"Vanguard AI act incredibly human most of the time, so much so that they are functionally indistinguishable. Did you know they pass the Turing test at a higher percentage than actual humans? Regardless, sometimes you get that stark reminder that despite the facade they very much don't think like us. Turns out, they have absolutely zero shame."

  — Alexis 'Marauder' Jackson

  Quinn rolled out of bed in a scramble when she realized it was past seven, only to remember half way through desperately tugging on some pants that this wasn't her old room, and she didn't work for amazon any more.

  Her furred ears twitched in annoyance, and she glanced back at her bed in longing. Unfortunately, she was up now, so reluctantly she stripped her half put on clothes and went off to take a shower.

  Half an hour later, she was clean and vaguely dressed, shooting a message to Aisha and Elliot that she was going down to the cafeteria to get breakfast. On the way, she grimaced at her basic t-shirt and slacks, the same as she'd worn the last couple of days. She really needed to get some clothes that weren't work uniforms, now she had money.

  Hmm, maybe she could go shopping with Aisha, that sounded like fun.

  Elliot met her while she was grabbing Actual waffles from a serving station. Well not actually cooked batter waffles, they were still synthetic, but they were still waffles.

  "So, plans for today?" He asked, giving her a warm smile.

  She shrugged, finishing the bite of waffle she was on before responding. "Not a lot. Talk to Jing Qi about whatever they put in her. I have a call with… some Samurai adjacent executive…"

  "Cierra Vance."

  "Her. Who'll be helping me figure out how to get whatever I'm starting started."

  "Speaking of which." Elliot chimed in. "I had had a funny thought on that."

  She paused and cocked her head, waiting for him to continue.

  "So you know how the Indy Samurais call themselves magical girls."

  She nodded, using the opportunity to continue eating waffle.

  "I've been kinda mentally calling us 'The Firm', I thought it just kind of fit."

  She snorted, nearly spraying him with waffle. Mortified, she finished her bite and gave him a serious look.

  "That's fucking great, but was not the time to tell me that."

  He raised an eyebrow. "On the other hand, I think it was the perfect time. Anyway, you were saying?"

  She glared at him, but continued on.

  "I was gonna spend some time hanging with Maia, as we haven't done so in a little bit. And with you and Aisha too, since the last few days have mostly been stressful rescue. Oh! And I need to send an unpleasant legal letter to Amazon that's basically 'Fuck you, I quit' in lawyer speak."

  "Do you need to send the last one?"

  "Nope!" she grinned. "But it'll be fun, so I'm doing it anyway. Getting some practice actually using all this legal knowledge that's suddenly in my head, too."

  He gave her a wry smile. "Gotcha, not a lot of plans for today."

  She threw a waffle at him.

  About an hour later found Quinn back in her room, mentally preparing for her call with Cierra. It was that antsy period a few minutes before a call, where she couldn’t be fucking around on her augs and all she could do was sit and stew.

  She had started to zone out when the incoming call jump-scared her, and she flailed to accept before settling down into something akin to a professional posture.

  “Hi, this is Quinn, uh Mecha Suit Maiden.”

  Before her in the call was a woman that looked in her mid twenties wearing a sharp suit. She has long blond hair that fell loosely around her shoulders and kind blue eyes. Behind her some city scape spread out, but the lack of any notable features makes it hard to guess which city it was.

  “Good morning, Miss Mecha Suit Maiden. I am Cierra Vance and I am here to discuss the proposals you sent us.” the woman said with a kind smile.

  Gods her sam name was a pain to say. She needed a nickname.

  “Yes! Though uh, just call me Quinn. I had heard PsyCo could help me get this business thing spun up? I can probably handle the legal side myself, mostly, but I’m a little lost when it comes to the… everything else.”

  Cierra nodded, her eyes going side to side as she looks over some documents. “I see, well you plan is rather ambitious. I in general would like to suggest doing one project at a time, but I assume you want to do the mechanized goods for a certain level of independence?”

  “That’s the idea.” Quinn replied. “What I really want to be doing, the legal stuff, is probably going to be real expensive, and I can hardly expect any corps to want to sign on as donors. The manufacturing stuff is just to fund that. I guess the legal stuff isn’t really happening till I get the money in from the manufacturing anyway, so if you think waiting on that is best that’s probably fine.”

  Cierra shrugs. “I mean it’s up to you really but it is probably going to be rather stressful. Though a lawyers office would not take much to get running, the hard part would be finding the cases, manufacturing of goods, however that is a whole different animal. Do you already have manufacturing capabilities or do the parts need to be brought in?”

  Quinn chewed on her lip as she formulated a response. “Sort of? I have the points set aside to get a set of machines to make the parts mentioned, I just need to be able to have people work them, find buyers and then transport them. Is that enough?”

  Thankfully Irys decided to jump in to save her. “The expected revenue described in the proposal is based on the output of the equipment already slated for purchase, expansion will take points, but isn’t too expensive, and thankfully the return on investment is rather high. I’m half surprised a similar opportunity wasn’t already snapped up by some other Vanguard already.”

  “Most vanguards lack the motivation to go into business mostly” Cierra says with an amused grin. “The most import thing right now would be finding a factory space to put your machinery, after that we can start considering hiring people. Finding customers won’t be that hard as long as you have our stamp of approval it would guarantee quality so we can forgo marketing and directly approach the bigger market consumers if we wanted to.” Cierra pauses writing some stuff down. “Do you have any preferences for the hiring procedures?”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Quinn thought she understood those sentences, probably. Then her mind caught up to the end and she realized she'd been asked a question.

  “No, I have no clue about hiring. I guess as long as its a procedure you think will work well, I’ll trust you on it.” She paused, then her eyes lit up as she remembered yesterday. “Oh! I uh, may have rescued like two dozen ex-indentured amazon workers yesterday, so I could also talk to them and see if any of them want a better job.”

  Cierra nods “That is a good start. Hiring locally always removes some pain points on the whole moving about department. So I think with that basic labour can be settled the more complicated part would be skilled labour, but I am sure i can find some people that would want to work for a Samurai. Have you given workers benefits any thoughts?”

  While she hadn’t, she had an immediate answer after but a moment of thought. “Basically the best affordable without being unrealistic. I don’t see a point in making these corporations to help people if I’m not even treating my own employees decently.”

  “I will just set up the basics we have here as well then it’s going to be slightly more expensive upfront but pay out in the long run.” Cierra says as she types some more. “I think that would also be everything that I need for now. I will have some of my people check out some places in your area to set up the factory. We can finalize the exact location and final staff at a later date once we have some capable people selected. Do you have any further questions?”

  Irys took the moment to speak up. “This is Irys, Quinn’s Protector AI, and I had one. From one more experienced in such, would you have any advice for Quinn here about navigating a poly relationship? She’s just found herself in one, and while she’d never ask for it herself, I suspect she’d greatly appreciate some wisdom on such.”

  Quinn went beet red, and made an attempt to glare at the AI chip in her head, to limited success.

  “Irys, whyyy?”

  “Because, Darling, I know your mind quite well, and Cierra and Vanguard Maniac are quite publicly poly-amourous, so I suspected she wouldn’t mind.”

  Cierra lets out a chuckle. “Well first of I recommend you talk to your kids about your relationship before one stabs your girlfriend for cheating on you with your other girlfriend.”

  “That happened once!” the distant voice of a kid can be heard over the call.

  Cierra’s grin get slightly wider as her focus returns to Quin.”Other than that it's really just a matter of talking properly with each other.” Cierra leans closer as she starts to whisper. “Also having lots of sex helps.”

  Quinn brain went blank, then rebooted a couple of seconds later while pointedly shuffling this interaction into the ‘Don’t think about it too hard’ box for her own safety from embarrassment.

  “Got it, I’ll keep those in mind.”

  Irys tittered. “I think we broke her. Assuming that’s all, we can let you go. I’ll confirm she hasn’t forgotten anything important later. We appreciate your assistance in this.”

  “That is fine, just remember a relationship is all about communication. The more people in the relationship the more communication you have to do.” Cierra said. “Anyway I will need to go. I have a little fox girl in my office that keeps looking at me with pleading eyes.” And with that, she hung up.

  A few minutes later Quinn was walking to the anime club clubroom to hang out with Jing Qi and Maia. She still hadn't said anything to Irys, having gone from mute embarrassment to sulking, much to Irys' apparent amusement.

  "You'll be glad I asked one day, Darling."

  Quinn huffed, before deciding to attempt to be reasonable.

  "I know, but you feel like my Mom, and its super weird talking relationship stuff with you around."

  "Darling, I'm never Not around."

  "Don't remind me right now."

  "And I don't share your aversion to discussing such topics. My job is to look after you, and I determined that since you were never going to ask such questions yourself, I should do so on your behalf."

  Quinn sighed.

  "Fine, I'll forgive you this once. but next time you could suggest I ask rather than assuming I won't.

  "Very well, I will allow you the opportunity to try in future."

  They reached the club room shortly afterwards, and Quinn pushed through the door to find her friends already present. Maia was laid out on the couch, with Jing Qi cuddling with them. Unusual, as Jing Qi wasn't usually one for much physical touch.

  "Hey you!" Maia exclaimed, eyes lighting up.

  "Hey. So any ideas what we wanna do?" Quinn responded. "So uh, Jing Qi, I'm sorry since I feel like I should know this, what do you do for fun usually?"

  The other girl just shrugged, then started to wiggle free of Maia's grasp, who reluctantly let her go. "Honestly, I barely had time to do anything, but when I did I mostly just watched shows on amazon prime, they apparently gave indentureds a free account. I kinda don't wanna do that though anyway, I'm down to try something new."

  Quinn glanced to Maia, who shrugged.

  "We could just… talk. Its been a while since I feel like we've had time to do that, and we've just established there's plenty of shit we don't know about each other."

  "Sure." Quinn responded, wandering over to the snack cupboard to raid it for supplies. "I'm down to just hang and talk."

  They talked for so long that they missed lunch, and Quinn ended up buying all three of them meals with points.

  Jing Qi talked the most, sharing much of her time growing up in an Amazon orphanage after her parents had died when she was young. Weakness had been something the other orphans tended to exploit, and she'd learned to guard her thoughts and feelings lest they be exploded. Upon reaching adulthood, the full debt of her raising was immediately thrust upon her, and indentured contract had seemed like the least worst option. She'd been moved near immediately from South Carolina, the only place she'd ever known, to Madison. One roommate that ignored her existence entirely later, she'd been set up with Quinn and Maia. The stories were ones of isolation and hurt, and by the end of it all many hugs of supports had been shared and many tears had been shed.

  Quinn asked about what Jing Qi wanted to do now, and it was upsetting to hear she didn't really have an answer. Being free of Amazon wasn't something she had expected to happen for decades, and she was frankly at a loss at what to do next given her sudden liberation. One silver lining though was that a weight seemed to leave Jing Qi as she talked, and she seemed significantly more relaxed after it all. Though Quinn still made a note to make sure she got access to therapy as well.

  Maia was in a similar boat with her future plans, or lack of them, but was more laissez faire about it. They'd lived in Madison all their life, and flitted from job to job after aging out of free public schooling at age 14. They talked about the new horror game they'd been enjoying, and the cute person they had been flirting with who was apparently an actual student on the dorm floor.

  Quinn told the full story of her initialization and fight against the antithesis that fateful day, from the initial desperate combat with Cassie 1.0, to the defense of the compound, to the upgrade and subsequent fight to the hive. She spoke about her future plans, her desire to do something to claw back some level of protection for the common person, using her Samurai status as actual enforcement.

  At Maia's teasing insistence, she also shared how she and Aisha had met, and her current tentative relationships with both her and Elliot. Jing Qi was a little confused at first, but Maia was able to explain it.

  Unsurprisingly, both of Quinn's friends near immediately declared their support for her efforts, at least for the short term. She was beginning to be a little overwhelmed how many people were so easily declaring themselves to her cause before it had even got off the ground. Irys suggested it was merely a combination of a clear, passionate goal and the magic of being a Samurai making it seem feasible. The three discussed what would be a good first case to take on, with Quinn immediately suggesting fighting the indentured worker contracts. Interestingly, Jing Qi was initially against their complete removal, concerned that those in debt without a lack of clear repayment would potentially cause companies to turn to more extreme measures to collect those debts.

  It was mid way through that conversation that Quinn realized a problem, and that problem was that the judges were likely all completely corrupt and bought. That would likely need to change before any cases would have a chance to succeed, but she didn't really have the mental wherewithal to figure out how to solve that problem just yet.

  Eventually, despite not running out of words, Jing Qi's stamina got the best of her, and the other two forced her to go nap. Quinn also took the opportunity to go rest, needing a little bit of antisocial time after a morning and half an afternoon of nothing but socialization.

  It was about as she was walking back when she got a message from Elliot.

  "Got any plans for tonight? I'd love to take you out if not."

  She couldn't help but squee a little, before rapidly messaging him back.

  "No plans, I'd be happy to do something."

  It was only a moment before she got a response.

  "Great! I'll pick you up from your room at 7?"

  She smiled as she pushed into her room.

  "Can't wait!"