It wasn't long until Leela and her parents took the secret hatch from the municipal building to her parents' house. I had to pay hush money for that but it was worth it. After doing a few necessary tasks and reviewing the different applications from mutants for working positions, approved a few different business licenses for metropolis. '
Everything that was to do with the metropolis project came through the municipal office, and since I'm bankrolling everything , even when elections come out, the mayor will have to do as I say.
Still after a few hours of work I got the call that the mercenaries were on earth and headed to the municipal building. They were apparently already stationed on titan.
Since titan was far enough away from earth to not pose an immediate threat, thus not warranting any extra attention via earths military fleet, but close enough to earth for it to be a massive invasion of privacy for doop to perform their own sweeps in our solar system. Titan has become the number one hide out for mercenaries and all-around criminal scumbags.
Every few years or so earths forces go in a capture a shit ton of wanted criminals but it doesn't stop them form treating titan as a base for the off seasons of earth military patrols. The smart ones have information dealers on earth warning them when an earth military patrol is going to come through to ransack the place. It's basically a modern-day Nassau.
The mercenaries I've been waiting for are currently in a side room and I've called up the leaders of the mutant segregation activists. They'll meet me in the adjacent room. If it goes well the mercenaries will be sent away with bodyguard pay.
If it goes poorly, I will lead them into the side room where the mercenaries will follow them home from. After they tell their cronies to call it off over several weeks each on will have an accident.
I won't go over the whole meeting because it was largely boring. Just getting yelled at about how they had squatters' rights and should have been paid for the land that they improved. Improvement in this case meaning building shit cover hovels out of wood and toilet paper.
I did make a small announcement to the city stating that money had been given to the three heads of the mutant segregation activists to disseminate to the public that felt they lost out on the acquisition of old New York
They immediately started tearing each other apart for only 3 million dollars. Soon the leaders would die in "power struggles." With their leaders dead they would fall into chaos fighting amongst each other and by the time they finished killing each other and reorganized the police would be up and running. And I will have the police pacify the slums.
With that out of the way, a few more people hired, the election coming up, getting the police precinct's up and running, hiring police from the surface to train our police, hiring an actual representative to handle the metropolis work for the foreseeable future, and giving leela the coordinates to an out of the way manhole cover to get out of the sewer without raising suspicion I finally had the opportunity to leave.
After leaving it was time to head home to Amy, we were staying at my apartment today so it was a quick trip through the tube to my place. Amy was on the phone with the professor and I just managed to hear the end of it and cringe. Damn it this means the flight to remember is coming up.
Id love to tell you anything interesting happened over the next week as I was waiting for the trip to cannibalon but that would be a bald face lie as thing had actually gotten pretty boring. Not to say life wasn't still amazing but there just wasn't much to write home about.
It was a week later when I arrived and meet up with the team again. But what shocked me is something I genuinely didn't expect. Leela was standing in the middle of the upper staff meeting room and instead of her regular meat arms she was walking around with new cyber legs and arms.
I could barely tell because she had real skin on but I could see the minute seams on her arms for mantis blades, and the heavy footsteps of someone not yet used to chrome legs.
"Leela what the hell, I haven't seen you in a couple of days and you're all chromed up!" it's actually a pretty big shock because we weren't sure her nervous system was the same as ours. Dr Cahil and I were actually doing studies to ensure it would be safe. I guess the good doctor completed the study without me. Or her nervous system was still standard.
"We'll we've been getting some pretty dangerous missions lately so I decided it was time to chip in." Leela said a bit defensively.
"This isn't about me freefalling from orbit again, is it?" I ask she had been pretty caught up on that but I barely remember it. Then again with enough adrenaline humans don't remember jack.
"No, it's not that it's just that…I'm used to being the strongest, and now with everyone having cyber arms and legs I felt kind of… exposed." ahh that will do it. One of the driving forces for cyber arms and legs was the strength and self defense boosts it gives you. a lot of people don't want to be chromed up but those that do always make those that don't feel vulnerable. Leading to people who weren't interested in cyberware to chip in anyways.
"anyways we have a mission to a pretty dangerous planet today. Cannibalon. Its as the name suggest a human separatist planet that was founded by cannibals."
"And what are we even delivering to these people?" I say with a dead pan. We are not human traffickers.
"From what I can tell different spices and herbs." Leela says rolling her eye.
"Oh, great! we're delivering them stuff to make us taste better." I said with a roll of my own eyes.
"Calm down, You're mostly metal anyways. So am I, now that I think about it." Leela says as if we're not actively talking about whether we would be appealing to cannibals.
Anyways as the delivery boy I start the preflight check list, as well as check the package for any damage. Wouldn't want the cannibals going hungry now would I. everything was all good so I decided I would go and visit Amy until it was time to leave.
When I got into her lab I was shocked to see her standing above what looks like a teleporter platform from star trek.
"Whats all this Amy? Did you finally figure out teleportation?"
"Well, that's what I'm hoping! With the professors' resources I should be able to get the working prototype rebuilt on mars if it works ill gain my mastery and change the world."
"So, is it time for a test." I say looking over at the monkey im pretty sure would later become gunter.
"Yep, this little guy is going to Paris. Then I'll try to bring him back."
"So, if your machine doesn't work the monkey gets a free trip to Paris?"
"No, if my machine doesn't work, the monkey gets atomized." Amy said in her best approximation of a mad scientist voice.
"That's nuts that poor monkey."
"Its worked on everything from single celled organisms to mice so it should be a problem with the monkey."
"And what happens to the monkey is it the same monkey that was sent when it comes back?" I ask after all I was pretty positive that the soul existed being a reincarnation after all so I wasn't looking to die soon.
"I never took you for one for superstition, but no it doesn't work like the ship of Theseus. All you're not disintegrated. The best I can explain it is an instantaneous wormhole. We're manipulating the fabric of space with enough energy to power a 21st century planet for years. Creating an opening from one place to another. The risk is that the wormhole closes prematurely. Ergo getting shredded by raw space time." Amy said in a dumbed down explanation. Despite the fact that I'm a verifiable genius doesn't mean that I like long overcomplicated explanations any more than the common man.
"So, I won't end up a soulless husk if I use this thing? Neet." I say and Amy firmly done with my nonsense goes back to prepping the monkey for its first trip across the planet.
"Alright transport in 3…2…1…go" soon gunter just pops out of existence, it's not like he faded or even had any cool special effects. One second, he was here and the next he's not.
"Cool you've successfully made planet express one monkey light. Hope you can bring him back." I say with a smirk.
"Retrieval process in 3….2….1…done." gunter reappears looking confused before Amy offers him a banana. He takes the banana with wide eyes and starts eating it.
"Congratulations doctor Wong you have officially made teleportation possible, and you didn't even have to kill people for it to work. The Rigellians are going to be pissed." I say and amy runs and jumps into my arms.
"I did it! I did it!" she said clinging to me, not unlike gunter.
"Alright while I'm happy for you I have a trip to cannibalon. So, I will have to ask you to stop using me as a jungle gym." I get a slap across the back of my head for that one. which with a metal arm OWW.
"You ruined it. Go away I'm bored of you now." She jumps down off of me and waves me off like a disinterested rich person. I give her a quick peck on the cheek and leave the lab area.
Soon I arrive on the bridge of the ship taking my position readying myself for the flight to the world of cannibals. I'm not actually worried as Leela's right we have way to much metal in our bodies to be of any interest to cannibals who are more interested in arms of thighs since those are the most meaty parts of the body that aren't all just fat and connective tissue.
Leela tells everyone to strap in and then I see it the black inky void of space, we're already well past the suns light so I can see the stars glittering in the distance. I still don't think I'll ever get over this its so freeing.
As we drifted through dark space with nothing but stars shining in the distance, I decided to get some work done. I was programming a virus for the titanic that we were going to be on after this mission. It was important that I figured out the titanic operating system to know how to code the virus to lock zap out of the control logs.
It was an hour later while I was still beating my head against the code when we finally arrived at our destination the planet looked dirty. Like even from space it looked like the clouds were brown and polluted, the little bits of green from whatever forests were left looked muted and dying.
It's no wonder no one got rid of the cannibals here they aren't occupying prime real estate and they are a contained threat. Theres no need to blast them out of the universe. Soon we spot our landing site, we have to land there and walk through the town to the town hall where they will take the delivery.
Quickly the ship lands down onto the surface of the planet in the parking lot they have for interstellar deliveries. We disembark and the first thing we hear are gunshots, not lasers guns. I stand if front of Leela for a moment.
"Leela, do you have the subdermal armor implanted?" I ask making sure no stray bullets come near us.
"Yes, since it protects from lasers as well. Though who still uses bullets in the 31st century." She says confused. I honestly don't know. I look around scanning the area with my cyber eye for anyone who could be the shooter, but notice that no bullets have come even close to hitting us. Either they are terrible shots or they aren't aiming for us in the first place.
Soon the shooting stops and we continue on our way, but at high alert as everyone in the town is eyeing us. One might ask why we didn't leave and that was what I asked too, but apparently Leela in her capacity as the captain agreed that the risk to us was minimal enough to continue with the delivery.