Chapter Sixty-Two - Cat Out of the Bag

Chapter Sixty-Two - Cat Out of the Bag

Chapter Sixty-Two - Cat Out of the Bag

"Holy shit, guys, have you seen this? No no, it's on the stream, look, some samurai took it over?

Another? Oh, fuck, they're on all the streams, this is big shit!

Wait, wait, did she just say that Earth is gonna be destroyed?"

--Reaction Andy Dandy, livestream, 2057

***

I swallowed and tried not to let it show when Myalis filled the edges of my vision with the kind of information that the average streamer would die for. Viewership numbers, lists of channels and streams I was on, even a few rapidly-scrolling chats that were moving too quickly for me to read anything.

At least I could easily pick out the generic ???? emojis.

Another small box showed me what the world was seeing. It was... me. Well, my helmeted face, at least. It was a cool helmet but it was also rather... faceless? There was no expression there.

So, to start things off right while the viewership numbers were still climbing so fast that the ticker looked like it might spin itself out of control, I reached up and removed my helmet. The entire time I was aware that the camera was catching sight of the others in the background.

Tankette was by her tank, but also by Hedgehog who'd just arrived. She was tugging his uniform back on straighter and had licked her thumb to wipe a smudge off of his face. He seemed rather off put by the whole thing, but wasn't fighting her off any.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Emosythe next to Crackshot. They were both listening as Princess pointed to the Big Gun and gestured at a bunch of things.

My helmet came off, and I casually let it fall before running a hand through my hair. It was that fancy new tech hair, which was honestly just cheating. I had always liked having longer hair, but as a one-armed cripple that shit was hard to maintain. Lucy had always helped me get the knots out and brush it down. She liked doing it, and it wasn't like her own frizzy mop of hair was easily brushable.

This tech hair shit? Yeah, it just fell into place, curled just right, bangs where they ought to be and not a knot in sight. It was bullshit and proof that Myalis' space buddies were also bullshit. No one wearing a helmet for so long should remove it to perfect hair.

"Alright," I said as I looked back into the camera. I'd given myself thirty whole seconds to get my thoughts in order and I'd spent none of them actually thinking. Go me. "So, as I was saying... you might have noticed if you're the sort of dork to stare at the stars, but Mars is fucked. Planet's been overrun by aliens for a bit."

The chat sped up at that, and now the cat emotes were joined by little red circles.

"So, buncha top-tier samurai went over to Mars to clear it out, because we can't have the next nearest planet be covered in shit that needs killing. So far, all good yeah? But then the aliens flung Phobos--that's one of Mars' moons--at us."

I pointed with a thumb over my shoulder.

I waited for a moment. Nothing happened.

"Myalis, for fuck's sake, put Gomorrah's contact information on the screen."

Oh, fine.

The information appeared on the screen at about the same time as I got a text from Gomorrah. It was two words, one of which was very un-nun-like.

I chuckled to myself, then stopped when I realized that probably made me look like a creep. "Anyway. World's fucked, but we're working on it, so give us a few and don't lose your shit. I mean, in the worst case scenario we fail and then you won't have to worry about anything anymore, right?"

The Big Gun started to hum behind me, and I paused, not looking its way as the gun fired. All along the edges of the gun, steam came spitting out of the vents built into the sides of the barrel and there was a crack-thoom that made my hair stand on end.

I nodded.

"Yeah, anyway, Stray Cat, out. Good luck out there."

I saluted, then ended the video. The total viewership was in the mid two-digit millions. I took a breath, and when I let it out it was a little shaky. Fuck, that was bigger than the entire population of New Montreal. And I just knew that more people would be watching recordings of that whole thing after.

"You okay?" Gros Baton asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. I shook my head to clear it, then reopened those pictures that Lucy had sent me.

She had to know they were arriving mid-stream, right?

Unless she'd been distracted and didn't know.

Either way, I felt like I ought to go see her about now... before the adrenaline wore off... and before she changed out of that.

I deserved some amount of stress relief, as a treat, right?

Of course, Gomorrah chose that moment to call me, and it was clearly a group chat meant for all of us.

I groaned. Maybe we could just let the world end, then no one would ever have to deal with team meetings ever again.

***