Stray Cat Strut Chapter Fifty-Seven – Broadcast Necromancy

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Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk system apocalypse!) - Ongoing

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Love Crafted (Interactive story about an eldritch abomination tentacle-ing things!) - Completed!

Drear's Ten-Tea-Cle Café (An insane Crossover about cute people and tentacles) - Hiatus

Cinnamon Bun (A wholeso LitRPG!) - Ongoing

The Agartha Loop (A Magical-Girl drama!) - Volu Two Complete!

Lever Action (A fantasy western with cha!) - Volu One Complete!

Heart of Dorkness (A wholeso progression fantasy) - Completed!

Dead Tired (A cody about a Lich in a Wuxia world doing Science!) - Ongoing

Sporemageddon (A fantasy story about a mushroom lover exploding the industrial revolution!) - Ongoing

Past the Redline (A girl goes too fast, then she does it again) - Completed!

Magical Girl Crystal Genocide (Magical Girls accidentally the planet, and then try to fix it) - Completed!

Magical Girl Rending Nightmare (A sequel to Crystal Genocide! Cute girls in a soviet dystopia having a picnic on the roadside) - Volu Two Completed!

Noblebright (A shipcore AI works to avenge humanity) - Completed!

The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist (The Empress of Mars finds love) - Completed!

Pokebun (Broccoli Bunch in the world of Pokemon) - Hiatus

Queen Violence (An Assassin Reborn as a Kitten) - Completed!

No Strings Attached (An Elden Ring/Bloodborne inspired progression fantasy) - Ongoing

Chapter Fifty-Seven - Broadcast Necromancy

"-Okay... okay, so this might be a bad idea, but hear out.

-No.

-Co on! She's never been more popular!

-They blew up a corporation's headquarters like... two hours ago! We are not going to make and market dolls of them without permission. Do you have a death wish?

-C'mon!

-No!"

--Overheard discussion about My First Stray Cat Dolls, 2057

***

I got back ho a bit after Lucy and discovered her slumped back on the couch, looking exhausted.

"You good?" I asked.

"Hmm," she replied before cracking one eye open. "I gave a speech."

"Was it good?" I asked.

"It was great," she replied.

I smiled. "I wish I was there."

"Nah," she said with the laziest little wave of her hand. "You're too... you. People wouldn't have listened to as much. Maybe more? I don't know. Too much to think about."

"Uh-huh," I said. "Are you okay?"

Lucy yawned, then nodded. "Just tired. Public speaking kinda sucks."

"I just imagine them all naked," I lied.

Lucy snorted and made a weak attempt to kick my leg, but I hopped back and out of range. "Idiot," she muttered.

"Your idiot," I confird. "Do you need help getting to bed?" I knew my Lucy well enough to tell that she wasn't in the mood for anything fun in or out of bed, but she did look like she could use a few hours of shut-eye.

"If I go now I'll wake up at like, four AM and won't be able to sleep, then I'll be cranky all day. Nah, better to stay up. I'll watch so slop on TV and get one of the kittens to make so grub."

"Slop with slop," I said with a nod. An old favorite. "I'mma head out, then. I haven't played with the Nyanzerfaust in a hot minute. Thing's never going to get reassembled if I don't put so hours in."

Lucy nodded. "Go have fun with your big toys," she said.

Laughing, I slipped out of the room, moving to the side to let two running kittens pass. Making it to the garage, I found myself... kind of quiet?

Like, in my head. There was a lot to think about, a lot of shit going on all at once. Lucy's big recruiting pitch was going to have consequences whether it worked or not. The gang thing was a whole situation. The conclave was going to need more organizing. I'd need to contact so people, call in so favours.

Then there was the little stuff I had to look over. The sewers, the prosthetics clinic. Maybe helping Tankette or Shy or both move in.

The kittens, the brats living here, were starting to have a future too, and I'd need to help them with that as well. But that felt like a more distant problem for the mont.

What else? The gangs, the corps, the other samurai, the governnt, the people?

There was a lot of shit circling around inside of my head.

"Myalis, can you find a good radio channel?" I asked.

I'll find whatever's least awful. Human music leaves a lot to be desired.

"Does it?" I asked. "Well, I've never been musically inclined, but I'm afraid that if you make listen to so perfect alien music, it'll ruin the taste of my trashy earth stuff, you know?"

I think I understand. There's sothing enjoyable about seeing imperfections.

I snorted. That was definitely a jab. Too bad I was too imperfect to understand it. Myalis found a radio channel that was half talkshow, half music, and sohow no ads?

Or... maybe Myalis was clipping out the ads and playing music of the exact sa length in the space where the ads would be. That felt like sothing she could do.

A few minutes later, seven ads about cat foods played in a row, so she was definitely fucking with .

Oh well. I got to work on the Nyanzerfaust. The ch had a lot of small bits of damage that needed looking into still. A few chunks were outright replacents, and I winced as I spent a few dozen points buying armoured panels and so internal parts.

Couldn't repair those, and so were so finicky that even the printer couldn't make copies.

The rest, though, wasn't too bad.

I'd removed most of the damaged parts, and now I was into the reassembly. That was still a whole process. Taking things apart was easier than putting them back together, and that wasn't just so la analogy about the city as a whole.

Well, it could be, but I wasn't the analogy sort.

The radio switched back to the host talking. At first it was so random news. Politics, then so gag segnts, then talking about so celebrity whose na I'd heard before but who I wouldn't be able to pick from a lineup if asked.

My attention perked up as one of the hosts ntioned the ceasefire, though.

"Did you see it?" the female host asked.

"Yeah! With my own eyes. I was flying over to the studio, which as keen listeners will know, is in central New Montreal, when suddenly there's this big boom and my hovercar goes rocking. I thought soone collided with . Or a bird. That's happened once and my insurance premium still hasn't recovered."

"Oof! But what was it like? I saw the videos, but that's not the sa as being there."

"Yeah, you're right. I looked over and there's just this entire building on fire. Well, the top part, but from above it looked like the whole thing. I thought maybe soone had pulled a 9/11, but it didn't look like that. Then woosh, all the fire was gone. It only lasted a couple of minutes at most."

"Reports say that there was only one casualty. A mber of Rama Corp LLC's C-suite."

"They passed in the fire?"

"Beheaded mid-ergency eting at the company headquarters a whole ten minutes before the building exploded."

"Incredible. I heard a lot of people saying that it was the local samurai's way of sending a ssage."

"Yeah, well I might not have been the one the ssage was aid at, but I heard it loud and clear. Don't ss with the fire nun."

"Hah! I don't think that's quite it. The New Montreal Gang Ceasefire leaked just an hour or two ago. It's all over social dia. Turns out Stray Cat was the one who penned it."

"What's it say? I didn't have ti to read through a contract this evening."

"Oh no, it's barely a page. You know how direct so samurai are about things. Basically, it boils down to 'keep your head low and don't rock the boat' but directed at the gangs."

"And so corps."

"And so corps. I think she warned them not to take advantage of the situation, and Rama Corp LLC did just that."

"Phew! Well, they won't do it twice."

"And now, so killer new beats by Kuroii!"

I bobbed my head to so base-heavy technopunk while fiddling with the next part that needed assembling. The news had spread, then. Or at least, it had spread as far as the radio of all things.

I figured that ant it would be on all the local news channels too. If there were any gangs that hadn't been clued in yet, this might be the wakeup call to pay attention.

And it might be a nice way to warn other corps not to ss around either.

There was such a thing as 'too expensive to try.' Hopefully any bigger corporation would see the costs and decide that there were more economical ways to fuck around.

"Ah, shit," I muttered.

What is it?

"I just rembered that I need to visit Princess. It kind of just, slipped my mind until just now." I grumbled under my breath, but... yeah, it had to be done. I'd visited all the rest. Might want to take a minute out of my day tomorrow to look in on Gros Baton and Hedgehog as well.

If they hadn't killed themselves, then we could use that building, and I could use two more sowhat-willing volunteers to help with the conclave. It'd be good for their reps or sothing.

Crap, was I becoming like Deus Ex? Foisting off all of the shit I didn't want to do onto younger samurai?

No, of course not. I was way hotter than the pipsqueak.

That ant that tomorrow was going to be another loaded day. School, then more running around. But hey, loaded days weren't all bad.

I'd need to find a few not-loaded days to finish up the repairs on this ch though, because as well as they were going, it was still going to take a few more days to get anything done.

h, whatever. I listened to so music, so comntary, more ads for cat products, and mostly just chilled out and tried not to think too hard. I was surprisingly good at not thinking too hard.

A whole lifeti of practice.

***

A note from RavensDagger

A... rather unique, SCS fanfic just dropped. It's not a week old yet, but it's been updating rapidly~ Bit of a strange take on the SCS world, but I dig it.

After the reclamation of Atlanta, Sergeant Major, now Ex-Vanguard, Baek Yang retires to the Alpharetta Affiliation Zone: A gabuilding designed to be a fortress, haven, and arcology all at once. He promised to spend the rest of his days living a peaceful life, and is doing his darndest to keep to it.

Until the antithesis invade his ho, trapping everyone within. As the tower becos a hellish dungeon, this old man must answer the call to have any hope of getting out alive. Unfortunately, he’s already put his mantle of samurai behind him, sothing his AI attempts to rectify given the circumstances.

Becoming the first (and currently only) mber of the Eternal Protector Sect, Baek Yang must uncover the conspiracy of the AAZ, and save as many lives as possible before the entire building is consud by the Demonic (Antithesis) Threat!

These plants dare ruin his retirent. They are courting death!!!!

Links:

sroyalroad/fiction/126300/grass-cutting-sage-a-scs-fanfiction

s/series/1749194/grass-cutting-sage/