41 - Chapter 39

In the wake of the meeting with the PM Tasha had continued her training. She was starting to feel restless. For some reason she felt like things were not progressing as fast as she wanted.

She had forced herself to be conscious of her interactions with her team not wanting to vent her frustrations on them. They were already moving at speed to try and achieve her stated objectives. It was a big task. She was asking them to put together projects that normally took years, in days and weeks. It was not that it was impossible to manage, but that there was no play book to achieve the velocity she desired. It was something she would have to create.

She reviewed what she had already achieved. She had the research teams working on a new generation of satellites. She had Ingrid managing grants and micro loans to help various charities and disadvantaged. She had the mining consortium and the buy out of the bank was progressing well. Sunny predicted that they would own the bank in the next few weeks.

On top of that Hanna and her team were working with the Bin Daud clan to better understand the structure and capabilities of the Syndicate, as well as building out their own intelligence network. That would take time, rushing it would only create points of failure and allow unvetted people within their ranks.

The things she had achieved in a short few weeks were astounding, but still it felt like it was too slow. She analysed her own thoughts and motivations. Where was this drive to progress faster coming from? What felt out of place?

As she went through her own thoughts and feelings she realised that the drive was two fold. She liked the feeling of getting stronger and unlocking new functionality. The feeling was addictive. That was reason enough to push forward, but Tasha realised that there was another reason. The way the system was pushing her to get stronger, not just physically but by building out a self-sustaining power base, was indicative of the fact that it would be needed.

Given the amount of freedom granted to her in other areas, the only reason to push in a direction was because the system, or rather these Myriad Dragons, knew something that she did not. They foresaw a need for a secure self sustaining base. In what circumstances would that be required?

In most cases it would be overkill to reengineer everything and build a new town. Global supply chains allowed for any resource to be available anywhere else across the globe on relatively short notice. The only time global supply chains became an issue was during a global emergency. Even local emergencies impacted on the locale they happened in. You would generally source the same resources from elsewhere, at a cost no doubt, but it was possible.

The largest impact had been seen during the global lockdowns during the pandemic and further back during the world wars. Those had been true global emergencies and had disrupted supply chains. Only what was locally available was guaranteed, sometimes not even then.

So for the system to ask her to build out a self-sustaining city, as her quest demanded, and not only that, but also to have control over their own satellite network, led her to believe that some global emergency was imminent. Then there was the availability of infinite money. That had been fun to control, but as she had told Ingrid it was a double edged sword. It could and would cause massive inflation as she spent those funds.

All three of the quests taken together led to one inexorable conclusion. That there was going to be a global event that would leave the world disconnected and the finance system in tatters. She may have been looking at the worst case scenarios, but it was better to plan for the worst. That way any impact could be mitigated.

What would she want to see in the event of an apocalypse? She would need to let her closest confidants into her secrets then ask them to help her strategise. In the short term she needed to tell Hanna of her conclusions. Hanna still had not decided on where she wanted to take the system or not. Perhaps this would help her to make up her mind.

The problem was that even if her conclusions were correct, she had no timeline, no idea of the type of event, no idea of the severity or impact. In short she had vague suspicions of a vague threat at a vague time. She felt that she had some time. There was no way to build a city fast. It would take time, resources and people to deliver.

They may not be able to start, but she needed to be more aggressive in what she could do. She had access to massive amounts of capital. Not using it was the same as not having it. If her fears were anywhere near accurate, she needed to stop being so defensive and move on to a war footing. She would also need the resources if she needed to fight the syndicate in a sustained war. However if there was an external threat, then she may need to put aside her enmity with the syndicate and work with them against a common enemy. For that to happen the syndicate would need to see humanity as more than food. They would need to show that individually and collectively humanity was strong enough to stand on its own. The current global dysfunction was giving the exact opposite impression to anyone that was looking.

She left training and called Hanna. “I need you to drop whatever you are doing and meet me somewhere secure,” said Tasha.

“Is it that urgent?” asked Hanna. “I am right in the middle of something.”

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“It could potentially be extremely urgent,” said Tasha. “On the other hand it may just be paranoia on my part.”

“The last time you were paranoid,” said Hanna. “We learned some about our weird friends. So I am willing to humour you. Meet me in the SCIF. I can be there in thirty minutes.”

Tasha hung up, had a quick shower and made her way to the SCIF. She was waiting with a hot cup of mocha going over her suppositions when a harried Hanna entered and locked the room.

“So what was so urgent,” said Hanna.

“Well, I think I have been ignoring the system’s hints,” said Tasha. “I think we are in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” asked Hanna.

“The kind that could wipe us out,” said Tasha.

“So why not tell us directly,” said Hanna.

“I think there is a larger game at play,” said Tasha. “It was like when we used to be stuck between the big boys back in the day. They would drop hints, but never tell us anything directly. It would allow them to maintain plausible deniability. Either that or there are rules we can’t see. The system did not tell me that the girl was a vampire. It did not tell me that she killed my family. It gave me an emergency quest to keep me alive, but warned me that if I used the failsafe, then I would likely destroy everything that I had built up so far.”

“So trying to stay within some mysterious set of rules,” said Hanna. “That we are not allowed to know about. Or would harm us if we were to learn about them.”

“Ok, walk me through the threat,” said Hanna.

“Ok, so the system starts by giving me money and letting me do whatever I want,” started Tasha. “It gives me the chance to verify that it’s real. Then gives me tangible rewards to prove its powers are outside the norm. Then it gives me what I want most, answers about my family. I had thought that it was to gain my loyalty.”

“But what if it did not want you distracted,” continued Hanna. “It needs you for something important and can’t have you ignoring it for your own ends.”

“Right,” said Tasha. “We learn about the non-humans, and see that there is a threat that we are individually incapable of handling. Even with my enhanced stats, I would not have been a match for the strongest vampires.”

“And from what I have been learning,” said Hanna. “The vampires are not even at the top of the food chain. Some of the elder races are much much stronger.”

“Yes,” said Tasha. “Now look at the quests that I have open.” She read out the quests she had from her status page.

Open Quests: 3

Quest A1: Self sufficient (Chain Quest)

Purchase land to create your own self sufficient town

Reward: Quest Points

Status: In Progress

Quest B4: Make your next significant investment (Chain Quest)

Make your next significant investment

Reward: Quest Points

Status: In Progress

Quest C1: reach for the sky (Chain Quest)

Finalise designs for the satellite monitoring station and break ground in the location picked for quest A1

Reward: Quest points, technical knowledge

Status: In Progress

“The investment quest aside,” continued Tasha. “The other two did not make any sense. They are both chain quests. We could get the capabilities much more cheaply if we buy in the services from other companies. Why would we need to build our own self-sufficient town? Why would we need to reach for the sky? The quests look like they want us to create them together.”

“I can see why you would be concerned,” said Hanna. “If we take this as what the system needs you to do, then it looks like we are creating a bastion with the tech to survive a cataclysm. The last quest is also offering technical knowledge. It may send us down a route that would allow us to survive with our facilities intact.”

“So I am not going crazy,” said Tasha. “You can see the same thing?”

“If we take the absolute worst interpretation,” said Hanna. “Then yes.”

“I had wondered why I was picked,” said Tasha. “I am sure there were more driven people better placed to leverage the money. Then I thought it was random. What if the system wanted our past training? To take note, then prepare for the absolute worst case. That is what we have been trained to do. Plan, prepare and execute contingencies against world ending threats.”

“So if you think of the quests as missions,” said Hanna. “Then seen from our lens, it is about preparing to counter the end of the world level threats. Hence the unlimited budget. Even then, we will only be able to save a fragment of the population. Anything that would allow us to save more would be met with outright hostility from the majority of the world's governments.”

“So,” said Tasha with a sigh. “If you believe me, what are the next steps we need to take to further our goals?”

“We have no fixed timeline,” said Hanna. “So we need to move assuming the worst. We will have to bring in the team. It can’t just be the two of us.”

“How much do we tell them?” asked Tasha. “They are not trained like us. They will think we are crazy preppers.”

“Actually,” said Hanna. “Do we get involved with the preppers?”

“Well we will need all the skills represented,” said Tasha. “So yes, but not the crazy ones. Do you have enough people for what we will need to do?”

“No,” said Hanna. “It is time to step up our game plan. I think we need to buy multiple mercenary companies.”

“We will also need to buy enough building companies,” said Tasha. “If we want to build out a whole town in any sort of short timeline, we will need to throw trillions at it.”

“If this is the case,” said Hanna. “Is the UK the best place for it?”