Of course, the kids, being kids, immediately rushed to the entrance of the aquatic garden and piled through the door the instant they were given permission. Thankfully Bob and the foxes were only a few steps behind them, so someone would be keeping an eye on them until Jane, Alan, and I could catch up.

  I’d expected to find the kids scattered around the building by the time we caught up, so when we found them standing just inside the door, I was pleasantly surprised. It was only when I followed their gazes and found out what they were staring at that I understood why they’d stopped.

  The area above the lobby was full of fish. Well, they were almost certainly holograms, but still… Dozens of different species and thousands of individual specimens swam around near the roof. They must have had some sort of low-level AI managing everything, because the display didn’t appear to be a loop, and it even had dynamic effects like predators coming in and disrupting the schools of fish before disappearing down one of the side corridors.

  “Pretty impressive, huh?” Layla chuckled. “You can’t imagine how boring this place was before, when all they had was tanks full of coral and seaweed.”

  “So pretty…” Eddie muttered.

  “You know, the curator spent a ton of time filling out the displays too. Each one has historically accurate fish and other sealife, and if you’re lucky, you can catch the occasional fish migrating between tanks,” Layla whispered conspiratorially to the kids.

  “I wanna see!” Issi shrieked as she bolted towards the exhibition hall. Jennifer and Eddie followed at a much more casual pace, followed a moment later by Jane and Alan.

  “This place is supported by a samurai, isn’t it?” I asked Layla as I continued to observe the colorful dancing fish dart around above us.

  “What makes you say that?” she asked. The small, growing smile on her face told me I was right, she just wasn’t going to admit it right away.

  “Even if this place received government grants, they’d never be able to afford to hire enough researchers and artists to replicate hundreds of different fish species. Corps might throw that much money at a project, but only for some high-class attractions where they could force people to pay out of the nose to view them,” I explained. “A samurai, on the other hand, could do the same with a small investment of points and a few moments of their AI’s time.”

  Layla’s smile grew wider. “That’s a pretty good analysis. You’re right, this was a pet project of a friend of mine named Caroline, more widely known as Thermal Current. She apparently grew up wanting to be a marine biologist, despite knowing that the Antithesis had devoured the majority of the sea life on the planet long before we turned our eyes to the water. Now she’s working with several other samurai on ways to increase the biodiversity in the oceans.”

  “That’s a tall order,” I muttered. “Aren’t the oceans still infested with Antithesis?”

  “They are, but we’re seeing more and more samurai interested in dealing with the aquatic pests every day. It’s only a matter of time until they’ll have enough firepower to not only venture out and destroy hives but also actually make a serious attempt to secure sections of the ocean floor,” Layla said. I couldn’t help but notice there seemed to be a touch of hope in her voice, which was something I wasn’t used to hearing from my gruff friend.

  “You seem to be in a fairly good mood today. I’m guessing the city fared well during the global incursion,” I said as I slowly started making my way towards the exhibition hall.

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  “Yeah, you could say that,” Layla smirked. “I have to admit, the Cascadian government deserves a little bit of credit. All their preparation helped keep the initial incursion contained, and their firepower helped suppress all the Antithesis outside the walls. It was still a tough fight, and we needed the help of one of the Family’s orbital weapon platforms to help cut down the numbers outside the city. Thankfully we also saw quite a few samurai awakened during the fight, and that really helped alleviate some of the pressure on the veterans.”

  I saw the briefest shadow of aggravation pass over her face, and she mumbled something under her breath. I absolutely would have missed it without my new bionics. “I just wish dealing with people was as easy as dealing with the Antithesis.”

  “Problems?” I chirped, suddenly interested.

  Layla glanced at me, a look of surprise passing over her face momentarily before fading away.

  “I really should be more careful with what I say. I keep forgetting that half my friends can hear a pin drop from several blocks away,” she grumbled. “Yeah, we have a problem, but it’s nothing for you to be concerned with. It’s a problem with a corp, not Antithesis.”

  “I’d like to believe I’m an expert on dealing with corporations, after what happened last year,” I said. “You sure you don’t want any help?”

  “I heard how you dealt with your ‘problem,'” Layla snorted. “I still see links to that video of Bob walking up to that super heavy tank, shrugging off the rounds from its dual heavy vulcan cannons, before finally ripping the turret off.”

  “In my defense, it did fire on me first,” I said.

  “Uh huh, sure,” Layla muttered. She brought one hand up to her face and gently rubbed her eyes before letting out a quiet sigh. “Whatever… You’ll probably hear this from one of your contacts at the Family before too long. They’re completely losing their shit over the situation.”

  I frowned. “It’s that bad?”

  “Worse!” Layla glanced around suspiciously before quickly leading me towards a slightly more isolated section of the room. “So, we had a couple samurai come into town right before the Global kicked off, performing an investigation on a company called Montero-Wisteria. You heard of them?”

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t sound familiar…”

  “It’s a big multinational with branches in dozens of cities,” Layla explained quietly. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is they raided one of the company’s offshore platforms and found a genetics lab.”

  “Okay…” I replied. “And that’s a problem because?”

  “They were trying to create human-antithesis hybrids,” Layla explained, “And they succeeded.”

  “What?” I shouted, attracting a couple glances before I remembered to keep my voice down. “How’d they manage to get away with that?”

  “No one knows,” Layla shrugged, “but the Family wants to conduct a full investigation. The problem is, the team they sent to guard the place was compromised, and one of the guards nearly detonated the failsafe, which would have collapsed the facility with multiple samurai inside. They caught the guy before that happened, but now the Family doesn’t know who to trust. They have a couple samurai keeping an eye on the place right now, but the local branch doesn’t have enough manpower to keep it secure.”

  “Fuck…” I muttered, shaking my head for a moment. “I have no love of the Family, but that definitely sounds like something that needs to be stomped out. You think it’d help if I sent a couple bears over to help them secure the place?”

  “You haven’t seen the size of this place. You wouldn’t be able to handle it with the half dozen bears you brought with you,” Layla exclaimed.

  I just stared at her for a minute. “I did tell you I was coming down in an airship, right? A heavily armed one?”

  “You did, and that’s why the government asked you to stay away from the city proper. Why?”

  “Did I not explain how big this thing was? Or how well armed?” I asked.

  “No, I just figured it was another version of the drop ship you had running around the country prior to the global incursion,” Layla replied, eyes narrowing. “Why?”

  I pulled up the plans for the Strato Carrier and shot her a copy. “I figured the Cascadian government must have received intel about my ship ahead of time, because if they were afraid of the Marsupial they’d absolutely lose their shit over the Strato Carrier.”

  Layla’s eyes went wide. “This isn’t a joke?”

  “Nope, I wanted the ability to strategically reposition my forces and bring extreme amounts of firepower down upon the Antithesis,” I said. “I even have most of my forces on board right now, over seven hundred bears. Do you think that’ll be enough to secure the facility?”

  “Did you know you have the most smug, shit-eating grin on your face right now?” Layla growled.

  “I’m aware,” I replied, the grin growing just a little bit wider.

  She stared at me for a couple more seconds before sighing. “Give me a couple minutes. I need to make a couple phone calls.”

  I smiled. “Take your time, I’m not going anywhere.”

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