Bob met me just outside the shelter, and with the rest of my squad at our backs, we wandered towards the building that Nyx had indicated. I wasn’t in any rush. If the Corpos saw me waiting, they’d probably hightail it back topside before we could ‘talk,’ so I took the time to check out the area.

  Once the beavers had completed my tower, they’d slowly spiraled outwards, conducting repairs on the nearby buildings. Nothing excessive, just repairing and reinforcing the exterior of the buildings so they’d be structurally sound and fairly secure against antithesis attacks. They also installed shelters in the newly dug basement, fifth, and tenth floors.

  This required a ton of materials, so I had to create another couple of deconstruction crews to help. Although most of them went out to the nearby abandoned towns, I assigned a couple to deconstruct the decaying sky streets on the fifth and tenth levels.

  I’m sure there was some grand plan for these roadways in the past, but after decades of neglect they were nothing more than a hazard to the community. Not only were they cracked and unstable, meaning one wrong step would send you tumbling five stories down to the next level, but every few months a piece would break off and crash into the street below. It had been a couple of years since anyone had been killed by the debris, but enough was enough.

  Those streets provided a lot of the raw materials required to reinforce the surrounding buildings, and when the beavers performed the upgrades, they also created balconies and footbridges between the buildings at those levels. Although most people still didn’t trust the upper paths, they were getting a lot more use now than they were before.

  The downside of the upgrades was that most of the buildings lost a lot of their character. The flaws that had been building up for years were covered up by a thin layer of Samurai-grade concrete. It was starting to make the streets look like a row of uniform monoliths.

  Most people didn’t give a shit; they were just happy they didn’t have to worry about gangs or looters being able to barge into their place whenever they wanted.

  Thankfully, some of the locals had started adding color back to the environment, either tagging or straight-up painting the new exteriors. I think a lot of people were worried the bears might stop them if they tried no one bothered to ask, but once they realized I didn’t care, people jumped at the chance to pretty things up.

  Despite their numbers and the fact they’d been working for months nonstop, the beavers weren’t even close to finishing the sector-wide upgrades. By my estimation, they were about half done. That meant that if I ever decided to expand my operation outside of Sector Eleven, it would probably take around a hundred and twenty years to fix up the undercity.

  Yeah… I’d probably need to either scale up my operations or figure out a way to optimize things a little bit.

  As I strolled around the corner, finally approaching my destination, I immediately spotted Tri-Active’s people. They weren’t exactly being subtle.

  There were two hover vehicles, a huge black luxury sedan that cost more than the combined income of every person in the undercity, and a massive black SUV. Standing next to the vehicle were two men in black suits, handguns sitting out on display and cybernetic eyes glowing behind their tinted glasses. Like I said, not exactly subtle.

  A small crowd had gathered in the street, staring distrustfully at the corporate goons, but they parted as soon as they saw me coming. The guards immediately stood up straight.

  “Howdy boys, what brings you to my little corner of the undercity?” I asked, putting on my friendliest smile.

  “Freelance security, ma’am, hired by Tri-Active Incorporated. We don’t want any trouble,” the closest man replied nervously.

  “Really? Because I’ve heard rumors that Tri-Active has been wandering around my neighborhood handing out eviction notices. In my book, that’s the opposite of asking for trouble.” Behind me Bob cracked his knuckles, which created a horrific metal crunching noise.

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  “Fuck this, I told you they weren’t telling us everything,” the man in the back muttered. He squinted for just a moment before slowly raising his hands. “We weren’t aware of the situation, ma’am. We were just hired today to protect the Tri-Active team and their vehicle. Apparently their car was trashed the last time they were down here, and they wanted extra security.”

  “How unfortunate for them,” I mumbled sarcastically.

  “Where are you going? We paid your company for a week of protection, up front. You can’t just abandon us down here!” I heard a terse female voice yell as two more security people exited the building.

  “And our company makes it extremely clear within our contracts. We reserve the right to back out of any contract where the client lies about the extent of the expected threat,” the man at the back of the SUV yelled.

  “We didn’t lie! You’re here to protect us against undercity thugs, that’s it! What did we leave out?” The woman growled as she finally stepped out onto the landing. Dirty blond, about five foot nine, and in a spotless grey business suit and huge sunglasses. She stood out even more than her fucking car. Behind her came two more people, one a gorilla in a cheap suit, and the other a woman carrying a briefcase and tablet, probably an assistant.

  The lead security guard silently pointed in my direction before growling, “We’re leaving.” The rest of the team quickly piled into the SUV, and were gone within seconds.

  Left without her backup, the woman smiled awkwardly at me. “You must be the famous Teddy.”

  “I am. Which makes you the Tri-Active suits that are trying to cause trouble in my neighborhood,” I grumbled, letting my smile drop.

  “We have no interest in making trouble here let me explain. My name is Miriam Hawthorne, head of property development at Tri-Active Incorporated. We specialize in identifying and developing areas within samurai-protected areas. Typically near their residences or place of work,” Miriam explained.

  “Right… So you thought you could come down here, snatch up the deeds for a couple buildings around me, evict the residents, and I wouldn’t care?” I felt my eyebrows raise a couple centimeters with each additional statement. “Did you bother to do any research about me prior to starting this insane scheme of yours?”

  “I don’t see any issues with what we’re doing,” Miriam said coolly. “We purchased the buildings legally, and by renovating these places we can re-invigorate the area.”

  “You’re driving out all the locals, who already have enough fucking problems as it is. I’m not making improvements so some yuppies can move in, but so the people around here have a chance to make a living. If I wanted to live by a bunch of fucking upper city assholes, I would have moved!” I snarled. “Stop trying to evict these people and get out of my neighborhood!”

  “I can’t do that,” Miriam declared. “Tri-Active has already invested heavily in this project, and we already have customers lined up to purchase property down here.”

  I stared at the woman for several seconds, actually confused. I didn’t know if she was crazy or actually that confident she could get away with her little plan. “Have you ever dealt with a samurai before? Do you know what we’re capable of when you piss us off?”

  “Of course. I frequently work with Charlotte DeBois and the Family setting up samurai-protected housing areas,” the woman explained. She raised her chin slightly so she was literally looking down her nose at me.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not like Charlotte. I don’t give a shit about corporate bullshit, just the people around here,” I growled, before getting an idea.

  “You know, normally I’d just threaten you. Have Bob crumple your car into a tiny ball, then explain that my bears wouldn’t be protecting any property you buy. In fact, they’d even spread the news that those buildings are unprotected; I’m sure your clients would love to have the local gangs stopping by on a daily basis,” I said casually walking back and forth next to the luxury vehicle, a small smile on my face.

  Miriam looked significantly less haughty at that suggestion.

  “But you know what? How about we go over the costs of your little project instead? Nyx, what are the fines for failing to maintain property?”

  Dusty stepped forward and began stroking his chin with a paw.

  “There aren’t any at this time. If there were, most corporations would have gotten rid of their undercity property,” Nyx explained. For a second, Miriam looked hopefully, but then my AI continued. “However, if the government has to step in and perform repairs on a building, the owning corporation will be charged the full cost of the repairs, plus a thirty percent penalty.”

  I turned towards the bear in mock surprise. “You don’t say! I just happen to be helping run the government for the last month or so. How much do you think the repairs on all of Tri-Active’s buildings cost at the current going rate?”

  “Stabilizing the buildings, adding shelters, and reinforcing them with full Class II materials? Hundreds of billions, if not trillions,” Nyx replied, playing along.

  “You can’t be serious,” Miriam squeaked. “That’s more than creating a bunch of mega-buildings from scratch. It would bankrupt the company.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” I replied sarcastically. “But if you really wanted to avoid the penalties, I could take those deeds off you. Before you complain about the costs, I know you probably paid jack shit for them. No one cares about undercity property.”

  Miriam stared at me in a combination of disgust and despair. “This is blackmail. I’ll inform the Family about this.”

  “And when you do, they’ll probably laugh at you for trying to fuck with me. I kind of have a reputation.” I pivoted on my heel and looked the woman in the face. “Next time, do some fucking research.”

  With that I turned and started heading back home.

  “I’ll give you until the end of the week to transfer those deeds over. Maybe let your friends know not to fuck with my neighborhood too!” I yelled over my shoulder. I’d nearly arrived at the corner when I remembered something important. I grinned at Bob, “Miriam’s car isn’t round enough for me. Fix that before she gets in it, will you?”

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