Stray Cat Strut - 6Chapter 18 - Home

Chapter Eighteen – Home

“You want to buy a house? In this market? Are you delusional?”

— Someone, 2023

***

“A favour,” I repeated. “What is it? You need dating help?”

“Dating help?” Delilah shook her head. “No, why would I ask you for dating advice?”

Well, that was rude. “Hey, why wouldn’t you ask me for dating advice? Lucy and I have been steady for years. You think it was easy to convince her to date me?”

Delilah blinked, then looked away across the city. “Okay, I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I just figured you two somehow skipped the dating phase entirely.”

“Well, we are both very horny,” I admitted.

Delilah sighed. “I don’t want to hear it, please. I just know Lucy’s putting ideas in Franny’s head right now.”

I laughed, then swept some hair out of my face. I needed a haircut one of these days. Also, my hair was humid as fuck. It wasn’t even raining yet the city managed to make it feel like it was. “So, what’s this favour?” I asked.

“It’s a little awkward,” she said.

“I was already down to helping you with dating stuff, so I think we’re past the ‘a little awkward’ phase.”

Delilah poked me in the short ribs with a knuckle. “Don’t be an ass,” she said. “I’ve got… domestic problems.”

“With Franny?”

“No, not with Franny, she’s… nevermind my relationship, it’s complicated, but not in a bad way. It’s the rest that’s a problem.”

“You mean with where you’re living?” I walked over to one of the legs of the mech then sat down on it. The cat-like mech was sitting like a sphinx at the moment, so there was plenty of room to use it as a bench. A rather uncomfortable one, but still.

Delilah looked around for a place to sit, then hopped backwards onto the head of my repair drone. The poor thing just sat there, frozen. “It’s the nuns,” she said.

“The… oh, right, you live in a nunhouse.”

“It’s not called a nunhouse,” Delilah said. “It’s a convent. And an orphanage and school and a few other things all rolled into one. I didn’t mind staying in the dorms a few months ago, before… all of this.” She gestured vaguely at the mecha and the house and the two of us.

I took it to mean she was talking about all the samurai stuff. She became one a bit before me.

“But now it’s getting to be a bit much. The head of the convent is insisting that I get their rooms, the others are either fawning over me or tip-toeing around and… and Franny and I can’t get a private moment anywhere. I don’t mind the attention, and it’s nice to be treated well, but I grew up with these women.”

“Wait, are you an orphan? I don’t recall that.”

“Me? No, my parents are… I don’t really want to talk about them, to be honest. They’d send me to the convent for nine months out of the year, so I feel better there than at home. But it’s still getting to be a bit much.”

“So, you want me to put the fear of Lucifer in the nuns so that they leave you alone?”

Delilah snorted. “No. God no. They’d like you. As weird as that is to say. You’re like the embodiment of the ideal samurai, and they practically worship that idea.”

I blinked. I was the what? There was no way that I was the ideal anything. Hell, Gomorrah was better at this job than I was. She had the whole calm and collected thing going. Or maybe someone like Deus Ex or Longbow or… well, not Grasshopper, she was cool but also clearly insane.

“You need a place to stay, then?” I asked, because I really didn’t feel like opening that can of worms before dinner.

“Exactly,” she said. “I was planning on asking you what you were doing with the rest of the space in your building.”

“Huh? Wait, you mean this building?” I tapped the ground with a foot.

“Yes, obviously,” she said.

“You know, I only own the top floor, right? I mean, we added to it, obviously, but that’s all I own. If you want to live below, then… I guess, buy a floor.”

“You don’t own the entire building?” Gomorrah asked. “Really? Aren’t you worried that someone might move in below and cause trouble?”

“They’d have to be really loud to bother me. And any more… violent trouble can be handled with violence in turn.”

Delilah shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to live with neighbours I don’t trust, not if I invested this much into a home. But I suppose no one will try anything. You did just shoot the mayor on TV. It sends a message.”

“Damn right,” I said. “So if you want to move in, go ahead. I don’t know who owns which floors, but I’m sure they’d sell to you. You can be scary that way.”

“Why not buy the entire building?”

“What’s the point, I live here, not down there. I guess if I wanted more space or something. I might do the floor right under this level. It’d be nice to have some storage space, and I’m pretty sure it’s not being used at all.”

Delilah smiled. “Atyacus has a list of owners and has sent a few feelers out,” she said. “Thanks, Catherine. You really don’t mind us being neighbours?”

“There’s no window in my bedroom, so it’s not like you’ll hear anything kinky, and I’d rather have you nearby than someone I don’t know,” I said. “Well… there’s the fire risk.”

“I’m very careful about fire,” Delilah replied.

“When will you be moving over?” I asked.

She shrugged. “As soon as I have a place. It might take a day or two. It’s late, so I imagine anyone receiving my request might take a while to process it.”

“If they try to cheat you on the price, let me know. Apparently I’m scary. Also, let me know when you’re actually moving, I can give you a hand.”

“I don’t have that much to move,” she said.

“Good, less work for me, but I still expect free pizza out of it.” I grinned, then glanced at the front door. “Speaking of, think supper’s ready?”

We stood and made our way back inside while chatting about homes and such. Delilah didn’t have any house-related catalogues, but she did have a lot more points on hand than I did. She suggested pooling our resources a little to sabotage-proof the rest of the tower, which wasn’t a terrible idea. I’d placed a few turrets out and around the top floors already, to keep things safe, but with two samurai in the same building I expected that our security would need to climb a bit.

Lucy was leaving the kitchen just as we got closer. “Oh, cool, I was about to go fetch you. Come on, food’s ready!”

Franny was just finishing up setting the table with bowls and utensils, four sets of them. “Are the kittens eating with us?”

“And making a mess?” Lucy asked. “Nah, I made enough for them, but they can eat out of paper bowls. Also, we need a cleaning bot.”

“A cleaning bot?” I asked.

“Yeah, like that repair drone you have. There’s stains on the stove that I can’t get off, and I’ll bet every last credit I have that the kittens will be turning this place into a dump before the month’s out.”

That.. was actually a fair point. “I’ll look into it,” I said. In the meantime, we’d just need to clean things like they did way back in the day; by hiring someone poorer than us to do it.

Lucy brought the pot over to the table, then started to ladle food into our bowls. It was a brown gooey stuff with chunks of meat and… beans? “Is this chilli?” I asked.

“Oh, hey, I didn’t mess it up so bad that it’s unrecognisable,” Lucy said.

“It smells nice,” I said.

“It’s real meat!” Lucy cheered. “Or as real as what I could make with the printer, in any case.”

“So… real meat that didn’t come from an animal?” I asked.

Lucy shrugged. In her defence, it was probably better than the vat-grown shit we could order online.

With everyone served, Lucy returned the pot to the kitchen, then called the kittens to get served. She very quickly handed over the job to Daniel though and returned to us.

“I’m assuming you don’t do prayer before eating,” Delilah said.

“I don’t do praying in general,” I said.

She shrugged, then took a spoonful. “Hmm, this is good,” she said.

I took a spoonful, shoved it in my mouth, and chewed for a bit before my eyes started to water and my mouth started to burn. “Lucy, why is this so hot?” I asked.

Lucy frowned. “Was it a tablespoon of pepper, or a cup?” she muttered.

***