Chapter 1: It all started with a quintuple homicide

  "A gang is a very loose definition for a truly diverse group of communities. The massive ones that dominate large swaths of megacities are essentially illegal corporations. We posit that any message of being ‘anti-corporations’ is hypocritical coming from said groups and the public relations department is able to handle any such public claims without issues. The definition of a ‘gang’ does not even necessarily preclude corporations, technically. This market has, however, shown to be very unprofitable.

  In some cases, gangs emerge as ‘community based’. In very, very rare cases, they can gain enough power through the presence of a powerful backer (such as a samurai) that they may hinder profits. They may actually have a strong claim at being ‘anti-corporation’ and can sometimes claim moral superiority to an extent that requires direct involvement from our extralegal teams.

  This cannot be tolerated, of course. The cost of extralegal involvement has historically proven a wise investment. The department recommends immediate elimination of such hindrances to our marketing department."

  --Biomec inc. Department of Public Management, 2046

  ***

  “Do you want to eat lead?” At this point, it was a genuine question.

  Yeah, the guy was high as balls, but still! He didn’t even have a weapon and the jackass was looking down the barrel of my shotgun. That was usually enough with my reputation attached!

  Yet, no hands raised, no ‘I surrender’ or whatever! He just looked dazed as hell and kind of curious. “Uh… no sir?”

  “I’m Louis Larose, they call me panda, does that help?” I was so confused. And apparently so was he since he just shook his fucking head!

  I mean, it’s not like I was famous but still. I was the main enforcer for floors one to fourteen of Peach Trees. Dumbass was in my territory!

  I looked around at the joytoys watching from the side. A lot of them had seen much worse shit in the purge but the new kids seemed a lot more nervous. I didn’t want to blow up a head in the middle of a crowd of… okay calling the onlookers innocents was being very generous, this was floor eleven! If you ended up this low, you generally had a few bounties or a fuckton of debt.

  Hell, our hexplate was lower than a lot of the city, there were no sky bridges under level eighteen. Everyone here had a fucked up life in one way or another.

  “Lila! You there?” I shouted at the farthest door. The corridor was bathed in red with doors leading to fun rooms full of fun toys! Even some specialty shit that as a married man I didn’t want to know about.

  Okay, Robin and I could get quite freaky but I was NOT playing with diapers for fuck’s sake! The fur was a bit scary too. There must be so many germs on those suits…

  “What!?” No further response. Okay, guess I’d have to be more precise!

  “Oh great and fearsome Lila, enforcer of the Bear-Yakuza, would you kindly get the fuck out here and tell me why the fuck I got called over!?” I heard a few muttered curses and thought she might have had a hangover.

  “How the fuck should I know?” She muttered. Red hair disheveled, leaning on the doorframe, her decently muscled form slumped. Yeah, she’d been drunk last night. Had she been sleeping? It was the afternoon god dammit!

  “Because this is your district? Who knows, you might even know who to ask!? I don’t even know who called me over! I’d also like an explanation for why my enforcer was clearly sleeping on the fucking job!”

  Lila was an enforcer, which meant I trusted her. Hell, I trusted her more than other enforcers but that was neither here nor there. That came with fucking responsibilities! “I’m not on the fucking job, Shanna was supposed to be on watch! My shift's over for fuck’s sake... Jack woke me up hungry last night…”

  “And you were drunk.” I answered flatly. I knew her too well.

  “I… might have had a glass or two. Hence napping now, or until now as it were…” I decided to pass right over that.

  “Okay, now, I gotta pick up the kids, so would you kindly tell me a few things. One, where the fuck is Shanna!? Two, what did this fucker do? Three, what the fuck do you want me to do about it, because that asshole looks too high to get the meaning of anything. Seriously, I’m pretty sure he has no idea what we’re talking about.” I looked at him again. Dude was glassy eyed, maybe a syrup overdose?

  One of the new kids raised her hand timidly. I said kid, but the girl was at least eighteen! Unlike the last mother fuckers in charge, no minors worked in any brothel on our territory! Lila also made sure no one was there who didn’t want to be.

  One of the problems with having a reputation? It scared people you didn’t want to scare. I’d earned it but still, it was a pain in the ass. I decided to modulate my tone and be gentle. “Are you the one that called me over?”

  She nodded. “Yes mister panda… He hum… didn’t get the meaning of ‘no anal’...” I looked at the drugged out idiot and yeah, I could get that he wouldn’t get the meaning of something.

  Still, I couldn't let that shit fly! If one person claimed temporary insanity, they all would. The girl looked just a little hurt, no fresh bruises or anything just walking a bit funny.

  So, I cold-cocked him with the butt of my shotgun. Not so hard that I’d kill him, and that was a possibility with my arm augmentations, but I might have cracked a few bones. The joytoys looked satisfied at the outcome. That was a win. Then, I sent a call to Shanna.

  “Yeah boss?” Came the response fairly quickly.

  “Hey Shanna, see, I’m standing here in front of an asshole that didn’t get the ‘don’t touch my asshole’ message from one of our joytoys. Now, where, in the ever loving fuck, are you?” The response was a string of curses. Constructive.

  “That’s not an answer, Shanna.” I deadpanned.

  “I’ll be there in five minutes!”

  “Still not an answer, Shanna! I’d really like an answer. I’m late to pick up my kids because of this shit.” More cursing.

  “I had to get back to my place, I fucked up. I'm sorry, boss!”

  “Go…” Lila said while rubbing her eyes. “I’ll… I’ll handle this bullshit. I’ll leave a message on the guy and make Shanna carry his junky ass to Kai territory…” I looked at her with surprise.

  “He’s a Kai?” She looked back at me with confusion.

  “How the fuck would I know? He hurt one of us, let him get mugged over there or whatever.” I was a bit torn.

  Not for the asshole. Lila was right! He’d hurt a Bear-Yakuza and I didn’t take that shit lightly! Shanna though...

  The Cobra Kais were the group we’d kicked out of the lower floors and they didn’t like us to say the least. Especially enforcers, since we, and even more especially me, had killed a lot of their best and brightest abusers and rapists! I thought they might still be a bit miffed about it. Shanna might be in danger doing this shitty side quest…

  “Hey, stop that, she’ll be fine, just needs to open and close an elevator. Go, go, get the kids. Coming to my place after?” I smiled at her.

  “Of course, little Jack’s got to eat and you know Rachael worships your sanctum of violence.” That got a tired chuckle out of her, then a smile.

  “Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be awake enough for dinner.” She said while rubbing her face.

  I walked to the joytoy that called me over. New kid, post-purge. From another brothel and used to being treated like, well, a toy. An object for the boss and the gang members to play with, to abuse and rape to their heart’s content...

  My husband had been that, so had Lila. It took a while for people to understand I wouldn’t hurt them. Longer to get that I’d protect them. None of the new kids truly believed that I cared about all of them on every floor.

  I looked her in the eyes and smiled. I took her hands and calmly explained. “I know I have a scary reputation and it looks like it affects you. Just know, I care about you, I want you to be well and I’m proud of you for having the courage to call me even though you were scared.”

  That made her cry. A purge generation joytoy gave me a smile, then took her away to care for her.

  I had to let them know they'd arrived somewhere that was caring. That people cared about each other here. I’d worked so mother fucking hard to build that sense of community!

  It sounded like a scam to most of the newer people and that broke my heart. The purge generation reassured them though. They knew how far I’d go for them, how far I’d already gone…

  ***

  I had to run a bit and take a couple shortcuts but I fucking made it! As the kids exited the old storefronts with demolished inner walls we called a school, I took a moment to pant and get my shit together.

  “Salut Alice, comment ?a va? / Hi Alice, how are you?” We were still waiting on Rachael. I thought she might have had a crush on a girl, but I couldn’t be sure. As a good father, it was my duty to snoop on her life!

  When I’d regained my breath, I hugged Alice so tight she squeaked happily and I kissed the top of her head. “?a va bien Papa! Tu peux m’lacher! / I’m doing good dad! You can let go!” she said, begging for mercy.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The school was a nice addition. We’d found a couple of ex-teachers that fell pretty fucking low and used the tax we collected to pay them. There were also people that had studied to be teachers or people that just… knew stuff. Better than nothing!

  It was infinitely better than the shit corpos let us use for free in order to collect profiles and train us to be good worker drones. From the little conversation I made with Alice about history class, also fuckloads more accurate.

  Last gang asked for eighty percent of everything and provided nothing. The opposite of protection as a matter of fact. We asked for twenty to pay for shit like schools, militia and enforcers. In our defense, no one actually paid taxes around here, and since the city didn’t do shit for us nobody felt that bad about it. The lower tax also helped boost our economy.

  The red light district was a lot of our funding at this point. Happy prostitutes apparently did a better job then abuse, kidnapping and rape victims addicted and injected with trackers to force them to stay against their will. Who would have mother fucking thought!? Lila had done a lot of stabbing when we kicked them out. She described it as profoundly cathartic for her. Alice’s mom was a forced joytoy. Robin ‘worked’ there and tipped me off.

  I’d found Alice in a dump, hiding from the bad men who took her mom. She’d been in there for at least a week, eating garbage. Her mother died not long after I found her. I was glad she knew about her daughter's safety before…

  I slapped myself mentally. No sad shit! My kids were here! I loved my kids, I loved my husband and I loved aunt Lila! Well, the last one’s not that kind of love but whatever! Hey! There, the amazing Racheal, at last.

  “Hey… Rach, comment tu vas ma belle? / How are you doing my dear?” I only hesitated a little bit on that nickname. I couldn’t judge her too much, I’d tried to change what people called me but fuck did panda stick like nothing else could. Hers was still terrible. I mean, seriously, one letter away from ‘roach’. It was bad.

  I wouldn’t lie to her about it but I’d be tactful and she hadn’t asked! Hey, if it made the teenager happy I’d call her thunder tornado! Her moms had been enforcers and it took a while after they died for the girl to smile. Seeing her calm, peaceful, happy to have learned something… It just twisted my heart in such fucking a beautiful way.

  Rachael (I was not calling her Rach in my own fucking head no matter what) looked at me and smiled. The sight of me made my daughter smile, now that was success! “?a va pas pire, la classe d’histoire était intéressante, j’pense que l’professeur est un peu anti-corpo! / I’m alright, history class was interesting, I think the professor is just a bit anti-corpo!” A common joke in these parts, but it always hit the mark a bit. If you were here, you didn’t like corporations. You probably fell down because of the fuckers.

  Subscriptions for life-critical prosthetics, let go from your job because of downsizing, hurt by machinery and couldn’t do the job anymore and then my mom’s problem, common as all hell: Medical bills.

  My dad and her got cancer. They were old school French-Canadians, believed in the army and taught me like I was a soldier, just in case. Couldn’t blame them with the alien invasion. What caused the cancer? NDA is all they’d ever admit to but I thought the 'oh so great' army might have had something to do with it.

  One thing they insisted on: I had to speak French, no matter the circumstances around New-Montreal. I continued the tradition with my kids. Robin and I made a deal that I’d talk French and he'd talk English. Speaking two languages made kids smarter, or so one of the thousand parenting websites told us.

  I kept up some light chatter as we headed home, asking about school, friends, shit like that. I listened carefully, and enjoyed the time I had with them. I loved seeing them enthusiastic about stuff.

  Rachael was a bit too enthusiastic about becoming an enforcer and I had to toe a fine line between supporting my kid with all my heart and keeping her away from danger.

  Enforcers were special. I trained them myself from my experience not only from my parents and the pirated VR martial arts stuff I got but I’d also spent a bit of time in a PMC that didn’t give a fuck about checking my age. The pay was decent for my position? Also known as crap. There was an… incident and then I got back home. Then there was another incident with the Kais… Oh, home!

  It was three shitty apartments with doors cut between them, meaning three bedrooms. Especially rooms away from ours where we’d splurged on soundproofing. We didn’t have the money to splurge on, well, anything really, but DIY was a hell of a hobby!

  For Robin. I was really bad at that stuff. We don’t talk about the pasta incident.

  Then I saw him. “Hey darling…” The prettiest femboy in all the lands! His family was Mohawk, and he’d kept the name when we married. Robin Rice, he still made my heart hammer after years of marriage.

  Raven black hair, long on one side and shaved on the other. Darker skin than you’d expect for never seeing the sun. I detached from the kids to give my husband a hug, then a kiss. He only had a few small piercings on his face. They accented his features very well and weren't in the way. Then I grabbed his ass and lifted him up since I was a head taller and kissed him real good! PG-13 kissing, fast because the kids were there but still...

  I looked like a fucking slob in comparison.

  I had a weird figure, hips as broad as my shoulders. Gave me a girly ass that both my husband and I appreciated. I even had somewhat of an hourglass shape since my rib cage was narrower than my hips. I shared a lot of my pants with Lila, really. However, I was dense. Heavy for my frame and my muscles didn't show that much.

  The cables from my arm augments kind of ruined my arms' look. They showed since I was still a bit too thin. Two meals a day keeps you lean and… mostly fit. My darling had similar proportions, just much smaller and less muscled.

  I felt his nipple piercings and plug through his clothes, a clear signal of ‘whenever you got time take care of my needs’. The sound of fake retching came to my ears as I detached from him. “Hey Pandear…” He said with a smile while barely an inch from my face.

  He passed his hand through my messy reddish faux-hawk. Not hot messy, just messy. I hadn’t applied dye in a while so it looked pretty dark-brown in places. All the maintenance I could do was shave the sides. No fading, just shave. Urgh. My husband didn't mind, as his hand ended on my jaw.

  My lips wanted more, hell so did my body. Every fiber of my being wanted to grab the man by the collar and go into our room. The floor would do too! I wanted to… Bad thoughts, bad!

  Apparently, the fake retching of my daughters, which I would blame for everything, woke up Jack. I hopped to it and picked him up from his room. The cradle was another DIY project. Man, the stuff Robin could dig up online was insane!

  I could tell it was ‘hungry’ crying and, well, it was dinner time and Lila had offered! I didn’t have to say anything, everyone just prepared for the trip, grabbing whatever food we had and going a couple apartments down. Actually, we spent most of our dinners at Lila’s.

  Originally, Lila had been one of the brothel friends Robin had. They’d been fuck-buddies since before I got there and I didn’t mind much. I was more monogamous than Robin and we compromised, both present or nothing! That included Lila a bunch. She was selective, but mostly emotionally. People she trusted. That list had maybe three names, including her own.

  However, after years of doing all I could to impregnate Robin, we wanted to conceive and had to ask for help. A biohacker friend allowed us to do that thing rich gay guys did to have biological children, but we needed a carrier.

  Aunt Lila to the rescue! She’d already been a close friend to me at that point. We’d been in battle together. However, then she truly became aunt Lila. We still had frequent nights of fun. The woman had a healthy libido and a lack of outlets. So, we were often on the docket when she was in the mood.

  Even if it was creepy to say in that context, Lila was family. She was in my innermost circle of empathy and trust. The kind of person I’d fight and die for with no hesitation whatsoever. Actually, I'd do that for many people but whatever, Lila was family, period. She was important to me in a way no one outside the room we entered in could compare.

  On the way, I calmed my baby down a bit, Jack understanding that we were going towards food (or so I thought, who could tell? I didn’t speak fluent baby!). Of course, the moment we got to her apartment, Rachael headed to check out the armory (man, I loved her but that kid worried me sometimes.), probably hoping Lila got something new, and Alice had clearly been holding it in since she went straight to the bathroom.

  I had no idea why she didn’t like our bathroom. They were identical! Argh! Anyway… “Oh, poor little guy, pass him over papa bear.” She said with a massive smile. She was breastfeeding pretty much daily. Apparently, she loved the experience and formula was hard to find.

  However, after passing him over, I grumbled angrily. “I’m not a fucking bear…” As Jack latched on, she smiled at me with the cruelty of a third world dictator.

  “Well, you’re a Bear-Yakuza soooooo…” I groaned.

  “Fuck I hate that name.” Robin laughed at me as I groaned some more. Besieged on all sides!

  “If I remember right, the council was almost unanimous...”

  “Still not a fucking bear!” My manscaping was on point! Or, well, as on point as you could get with refurbished clippers but still. I was thin for my frame, had a girl’s ass, I DID NOT have a dad bod, I was well… Well-ish shaved! Not my fault razors were damn expensive. Oh and Robin said I have a kind face. No idea if that applies to being classified as a bear though…

  Oh screw it I didn’t need to belabor the point in my own fucking head! I wasn't a fucking bear! I settled down at the little unfolding kitchen table. Really, it was more a counter that cut off the micro-kitchen. We did some light chit-chat as Lila, one handed of course, grabbed us a few cans of whatever fizzy stuff was findable this week.

  I settled on the stool and Robin brought his mismatched chair closer. We ended up interlocked, with my husband scrubbing my neck with his head stubble as he settled onto my shoulder. My hand went across his back protectively, ending up on his side. Our muscles untensed at the same time. Life was… shitty, in general, but it was good with my family and I’d savor every moment I could get.

  I remembered how it started, the first time I’d seen my husband. He was so pretty, cute and fragile looking. The bunch of stoned as all hell idiots that had press-ganged me into joining their celebratory gangbang without telling me what my dumbass was being dragged into were there too.

  I remembered his eyes. He looked… not desperate, more hopeless. Like he was impatiently waiting to die. That look in his eyes had shaken loose something in me. My mom’s suicide wasn’t that long ago at the time, her message stuck in my mind and then there was all the shit I was ignoring to protect my mom but then she was dead so…

  Quintuple homicide. Four of the rapists and the security guy. It had been... Brutal and cathartic. I honestly felt worse about not acting sooner rather than about killing those fuckers. Don’t know what kind of fucked-up that makes me but I was doing the right thing, and it felt better than not doing it. If it had gotten me killed, I’d have been alright with that.

  Corpo-sec hadn’t even been aware, the gang assumed it was their fault since I was useful and Robin backed up my story. I made sure he was okay, gave him a few credits then fucked off. Didn’t expect to see him again. I wasn’t the kind of creep to try and extract ‘payment’ for saving him from them.

  He found me a few days later, then we got to talking. Robin got to organizing with Lila’s help. I got to killing. It was a sad reality of my life that I only had one true talent, and it was horrible. I didn’t want to kill. I didn’t like killing. I loved fighting! However, what happened after… Most of the goat-fuckers I didn’t feel bad about but…

  Robin poked me in the side and I got out of Memory Land. There was no judgement on his part, no rebuke. We were all prone to zoning back to the shit. It was just a little gesture to bring me back to my happy moment, right here, right now. Could be a lot happier, fuck an insane amount happier. Life was still shitty overall and I didn’t want my daughters or my son growing up in that but… Life wasn’t fair. You deal with what you got.

  “Are you eating enough for breastfeeding? Need some help on that?” We’d been slipping her some extra we found, making sure she was in good enough shape. Did it all throughout the pregnancy, really. The girls insisted on giving her part of their rations for the good of the baby. That just made me smile goofily.

  “Nah, I’m good, David stole a crate…” A message appeared on my augs.

  The worst possible fucking message I could have seen. There was no warning, we weren’t prepared for fuck’s sake! My family wasn’t safe!

  Life was shitty, life wasn’t fair, you deal with what you got and what I had was a family to protect… along with eight thousand people…

  Fuck…

  INCURSION DETECTED IN YOUR BUILDING!