, but before I knew it I was stark naked in the stall and immersing myself in the hot water that cascaded onto my body. The hygiene spray did the job, but there was nothing quite the sensation of good ol’ soap and water on skin.

  Quite predictably my eyes soon fell on the only part of my body that wasn't bare skin: my forearms. Where once calloused skin and bone once lay was now the rigidity of solid, jet-black metal, unblemished by the water fruitlessly dribbling onto it. I let some pool within my palm and observed how oddly normal it felt.

  That was the weirdest thing about the arms: how often I didn't notice them. One would think that a pair of solid black arms would be blindingly obvious to not be my own, but such realizations only ever came when I was fixating on that fact. When I touched something, it felt like making contact with my old flesh and blood ones. Cold was cold, hot was hot, everything felt like it should have. The illusion only broke when I would intentionally bring my hand across the smooth metallic surface of the adjacent arm, and that case was pretty few and far between.

  Either I had just grown accustomed to the arms, or this was yet another wonder that came with becoming a Samurai.

  While my hands could no longer become clammy my toes still could, so after enough contemplation I was forced to leave the shower. I walked out of the bathroom with the pair of pajamas I had brought in the bag, using a few spritzes of GreenFresh to remove any remaining desert stank. Drying my hair was always going to be a pain in the ass, but the combination of a spare towel and some patience was enough to get it all dried down to their usual straight blond locks.

  Finally having a place to let the exhaustion take hold, I flopped backwards onto the bed, soon staring up at the textured ceiling of the room. Pushing all the tension out of my body, out came a single noise: “Ugh.”

  Quite the trek, wasn’t it?

  “Yup.”

  Was it worth it?

  That made me pause. On one hand, a lot of it did suck. The heat, the monotony, the bugs all made the trip a titanic pain in the ass for most of the trip. I’d probably never do it that way ever again, to be honest with you. Yet on the other, after all the chaos of Targ and the sudden influx of excitement and madness that came with becoming a Samurai, the silence of the desert was golden. It was just you and the road, with whatever tiny wonders to catch your eye.

  I closed my eyes and brought my focus to my ears. The soft tick of the room’s analog clock, a weird choice in a mostly digital age. The muffled bustle of the world outside the room, just enough to be essentially silent, but enough to make out undefined noises if you really paid attention. The rise and fall of my own breathing which became manual after thinking about it.

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  All of this made the answer clear. “Yeah, it was.”

  I laid in silence for another while just embracing those tiny sensations before Cal finally chose to break the silence once more.

  I’d like to pose a question to you, Max.

  “Shoot.”

  Many Vanguard on Earth do not care to keep a low profile like you do, instead choosing to embrace their full status as a method for enacting change and gaining more physical advantages, like cultural acclaim or monetary capital. You, on the other hand, don’t seem nearly as interested in presenting yourself openly like many others do, including your direct peers like Bone Hawk. Why is that?

  “Don’t you already know the answer to that?” I bluntly asked. “What with your computing power that could eclipse the planet a bajillion times over?”

  Your rhetorical question is, of course, correct. I have long since calculated the reason with an accuracy within a hundred thousandth of a percent margin of error, but hearing it in your own words is far more useful data.

  “So I guess I am just data to you now, Cal?”

  Please do not misconstrue my words, Max.

  I let out an amused huff. “Just teasing.”

  The answer itself came easy to me, but putting it all into words took a minute. ”I… Samurai always came off as these larger than life figures, y’know? Kind of like celebrities, but with the firepower to blow through an entire army of xenos with the magic chips in their heads. It’s incredible, but also kinda scary in a way.

  “To the average joe like…well I can’t say me anymore, they feel like something more than human. Or maybe they just stop being human, even. So far above all of us on the ground with their flying fortresses and plant monsters to fight. What’s the phrase? Losing the forest for the trees? Maybe.

  “I don’t want to be like that. I always want to be on the ground, not holed up in some hypertech mansion, and loudly declaring ‘I’m a Samurai!’ seems like the wrong way to do it. Samurai ain’t the only people who can do good things, and I want to make sure I’m human when doing those good things. Something like that.”

  A moment passed. Then a response came.

  Several of your assumptions about other Vanguard would be seen as largely incorrect, but I understand the sentiment behind such views. Thank you for answering.

  “Any time, Cal. Literally.” I tapped the side of my head. “I’m kind of stuck with you.”

  I could think of no greater honor.

  I let out a laugh, then pushed myself up to an upright position. “Alright, well, I should probably get some actual shut eye. Any interesting places for tomorrow I should know about while I tuck myself in?”

  Unfortunately, Orson is quite light on notable recreational activities outside of the usual suspects for entertainment, such as bars, movie theaters, and parks. There also isn’t much Mesh activity in this area, likely due to the average income of the town being unable to finance the tech. You are free to investigate my claims about it as you like, but you have shown minimal interest in purchasing any Mesh-related items or catalogs.

  I nodded. “Mostly because it seems like a waste of points, thanks. So there’s jack all to do in this place?”

  Note my choice of words being “quite light”. If you are interested, there is a mining museum further in the city that you can peruse tomorrow.

  Too many dots connected at once regarding the words ‘mining museum’, and a disgusted noise forced itself from my lips. “And have Murdock spout its propaganda about their obviously bullshit rags-to-riches story? Nah, I’m good, thanks. I’ll probably just wander around town until I find something that catches my eye, then.”

  By this point, I had tucked myself quite snugly into the mediocre bedding, and now lay comfy and without tension, staring at the discount monitor hanging on the opposing side of the room. “Can you turn something on for me, Cal?” I asked, turning down the lights until they were just a slight warm glow.

  I will try to find something that doesn’t make you gag on sight, Max.

  “Appreciate it.” Soon, the room was filled with soft but melodramatic rambling from behind the screen of the TV, and my eyes slowly drifted shut as the exertion of the previous days finally took pulled me into slumber.