“It didn’t take long for Helen to bee bold,” I murmured, while iing the hourly squirrel update. “It’s only been a week since we talked and she's already sending her Guiding Light ies to a lot of the southerors, but they’re not recruiting, they’re just… watg. What the fuck are they doing?”

  Would you like my opinion?

  “Absolutely. Not knowing is kind of drivis,” I replied, not taking my eyes off the surveilnce images.

  I suspect they’re perf an impromptu popution sus of the sectors. If Helen’s AI, Sisyphus, really did vince her the uy’s poputioo be kept under trol, they’d o actually keep track of the popution, in order to know where and when to act. Sihe city does not keep accurate records ing the uy residents, they’d o either put up some sort of surveilnce, or to perform this monit manually.

  “That’s pretty morbid, but I guess that makes sense,” I mumbled. After a few seds a thought occurred to me, and I shut down the squirrel report. “I’m still flooding the south with squirrels, we use those to perform our own, impromptu sus?”

  I , but I’ll have to take trol of the squirrels, and reposition them in order to get more accurate numbers.

  “That’s fine,” I replied. “ you also perform some calcutions, and try to determine which sectors would qualify as ‘high risk’ by Sisyphus’s standards?”

  Within a 99.9999654% probability. I’m sorry, without knowily what data Sisyphus is using, I ot be more precise.

  “Look, I would have accepted sixty pert, so your iandard will be more than enough. Just let me know when you’ve identified some high risk sectors.”

  What exactly are you pnning to do with this information?

  “If there are aors in the danger zone, I’ll drop some bears in there before Helen make her move, if not I’ll just tinue building up my forces. As soon as I’m ready to make a move, I’ll reinforce the highest risk areas first,” I replied, as I jumped down from the pallet of excess iron, which I’d been sitting on. I really o put some seating in here somewhere.

  If you interfere with Helen, she may take it as an act of war.

  “Possible. If she does, so be it,” I sighed. “Some part of me hopes that she just backs down though. If she just wao cull people, she wouldn’t wait for that threshold to do it… but I expect that’s wishful thinking.”

  I don’t have enough data on Helen to let you know how she’ll react. The best I do is perform those calcutions, a you know her most likely targets.

  “That’s alright Nyx,” I replied, as I headed over to check out the status of produ. “I don’t expect you to know all the answers. Just get me what you .”

  Sending the preliminary results to ys now. I’ll have more precise results for you in a couple of minutes.

  I took the massive file Nyx sent, and started digging through the mountain of data, metrid ih analysis provided for each sector. I mao get halfway through the sed page, for sector one, before pletely giving up and cheg the summary page.

  “So, based upon your analysis, secthty-six is close to the threshold, but hasn’t exceeded it,” I said, while reviewing the results. “I guess that makes sense, sihey seem to have several retively benevolent gangs in the area.” I skimmed the rest of the results, there were a couple of other moderate-risk areas, but nothing else at this level.

  The Guiding Light does have a higher than regur presen that area, but sihe squirrels have only been in the area for a couple of days, I do not have enough of a historical record to say anything for certain.

  “I don’t need firmation. If they’re fog their operations there, I should too.” With a quick thought, I started rearranging my troops. “I think dropping two squads of bears in there should help stabilize the situation, or at least make it more difficult for Helen and her goons to aggravate the locals. If not, I quickly reinforce them with the IFVs”

  I turned, just in time to catch two of the IFVs take off, heading towards secthty-six.

  “I wonder how long it’ll take Helen to respond?” I mumbled to myself.

  Less than five mier, I received a call to my augs. The caller’s information was hidden, but Nyx identified them in an instant: Helen.

  “Hello Helen,” I casually said, “How I help you today?”

  “Cut the bullshit, Evelyn. You know why I’m calling. Why are there bears in my territory?” she asked. Her voice was low, and even, but I could still hear the anger in her voice.

  “I believe I promised that I’d stay out of your territory until I was ready to protect the southerors. I ’t protect them all, but I’m willing to take hty-six for now.”

  “Bullshit! That wasn’t the nature of reement, and you know it,” she paused for a moment, “You never pnned on h reement in the first pce, did you?”

  “Holy? Not really,” I replied casually. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to take a, and have time to finish flooding the uy with surveilnd prote, but I’m not going to take ces with people’s lives.”

  “You ’t save all of them,” Helen growled. “Your overfidence will doom this city!”

  “You o learn to chill the FUCK out,” I replied through gritted teeth. “I’ve flooded the uy with surveilnce, and I’m slowly building up ground forces, there’s no need for your crazy purges anymore. How about you disband yroup of crazies, and just trate on fighting the antithesis the old fashioned way, okay?”

  “I will protect this city, and I won’t let you get in my way,” the woman hissed.

  “Give me a fug break. Look, if I defend the people without any unnecessary losses, why not let me? In the end, everyone bes.”

  There was a long moment of silence. “Yo, Helen, are you still there?” I asked.

  “I ’t trust you. You’ll overextend, and make mistakes,” came back a quiet reply.

  “You need help, Helen. I don’t even mean asking other samurai for help, but you o learn to let go of this twisted idea of keeping the popution under trol. It’s not necessary.”

  “I’ll prove that you ’t protect everyone,” she replied quietly.

  “I don’t like how you said that… Helen? She hung up. Fuck!”

  That st part sounded like a threat. I knew, based on her previous pns, Helen wasly firing on all ders, but she sounded a little unhinged by the end of our versation. She really didn’t take a disruption to her pns well. The worst part was I didn’t have a clue where Helen might target. I’d just have to try and keep an eye ohing.

  “Nyx, you please let Jane know that I won’t be in for dinner…” I said with a sigh, “I have a feeling it’s going to be a very long night.”