“Okay, so there’s three types of Samurai with regards to buying stuff. The Buy-as-you-go who gets stuff constantly and never gathers up enough points to buy anything big, the Save-and-Splurge who sets their sights on a big new toy and waits until they can afford it. And the Save-and-plan, who look ahead and think about each piece and how it will all go together, then buy a whole kit at once.
“What’s that? I didn’t answer your question? Do you not see the thousands of antithesis surrounding me? Now is not the time to be making purchases!”
--Sorah on livestream, 2054
***
Tara waved at the avatar while Kaitlyn smiled and cooed at her. “You look so cute, Corie!”
“Master?“ Ginny, however, turned to me with narrowed eyes. “Marcus, what have you done with Corie?”
I sputtered for a moment, trying to protest, until Ginny lost it, breaking into loud guffaws.
Before they could become further distracted, I redirected the conversation. “Something that Tara said reminded me of my father’s advice last night, and we’ll need to add some things to the upgrade plan.”
“What advice was that, Master?” Corie asked.
“That more than figuring out how to win yesterday’s battles, I need to prepare for tomorrow’s.”
“There’s several options that would allow you to do predictive modeling, Master. That’s the closest to a crystal ball you’ll find for where the next battles will be. And no one has ever come up with a way to precisely predict when or where a new incursion will come. Most of what people call incursions are hives popping up after they weren’t fully cleaned up, like yesterday. Those are easier to predict.”
“No, something more concrete, like how to handle what antithesis I will be fighting and how to handle the quantities.”
“So you’re asking more about what the Anti’s are like?” Ginny’s question was closer to the half-formed idea I was groping for.
I paused to consolidate my thoughts, then tried again. “I can see some details about the future battles. First, that I’ll have more hordes to deal with. But also that I will also have to deal with bigger models.”
“That’s true. At some point, waves like you saw yesterday will not be worth your time, and you’ll need either heavier models or to start taking on whole hives on your own to pay for the higher-level gear.” Corie followed my thinking better.
“Right, so I need to know how to kill the stronger models before I run into them. And I probably will need to upgrade my weapon to do that.”
“Something like the Anti’s tactics?” Tara asked.
“Each model’s strengths and weaknesses. Where they are more vulnerable, to what. And what the vital areas are. I realize it may not be comprehensive, but as much as I can get.”
Corie’s avatar looked impressed. “I don’t know if anyone on earth has asked for that. Let me think about how to provide that with what you have.”
“Sure. Once I know where to hit them, I can start on figuring out how to do it.”
She struck a classic thinking pose, hip cocked and head leaning to the side with a finger on her cheek. After a few seconds, Corie replied, “I found a training module that will provide deep information on the anatomy and physiology of the antithesis. The training has info on tens of thousands of models and variants. Note that many of these will not be seen on Earth at all. You’ll have to choose what catalog to use to buy the info. Most of them are biological in nature.”
“If you’re not using the catalog yourself, then look for something that has tech you can sell.” Ginny said.
A list of about thirty catalogs replaced her Avatar, along with short descriptions of what they covered and a relative figure of the cost. In my visor, a chart appeared showing how the figure related to actual points. A quick scan showed that most of the catalogs were indeed biological in nature, covering the spread from biology to genetics to xeno-botany. From their descriptions, I could tell that, barring some strange circumstances, I would never be using the catalog again. I started searching for the cheapest catalog.
“Encyclopedia Galactica.” Tara had jumped ahead and voiced her suggestion.
“Hunh? Oh, yeah, that one.” Ginny chimed in.
I checked the entry for it:
Encyclopedia Galactica
Cost: Highest
Covers: Modules on proven knowledge, skills, and processes, both practical and esoteric. No material products.
I winced. In the chart, “Highest” equaled 250 points, making that catalog at least twice as much as any other on the list. “Why that one?”
Kaitlyn looked puzzled too. “That sounds more like a university’s curriculum. Don’t corpos usually want tech they can make and sell?”
“Exactly. There’s many of these technologies we’re getting from the Samurai that we don’t understand how they work. I saw a blog post recently that showed how many things can’t be modified because we don’t know why it was built the way it was.” Ginny grinned. “Sell these info sets to the right people, and you’ll make a killing.”
“She’s right, Master. The info in the encyclopedia will be quite unique, and you can address nearly any topic. I don’t know that any of Earth’s Vanguards have used it. This catalog is more commonly used later on in a civilization’s uplift process.” The list disappeared, and Corie’s avatar returned. “What do you think, Master? Shall I add it to the list?”
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I rolled my eyes at Corie, which set the others to giggling. “Yes. Now about the new gun. I need to do more damage per hit. Generally that means higher caliber.”
“The Roomsweeper can handle other types of rounds, though it isn’t the best at it. You unlocked a catalog of types of rounds so you could get the guidable flechettes.”
“Can it handle heavier rounds?”
“Only slightly. It’s limited to under .22 caliber, and even those move much slower.”
“It’s really just a high-speed light machine gun, then. I had enough trouble with the M-6. I don’t see that taking down a Model Twelve, much less anything in the twenties.”
“There’s the Stalwart, a heavy-duty automatic rifle, known for accuracy at the cost of speed. The barrel and chamber will adjust for several sizes of rounds from nine to twenty millimeters and a range of propellant charges at each caliber. It does have a slower rate of fire, and the magazines are pretty small. The higher and variable caliber allows the use of a number of round types, like high explosive, desiccant, and armor-piercing.”
“The larger Anti’s tend to come with a bunch of smaller stuff with them, right? That’s how they’re shown in the news reports.” Kaitlyn asked.
“Yes. Many stronger models will usually have a bunch of weaker forces to act as scouts or a defensive line. But not all. There’s several types that do well or even better alone.”
I caught on to Kaitlyn’s train of thought. “I’d still have to keep something like the Roomsweeper to clear out the chaff, or else have people with me. Switching weapons, especially rifles, takes a combat forever; do it at the wrong time and you’ll get jumped while unarmed or distracted. Been there, done that, and it’s thanks to Ginny and Kaitlyn that I didn’t have to do it long.”
Corie’s avatar laid a finger on her lips in a thoughtful pose. “I suppose we could find something that combines both, Master. But it’s going to cost you.”
“One area where I know how much quality matters is weapons. I’m willing to spend a lot as long as it works. What do you have in mind?”
“Very well, I present the Deuce Rail.” She held her arms crossed in front of her and nodded hard enough for the ponytail to bounce. A rifle appeared, hovering in the air before her. “A dual-barrel rifled railgun in a vertical over/under configuration.” As she spoke, the display of the rifle exploded into a parts view, showing each section as she discussed it.
“The lower barrel is an upgrade of the Roomsweeper that can fire in burst mode only, launching 3 to 5.56 mm rounds at three times the rate of the Roomsweeper. The size of and speed within the bursts can be adjusted electronically, but sustained fire rate is limited by heat dissipation. Short-term bursts of upwards of three hundred per second are easily achievable.
“The upper barrel is extended for greater accuracy but staggered backwards to keep the overall length short and nimble. It can handle rounds from 7.62 up to 20 mm but is a single-shot, semi-automatic only. The cycle time is short enough that even with the full speed of your enhancements, rounds will be ready as fast as you can pull the trigger.
“As a railgun, all rounds are caseless, which allows even the smallest rounds to pack more punch than a similar weight gunpowder round. The system uses three magazines. A larger underslung magazine for the automatic, a smaller one for the heavy barrel, and a shared energy pack by the stock. It uses an electronic trigger, so you can switch between barrels without changing hand positions.
“Empty, it has a mass of 7 kg, a bit over twice that of the AK-47. That’s heavier than a standard rifle, but it’s the best I can do without adding another catalog. I doubt you’ll notice once the strength boost from your enhancements kicks in.”
“It costs 500 points plus an additional catalog.” Corie texted me privately.
“Why the faster rate on the lower barrel? I could barely keep up with the Roomsweeper.”
“Master, you were barely beginning to use the capability of the Roomsweeper. With the speed enhancements and by leveraging the full capabilities of your hind-brain to manage the trajectories, the number of fully guided rounds you can have in flight could easily reach the high tens. More if you accept some unguided ballistic time on their flights.”
“And the range?”
“Muzzle velocity will vary based on the round, of course, but it’s competitive with most assault rifles. The upper barrel is optimized for 500-800 meters. The lower barrel’s range is shorter at only 300-350 meters. The limitations are mainly due to the heat sink, which is shared by the two barrels.
“What is the catalog that I’d have to get for this? For that matter, what catalogs do I have now? And you mentioned a munitions catalog, but I don’t remember that one.”
--The new catalog will be Class I Portable Mass Drivers for 100 points. Before we finalize the upgrades, you’ll get a full breakdown of the point costs. Here’s a list of the catalogs on your glasses.
I guess Corie felt that it would be too personal for her to share the full list with the team. A new list came up on my app: Catalogs
- Class I Kinetic Rifles — Kinetic rifles, machine guns, and long guns.
- Fixed Point, Lethal Transition Melee Weaponry — Melee weapons of all kinds and sizes.
- Class I Medical Utilities — Basic medicine and healing applications.
- Combat Engineering Essentials — Tools for altering the battlefield
- Basic Sensor Drones — Simple drones for monitoring and remote observation
- Class I Modular Equipment — General equipment from helmets to shovels
- Valerian SymSynTech — Valeria’s Symbiotic Synergistic Technology
- Class I Basic Cyberwarfare Utilities — Cyber, electronic, and Mesh tools
- Esoteric Munitions — Non-standard rounds for guns, rifles, turrets, and cannons
- Class I Energy Weapons — Simple energy weapons from melee to laser turrets.
- (Pending) Encyclopedia Galactica — Scientific information and instruction from general to specific.
- (Pending) Class I Portable Mass Drivers — Handheld or mobile-mounted coilguns, railguns, and other non-chemically propelled launchers.
Esoteric Munitions was highlighted, and presumably the catalog I’d missed. I made a note to explore its contents later.
“With all the madness of this morning, I never did find out if you had time to look at the armor designs we sent last night?”
“I had a question about that. You didn’t include your family on the email?” Ginny looked puzzled.
“Mom won’t care how I look, Dad would try to make it into some kind of uniform, and Jane… she’ll try to guilt trip me into something humiliating. I trust you all to at least be sensible in your taste.”
“I had a couple thoughts.” Kaitlyn said. “After trying to describe them several times, I figured it would be easier to do in person, so I dragged the others along.” She glanced at Tara, who lay curled up on the couch beside me, eyes closed and half asleep already. I nodded back to her.
“So here is the idea…” I went on to explain how the armor could expand and retract and the other upgrades. Corie showed the new look, including both with the armor and without. We went back and forth for a while, hammering out details, and in the end, created a look human enough to not scare children but also exotic enough to easily be identified as a Samurai.
Eventually we were satisfied with the look, and it was time to install the upgrades. Tara was fully asleep by this time, complete with adorable tiny snores, and Ginny and Kaitlyn had to head off to their classes, leaving me effectively alone to do the upgrades.