“Are you sure you can’t stay for part of the Hunt? It’ll be so good for your levels and training!” Zia says, mere inches from my lips as she attempts to ply her Elven wiles to get her way. I tap the back of her head into kissing me and chuckle into the connection.
“Sorry baby, I’ve been gone from my territory as long as I can. I got a few jobs sent to me that need to be handled this week, and while yes, I could quit, it’s good training for the job I want. Plus, if you’re headed to Earth for training after your hunt is finished, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other anyway.”
Zia pushes my face away in response. “Would it kill you to seem desperate to be with me?”
“You’re pretty pouty for a fearsome warrior.” The grump she throws at me has me laughing and pulling her against me. “You know I love you, and you know that if this was more than just a disagreement about my path of development, we’d be talking more about it. I don’t love that we’re not living together, but both of our lives are in flux right now.”
She wraps her arms around me and squeezes me tightly. “I know, I know. I’m not really mad. I just feel this weird desperation inside and it’s exhausting fighting against it.”
“It might just be your dragon brain hunting for a culture. You think having another friend that accepts your dragon would help? Are there any other reptilian aliens that you know?”
She sighs into my hair. “It’s partly the dragon thing. A primal part of my brain needs to make a nest with you, but like you said, with our lives being so unstable right now, a nest really isn’t feasible.”
“This apartment or my garden suite isn’t a nest to you?” She shakes her head.
“Something we have to make together.”
“So are we talking a lair where you can stow your treasures? ‘Cause I’ll tell you, I’m not sleeping on piles of gold and trinkets.” I get an ear flick and a chuckle out of her. I’ll take that as a win.
“That’s pretty insensitive, little Nova. But just like you, I don’t really know. I just have these instincts. Auntie Jenna made me read up on the various forms of shifting. While hers is also a mythological transformation she’s not a polymorph shifter. She’s a bi-morph like most common varieties. Mine subsumes the genetics of what I’m transforming into and in mythic forms, the Matrix nudges the biology and the level of ‘body of power’ or how naturally aetheric a creature would be and makes it work. With Mom, the Matrix created a version of Pixie based on lore, just for her. Andromeda did the same for me on Draconids for my tier 3 transformation.”
I wonder briefly what would happen if my system ‘Divine’ magic were to merge with her shifter magic in our little baby dragons, when I realize what I just thought of and my face becomes unbearably hot. Is she emitting something that’s making me think of this, or is it just the talk of nesting and a part of my brain loves the idea.
Take some years to think about it, Kimber. YEARS!
I grab the sides of her head gently and thumb the tops of her bladed ears, smiling upwards as I plant a soft kiss on her lips. “Zia, we have time. You’re going to live for many hundreds of years and I’m thinking I have at least double the normal Human so far. This isn’t something we have to solve today. Now how about we tell Aria to take us to the Hades system while we fool around in the cargo bay?” She grins at me, smacks my butt HARD and blinks to the door, winks at me and blinks through it toward the elevators.
I’mma take that as confirming my plan.
***
The Gateway on Asphodel is not as forgiving on shuttle travel as the one on Astoria, but with it long on the schedule, and paying extra for the inconvenience, I make it back to Bikini Atoll without having to warp back to Astoria, which saves me a ton in aether crystals. As it is, I have to make a pit stop in Moiriax every time I travel to Hades, because my shuttle can’t jump the whole distance.
Zia and Penny both told me I could use their base slash beach resort on the atoll as I please, so I swap out my crystals out for a stash of charged crystals they have and pay some aether and some credits to their utility for recharging services.
A few hours later, I’m back at the Laundry where Gustavo, my new plant manager and Marcus are there to meet me. I had time to review the plant’s statistics over the weeks I was gone and I am not thrilled.
“Gustavo, I see your team cost me another ten thousand credits on a fouled batch. Please explain.”
“Quimica, the record is not accurate on that account. We had to log the accident, but there was no easy category for what happened.” He pauses to see if I was going to yell, or something, but I motion for him to continue. “We operated on faulty assumptions on how automated the process is, and we ended up sending another batch to the first additive and solvent steep on the tables. The tables flooded a bit and the chemistry was . . . complicated by the mistake. The end result was a combined batch going to the next stages, but that first conversion mistake ended in a 20% loss of product over the two batches of leaves. The third run is still in progress, but so far it is progressing as expected.”
I rub my face in frustration as I think. The fact that they managed to salvage most of both batches shows that they analyzed the mistake and properly understood the process enough to correct the remaining of the batch. We can work with equipment operation errors, fundamental misunderstandings are much harder.
“That’s actually much better than what the report said. You should annotate the report or submit a supplemental with corrective actions taken if something like this happens. This will push back my renovation of the factory, but only by six months or so. If you can help me figure out how to not short my customers, you can keep your bonuses for the quarter.” He nods and excuses himself.
Marcus waits a moment, watching the man slink back into the office before talking.
“It’s still weird seeing you be reasonable, not performing an act for one reason or another.”
“Yeah, well, acting like the boogey man doesn’t serve a purpose here. As for being reasonable, we’ll see about the weird shit in your report before I’ll agree about that.”
He snorts at my swearing. “The turret embankments at the edges of your property are executing armed people. And in a weird cascading disaster, unregistered folks are trying to scavenge the weapons and are getting shot when they pick them up.”
“Gods, that’s a mess. Oh, gods! That’s a huge fucking mess! The loudspeaker broadcast system purchase makes a lot more sense now. I didn’t look over the recommendations because I didn’t understand the problem, so can you hit me again?”
He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. I’ve already accepted that Marcus is going to be flippant, so I let it pass. “I don’t know if it’s possible, but the boys and I suggest that you push out your territory claim a hundred meters and put up a warning as armed personnel enter your property. Like a system alert.
“Also, the work visas seem to be working, but security at the Port of Entry doesn’t have a way to correct things on-site. If you could let watch captains issue temporary visas it would help with the turrets taking pot shots at contractors as well.”
I nod at that. The Automatic Security Measures I installed do not take orders from the security teams, just my standing orders and the settlement interface. My settlement interface recognizes visas, so the temporary visa could solve both problems.
“I like that idea. Three-day temp badge should let contractors and subcontractors do their thing and leave, or let the company finish their regular paperwork for my settlement.”
“Great. That should lower my manning requirements for hauling corpses to the recycle chute. Lastly, we have un-armed immigrants currently filling the barracks, with more temporarily lodged at the Orphanage. Combined with the transfer request from Warram Criminal Enterprises.”
“How many people total?”
“About a thousand.” The hell did he just say?!
I dive into my menus and see the list of non-residents and then at the transfer list. Nine hundred and seventy two people. Tova, I need help.
The two barracks buildings near the Elsewhere Square are nearly complete. The additional one at HQ is complete but has not been reviewed by you for resident access. Two wings of the Square have available lodgings, but they would have to move once the necessary barracks rooms are completed. By the numbers: Four hundred free lodging rooms can be available today. Another 200 family occupancy residences are available in the Square, and 800 more free lodging rooms will be available within two weeks.
“Okay, I think we can manage that. I’m going to clear another building for use, 400 more barracks accommodations, so prioritize getting people out of the Orphanage unless they are orphans. Then I have 200 family occupancy residences that I will work on filling from the WCE list. The rest will have to wait a few more weeks for more buildings to finish.”
“I assume you are going to set up a secretary or liaison for this sort of thing?”
“For long term residences? Absolutely. Temporary stuff? Your teams will have to arrange that in the sports field with tents or some shit until I can make something outside of the security perimeter for that, or arrange a hotel.”
Marcus tells me the remaining details can be found in a data sheet that he will send to me, so I walk off towards Aria so that she can take me the short distance to HQ so I can have myself a garden reset and start working on finding a few managers for different areas of my settlement, including a day-to day manager, like an assistant Mayor or something. Camp Director? Head Counselor?
It amuses me to continue to set my settlement up like a summer camp from old TV shows, so I set up permissions for a Director, several Camp Counselors, Instructors for my future settlement crafters and vocation teachers.
This is not something an adult would do. I fully support your plan to make people feel supported and ridiculous.
It’s nice to feel supported, Tova. Thank you. She chirps at me
We land and Aria informs me that she would like to iterate her Kernel and will be down for four to six hours, but that manual operation would be available in the meantime. I tell her to go ahead, as I had not planned to begin any of my tasking for the Sheriff until tomorrow.
//Nurse Cruise is attempting to contact you, do you accept?
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Yeah, let’s go ahead and set permission to contact me for settlement business to automatic as long as they put their name and position identifier as ‘available’.
\Miss Novarro. I’m Nurse Cruise at Hospital Reception. There’s someone from Warram Financial Group here to see you.\
/Thank you, I’ll be right down./
I’m half tempted to put my armor on and jump off the building, but I figure it’s about even on time with me walking to the elevator and being a normal person. If I could fly on my own, that would be much faster.
As I come out of the central elevator, I see a busy reception area for my HQ building. A man in light armor with a side arm is helping to route people at the entrance and the reception slash nurses station on the hospital side is crowded with upset people while a tall, young Hispanic man maintains eye contact while navigating menus with his screens half-visible so that people can see that he isn’t just ignoring them.
I walk up to security first as Mr. Cruise seems more occupied.
“Officer, why are there so many people in my hospital waiting room?”
“Ah, Miss Novarro. A lot happened while you were gone. This,” he gestures, “Is a buildup of ventilated immigrants and the resultant lack of oversight on clearing and deconstruction crews.”
Gods, what a mess. I purchase a dozen chairs and five wheelchairs and put them in the hotel reception area. “Alright, get me enough people with bruises, scrapes or minor breaks to fill these seats and I’ll do some field medicine. Tell them the score and if they don’t trust me, they can wait.” He nods and within minutes I have people with some crush bruising and some straight through bullet wounds.
First volunteer is in a wheelchair and their whole left leg is in the purple region, and that arm is broken too. “Sir, this is not a simple break.”
“Field medicine now might save my leg.” I nod at the sentiment, throw some towels on the reception desk and stab the bastard full of pain be gone before hoisting him on the desk. “How long since the crush?”
“Day, day and a half.”
I suck air through my teeth and he nods. I pull up a window for vent locations for crush syndrome on a thigh and order some surgical tools. I put a few vents in the quad and two in the ham, and let the black blood drain from the poor bastard while I straighten his arm, splint his leg, and then inject him with some tier one meds. I slap some balm on his vents and the break locations and put him back in the wheelchair with the rest of the tin.
“Find a buddy to check the pulse in your ankle a few times today. If you lose it, get someone’s attention.” The guard wheels him into a corner and I tend to the people in some regular seats with regenerative and t-1 healing. Some balms, and a few get the hell out of here for minor sprains.
As the ‘minor injury’ crowd thins a little, I leave the remainder of the cases of meds that I ordered and leave them with Nurse Cruise. I’m about to talk with him about hospital stuff, when a man’s voice says my name.
“Owner Novarro, a moment of your time please.”
I turn around to see a faceless humanoid chassis wearing a suit. If I had not met Orem or the Odells, I may have shot this thing on reflex.
“Avatar?” The head nods. “Well, Avatar, how may I assist you?”
“I noticed that you are no longer occupied and would like to discuss some business items with you.”
My eyebrow raises on its own, “Yeah, alright. Let’s take a walk.” I say, not wanting to be in an enclosed space with a robot.
I believe it to be an artificial entity in a cybernetic chassis.
Is that like, a semi-biotic brain? She chirps in agreement. Huh.
We get to the abandoned sports complex that I want to turn into a training arena when I stop and turn to the Avatar.
“Alright, Warram, what business might you have with me?”
“You upset and then had the Matrix put sanctions on my organized crime division here in Vegas.” He pauses, I nod. “I have concerns that you do not intend to stabilize the region, but to hunker in your settlement and only protect your residents.”
“Those are my immediate concerns, yes. However, as Deputy of Southern Nevahrado and the Texico border conflict, I am attempting to do both.” The Avatar nods at that.
“I am also referring to financial stability, and your job as Deputy does not help occupy the idle miscreants and trouble-makers. Organized Crime has shown to provide both minor enforcement roles and financial stability for those that would otherwise be elements of chaos. My aims are, and have always been, to make money and lower chaos in the western hemisphere. Warram Financial is a major power in both continents under various names and businesses. I want to work with you as it would be less costly and generate less chaos than trying to replace you.”
“You may understand that I have a bad taste in my mouth from my recent interactions with one of your ‘businesses’. That said, I don’t really want to affiliate with the name because of what they represented in the region and what the asshole in charge tried to do to us.”
“Yes, it was not my finest moment to allow my name to be associated with this, but there were reasons. Any case, there are a few affiliates I thought you might not mind associating with: Great Basin Security, Old West Relocation and Settlement Services, and Old West Craft Supply.”
Damn him. I was hoping I could say no, but this man has fingers in everything doesn’t he?
“What benefits would your craft supply have over the ansible?”
“I get in-Empire rates with Astorian vendors, and I have a shipping company that moves in bulk, so I don’t have to worry about transfer fees. I also deal Earth goods with some harder to contact vendors, and I get a discount there as well. To make this shorter, the settlement and relocation services provides loans and helps identify plots that are available for groups that want to start something of their own, or want to join a settlement that fits their values.”
“Okay, that last one sounds pretty wholesome, what’s the catch? Are the loans predatory?”
The Avatar’s body posture manages to look offended.
“Miss Novarro, while I understand where the vitriol is based, I would appreciate if you would treat future dealings with me and my holdings as—how do Earthers say it?—a fresh start.”
That pulls a sigh of frustration out of me. I try to perform a full reset by rubbing my face, shaking out my head and flopping my hair out of my face. “I can give that a shot. The settlement services sound really good. Like exactly what I’m looking for. So let me re-phrase my earlier question, If we were to affiliate with said service, what would you want from Elsewhere or Nova Chem?”
“Management and starting new settlements. That, of course, would include you setting up utilities and other infrastructure needed.” I raise an eyebrow, hoping he doesn’t expect this kind of wrote charity when he’s turning a profit. “You will receive the yearly stipend for settlements of various sizes, and I am willing to give a small percentage of the fees I collect for relocation services.”
Hmm, not sure if I want in on charging the people for coming to my settlements. “How about, a flat fee for in processing based on group size, in exchange for a guarantee that any settlement I start is supplied with enough relocations to achieve a t-1 population within a year.”
“Hmm, not as lucrative for you in the long run, but you seem to be avoiding a partnership-like relationship.” He takes another moment to think it over, and for an artificial intelligence, that is impressive. “I would like you to consider my security services as well, so I will add a small team for a month of complimentary assignment to start when you chose for each new settlement.”
That seems generous from the outset, but a month only seems enough time to assess a security problem on a village or city size. Which would naturally lead to extending the contract into the pay region for at least a few additional months. “That seems smart. Give me a taste and since you likely know my situation here, set me up to hire your services on the reg. You have yourself a deal, Mr. Warram.” The familiar flash of gold and a contract drops into my hand.
“Ah, I had wished to have more detail in said agreement, but I wager those can be discussed without Matrix involvement. I would like you to consider moving the settlement attempt that your mentor was forced to abandon and put one along the Humboldt River. There are more natural resources there and it would allow for a new settlement instead of a satellite of Reno. I would like a settlement in Wymonto as well.”
I sigh, “Send me your relocation data for Wymonto and I’ll have my Urban Development specialist work on a location and a plan.”
The Avatar nods and says “Reasonable.” I get a data packet, which Tova opens immediately, and he continues, “Thank you for your time and consideration Miss Novarro.”
“Thank you for waiting and being so straightforward, Avatar of Warram.” He both nod and he takes his leave by levitating and jetting off into the distance.
I walk back to HQ, authorizing some purchases for Tova’s plans in Elsewhere, and send a proposal to the Health Club because they did a lot of leg work for a settlement up north.
The reception area of HQ is significantly more controlled, and it doesn’t seem that anyone with major wounds is waiting to be seen. That makes me feel better, but I still have no idea how many people my oversight hurt. I should probably check my messages. Before I can, Nurse Cruise waves me over.
“Welcome back! Doctor Kenneck would like to talk with you, and is there any way we can get another set of those injector boxes? The previous doctor didn’t leave us with much.” Yep, sounds like Daniella right now. Not sure what suddenly crawled up her ass, but she’s been . . . not great towards me. Thoughts for a calmer time, however. I order three boxes, regenerative, potion-like t-1 restore injector, and Pain-b-gone.
“I assigned the quantity to you. Check them back into the supply room before you leave.”
“We have a supply room?”
I nod as I navigate some menus. “That you and the staff now have access to. I’m sorry that Doctor Medvedev left you in such a predicament.”
He shakes his head, “Doctor Kenneck is a better person to talk about this with.” I nod and look up the room that the new resident is in.
I open the door and I’m immediately accosted by ‘how dare you’s and other such accusations. I change her permissions, give her a promotion to Hospital Administrator and then open the door again.
“Good afternoon Administrator Kenneck! Now what did you want to discuss?”
“I don’t want to run a hospital, I just want to practice medicine!”
“Doctor Medvedev had the same attitude. And though she had the permissions, she left you in the lurch because she thought it wasn’t her responsibility.” She looks ready to yell again, “You can decline the position and willingly cripple your staff, or you can do the work for a few months while I find someone to do it long term. Now, I can tell you just upgraded your Track to Medical Doctor, but you’ve clearly got the confidence of Nurse Cruise, so how about talking to me about what you need instead of what you don’t want to do.”
“I need staff and supplies and a place to live.”
“Give me a list of positions and I’ll put out an open call. Review the supplies in the ‘supply room’ and get back to me. There’s a management and maintenance fund that you now have access to, and Doctors get an apartment as part of their salary, unless you take the role of Hospital Administrator, then you get a suite. Your Nurses can also opt in for an apartment on the HQ side of the building. We also have available apartments in the Square and several watchtowers. Is there anything else I can address?”
“Have a therapist available?” She says, slumping into the exam table with a hard sigh.
That small cry for help cools my building head of steam. “That I understand. Move into the executive suite, there’s a garden, a hot tub, and some other bennies that you’ll discover. There are two massage therapists available in the settlement, and the other kind should become available when more former Warram employees migrate over.”
“Is Doctor Kinsey coming too?”
“He’s not allowed in this building. He has a history of taking advantage of his patients.”
“But he can help people.”
“Rebecca. I’ll give him a shot to set up his own practice, but he won’t practice in any facility I own. If you’re saying that his being a skilled doctor is worth overlooking his crimes, then you may as well let me practice medicine because my attentions are more likely to save people than kill them. I learned to treat people so I could question them longer and suffering was a questioning technique.”
That was the first time she looked at me with a critical eye. “You were an enforcer?”
I nod, “I’ve since upgraded to Deputy Sheriff of Southern Nevahrado, which is why I am not available much. Unless there’s anything else you can think that needs my immediate attention, I have a resource dispute to resolve and a series of murders to investigate.” I walk out of the room and physically impact a tall man that was about to knock on the door.
“My apologies, I was not paying attention.” I look up to see an excessively pretty man. Long, soft features, prominent, dark eyelashes and a small smattering of foundation and eyeliner that reinforces that he is more pretty than handsome.
“And I, perhaps, was too eager to see Rebecca.” I look down to the scrubs that he is wearing and then peer at his position in the hospital. Physician’s Assistant. Hmmm.
“You already dating before today?”
He blushes, and it’s really damned pretty. Okay, this pretty man is confusing me. “It was new before we started working here.”
I nod at that. Not loving the subordinate relationship, but I’ll list it as a pre-existing illness and move on. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
That has a high probability of blowing up in everyone’s faces. I would not doubt that Cruise has a crush on him too.
/Zia, I’m so glad we found each other. Hope your hunt is going well, baby. Miss you./
\What happened? What’s wrong?\
I chuckle at that. /I just witnessed a romantic situation that is going to blow up in some faces. Happy that I’m not dealing with a workplace romance.”
\Mom has had many unsuccessful versions of that. You can look, but don’t touch honey.\
/Hey! I didn’t do anything!/
\Make sure it stays that way. I would be a very unhappy Draconid\
How did I get in trouble when I just wanted to say I was glad I was in a steady, committed relationship?! Now I want to go shoot something.