Bubblegum Black: For A World Without Gold

by STMPD

November, 2069. Following a massive financial crisis and the threat of a megacorporate takeover, Balalaika hires the armored vigilantes known as the Knight Sabers to save the city. What follows is a firestorm that will push everyone in the city to their limits - and beyond. It's a new kind of war... and a new kind of crisis.

2. Black Tea

Roanapur

Kraduk Daeng District

Morning

The sun rose over Roanapur, blisteringly fast and then painfully slow, synchronized just so that the dry season heat could hit as soon as possible. There was hardly a sunrise to watch, blocked as it was by the defiled Buddha statue in the port. Not that anyone in the city cared to watch a sunrise. They had other things to do.

So it was that, under blank blue skies, Rock found himself driving a van out to an ostensibly abandoned luxury apartment on an unused stretch of coastline, parking it underground, and then… hiking up twelve flights of steep stairs in near darkness.

Balalaika said the solar power was working at the building where the Sabers were squatting, so why didn't the elevator work? The HVAC clearly worked, the building was cool if nothing else, so why did Rock have to go up all those stairs and past deactivated security measures to get to the penthouse where the Sabers were staying? Truly, his life refused to conform to any human measure of sense.

Yeah. They were squatting in a penthouse. It wasn't the strangest thing someone had done in Roanapur.

The original developers came thinking they could cut deals with the crime syndicates that ran it to inject a little bit of luxury into the city. Those deals lasted right up until Hansel and Gretel went on their reign of terror. The twins were dealt with, but the developers lost their pre-orders, their nerve, and eventually their money. It had been criminally simple to get a few randos to reconnect the water, plug in some solar, and now the team had a safehouse virtually free of charge.

Rock took a moment to catch his breath, then knocked on the door. One-two-three, four-five-six. Nothing.

"Hello?" he said in English. When there was no response, he decided to try Japanese instead. "Excuse me…"

"What?!" The curt tones of someone who sounded like Saber Blue. "You Bala's driver?"

"Yes! May I come in, please?"

The door swung open, and Rock found himself face-to-face with the Saber. Bright red eyes, Amerasian features, wavy chestnut hair in a feathery hairdo, maybe a few centimeters taller than him. Red leather jacket and black pants. They matched her eyes well.

Rock stepped over the threshold just in time for recognition to dawn across her face.

"Hey, you're the salaryman, right? The guy from the boat? Okajima something?"

"Rock."

"Rock… not a very Japanese name."

He shrugged. "It used to be Rokuro. Then Japan decided it had no use for me. I died. Was reborn here." Rock scratched his head. "I guess… you're Saber Blue, right?" He bowed. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Blue didn't bow back. "Priss Asagiri," she said. "Nice to meet you out of the suit." She turned around and walked down the entranceway to the living room. Rock noticed that the whole place was unfurnished, futons sprawled on the marble floor like it was a sleepover.

"Saber White's still getting cleaned up," Priss said. "She's very deliberate with the way she looks. You know how it is."

"I don't, actually," Rock said.

"Really?" Priss turned around and smirked just a little. "No finicky women in your life? Not you and that Revy chick?"

"What? No. We work together and that's it."

"You sure?"

"It's my love life, Miss Asagiri," Rock fired back. "I think I know how it's played out over the past few years pretty well."

"Just Priss is fine."

Rock looked up, and saw three of the other Sabers on a free-floating upper level, watching him. The shortest one, the one with neon pink hair and more European-looking features, snickered. Her shorter height matched Saber Pink roughly. Rock waved.

"Hiiii," Pink said. "What're you up here for?"

"I'm supposed to collect you all," he said. "Balalaika didn't want to use her troops for whatever reason. Forcing a bonding exercise on us, maybe."

"If that's the case, then where are the others?"

"Getting breakfast." Rock shrugged. He did not mention that Roanapur had some of the worst food on the planet, nothing but subpar copies of already shitty fast food printed out of last-gen biofabs. Better for Megatokyonites, coming from a city where even the beef bowl chains took pride in their culinary blueprints, to realize this on their own. "They'll meet us when it's time."

"In that case, we better hurry," one of the Sabers up top said. She had dark silvery hair that flowed past her shoulders, glimmering golden eyes, and was… curvy. It was… difficult to focus on the office-ladyish suit and makeup she was wearing.

Okay, Rock had to admit to himself. She was fucking hot, insanely well endowed, seemed to be aware of it with the way she moved down the stairs. Fine. The women here were all attractive in one way or another, but he'd gotten by while dealing with a great many attractive women who wouldn't hesitate to blow his nuts off for fun. He would just have to cope…

"Yo, Sylvie!" Priss said to the silver-haired woman. "Maybe dial back the Sexaroid charm a bit? Our man looks a little overstimulated right now."

The woman — Sylvie — laughed. "Sorry, Priss. I didn't mean to scare him. Just wanted to make a good first impression."

The dark-haired one, the one with the short straight haircut and a dancer's lithe grace, followed her. Rock processed what he'd just heard.

"Wait, Sexaroid?"

"Yep!" Sylvie grinned. "Broke out of a harem in Anchorpoint last year and joined up a few months after that. I won't bore you with the details, but now I get to make things blow up—"

And here Sylvie made a little finger gun and held the pointer-barel up to her lips —

"Including your heart! Bang!"

With that, she fired. Rock tried to resolve his thoughts into something coherent, with limited success. "Um…"

"Relax," Priss said, snaking an arm around Sylvie's shoulders and pulling her close. "My girlfriend's just fucking with you. Seeing if the old Sexaroid magic still works. She does that sometimes and it's a terrible habit that she needs to stop." But the slight firmness in her voice didn't match her smile.

Rock sighed. Now that he thought about it, hadn't the Sexaroid line been discontinued back when he was still working at GENOM? They were too humanlike, so the rumors said, able to effortlessly cross the uncanny valley that so many other android Boomers fell into. The rumors had also suggested that Sexaroids were more replicant than robot, synthwomb-grown clones rigged up with Boomer nanotech during their infancy. Cyborg-ish. It made sense, having finally seen one. That could explain why GENOM caved to legislative pressure and stopped making them, though. Maybe that was just a public front? He wouldn't know. Manufacturing wasn't his division.

Also, girlfriend? Was he surprised by that? Well… maybe? Whenever Dutch or Benny brought up the Sabers when streaming the news, Revy was the first to speculate that one or more of them were screaming dykes. Something about the way the suits looked, which made no sense to him. But that was Revy, who he knew from her prison stories had absolutely munched carpet just to get inmates on her side even while calling most of those people 'psychotic fags' in private. Her gaydar wasn't nonfunctional so much as it was oversensitive.

"Whatever," he said, his dignity returning to him quickly. "How much longer before White's ready?"

"No time at all, Mister Okajima. The pickup, if you please."

The woman who entered his field of vision wore a smart synthsilk suit, had short blue-black hair and dark chocolate-colored eyes and looked at first familiar and then unmistakable. "Celia Stingray? You're Saber White?" Of all the surprises he'd taken in in the past few minutes, this topped all of them.

She raised a slim eyebrow. "You seem surprised, Mister Okajima."

He looked to Priss. Looked back at Celia. "That's because everyone's written you off as a disinterested heiress! Everyone in GENOM knows that even though you have voting shares you go along with whatever Chairman Quincy says! I mean, taking the royalty money and spinning up a mid-tier fashion brand — who does something like that?"

"Someone who recognizes that activist investing is a dead end in every sense," she said. "If you're shocked, Mister Okajima, then the cover identity's held, hasn't it? And isn't that what's most important in my actual line of work?"

Rock scratched his head without thinking about it. "See, it's like, everyone said you were so shocked by your dad dying that—"
"I was. I was very disheartened by dear Quincy having one of Father's dearest friends burn his laboratory to the ground with him in it."

"You're kidding me. They — that's what happened to Katsuhito? We were always told the company was built on his work, and they—"

"I know. I was shocked that the Chairman would stoop that low even as a child. But so shocked that I withdrew from my nascent interest in advanced nanoengineering and paramilitary tactics? Au contraire, Mister Okajima. I was a very — chunni child. Revenge seemed like such a delicious concept to me."

"You still are," the woman who moved like a dancer said. "Still are, Celia."

"Oh, hush. We need to get moving." Celia turned and headed for the doorway. "You're welcome to tease me in the privacy of my home, Lena, but not in front of our new co-worker."

Rock followed, still trying to process everything. So Celia Stingray – Stingray Luxury Goods Celia Stingray, the woman who modeled her own seasonal collections from time to time — was Saber White. The one who had started this whole thing. From the way the news talked about the Sabers, one of the most dangerous people on the planet.

Truly, his life refused to conform to any human measure of sense.

...

Bougainvillea Trading Company Central Offices

Nene Romanova barely paid any attention to the screens lining the windowless van on the ride over. Roanapur was a fairly small city for the ASEAN bloc, the kind of place where the buildings rarely broke twenty stories. Jakarta, or Anchorpoint, or even Bangkok, it certainly wasn't.

That meant sun-bleached streets which were more pothole than solid surface, shitty little window shops with physical signs and no Holocloud presence, and little clusters of the bored and destitute wandering the streets in the early morning.

The Bougainvillea Trading Company HQ, though, Hotel Moscow's main base of operations… Well, that was different. It was half French Colonial, half neo-brutalist, supposedly a major government office back in those long years before the city became ungovernable. It was eight floors, squat and wide, decorated with a baroque facade. No one could mistake this place for a corporate office.

Rock pulled into a rear garage, and the Sabers got out and followed him. First an undecorated sequence of hallways, all overhead piping and concrete floors, then some stairs, then the real building. Wood paneling lined the walls, there were a few tasteful little paintings here and there. Even the stairs to Balalaika's office were wood and marble, with windows along the spiral shaft letting the morning light in.

That wasn't what Nene was really paying attention to, though. No, all she could look at, as the Sabers silently made their way to their new boss, were the vysotniki.

Despite being Russian by birth, despite living in the Eurotrash neighborhoods of Megatokyo for the first sixteen years of her life, she'd never seen this many armed Russian dudes before. Never this many in loosely-worn fatigues, never this many in big cheap suits. Never this many just hanging around, looking at her, playing Holocloud games idly. Never this many with guns. Pistols at minimum, rifles on average, PKPs at maximum. Some even had visible combat cyberware. In the part of Megatokyo she was from, none of this would have worked. You had to be subtle to kill people there.

Then again, hadn't Hotel Moscow made a point of eliminating the Washimine-gumi in Japan as violently as possible months before the Sabers started? Megatokyo had fallen into panic for a few weeks as gunfire echoed through the red light districts of the city, but then everyone had just sort of… forgotten about it. That one part of the city had bent, then snapped back into place.

So these were the people who could do things like that, Nene noted. And these were the people she was now working for.

...

There was a man outside the doors Rock led them too, square-headed, a brutal scar across his face. Rock bowed to him.

"I've brought the Sabers, Boris, as requested."

The larger man, Boris, nodded. "The rest of the Lagoon Company is here as well. They got here minutes before you did." He smiled. It looked unnatural on a face like his. "You've become very punctual, Rock."

If that crack fazed the ex-salaryman, he didn't show it. He just smiled back. "Thank you."

"Hmph." Boris pushed open the doors, and like schoolgirls in the principal's office, suddenly the Sabers were standing there, before Balalaika.

The woman on the other side of the desk was beautiful, in a stern way. She had a face that was all sharp edges, marred on her left side by a massive ridged scar. If anything, most of her body was like that, Nene realized, those same streaks running along her neck and under her heavy red suit, one peeking out from her wrist. It didn't make her look wounded, though. You couldn't look into those green-blue eyes, trace the hard contours of her red lips, and see weakness of any sort.

Oh, and there was Revy. Arguing with her. It wasn't going well.

"Look, Sis, there's nowhere else I can buy shit like that! I'm not going back to Eda, so all I need is the Ivan version of the strikesuit with a western stemport! Is that really so out of my price range?"

Balalaika sighed the sigh of a long-suffering woman. "It's not a matter of money, Revy. It's a matter of principle. Hotel Moscow's armaments are our own. To provide you with such things would imply that you are one of my soldiers, which you are most certainly not."

"So what'm I supposed to do, just walk into another Boomer-level fight without protection? Sit on the boat and twiddle my thumbs like Rock?"

"I'm right here, you know," Rock muttered. It was at that moment that Celia decided to speak.

"I extended an offer to her to build a stripped-down hardsuit, Sofiya, but she didn't like the idea. Perhaps you can convince her."

Silence. Revy whirled around, glaring at Celia so hard Nene was certain the woman's eyeballs were going to explode.

"Hey, you fancy cunt, do me a favor and point out the part where I fuckin' asked—"

"Two Hands," Balalaika hissed, swiveling in her massive desk chair, "be a good girl and shut the fuck up."

Silence, again. Balalaika's gaze swept over the five Sabers and Rock as Revy seethed. Her gaze settled just a little to the right of Nene. Right at Celia.

She smiled. Every part of the mob boss lit up. Even her scar seemed to shrink just a little. She rose, walked around her desk and embraced the Knight Saber in one swift motion. After a moment's hesitation, Celia reciprocated, holding her just as tight.

"Celia," Balalaika husked. "My rusalka. It has been too long."

Celia was just a little bit taller than Balalaika, Nene noticed, even with both women wearing heels. She half expected them to kiss each other on the cheeks, European-style, even as moments passed and Nene realized that was just her overactive imagination at work again.

"It has, Sofiya," Celia whispered. "I only wish we could have met again under less pressing circumstances. But you seem to be doing well all the same."

"I get by," she said. "Ah, but I could say the same of you! I worried you would squander your talent for combat once you left me, but you have not let your skills degrade one bit! That work with the refinery is proof of that. Marvelous stuff."

Celia laughed, grabbing onto Balalaika by her shoulders. Nene wondered if this was how Celia had originally intended to seduce Priss, all sleek motions and elegant words. "Well, it would be foolish of us to keep our people waiting. I'll introduce you, and then we can deal with battle plans shortly."

"Over breakfast, perhaps? Have you eaten?"

Was it Nene's imagination, or was Priss's face frozen in a grimace? Oh, no, that was very real. Sylvie, Celia's other lover, looked more surprised than angry.

"We haven't. If you have any recommendations for where good food is found in this city, I'd be happy to hear them."

Balalaika held Celia just a little tighter, tilting her head slightly to the side. "Why not eat here? Bougainvillea isn't solely a front company, you know. We have excellent breakfast tea, and I brought in a few gentlemen from the mother country who know how to make rye bread and this specific syrniki."

"Not just MRE's for you anymore?"

"My men deserved better than spirulina slop in the army, and they deserve better now. Of course I've made sure that the money we take in goes to ensuring more than mere subsistence. It's the same with you and your girls, yes?"

"The group cash flow does go towards commercial indulgences from time to time, yes."

"Well, then. Will you indulge me, and let me feed you?"

Holy shit, this was getting insanely gay. Nene tried to read the expressions of the Lagoon Company members. Dutch was impassive, Benny was looking down at his knees, Rock was pointedly looking out the window at nothing, and Revy was just looking straight at the pair, mouthing words Nene couldn't track. She clearly couldn't believe her eyes, but then again Nene couldn't either. There was no rational explanation for this. Intervention was necessary.

"Oh, you bet!" Nene cut in at last. "I have no idea what you mean by 'specific' syrniki and I don't care, it's been ages since I had a good Russian breakfast. We would love to, um, partake of your hospitality, Ms. Balalaika, especially in a city as seemingly hostile as this one, so… yeah."

She trailed off, and watched as Balalaika and Celia separated slowly. She couldn't read Celia's gaze, but she could read Balalaika. She'd just been denied something she wanted very badly. Well, tough. If nothing else, Priss didn't look like she was about to kill everyone in the room.

"You, then." Balalaika sauntered over to Nene. She recoiled more than she wanted to admit. "Russian?"

It was said so succinctly, so matter-of-factly, as if she already knew the answer. Maybe the other woman did. Nene couldn't help but respond to a shock like that. "Kiiiinda? Born in Megatokyo, parents're old Vladivostok stock, though. Spent a few years in Sakhalin, though they don't talk about it that much…"

She looked away, and suddenly Balalaika grabbed her by the chin and jerked her head so they were facing each other.

"I see. Fascinating. What's your name, girl?"

"Nene Romanova–"

That earned her a slight squeezing on her jaw. "Don't patronize me. One, Nene's a Japanese name, and two, I want your patronymic, not your damn surname. How did your parents raise you, if that's how you think of yourself? Or did they want to integrate into such a decadent civilization that badly?"

"Okay, fine. Nina Arkadyevna Romanova, that's my Russian name. I just adopted Nene 'cause it was… cute? More acceptable in school? Is that okay?"

"And your parents had nothing to say about that. Pissing on your heritage for the sake of kawaii. Japan's got quite a culture, doesn't it? Nothing but symbols with no meaning. The degenerate depths of postmodernity."

Nene's eyes narrowed. Okay, so this woman had probably been through the deepest depths of Shittown McFuckville, if she'd served in the Kazakh occupation — she was about the age, and Celia had said she had military experience — but did that justify her talking smack about her parents? The only person who could talk shit about Nene Romanova's parents was Nene Romanova, and that was because she knew Arkady Gregorovich Romanov and Lyubov Iosifovna Romanova better than anyone else on the fucking planet. They were both well-meaning, highly-skilled control freaks, who moved in eerie synchronicity to tamp down anything she did, but what would Balalaika have to say about that? Probably write her off as another techno-rebel. Eugh. Anarchy was first dreamt up in Russia, and yet most powerful Russians would shoot anyone who read Kropotkin on sight, according to her parents.

"Nina? I asked you a question, did I not? You'd do well to answer it."

"Sounded more like a rhetorical statement to me," Priss said, leaning against the wall. "You didn't want a response that wasn't 'Yes Mommy', so why should Nene say that if she doesn't want to? Oh, wait, she shouldn't."

Balalaika's eyes flicked to Priss, then back to Nene. Nene considered sending a holofeed message to Priss, a little 'thank you', then decided against it. Holofeeds played out across the surface of the cornea, after all. Balalaika could see if she was up to something.

Finally, Celia stepped in. "Sofiya, please. There's no need for you to get so wound up over a bit of overnaturalization. Nene, Nina, whatever you want to call her, she is a valuable member of my team. I won't have you choking her out within minutes of meeting her." She laid a hand on Balalaika's arm, and the mob boss let go in an instant. Nene took a step towards the Lagoon company.

Balalaika stepped back, and sat on top of her desk. "If you insist, Celia. So: introductions, then." She popped open a box of truly massive cigars, cut one and lit it with a match, as if the eyes of the entire room weren't on her. "You. The loudmouth. Red Eyes."

"Priss Asagiri. Saber Blue."

"Your role in the team?"

Priss cocked her head to the side. "Why do you care?"

Celia looked towards Priss. "Answer the question, please. Let's not create more unnecessary difficulties."

"Fine. Anti-armor ranged. I blow craters in the big guys, gun down the little ones."

"I see." Balaika took a puff from her cigar. Her gaze snapped to the next Saber. "Black hair, blue eyes."

She bowed, curt and formal. "Lena Yamazaki. I'm Saber Green, I do rapid melee engagement, I'm trained in muay thai and—"

"This is the childhood friend you were talking about all those years ago, Celia? The perky one from high school? Interesting."

Balalaika wasn't even looking at Lena. Which clearly annoyed her, but Nene had a growing sense that there wasn't anything they could do about it. If Balalaika decided to be a bitch — well, it was her office they were in, after all.

"I'm surprised you remembered that, Sofiya," Celia said. "Yes, Lena's an old friend of mine. Quite skilled in her specialization, too." She paused. "As for myself… let's call my role as Saber White command and control."

Balalaika laughed at that, then took another puff. "I see. I never would have thought martial arts would be useful in your line of work, though. How interesting."

Lena went rigid, in the kind of way Nene knew she went when she was insulted about the usefulness of her hobbies. She understood the feeling. They'd definitely have a little bonding moment once they were clear of this fucking building.

"So. Silver hair, golden eyes? Those aren't natural, are they?"

Sylvie beamed, Bodhisattvalike. "You might say they're natural. I'm Sylvie Hanatsuki, Saber Red. I do all the demolition work in the Sabers. It's… nice to meet you. Celia was quite surprised to hear from you."

Balalaika didn't respond to that last part. "What do you mean by 'might say' — ah. So you're either a Sexaroid or a body-modification fetishist. Which one is it?"

Sylvie beamed harder, passing from Bodhisattva to straight Buddha. "The former. I hope you don't have any issue with that. People can get very paranoid when they have to deal with simulacra of humanity."

"Simulacra!" Balalaika hummed, seeming to roll the word around in her mouth. "No. I don't think there will be a problem. And as for you, Nina, that leaves Saber Pink—"

"And it leaves electronic warfare," Nene sighed. "Jamming, hacking, all the invisible stuff."

"That lightning laser thing was invisible?" Revy cut in. "You bricking my strikesuit was invisible?"
"I told you to get out of the way of the Pulse-Strikers," Nene said, not missing a beat, "and you did not. And Celia will build you a nice combat suit, if you just ask. There is no problem. Ease off, okay?"

"As if, shortstack." Revy grinned. "Offer still stands. Cutlasses at high noon. Unless you need your hardsuit to solve all your combat problems."

Nene looked to the side. "I'll pass, thanks." Revy wasn't wrong. Her hand-to-hand and ranged weaponry skills were only as good as they were by virtue of the neuro-photonic combat-oriented pseudocortex jammed into the base of her skull, a little piece of hardware known as the Riastrad. So yeah, she couldn't outshoot Revy, but goddammit she shouldn't need to.

Revy shrugged, and grinned a little wider, but said nothing. Just leered. A type-A bully, Nene realized. Pull back, let your target try to lash out, and then stomp them the fuck back into the dirt. There had been kids like that in high school, but they stemjacked into the poorly-secured school network all the damn time, so it was easy to scare them back. Someone like Revy was untouchable.

Celia clapped her hands together twice; that was a sign, Nene knew, that she was growing impatient. "Moving on," she said. "I assume some part of this briefing will actually involve a briefing?"

"Yes," Balalaika said. "If you all could connect to the Holocloud marked 'Concern', we can get to business."

Nene looked at the other Knight Sabers. They nodded. Nene brought up the Holocloud listing on her holofeed, and readied herself to connect to Balalaika's private network of augmented-reality holograms. She found 'Concern' and tapped it, the haptic implants in her fingers buzzing as she contacted a virtual object.

That was what the Holocloud was, worldwide. Networks of augmented realities overlaid on lenses grafted under the cornea, or dreamt up directly in the brain if you had the newer implants that the megacorps were trying to push out of hobbyist circles and into the public's gray matter. Panes of information, 3D objects, overlays, adverts, the data of a place tied solely to what the eye saw, to what the network knew was supposed to be there. Even it was but one layer of the great information ocean the world knew as the noosphere, orders of magnitude more complex than the old internet and just as feudal.

The Sabers had their own private feed, mediated by entangled quantum dots, but that was turned off right now. Better that Balalaika didn't see their secrets.

The Russian woman held out her palm, and from it erupted a map of ASEAN, up to Chinese-occupied North Vietnam, down to United Papua. She flicked her wrist, and the map cut loose to float in the center of the room.

"The trouble, as best as I can figure, began with the current financial crisis. Overinvestment in extraterrestrial development led to trillions of dollars of corporate embezzlement led to the Lunar Centennial bombings led to… well. You know. The near-total collapse of most of ASEAN's economy, so desperately centered around Anchorpoint."

Another flick of the wrist, and a pinpoint rose from between Indonesia and Malaysia. Nene knew Anchorpoint well enough. It was an artificial island city where the world's first space elevator was supposed to be, built on the promise of outer space's infinite prosperity. Construction halted months ago and no one expected it to be finished anytime soon.

"Now, Roanapur's economic prospects are dependent on the people of these nations coming to this city for illegal indulgences. Drugs, guns, sex, cyberware, et cetera. As long as other people's money flows into the city, through myself and the other syndicate heads, and as long as no other syndicates attempt to edge in on our business, there is no need for macro-scale concern."

"So once Anchorpoint froze up, you started having cashflow problems," Priss said. "So where does that 'menacing megacorporate coalition' Celia told us about come in?"

"Ah." Balalaika took another puff from her cigar, blowing smoke in a long breath. "The economic situation leaves us unable to pull in arms and men from Hotel Moscow's other branches to deal with the Roanapur Redevelopment Concern. That was what Celia was referring to, all those men who are supposed to be my allies leaving me to the mercy of evil gods as they work to maintain their own territory."

She tilted her outstretched hand, and the map zoomed in at supersonic speed to Koh Chang Island, and the city that took up half its landmass. Roanapur was an incomprehensible tangle of favelas and low-lying sprawl pockmarked by slightly taller buildings, with the orderly Old City from the last century clinging to the waterfront. It looked almost insignificant, like a mushroom overwhelmed by its own mycelium network underneath the surface.

"Two months ago, Bangkok passed a resolution to form the Concern, essentially a slush fund for certain megacorporations on good terms with the ruling junta and the king to, well, 'redevelop' this city. They're pooling boats, Boomers, industrial assets, anything they can use to create a united front." She laughed. "Not that they mean to turn this into a civilized corner of the world, you see? No, this is all about taking hold of the black market, the last thing these megacorps don't control on this earth. Anything to pad out their bottom line in the wake of this distressing situation."

Her eyes narrowed. "They haven't established any formal beachheads yet, of course. But every major delivery of my armaments from the Thai mainland have been unceremoniously intercepted or blown out of the water by unmarked ships and submarine Boomers. Absolu's rare earth refinery was another insult to Roanapur, and another excuse to harass the Hotel's naval assets. Add to that the use of Combat Boomers that destroyed half of the old Centara resort district two weeks ago, where ten of my men were cut down until we were able to bring in heavy weapons—"

"You don't use Boomers yourself?" Lena cut in. "For defense?"

"No," Balalaika said, "and if you'd promise to not interrupt me I'll happily tell you why. We have reserves of Boomers here, but we don't use them on the grounds that the material escalation they represent would likely end in a four-way war that would devastate this city. If one syndicate gets out of line, the others have free reign to destroy that upstart and then destroy themselves fighting over their scraps, you see? It's quite troublesome, but it does allow me to know when my people are being attacked by outsiders. Such as, of course, when Combat Boomers are let loose in a real estate development I own with no evident objectives beyond piling up the dead."

"So you figured you'd call us in for some counterterror tactics," Priss said.

"Yes. Exactly. It's good to see you understand my position." She moved her hand up over the map, then stopped, looking in Nene's direction. "What is it, yaponski?"

Nene looked to her side, where Rock was raising his hand. "About that," he said. "I guess this is more of a personal question…" His hand lowered.

"Ask it, then. Don't leave me assuming the worst about what you've got going on in that head of yours."

"Yeah. Okay. Fine. How do you know her?" Saying that, he jabbed a thumb in Celia's direction. "I'm sure there's some obvious answer I've completely missed, but rusalka? Like the river mermaid? What's that about?"

Silence. Nene felt someone get up behind her. For the first time, Dutch spoke.

"It was before your time," he said. "Honestly, I know that callsign, what she was capable of, but I never expected it to be, well, you, Ms. Stingray. No offense."

Rock took a step back. "I'm not prying, am I? Is this something I'm not meant to know?"

"Not at all," Balalaika said. "You're privy to the true identities of some of the most dangerous women on the planet now, are you not?"

Celia was looking down at the floor, Nene realized. Why was that? Okay, so she'd been here a while ago. Celia had referred to it vaguely when she said they were taking the job. But— 'what she was capable of'? That sounded ominous. Celia had said she would explain in time. Maybe now was the time?

"Celia, shall I tell this story or will you?" Balalaika said, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward. "What, did you not tell the other Sabers of our involvement together?"

The other woman didn't respond for a moment. "...No. I didn't."
Silence. Balalaika shook her head, then sighed. She flicked the hologram away. It disappeared at the edge of the office. She took one last drag of her cigar, then left it to smolder in an ashtray before exhaling.

"Why, pray tell, is that? I'm genuinely not sure if I should be insulted or not, Celia."

"Sofiya… oh, hell, it's hard to explain."

"We have time. That was the end of my little briefing." Her gaze flicked over the room. "Why lie to these people, Celia? What do you stand to gain from that?"

Celia's head snapped up, but her voice remained even. "I had to recruit them with a soft touch, Sofiya. If I told them everything then, I'd scare them away, wouldn't I? And, well, after that… It never really came up. It wasn't important."

"What wasn't important?" Priss hissed. "When the first thing you do when you walk into this lady's office is get this close to face-fucking her? Celia, what the fuck. We talked about this. No more secrets."

"I—"

"I'm with Priss here," Sylvie said, a little more tender. "If she's your ex, that's fine, but you could have told us about her. Was that really so much to ask?"

It was a good question, Nene thought, but Celia didn't respond. Why? What was so horrible about getting a name like Rusalka? If she was at home, Nene knew Celia would be pacing, or flicking through holographic data, doing something to take her mind off her rare moments of anxiety. But it was as though Balalaika's gaze kept her fixed there, unable to move.

"I trained under Hotel Moscow starting seven years ago, when Sofiya was waging guerilla war against the Golden Lotus Triad's opioid production networks. Under her tutelage, I became very good at killing people. That's all there is to it."

"That's a damn lie," Dutch said. "Rusalka was the frontline of Ms. Balalaika's war against that Triad once it was time to move Hotel Moscow into this city. You were the goddamn boogeyman for both Golden Lotus and Triple-Four." He looked at the other Sabers. "Cai Hualing had this boat, you see, a massive offshore gambling den crawling with Chinaborgs. When it was clear he was losing, the first thing he did was get on that boat and send it on its merry way back to Preah Sihanouk. Didn't make it, because Hotel Moscow sent a diving crew to board it." He sucked in a breath. "Rusalka lost the rest of her squad, so the stories say, but she got on that boat and killed everyone on it. I mean everyone. Set the boat on fire and sunk it. Deflated the lifeboats. That was what finally pissed off Mr. Chang over in Triple-Four, you know. Here's this upstart that's just carved out his rival's territory, and they're clearly after his people next, and I had to convince both of them that they didn't need to burn the city further—"

"Enough!" Celia shouted. "For goodness' sake, Dutch, give it a rest!" She was — shaking? The Knight Sabers' fearless leader, the woman Nene looked up to more than anyone else in the world. She was shaking.

"I know what I did," Celia continued. "I wasn't myself at the time. I was cruel without a rationale behind that cruelty. I won't be that person again. Perhaps I tried too hard to bury the past, true, but I had a very good reason for that. Who could forgive me for what I did? I certainly couldn't forgive myself. I'm sorry, Sofiya."

The Russian woman dropped off her desk and onto the carpet. "What do you have to be sorry for? I wished you could have stayed with me after I set up shop here, but I did not ask that of you. And besides, you became a legend in this city because of that. Few people ever reach such heights, my dear. Take pride in it."

"I know," Celia said. "I know that by the standards of Roanapur, I should feel that way. I don't. That's why I'm apologizing."

Silence fell over the room as Balalaika — as everyone — considered that. If nothing else, it made Nene feel a little better, knowing the rationale behind keeping that secret. Shame was a shitty reason, but at least it was a reason.

Finally, Celia spoke again. "Did you get anything out of Allerne? Surely there must be some relevant intel you now have. Some new target, some NOC list. Anything."

"Alas," Balalaika said, "No. The man has an old implant that forces a coma in case of being compromised. Very difficult to disable. We have a cleaner in this city, though, a girl who will happily cut out neural interface drives and have them decrypted. We'll just hand him over to her and she can do her work." She paused. "If one of you girls wants to see the sights, I'll have my men bag him and throw him in the back of your van. You, Rock, Revy… a little tour of our fair city."

Nene blinked. What? No. Fuck that. She wanted to get back to the penthouse, get plugged into the local noosphere, get the lay of the city that way. There was no way any of the other Sabers were going to —

"Fuck it," Priss said. "Fine. Sounds like fun. Wasn't like I had anything better to do anyway."

"I did," Revy hissed.

"Day drinking?" Balalaika said.

Revy gritted her teeth, but said nothing. Nene couldn't tell if the gunslinger and the Russian woman liked each other or wanted to kill each other. It wasn't as clear-cut as whatever was going on between Celia and her, for sure. Revy turned to Rock, who held up his hands.

"What?" he said. "It is what it is. You don't even have to come in when we talk to Sawyer, if that's an issue."

"On the way, can we go to a gun shop?" Priss asked. "I've been feeling pretty naked without a good piece. And I assume you know something about guns, Revy, what with those custom Seburos you've got there."

Revy looked at Balalaika. "Do I have to?"
"If it helps to think of it as an order, you should think of it as an order. Besides, I imagine Praiyachat will be happy to have a new customer."

There was a fractious air in the room, that feeling one gets when no one really knows why they're still there but remain all the same. Which was, Nene figured, very much the case. Speaking only for herself, she wanted out. She looked around, trying to figure out what to say first.
Lena saved her. "Well, if the Lagoon Company already ate, I guess we need to do the same! Are there any vegetarian restaurants around? A good homegrown Thai place?"

Revy rolled her eyes.

"Noooooo," Rock said. "The Thai don't really get to dictate cuisine around here. Very international city. Honestly, I'm sure Balalaika can get her people to prep something nice!" He gave a forced smile and thumbs-up, which was the last thing Nene wanted.

"I…" Nene thought ferociously before deciding to tell the truth. "I'll just grab a few MRE's and if someone could drive me back to the penthouse I need to start setting up my rig."

"Oh?" Balalaika said. "You changed your mind about my syrniki?"

Nene flushed. "Look, it's not a big deal, I just realized there's some initial setup work I need to do, maybe if I get lucky I might be able to pin down Concern-related anomalies in network overlaps, I dunno, can I go now?"

And then Balalaika fixed her with this look.

Hooded eyes. Shadows cast over her brow. A slight smile, or a smirk, or something pretending to be either of those things. It was clear what it was once her red lips parted — it was a predator showing her teeth.

Rock was looking away. Okay. Good. At least she wasn't imagining what she was looking at because Jesus Christ she was going to die wasn't she.

"So you will refuse my hospitality, Nina Arkadyevna. One Russian rejecting another. What a shame."

"Yesssss… I mean no, no, of course not, who was I kidding, I was just trying to be helpful but hey, the syrnikis are probably really good, I can… Me and Benny can wait on the hardware setup. That sounds great."

The smirk remained. Balalaika took another cigar, but didn't light it, just twirled it between her fingers.

"Sofiya…" Celia started to say.

"Good, Nina. Your appreciation is appreciated." Slowly, methodically, she brought the little guillotine up to cut off the tip of the cigar. "I have had holes in my own group's electronic security, recently. In time, I may ask you to help me patch them. In person."

"I'll… yeah. We will… yeah."

"I hope you'll consult me first before inviting one of my people over," Celia said. "Sofiya."

Balalaika shrugged, but didn't look at Celia. "Of course I will. We've been through too much together for me to ignore your wishes."

"Then, shall we depart?"

"You go on ahead. Boris will show you all to the mess. Dutch, stay with me for a moment, won't you?"

"No problem," he said. "No problem at all."

Balalaika waved them out. Nene was never happier to be gone. She did not believe for a moment she had the appetite for syrniki, even with the best fucking farmer's cheese this side of the Volga.

Her stomach rumbled all the same.

...

"Dutch. Was I too hard on the little one?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am?"

"I looked at her, and I saw a Bad Russian. Someone who cared nothing for their heritage. It disgusted me, and so I gave her the glare I reserve for sad men like Rock."

"Well, you got the point across."

"I did. I suppose Celia will think less of me, now."

"I think Celia's already afraid of you. She said some strange stuff before the op last night, is all. Something about necessary evil and the city being up to its eyeballs in the stuff."

A laugh. "Is that so! What a shame. She's changed. It would be too hasty for me to say she became soft, her exploits speak for themselves… but what if she has? What became of the rusalka who showed no mercy against all her enemies?"

"I met her only once back then, ma'am. Couldn't say."

"No. I suppose you couldn't."

A strike of a match.

"But in time, she'll come to understand me again."

The dying-star glow of a cigar.

"In time."