We arrive in Humboldt South in less than an hour and I hope the citizens weren’t affected too much by my fight with the skinwalker. I talk to the family of the man that was kill and help them with some funds to help them recover from his death, and then get to purchasing those construction drones to demolish the buildings that we’d damaged and repair the road. Luckily the town was pretty empty, otherwise there would have been many more casualties.
Using the construction drones in this manner is inefficient. That said, I would like to purchase a small fleet for Elsewhere and the surrounding area.
Tova, we build in modules right now, why is a fleet necessary? She sighs in my brain.
Now that you have confirmed that you will not stop your . . . colonization of the ruins in Nevarahdo, we will save a fortune in transfer fees and labor costs from the foreign manufacturers. Also, we will be able to change our ‘designs’ on the fly if conditions change. If you need more, . . .
Stop. Please stop. You’ve sold me. How much will it cost me?
A million credits over the next year.
The hell did you whisper? A million Tova? That’s almost as much as I make in a year and I only have 100k in my accounts!!
My swarm and friend pauses before responding.
You really need to read contracts that you sign from your friends. Your previous agreement with Merc Arms was voided when you sold 25% of your company to them. Your facility on Asphodel is the only facility in your partnership that is making cocaine. She passed the proverbial buck to you in exchange for building you a state-of-the-art facility.
Wait a coca-picking minute, I make 75% of those sales now!? TOVA!!! I need to do so much administration right now, but I don’t know how to start! She chuckles in my brain in response.
I suggest you bump up Paolo’s percentage if you plan to hire quality people and set up the same kind of fund to cover improvements and repairs as you did in Vegas. Your state-of-the-art factory costs a lot of money to repair and stock. You also need to look at your suppliers.
FUCK! Freaking pixie mischief. She interrupted me talking about plantations because she wouldn’t be responsible for it. Double damn. Now I have to think about how I’m going to get the coca leaves for all of the cocaine I need to make. I need to see how much the plantations in South America will sell me. Oh! Maybe Warram has contacts that can get me those plantations in the meantime.
/Baby, how much do you would think a thousand acres on Elysium would cost me?/
\Uh, should I know something sweetie? Are you going to destabilize a system I’m about to pass to someone else?\
/Wait, you’re not going to be that caretaker anymore? Since when?/
\Andromeda, you really are a doofus. I’m being ordered to familiarize with Earth, prior to my transfer to Sol.\
My inner idiot finally rubs the sleep out of their eyes. /Oh. That makes sense. Still, though. Is land on Elysium or Astoria better for crops?/
Stolen novel; please report.
\Astoria for sure. 1k contiguous on Elysium would take some clear cutting and monster culling and a public notice to the Collective that lives on that moon. What for?\
/I need to grow a lot of coca plants. We can make chocolate for days, but I need the leaves in ridiculous numbers./
\Gotcha. I’ll send you the info for the Consul of the Interior. She’ll have the info you need.\
/Thanks cutie!/ She sends a happy trill to me and otherwise doesn’t respond. I suppose that works. Though if I really wanted to just chat, I should have video called her.
As much as I don’t want to handle that kind of business right now, the construction drones are working, people aren’t approaching me for complaints anymore, and I’ll only put this off if I wait. Tova, how much does this affect you if I try to buy land right now?
I’ll start selling the deconstructed rubble instead of feeding it to your utility’s reclamation feature. The energy bill will come due next year some time, but you’ll have a good deal more money available by then.
Sounds great. Thanks Tova. I draft a message to Consul Summers, telling her that I need at least a thousand acres of land for coca plants and give a rough outline of the utilities I’ll need to set up as well. I feel a little ridiculous wondering how I’m going to pay for all of this just after I was handed 2 million credits by Penny a few months ago. Empress, I spent nearly 2 million credits in a few months!
You’re not quite rich enough to own the means of production, Kimber. The seemingly frivolous transfer costs will lower once you do. Of course, then you will need to buy time on an Imperial transport or buy your own cargo ship.
Okay, Tova’s right, there might be a ‘need less money to achieve’ solution. I draft a message to Warram asking if he owns or has a line on any coca plantations that I can co-opt for ‘Imperial Industry Needs’.
I rub my face and then scoop my hands through my hair, realizing I’ll have to invest in cargo hauling either way, delaying my ideas of having a spiffy spaceship even further. UGH! While I’m frustrated, I might as well look at my messages.
/Reduced experience due to insufficient aether stores for judgement.
/A tax for the Matrix is levied from directly consuming experience from a User.
/XP consumption reduced via tier disparity.
Not a single alchemy update, which shows that the System doesn’t reward stagnant repetition. Nice haul otherwise, but I feel cheated by the numerous reductions of experience. It makes me feel as though there were no protocols in place to deal with my judgement of sharing the experience that was being extracted to the beast I reduced in level. Not that it was more than a consequence of my Talent, but I don’t know if my ingenuity was properly considered.
You spared a truly evil person to not feel bad. Your sentencing was clever, but the rest seemed a cop-out.
Et tu Tova? Brat. She’s right though, that pulls some of that indignation back into the realm of reality. On the note of reality, I ask Aria to check my schedule for my next relevant engagement.
\You have a request for assistance in Boulder and a few meeting requests in Vegas\
I’m surprised by the Boulder comment, so I check my messages to find that a difficult case with a mire of political conflict has come to an apex and could use a Citizen to arbitrate. I want to say no, but this is literally what my class is about. Fucking system, damn dirty Empress.
I swear at Andromeda for a few moments before accepting my fate and sending the request to be vetted by my boss, Sheriff Winchester, before hopping back into Aria and setting a course for Vegas.