Anti-antithesis

This is the first chapter that is solely from the perspective of Lividiea's characters. If you are needing context for things, please go read Maniac and Shinobi!

There comes a time in every corporation's lifetime where a decision must be made, and the result of this decision will always decide the fate of the corporation. How does one deal with Samurai?

There are only two real answers. Work with them, or be antagonistic with them. One may think there is a third option, to simply ignore them, but all that option does is condemn the corporation to the latter option. It may not be immediate, and the choice may happen years down the line, but it is a constant question in this age of alien warfare. And near every corporation that has chosen to antagonize the Samurai has ceased to exist.

So, with that question lingering like the Sword of Damoclese above your profit margins, let's take a look at how you can secure your sensitive internal networks against the casual and concerted efforts of the Samurai.

-Excerpt from a private conference, Security and You: Cyber security doesn't stop with strong passwords, 2049.

Evelyn

“So, Shinon, Shinobu, I’m sure you are already aware, but PsyCo, and by extension me, took a commission to go and fuck up Bestlé later today. Now, normally, I would just go in and have a blast in a corporate headquarters, but Bestlé has survived this long for a reason, and a lax military budget isn't one of them. So, I have to do the smart thing and infiltrate the place, probably sabotage a bunch of stuff in the process in order to minimize our troops' losses.”

I could see the gears in my daughter's head turn as I talked, then I smiled as I saw their face light up. “Wait, infiltration? Does that mean…?”

I nodded. “Your Mum and I already discussed it, and yes, I am inviting you to infiltrate a highly secure and stupidly dangerous corporate HQ to soften them up for our army.” My smile faded slightly as I looked them in their eyes. “I will be honest with you two. I don't want you within several kilometers of the place. Not because I do not trust either of you that is a whole separate issue, but because this will be incredibly dangerous and I want you girls to be safe.” I exhaled sharply. “But! I recognize that you are big girls now,” I make a gesture with my hand indicating that they are still physically short. “and a Samurai in your own rights, and you have been diligent with Mom's training program-”

“When do we leave?” Shinobu asked. She was basically vibrating with excitement.

I looked at my wrist, checking the non-existent watch on it. “Let's say… Thirty minutes? We are going to have to take a quiet vehicle, and I need to let Claire know what's going on.”

The girls nearly fell on their face as they all but sprinted towards their room to get changed. I chuckled as I felt Cali pull on my sleeve. I looked at her and saw not worry on her expression, but boredom. “Mom, can I drive to the park with Snowball since you are going to be gone? I don't want to be late to the school picnic and give Gren anymore ammunition to be snide today.”

I gave her a quick hug. “Just don't snack on it, alright?” Gren was a queen bee type bitch who took exception to my perfect child, and one Cali expressly forbade me from dealing with. She wanted to handle it on her own, and I was letting her, but dammit, was it hard! I would trust Snowball to back Cali up in my place today.

Gathering my gear was simple, and the call to Claire went well, with her even saying she would join me for the main assault! Granted, she said she will be focusing on non-lethal take downs of the corporate goons, but that's okay. I respected her and her morals.

Later, as I was bothering Jasper about a ride, Shinobu honked the horn of a car to get my attention.

Jasper smirked at me. “Looks like your kid knows the garage better than you do. They're even in the car I was going to recommend.”

I rolled my eyes and teleported into the black hearse-like car, buckling up in the driver's seat. I had Lyssa give me the foot notes of what this thing could do.

Visual, audio, thermal, and electromagnetic camouflage, a great sensor suite, and some self defense weaponry built in. Nothing crazy, but it was made with Protector tech and Jasper was the one who built it, so I knew it was up to snuff.

Shinon pulled up the navigation software, a smile brightening their face. “At the fastest speed this thing can go while in stealth mode, we can get to Sweden in two hours. That gives us four hours to snoop safely before Yun Min and the rest move out, and another six hours before the assault. Beslté's guard will be up once they reach the channel, possibly even earlier, if they are paying any attention to us, which they would be stupid not to.” They turned towards me looking like they were planning a trip through the zoo to watch the animals and not planning the downfall of a Multinational corporation. “In order to cover the most ground, we should split up, but stay in contact. Do you have a preference for a north-south split, or an east-west split?”

As they pulled out of the garage, activating stealth mode and auto pilot, I gave my kids a head pat. “North-south split, and I will take the South. Probably where most of their defenses are pointed, if the American Samurai's scans are accurate.”

Shinon nodded. “Sure, that works.” Then, they were quiet for all of five minutes before Shinobu took over. “So, what's the reason for this American to want Bestlé dead? Mesh says The Family is purging them from NA, so I could see if one of their higher ups asked for assistance. You know, once they get their heads out of their asses and apologise to you, but a new Samurai?”

I raised an eyebrow in question. “You mean you didn't read the email they sent? Wow, I'm actually impressed by your restraint.” I gave them a side hug in praise. “Short answer is they fucked with his family, long answer is they fucked with his city and his family and declared war on him. The reason he reached out to me is due to our reputation and proximity. Good news is PsyCo is getting international stuff, bad news is Cierra gave herself a bunch of work that has to get handled before the end of the year. And that means less cuddles for me.”

Shinobu nodded sagely at my expert explanation of the situation. “Yeah, that's a valid reason to destroy a Multinational. I assume they are taking care of the satellite station?”

I could see they were pouting slightly at the thought that they couldn't go to space right now. I chuckled at them. “Yes, they are. While our ship is space worthy, it's not combat ready. It's a fancy RV. The shit this War Games has? Those things are space tanks. Maybe I'll see if I can buy one for Jason to tinker with, as an early birthday present.”

We spent the following two hours in various conversations, taking advantage of the forced time together to do some mother-daughter bonding that I didn't realize I was missing. I know they had been up to some nonsense or something, but it was nice to hear the details from them personally.

Just as I was getting into explaining which antithesis tasted best during my time under Zurich, I got an alert from Lyssa that we were about to enter Bestlé airspace.

Shinon pulled up a map of the complex and I gave a low whistle. Thirty square kilometers of above ground facilities, ranging from corporate offices, executive housing, indentured servant housing and factories, and paramilitary facilities. We counted twenty anti-air encampments on the south side alone, with numerous artillery pieces and surface to surface missile batteries, and what looked like four super heavies sitting in garages. Not to mention the number of people manning the half-kilometer tall walls surrounding the entire corporate city.

“Fuck,” I whispered, “how the fuck did Mom leave this place be for so long?”

“Better question,” Shinobu asked, “do you think she will understand why we didn't wait for her to return to fuck them up?”

I smirked as I grabbed my mask. “She will. And if she doesn't, she is easily bribed by ice cream.” I adjusted the map and highlighted some areas of interest. “Server farms should be around here on the North side, and security controls should be around here. Focus on locating any EMC generators, escape paths for execs, shield generators, and armories. If you can find anything leading below ground, mark it and explore it after finishing up surface defenses.”

They rolled their eyes at me. “Yes, mom. I know how to sabotage a corporate compound. Dial-Up and Lag set up lots of sims for Samurai in the Cube to play with, and while I may not have the highest score on most of them, I am in the top ten on most.”

I wiped a fake tear from my eyes. “Look at my girls, they grow up so fast, it feels like it was just yesterday when they tried to take my head off.”

After a few more playful barbs, I set the car to circle the compound as I grabbed my kids and teleported down, setting us on top of the tallest tower in the center of the soon to be ruin. Wait, no, we can't blow the whole thing up, this will be ours soon. Or more specifically Cierra's. She can blow it up later if she wants, maybe we can sell tickets and such.

We split quickly, with them turning invisible and scaling down the side of the building, and me looking around at the view. As much as I hated to compliment a corporation, the view from this tower was impressive, with lots of trees and shit covering the roofs of buildings and a mountain range in the distance that looked to be covered in snow. Crazy fucking rich people.

I entered the tower through a service hatch and stabbed a camera, hacking into their closed network and erasing my presence from their security. It took me all of two minutes to scan through their entire network and understand their defenses, which are far more extensive than I thought. Well, kinda.

I estimated that their above ground shit was about sixty percent of their actual defenses, and I was close. The stuff their internal files described seemed more experimental than functional, and all of it stolen Protector tech. A few hundred of those human experiments Games recorded in cells, dozens of hulking, crab-like things with metal plates grafted onto their shells, thousands of varieties of drones in myriad stages of assembled or disassembled.

In other words, a lot of annoying shit that Yun Min and crew would be hard pressed to kill quickly. The fire giant Games was sending? He could probably deal with the crabs. I could deal with the crabs, and while I was interested in fighting them, it was probably the smarter thing to prevent them from entering the fray at all.

The entrances to the underground areas were strictly monitored, and the control center that could release these monsters was… in this building! How kind of them to only have one room with access to their super secret monster bunker. Makes my job easier.

As I walked towards that control room, marking other spots that I would have to manually fuck up afterwards, I checked in on my kids though the camera systems. While they may be invisible, they cannot escape my Hover Mom Programming! Hmm, I need to rename that, sounds dumb.

They seem to be doing well, planting high yield explosives in a few key points, cutting fuel lines, and they just send… Shinon? Yeah, she was the one in the porcelain white armor currently. Shinon just entered the vents as a bunch of spiders near one of the Super Heavies while Shinobu was stalking a Captain Traunt in her pitch black shadowy armor.

Satisfied that they were not in any immediate danger, I swapped my camouflage to look like said Captain, as he had the credentials to enter the control room I was approaching. Thankfully, there were very few actual people in this tower. Lots of bots, instead, and it was always easier to spoof sensors than fool humans.

The control room was… stupid. It was an office in the center of the building with a single desk and computer and fuck all else. Not even a “hang in there kitty” poster for irony's sake. Their firewall was a joke, cyber security also getting a failing grade since they had their log in on a fucking yellow sticky note on the computer. Did I trust it? Fuck no, I hacked the system myself, then verified that, yes, the fucking information on the sticky note was accurate!

“Lyssa, please send Princess a note saying to do another round of random cyber security risk assessments soon.” I think.

Lyssa will schedule the message for after the assault

After copying all their files to PsyCo's cloud, I brick the lab release systems and set a purge protocol to activate when the raid starts, or when someone tries to release the monsters in the basement.

I stand and stretch as I look over my new compound map, seeing all the bullshit I have to break quietly, cause if I go loud, my kids would be in danger, and the satellite above will become my problem to deal with, one I can't teleport to cause they bought fucking spacial stabilizers from a long dead Samurai years ago!

I sigh and made my way towards the next objective, marking the executives on site for later disposal. I pat my back at my restraint.

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