Chapter 56: Peaches

  “Our industry made quite the comeback after the 2020s! Those memes, that emoji, they catapulted our profit margins into the stratosphere!

  We had to capitalize, of course, but we got it done.

  Our new line of fleshlights is selling like gangbusters right now!”

  –Interview with a high-ranking member of the Peach Association of the Americas for Business Inserter magazine, 2042.

  ***

  “Philip!” Said enforcer heard his name shouted through the corridor and he turned, startled. Philip was still… adjusting to the new position. His life was a long series of dumpsters, horrors and takers. Just joining had been a hard turnaround for him, but it made logical sense! He’d received food, meds, which already put Panda at the top of the list for people to stick with, but then the dude gave him alien shit!

  Seriously, what kind of fucking idiot would say no? Plus, the explanation it… resonated with him in a way he couldn’t reconcile with his more logic-driven pessimist other part. What he did in the shelter it… felt weird. He wasn’t that proud of it, he hadn’t been the first and, yeah, he’d hesitated a bunch, but it didn’t gel with his usual MO…

  Panda and Lila both oddly said the same thing, that he had a warrior’s core, whatever that meant. Still, hope was for victims of cults, not reality. Sure, this place was great and he’d prefer not to see it burned down, but he still didn’t let anyone in. That invited future pain. It always did…

  Still, with every failed attempt on Panda’s life and the things he kept doing, his layers of pessimism were getting a bit frayed. Something about this job felt… good, but he still didn’t choose a specialty, partially out of fear the man would lord his help over him. Maybe it wasn’t fair to someone who hadn’t shown anything but sympathy and kindness, but still, old instincts died hard.

  Said boss turned around the corner and made a b-line for him! Shit, did he fuck up something? What could have pissed him off? Oh god no please… “Hey, Philip, need your help with an experiment! You in?”

  Oh, he… wasn’t in trouble. Why’d he assume that? “Sure.”

  “Hum… You should ask more questions when someone asks you that.” The man said, clear concern on his face. Concern? Why?

  “Well, you gave an order so…”

  The man blushed a bit oddly enough. “It wasn’t an order, we’re not in battle, you know? I vividly remember you seeing Lila tell me the fuck the fuck off ‘cause of a hangover. I’m just… kindly proposing you take part in a little psychological experiment. Nothing bad! Just good vibes all over the place!” That took a bit to process, but he got the gist.

  “Uh… Alright, what do you need from me?”

  “Take my hand, close you eyes and follow me.” The absolute madman told him with a smile! That sounded like a great way to get recaptured quietly in his experience, which… whatever. Still, Panda had the ability to vaporize him in an instant, so why not?

  It took a few minutes of walking in silence, they started walking on… soft trash? Didn’t feel like any he’d experienced so far but trash was a big category and maybe he had a new one to add to the ‘sneak over or through’ library.

  After they stopped, Panda finally broke the silence. “Open your eyes and tell me what it makes you feel” Meh, why not…

  Pink. The world was pink. There were… trees. He’d never seen trees as more than half-dead carcasses… Or flowers… The feeds didn’t do them justice at-fucking-all. Some of the trees had them, hanging off branches as high as three times his height!

  The fake sunlight felt… warm. He didn’t really remember ever seeing the sun outside, but the fake one looked wonderful through the leaves and flowers shading them. Some of those trees had fruits, or that’s what he’d guess from the resemblance to pictures on packaging.

  Panda’d apparently invited a whole bunch of kids to play in their new and improved central concourse, climbing trees to pick fruits, having fun. The soil under them looked rich and soft, plenty of spring in it if they fell.

  They… smiled and laughed, maybe more than he’d ever done so himself. “Hope…” He replied, a tear he’d never admit to in his eye.

  “Hope. You know, one of the greatest achievements of my life, personally, was making Rachael smile. Alice was easy, barely knew anyone else but me and my husband. Plus, small children get distracted easily enough. I adopted Rachael after her mothers died, in the same fight might I add. We lived in a shit place, her moms were dead, we were hungry most of the time, the place wasn’t that safe, but I made a joke over some fucking cat-food and she laughed and smiled. It… I can’t express the sense of achievement that came with that.”

  “I created a better life for her, my enforcers, everyone in these floors. Now, thanks to Altany, we can create a good life. It’s doable, you know? Extremely hard, dangerous, and difficult on your mind and soul, but doable. You can create a better life for the people you care about.

  “I don’t care about anybody…” Philip answered automatically, his eyes still locked on the kids as he wiped away a tear.

  Panda looked at him with a small smirk. “You’re a shitty liar.”

  The samurai then put a hand on his shoulder, which didn’t bother him as much as he thought it should. “There’s space for a lot more trees. Want to help me fill it up?”

  ***

  I’d never enjoyed walking that much. Never really had anywhere to walk to without hurrying maybe? Or I never had a reason to stop and smell the roses without any roses. Walking through the second section’s central concourse with Robin at my arm and countless flowers from the peach trees surrounding us felt… nice.

  What we were here to do, it… I had no idea how to describe it. The AI therapist helped me get ready for this moment, but still…

  There was a stone path for us to walk down, shaded from the artificial sunlight we’d bought both for the trees and the people living here. I didn’t really remember what real sunlight felt like to compare, but this felt… warm and soft? Not a fan of light but I could understand the appeal.

  My heart beat faster the closer we got to the center. Robin periodically squeezed my arm in support. The beauty all around helped at least. I felt more glad by the second for that purchase.

  The project was finally finished! Lots of grass, space for kids to play and to plant a lot more peach trees. Robin’d done a great job, not only adding grass but wildflowers that would apparently propagate, some bushes (including blueberry ones!), lots of landscaping stuff that I knew nothing about.

  It got quite a few tears from people. The power of simple beauty…

  I was distracting myself, wasn’t I?

  At the center, shielded for privacy both by trees and sci-fi stuff, stood an obelisk. When we arrived, it lit up, a little menu popping up in the air. Altany connected to it and got through the whole selection stuff, letting me focus on what I had to do. “Altany… Show me Felix.”

  I’d barely finished asking when my friend appeared in front of me. The hologram’s quality was insane! I could’ve sworn the man stood in front of me…

  “H-Hi Felix”

  To my surprise, a voiceclip answered. “Heya friendo, how’s life?”

  Might as well answer. “It’s… Well, things are great actually. Finally have what it takes to protect everybody… I…”

  The image of Felix smiled at me, probably some Altany fuckery. “Just say it bro”

  “I… I’ve… I’m so, so, so fucking sorry Felix… I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t… Couldn’t…” I didn’t turn away through sheer force of will. I had to. I owed his ghost that. “I fucked up, bro. I fucked up so fucking hard… I’m so fucking sorry I lost you, I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough to… Strong enough to protect your family… I’m so fucking sorry… Even if you hate me, I love and miss you so, so fucking much, and I’m sorry…”

  I finally gave up, my eyes falling to the ground. Robin hugged me from the side, his own eyes filled with tears. My shoulders shook with sobs.

  “You’re not god, you fucking moron.” My breath hitched. That… How the fuck did anyone find that clip!?

  “Sheryl’s not your fucking fault, you idiot! Did you try to kill her? You got shot trying to save her, and you want to tell me that wasn’t your best effort? Who gives a fuck what micro-second adjustment to your plans or how you’d change things if you had the chance!?” He sounded a bit distracted, which made sense given that, at the time, he’d been stitching me up.

  My eyes rose, meeting fake Alex’s eyes, before saying a modified version of my line in that conversation. “You were my responsibility.”

  “Who gives a fuck!? You did exactly what you should have, acted as effectively as you could. I know how you see things, you did the best you could. That’s what you owed her, and you did.”

  Then, the Star Trek fan pulled out that fucking quote once more: “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.”

  I could barely see him with my vision this blurry. “Mourn, remember the good stuff, cry as much as you want, but don’t you fucking dare say it’s your fault! It’s those fucker’s fault! Even if you made mistakes, by definition, it wasn’t on fucking purpose. You tried to save her, they tried to kill her for profit.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Doing the right thing and it not being enough is nowhere even remotely similar to succeeding at being fucked up. Stop your little pity party and do what you do best, the hard work. That’s what matters.”

  I nodded in understanding, right before the pre-recorded clip stopped and Felix disappeared. “Altany, where the fuck did you get that?” I was distracting myself but… fuck it, I needed it.

  His augs had spyware which I backtraced to an advertising company who fed it to their algorithms. I only had to hack into their data-banks, which was insultingly easy.

  I snorted wetly, getting my shit together. Worse one first, thirty four more to go. I had friends to visit…

  ***

  “We really shouldn’t have organized this via text.” Robin turned to me, wide, innocent smile on his face.

  “What are you talking about? I think it’s a fine party.” Organizing a ‘peach party’ with the first (teleported in with) harvest had gone… weird when only adults remained.

  “Orgies aren’t parties.”

  “Then you don’t know how to party!” He answered with an evil smile. Knowing him, he didn’t quite do it on purpose, just left room for things to go how they would. Neither of us were into that stuff, trauma for him and selectiveness for me, but hey, we wouldn’t say no to watching. It did make for a nice centerpiece…

  “Hey, I don’t think we ever had sex in public…” I pondered out loud, one arm behind his back slowly descending.

  He actually thought about it. “Guess it depends on your definition, I mean…”

  “Openly.”

  “Ah! No, that’s never happened. Why, feeling a bit of exhibitionism?” He answered with a lustful smile.

  “Oh, I don’t know, I do like the idea of showing you off, like an exhibit, then slowly working you up until you forget anyone is there and they get to hear your best moans…”

  Yup, things got real weird. Turns out, we weren’t exhibitionists.

  Especially with people we didn’t know that well trying to invite themselves in every so often! Mixing awkward social and people stuff and niceties in the middle of having actual sex with my husband!? FUCK no! Never again.

  Welp, now we knew.

  ***

  “Love?” Robin asked one morning, looking at my half-dressed body.

  Because of the stupid tail, no pants fit me anymore. I mostly wore armor, but Altany did provide a few compatible pairs of jeans and leather pants that made my behind look great!

  “Yes darling?”

  “Did you get butt implants?”

  I almost stumbled from that. “What? No!”

  “Really? Cause it for sure looks a bit rounder. I like it, don’t get me wrong! Just wondering…”

  It’s called eating enough.

  Both of us ‘aaaahhh’d. I looked my darling over and… yeah, he looked healthier! That made me smile goofily. Then, I checked him out again, trying to… “How’s my ass?” He asked while turning around, apparently on the same wavelength.

  Yeah, it did grow a bit! “As always, hotter with every passing day, but also yes, a bit bigger!” We cheered and high-fived! Team peach for the win!

  I should mention, if your goal is to accrue more fatty tissue for ridiculous human reasons, you will wish to focus more on sugars than fats, counter to the old corporate-backed idea that fat is the source of weight-gain. It will require a significant input given that I am still filling up your bio-batteries.

  “So… Peaches for our peaches is the best way to go?” I asked with a shit eating grin!

  I have to sadly agree with this statement, no matter how disgusting I find the wordplay.

  ***

  Man, that harvest was great! I’d never tasted anything quite like it in fact. I’d had the chance to taste some gened apples we’d stolen at one point, but these were much better! I just waited, sitting on a parking garage’s edge, my feet swinging into nothingness thirty floors up.

  “Fucking hell these are good! I need to take my time, we don’t have that many…”

  The harvest is limited, but still substantial. Another will be ready soon in any case. This variant was created to produce quality fruits quickly and efficiently. The downside is the toll it takes on the soil. It requires quite a lot of nutrients, but that is the reason you bought very high quality soil along with the fertilizing devices.

  “What do those do again?”

  It is a mixed creation of your matter reconfiguration machines and mega-building infrastructure catalogues. It takes varied inputs and transforms them into perfect fertilizer, including all necessary nutrients and soil composition elements, before injecting it within the ground. That is why you needed to buy five, as they are quite literally rooted to their positions.

  “Well, it works great! I could eat a peach for hours… Fuck, they’re so good I want to rip my face off!”

  Why would eating something good make you want to do such a thing?

  “It’s an expression. Are they getting close?”

  Yes, they should be in position in fourty-seven seconds.

  “Finally!” I said while looking straight at the assholes who had been waiting for me to show my face for the past three days! Idiots thought themselves subtle, but they were stupidly easy to spot by the people avoiding the ever loving shit out of them. Removing the images from camera feeds barely did anything.

  Had to say, they came pretty well prepared. Hard to find hyper-sonic HIMARs these days! Problem was, the morons were aiming too close for the missiles to accelerate to that speed. They’d set up in a factory a building over diagonally, but those projectiles needed a ton of distance to reach max-speed.

  As they got in position, I gave them a little wave. The dumbass doing the aiming jumped back from his console but still fired. “Make sure not to hit any civilians please?”

  Of course. They will get a bit closer than I’d usually be comfortable with due to this however.

  “Alright, no worries.” My helmet reassembled as the rockets screamed through the air towards me.

  Below, two stealth coated turrets, which already had target-lock, opened fire. The insanely loud unholy ‘BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR’ drowned any other sound as they aimed up to avoid hitting any other buildings. Both had dual mounted M61 Vulcan miniguns, firing at over a hundred rounds per second.

  Why did I buy such old tech? Well, they fired 20x102mm rounds, well in range of my catalogues. Also, since Altany was aiming, every single missile got riddled with hundreds of high-explosive esoteric rounds. They alternated between flak, AP incendiary tracers, claymore, HE and fragmentation rounds. “Crazy what you can get on the black market these days…”

  They are quite old and obsolete, but they became a great purchase by using your catalogues. Even with the extra expense of esoteric ammunition, I’d say you made an intelligent choice for once!

  I snorted as a bit of debris impacted my armor, not even making me budge. My helmet opened once more and after rubbing a bit of dirt off my fruit, I got back to savoring it. “Open fire.” I ordered with my mouth full.

  Four HFUGs turned the enemy position to super-heated rubble in an instant. “Good work everyone. Panda carrier, come pick me up, let’s make sure those jackasses are down for the count.”

  Coming after me? Sure, I could get that. Fucking with my building?

  Yeah, no survivors on this one.

  “Oh, shit, hum… Altany, could you prepare a message for the upper section?”

  Of course, whenever you are ready.

  “Right, hum… citizen of Peach-Trees, I apologize for the interruption. A corporate group with interests counter to ours have decided that hostility was the best way to resolve our differences. Do not worry, our defenses are more than adequate for dealing with most threats, antithesis or human. I will personally ensure no one under our protection will be harmed and… dissuade them from further hostilities. Still, our construction drones will soon put additional shielding in place outside and more protector-technology will be acquired when the budget allows. Thank you for your understanding.” My APC arrived and I finished my snack. “How was that?”

  I’ll give you a ‘B’ for effort. I’ve sent it out, no negative feedback as of yet.

  “Coolsies! Let’s go hunt some mercs.”

  ***

  Changing diapers became so much easier with a tail. While putting some baby powder on my son’s cute little peach, I felt a weight press down on my fifth limb. “Hum… Salut ma belle? / Hum… Hi sweety?”

  Alice started stroking the fur, which I’d deployed to make Jack comfortable. “C’est tellement doux… / It’s so soft…”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it felt real fucking uncomfortable for her to put so much weight on it. It felt like… Having someone hold my leg in place by force. I think I finally understood cats better…

  “Vraiment? J’veux essayer! / Really? I wanna try!” Rachael said from the dinner table before contributing to the ‘make dad uncomfortable’ party. Fuck’s sake…

  “Oh? Let me try!” God damn it! Robin joined in and I had to stay still, Jack cocooned on one side and the rest of the family, minus Lila, messing with my tail!

  I lasted eight minutes. “Alright, we’re done!” I put my foot down to a collective ‘aaaaooonnn’.

  I’m amazed you lasted this long.

  “No more forcing my tail in place. Doesn’t mean you don’t get to enjoy it though…” I declared with a smile.

  Going at samurai-speed, I placed everyone in position. Robin on one side, Alice on my lap, Jack in my arms and Rachael leaning with her head on Robin’s shoulder. Perfect.

  My tail could extend a bit, but even without that, the whole family could huddle on the couch, surrounded by soft fur. “Altany, need a movie marathon, make sure there’s age appropriate zombie stuff please?”I asked, knowing everyone’s preferences. Robin kissed Rachael on top of her head as I did the same with Alice, right before he leaned deeper into my side.

  Of course.

  When Lila got back from patrol, we got her to bring us food and water before convincing the woman to join in. Alice ended up cradled between us. Even when Jack got hungry, none of us had to move while Lila breastfed, both still in tail-hugging range.

  Alice fell asleep first, then Rachael, then the adults. We all slept on the couch, extremely comfortable in the fur-enhanced family pile.

  That night, no one had nightmares.

  ***

  Louis, someone is picking unripe peaches.

  “Gotta go!” I said in the middle of training a newbie. We’d made up the code phrase in case kids were nearby, but whatever. I disconnected, already in my armor and ready for war. “Connect me to Johnny.”

  “Heya! How–”

  “Need to borrow your bike, Altany, fill him in full speed.”

  It barely took half a second for him to get back to me. “It’s yours, auto-pilot will take care of it. Don’t want me to come with?”

  “Nah, I’m the ganger, message won’t be anywhere as powerful if I don’t go alone.”

  “Holler if you need backup.”

  “Of course! Be back shortly.”

  I disconnected and started to run for the position Altany marked. It didn’t take long to find the bike. “Knew this’d happen! I should have… Fuck, I don’t know…”

  You took the right course of action, there is nothing to beat yourself up over. You chose mercy, because that is who you are. In any case, you are prepared and heading to resolve the issue, probably more permanently this time.

  Finally, the Kais had been stupid enough to test me…