“It’s almost a rite of passage, really. The mont you get selected to beco a Samurai you’ll have all the corps trying to rope you into the kind of shit nobody cares about. From rch, to ga appearances, to movies, hell, so even sell your deep fake porn. It’s not all bad, ‘course, maybe there are so corps you wanna work with, but you gotta be careful, y’know? Pick the wrong one and you might end up an indentured servant for life.”
- Samurai ‘Ben 12’ in an interview with ‘Samuraiz’, 2053
“What do you wanna eat today?” Chloe asked as we made our way back to the leisure room.
“Not sure, to be honest,” I replied, a bit lost in thought.
“Let’s make pizza. Proper pizza.” The way Jenna said it it sounded almost like a demand and I had to giggle at her tone despite myself.
“Sure, we can do that. I can get everything set up,” Chloe agreed readily, bee-lining it towards the kitchen corner.
I was left a bit lost in the entrance to the leisure room, not sure exactly what to do with myself. I was still stuck in my head thinking about the brothel and all the other things I had to keep in mind, not really able to relax.
“How about we take a dip in the pool?” Jenna asked with a smile, finally ripping out of my thoughts.
“Sure, that sounds like fun.”
Hopefully a bit of hot water would finally get out of my funk. And I had to admit that I looked forward to spending so ti with Jenna in the jacuzzi. There were the stray dirty thoughts, but despite my rather high libido, for once they weren’t at the forefront of my mind.
“Have fun. I’ll take a while since I wanna do this properly,” Chloe said while going through the cabinets and pulling out kitchen utensils and ingredients. “Self-made dough and all, this will be a pizza unlike any you ever ate before.”
Her excitent was obvious, and I let it infect . Watching her work was adorable and it reminded once more just how much I loved her. If I’d had to spend the rest of my life just watching her work, I could die a happy woman.
“Looking forward to it,” Jenna said with a smile, then slowly made her way over to the transparent door leading to the pool.
I followed a mont after, taking a deep breath and letting the normalcy bring back to reality.
Once we arrived at the pool, Jenna began to undress. She was a bit shy about it, but not in an embarrassed way, instead it felt like she simply wanted so modesty, which I could respect.
She did look damn good though and I was distracted by that for a mont, before I finally joined her in the hot water. It was an incredibly nice feeling and I let out a content sigh, simply enjoying it for a long mont.
At the mont the room was set to display a sort of nature reserve with a lot of green around us, sothing you’d never find anywhere unless you visited these really expensive parks catering to the rich and powerful.
“This is nice…” I muttered, closing my eyes and just letting the hot water wash away my worries.
“It really is…” Jenna agreed.
Then I yelped, when bubbles suddenly started to appear, making both Jenna and laugh.
“You could have warned ,” I said in a mock-accusatory tone.
“I could have,” she admitted shalessly.
“Then why didn’t you?” I teased.
“Because I like to be evil sotis?” Jenna replied with a teasing tone to her voice and a smirk that underlined the glimr in her eyes.
“How devious,” I replied with a sultry voice, then settled back into the pool comfortably and closed my eyes again to enjoy the feeling of the bubbles around .
We spend a good while in comfortable silence, just enjoying the bubble bath and relaxing. It helped trendously and I could even feel myself slowly drift off into a dreamy drowsiness, mind occupied by watching the chorus work absently.
Ever since the simulation, we had gotten a much better understanding of how we could converse ntally with one another, without interrupting anyone else. It was less about keeping secrets, since we all knew what the rest knew, but it made it all a bit more organised and quiet, sothing I could appreciate.
It also showed us just how much we still had to learn when it ca to being a Hive-Mind, lessons we eagerly explored. There was a lot of nuance to the organisation of a Hive-Mind, much more than just having dedicated roles and tasks.
And so of those lessons and exercises paid off when the door suddenly opened and three of Us walked in. I hadn’t even noticed them coming, which ant we had at least made so headway in acting a bit more independently from each other. Of course, it also helped that I had only watched them absently, not really focusing on what exactly was going on in detail. If I focused on things, I could easily observe the others without any trouble; we were one, a whole working together as Myriad.
Still, I was a bit surprised and I opened my eyes, turning to the group. The first was Myriad, the Hive-Princess, while the others were two of the drones that Myriad had set aside to act as our personal attendants. That group specifically had evolved a lot in the last day, taking great pains to ensure they knew how to understand people even outside of our Hive, and to expect certain demands or requirents. There were eight in total and each of them had done double duty to find ways in which they could best help the whole. In their case, they all were part of the Philosophers and the Burdened, making sure to keep a close eye on anything important.
“I hope we are not intruding,” Myriad said with a shallow bow.
“Of course not,” Jenna said with a smile, “Anything you need?”
“In a manner of sspeaking. Let uss begin with introductionss. Thesse are Joenna and Keity, two of the perssonal attendantss that are tassked with looking after Our Queen and, of coursse, you and Knight Chloe.” She waved at the two of Us in turn, each giving a small bow.
“Additionally, I am here to inform both of you that I have decided upon a new na. After our disscussionss I have ssettled on Junior. It wass a recomndation from Kayssa, one that I happen to like.” She gave a small bow of her own.
“Lasstly, there are sso developntss that I wish to inform you about. Primarily a ssmall group near the Rosse Carpet who sseemss dessperate to sspeak to Our Queen. They have not yet made any trouble, which is why I decided to inform you in persson. That ssaid, they might sstart trouble, sso we should not wait for too long. My Queen, I wish to travel to the Rosse Carpet to deal with the ssituation perssonally, if that iss permissible.”
Quickly diving into the chorus and checking on things myself, I saw what she was talking about. From the looks of things so corpo goons had rushed to the Rose Carpet, probably after being inford that we were present. Sohow we had missed them, not that I was sad about it. I wasn’t sure what they were hoping to accomplish–if I’d have to guess, probably trying to rope Us into so kind of contract or another.
I also figured out what Junior planned on doing, which I approved of, obviously. She had obviously put a lot of thought into things and I was very pleasantly surprised by how much she appeared to have learned from our incursion in the simulation. The way she had reorganised our Hive was very much in line with what I could rember seeing in the Devourer of World, although with so very clear differences focused on making sure we didn’t lose our way.
Nodding, I erged once more from the chorus, focusing on the here and now. “Of course. Good work, by the way, I like the way you thought about the Hive. I should probably pay more attention to that as well, it feels like I’m a bit behind.”
“It iss of no conssequence, my Queen,” Junior said with a formal smile. “We all are troubled, we jusst have different wayss of dealing with it. It iss my duty to organisse the Hive while you are preoccupied, sso do not feel bad about not paying attention.”
I nodded again, then turned to Jenna. “Could you maybe prep a shuttle or two for Junior and her contingent?”
Jenna giggled at that, “Sure. You can use the personal shuttle and I’ll have the two armored shuttles on standby for you to use. That said, you do know that you can ask Evelyn directly, right? No need to pass it by .”
“Thanks, Jenna,” I said with a warm smile, then turned to Junior. “I’ll trust you to handle this how you see fit. Might also be worthwhile to step up the training regint, just in case.”
“It will be taken care of, my Queen.” Junior bowed again, then she turned to leave.
“Isn’t it strange?” Jenna asked after she left, following Junior with her gaze. “Talking to yourself like that, I an. From my experience in the simulation, it’d be a lot quicker to just sort it out ntally, no?”
“Yes, Lady Jenna,” Joenna cut in with a warm smile. I hadn’t missed the fact that her na was damn close to Jenna’s, which was quite amusing. “But we also quite like to converse normally, especially after the simulation. In a way it is what makes us unique, but it also serves as a reminder, both to others and ourselves, that we are not like the Devourer of Worlds. We are Myriad.”
Jenna nodded at that approvingly, “Good. I’m glad that you could learn so much from that.”
“Oh, we’ve learned a lot,” I said, once more leaning back, “I just haven’t really been paying much attention. We are one, we are the chorus, but after the simulation we have also learned how much we have yet to learn. To know how to organise things, without bothering those who aren’t directly affected, is a skill that we probably should have thought about sooner. It doesn’t an that anyone can keep secrets or sothing, we are still one, but it makes the chorus more organised and more quiet.”
“Oh?” Jenna seed genuinely interested. “Might be worthwhile to return to the simulation then. I’m curious to see how that would change anything.”
“It’s a bit like the Devourer of Worlds, really, just with different priorities. We don’t want to beco like that, but it’s a very old Hive and one we can learn a lot from.”
“I hadn’t noticed any differences.”
“Probably because you aren’t an actual Hive-Mind. The things that stood out to Us are minor things, not really that obvious. But they add up and once you actually incorporate them it makes it all so much easier. In a way that is the strength of a Gestalt type Hive-Mind, like we are. We can act independently to a degree and separate the workload much easier. I’d imagine that Mask would see things very differently, she very likely couldn’t incorporate any of these things into her own day to day. Of course, there is also the fact that we have a Hive-Princess. Junior is rather important in our hierarchy and she’s the one who did most of the work.”
Jenna nodded at my words, seemingly able to follow the logic without much trouble. It probably helped quite a lot that she had experienced being a Hive-Mind. “I can see that. Any idea of what these folk want from you?”
I shrugged at that, “They’re corpo goons, probably want to get Us into so contract or whatnot. Not sure, don’t particularly care either. Junior will deal with them.”
The shuttles had been loaded quite quickly. I already had my contingent waiting by the ti Knight Jenna had prepared the shuttles for our use, so it only took a minute or so to load up and head out.
Of course, we only brought a token force. This was, in broad terms, a diplomatic mission, not a show of force. That said, I did think it beneficial for Us to appear as a competent adversary, diplomatically speaking. We weren’t a diplomatic mastermind by any stretch of the imagination, sothing that I would like to redy in the future with specific training courses, but so far we hadn’t obtained any yet, so we had to make due with the politics we knew.
Those being gang politics of course, which ant bringing the biggest guns to any negotiation.
Our Queen had used a similar strategy in our dealings with Red Crows and Purple Haze, and while the adversary this ti around was more trained in the ways of politics, we had the benefit of being Samurai, which was already a quite potent trump card.
I had also requested the help of Kaysa. While I typically didn’t deal directly with the AI that was assisting Our Queen, for this I wanted soone more knowledgeable on my side to help with any potential issues.
Sitting in the cockpit of Knight Jenna’s personal shuttle, I observed the city below while we made our way back to the Rose Carpet. Even from afar I could see multiple expensive looking vehicles parked nearby, a group of people surrounding each. Our scouts had observed their arrival shortly after we had left previously and Kaysa had been so kind to inform Us about the identity of the people present.
Most of them represented so corporation or another, although there was one group that was working for the Family branch in New Savannah, as well as one group that seed to be from another gang not far from the redlight district. They were quite easy to identify, since they were surrounding the one car that seed to fit in with the rest of their surroundings.
It was also the one group everyone seed to eye suspiciously. But they hadn’t made any trouble and had even inford Red Crows of their plans to et Us, before entering the territory. That spoke of soone who knew how business was conducted around here and earned them so points in my eyes.
When our shuttles closed in, everyone turned to observe Us, which was to be expected. We settled down a bit further down the street, the shuttles being too big to settle down next to the parking cars. Getting up I nodded to Myra and Sienna, the two attendants that had accompanied .
The Queen’s Guard would have been preferable, of course, as a show of force, however, pulling them away from their duty was not sothing we even considered. Their duty was the safety of Our Queen, and that was by far our highest priority.
Upon exiting the shuttle all eyes were on the three of Us, slowly making our way over to the entrance of the Rose Carpet. We were careful to appear powerful, but not aggressive, even if it might have been a lost hope, considering the contingent of War Drones exiting the shuttles behind Us.
I paid close attention to the people around and their reaction to Us. Not few didn’t hide their disdain or suspicion, letting know that they were either not well trained or not high up the corporate ladder. An interesting, but ultimately useless, observation.
Finally we arrived in front of the Rose Carpet, the War Drones taking position on either side of the entrance. They stood at attention, but didn’t make any obvious moves to indicate aggression or combat readiness. A formality, of course, but an important one.
“I am Junior, Hive-Princesss and repressentitive of Myriad,” I said calmly, letting my gaze roam around the group of people. I paid close attention to their heart rate and body language, good indicators for their opinion on Us.
As I had expected, they didn’t seem to take my gaze very well. Not a surprise, our eyes were strange by human standards. It was amusing to watch them squirm, however, even if I pushed that down in favour of more important considerations.
“We have obsserved your arrival after our departure and have been ssent to disscusss bussinesss. Pleasse, if you would be sso kind ass to follow Uss.”
With a gesture I motioned them towards the entrance, inviting them to join in. It might be a bit heavy handed of Us to barge into the general business of the brothel like this, but we had already inford Victor of the developnt. Not to ntion that we didn’t want to discuss any business out in the open street.
He had been so kind to set a room aside for Us to entertain our guests in. I didn’t doubt that he would also use this to promote his own business, which ant a mutually beneficial arrangent that I couldn’t begrudge him in the slightest.
Of course there was a lot of hesitation, many of the representatives unsure if they should follow our invitation or not. At least from the less experienced ones.
The only group who didn’t hesitate at all was the gang that had co to talk to Us, slowly making their way over. Their leader, a man I would guess to be in his late twenties, gave a polite nod, then walked inside. His guards remained at the entrance, taking position next to our War Drones. The fact that they did so without any obvious reaction did an that they were probably quite experienced.
Two of the groups I had flagged as being more experienced, at least if their deanour and body language was anything to go by, quickly followed the example. They gave a smile that didn’t quite reach their eyes, before they followed the invitation with a few words of polite gratitude.
Only then did the rest move, giving each other so suspicious glances, before giving so polite words as well as they walked inside. Only then did I follow myself, Myra already having gone ahead to lead our guests to the room we would have our eting in.
Sienna followed after and once I had entered the room she closed the door, taking position next to it, while Myra pulled out a chair for . With a polite, thankful nod in her direction I sat down, observing the others who were also getting seated.
After everyone had made themselves comfortable, and a pair of Joytoys in rather revealing clothes had brought so refreshnts that nobody but the gang group seed to touch, I spoke up.
“Onto bussinesss, shall we? Let uss sstart with proper introductionss. Ass I ssaid, I am Junior. It iss my tassk to overssee and organisse the Hive-Mind that makess up Myriad. With are Ssienna and Myra. Jusst to be very clear and to avoid any missundersstandingss, through Uss Our Queen can participate in thiss eting, ass we are one. We are Myriad, sso deal with uss the ssa way that you would with Our Queen.”
The reactions to this were mixed, especially when the three of Us talked as one to hamr ho the point. So seed outwardly unbothered, while so, most often mbers of the entourage each representative had brought, seed less inclined to believe my words. Or maybe they simply couldn’t understand what it ant, exactly. Not that I would take the ti to lay it out in detail for them.
“Who would like to go firsst?” I asked after a mont of silence.
I wasn’t about to try and organise the order in which they wanted to present whatever business proposition each of them had for Us. Really, the only reason I took the ti out of my day to even entertain them, was as an opportunity for learning and because Our Queen wanted to build a certain image for Us. Open to discussion, but very specific in our dealings.
After another mont of silence one of the two more experienced representatives spoke up. He was a handso man around thirty if I would have to guess. Kaysa had given detailed profiles for each, but I didn’t bother checking them that thoroughly. It was one thing to get a basic overview of who each of them was, and what they wanted; it was sothing entirely different to study their entire recorded history. That would just be wasted ti.
“As it appears nobody else wishes to speak up first, let start off this eting. Before I start I would like to express my gratitude for accepting my impromptu request for a eting. I would wager that most of the people present feel very similar.” He gave a friendly smile, although one that was obviously the HR kind of friendly.
I didn’t miss the way he painted himself as the spokesperson for the entire group, even though they had no connections to each other as a whole. I was unsure if that was because he wanted to appear as the gracious kind of person willing and eager to cooperate, if it was a powerplay in regards to the other corporations that had sent representatives, or simply because it was a personal preference. To be entirely honest, I didn’t care either way.
“My na is Sebastion Naomir and I represent the New Savannah branch of Nimbletainnt Incorporated. We would like to inquire if Myriad might be willing to entertain the idea of entering into a contract with Nimbletainnt Incorporated regarding rights to her likeness and rchandise. Of course she could gain substantially from such an arrangent, both through cuts of the profits of any rchandise sales, as well as what our company can offer in benefits.”
The way he talked made regard him with a bit of displeasure. As much as he tried to paint himself as this benefactor, the fact that he seed to entirely ignore my earlier comnt painted him as soone who didn’t listen.
“Rejected.” I said after a mont, not elaborating further.
“Miss Junior, I assure you that such a contract would only help Myriad greatly-”
With a wave of my hand I cut him off. “Misster Naomir, the way you addresss alone iss indication that you did not even pay attention to my wordss. We are Myriad. We are one. For easse of communication with otherss we have adopted nass so that we could be referred to. That ssaid, I inford you of our connection with Myriad, yet you sseem to think that we are ssimply repressentitivess ssent to lissten to your sself ssatissfied babbel. Unlesss you accept that dealing with Myriad anss dealing with uss, any further disscusssion is moot.”
I shook my head in a show of disapproval. “In addition the sservicess you wish to ssell uss are not the kind of sservicess we are interessted in. Should we decide to enter the rchandisse market under Nimbletainnt Incorporated, then we will contact you, not the other way around. Good day.”
Sebastian seed to maul over that for a mont, obviously displeased by the developnt. For a mont I even thought he might try to bully his way through sohow, but instead he simply nodded and got up.
“I see. Then I apologise for the rudeness I have shown. Should you change your mind I am certain you can find a way to contact . Nimbletaintnt Incorporated is always open to cooperation with Myriad or any other Samurai who wishes to do business with us.”
I gave him a polite nod, a simple acknowledgent of his words, and with a polite farewell he left, his lackeys following after him. Sienna showed them out, while I turned my attention back to the group still seated.
Truth be told, I was a bit surprised how well he took the rejection and how quickly he acquiesced. The exact reasons didn’t matter to , but I had to admit to a certain level of suspicion. Nimbletainnt was not a company to be trifled with. Sothing to keep in mind for the future.
“Who wishess to go next?”
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