A few weeks after Melinda had extracted his dad and Gabriel from the local hospital, they were still in Thailand. Scott had talked to his dad who had now regrown his skin and said they had shown him an eye growing in a vat that would replace the one he lost in a few months. He was excited about the whole thing and also because he was promoted to captain the rebuilt ship. Mr. Henderson had been working with Adriana and Zaliha on some improvements to the design including more defensive features to counter torpedoes and missiles. To Matt’s mock disappointment, there would not be any robotic dolphins in the design.
Gabriel Hauser, who had somehow survived the Russian attack only to be kidnapped by Melinda, was unhappy to have been whisked away to her Thailand research lab. Melinda claimed she had perfected her technique of regrowing a hand. Unfortunately, Gabriel now had two right hands, though one was still small and growing. They had not used the correct combination of developmental signals for the bilateral symmetry. He was understandably upset and had started aggressively resisting his abductors. Gabriel did not take kindly to Melinda’s offer to lop off the hand and grow it back correctly.
Gabriel had managed a daring escape from their facility. He seemed to have keenly developed instincts for getting out of bad situations. Gabriel was starting to get a small cult following on a streaming video channel where he talked about secret government labs in Mexico and Thailand. His two right hands were creepy enough to give his stories some credibility, plus some of the local workers must have contributed some supporting evidence.
Scott had been working on physical training with the security guys. His coordination was better than ever and he had maintained most of his new strength. Some of the others received a similar procedure to what Melinda inflicted on him; they learned that it was not nearly as painful for someone who was already in decent shape.
He was practicing unarmed combat with Terrance in the new gym. The old gym had collapsed in the explosion, but the new space was even bigger and had more of an emphasis on fighting skills.
“Oof!” Scott grunted. He had meant to ask what was wrong with his fighting stance, but Terrance had demonstrated with an Aikido throw augmented by his ridiculous strength. Bruises and minor fractures were common among people who trained with the security forces. No one was really used to their new strength. A couple guys had even allowed Melinda to experiment with new bone chemistry. The first guy had a bad reaction and would need to have both kidneys regrown. The second guy was currently in recovery from his surgeries and the initial tests were impressive. The mercenaries were competitive and fairly reckless, agreeing to test out new ideas for upgrading various physical features with enthusiasm.
“Uh, I need a break.” Scott said, coughing up a little blood. Their combat medic started running some tests to see how bad it was. The good news was they could fix a lot of issues that would have been challenging with traditional sports medicine. Bad news was that he would be doing rehab for a few days.
They had a new personal trainer, Morgan Newman. She was a tough woman who didn’t take kindly to any of the security guys flirting with her. She had not had the muscle enhancement procedure, but even without it she was pretty strong. More importantly she seemed to have an endless series of exercises and stretches so Scott was constantly discovering new areas to improve. Or suffer when he had to do yet another round of rehab. Morgan promised him he would toughen up as he recovered from more injuries.
While recovering from his latest beating, Scott watched as Carl sparred with an ex-cartel guy named Sotera. Unlike Scott, Carl seemed to be picking up the combat training quickly. He was already winning about 3 in 10 matches against everyone except that monster Sergio who won almost every time. Carl didn’t have any combat experience, but his brain seemed to pick up techniques quickly. Whatever they did to his muscles seemed just a bit more powerful than the version everyone else got. The rumor was that they did a lot of trial and error on Carl while he was in a coma and some surgeries no one was willing to risk on someone who wasn’t already brain dead.
Scott realized he was the weakest here, but he was used to humiliation. Most of these guys were around 50 years old, but they could beat him every time. The only other young person was the new addition of Marta Lopez. She was the girls’ friend from school who had quit to join the company as a Junior Security Specialist. Marta had struggled at college, but she was particularly gifted at beating people up. Scott heard stories about how she had fought off one of the Russians that was trying to kidnap Adriana, but she backed up her reputation, establishing herself as an even match for guys like Terrance and Sotera who presumably had been kicking butt for decades.
Despite his lack of talent, Scott was not willing to give up. He had felt so helpless when they were attacked. Even if he couldn’t match these experts, he could now shoot a gun and he could probably fight better than average people his age. He had looked himself up in Glitch_HR for how suitable he would be in various security related professions. Currently, his rating was not great; he was best suited to be a mall cop.
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Adriana was loving her work. After a mad scramble designing the new base, she was pleased that they were spending a little effort to make the interior attractive so people wouldn’t mind staying there long term. The initial base had felt more like a mine or a prison. This time they would be using the new magnesium enamel paneling to give everything a sleek, futuristic look. There would be plenty of windows looking out into the ocean, and there were plans to add a beach and an artificial reef between the two massive piers. The building above ground was designed like a high-end vacation home that could be rented by rich people entertaining a few dozen friends. The underground levels felt more like an underwater resort than a mining and research facility. Melinda had approved hiring an interior decorator to help pick art and furniture. It made a big difference having a budget, although they could not finalize the purchases until more cash came in.
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The Dark Siren was ready to go on another delivery run. Demand for metals had dried up in Mexico, but they would be able to sell a load in Houston at about 70% of the price they had received for the first load before the economy had fully crashed. Demand for the exotic metals had dried up quickly, but most of them would be used internally for research projects Barry and Dr. Springer worked on.
Scott’s dad had returned, ready to captain the ship and Adriana had enjoyed working with him even if they were mostly adding military upgrades. He was upbeat and cheerful despite the horrific injuries he had suffered. Adriana secretly thought his eyepatch looked pretty good. She was having trouble with what to think about Scott. He was looking good lately and the attack seemed to have motivated him to train seriously. He was the same insecure, awkward guy on the inside but there were times when a more confident Scott emerged.
Adriana had also enjoyed working with Zaliha. Adriana had been proud of her design for the Dark Siren, but Zaliha knew so much about building things from her work at NASA. It didn’t hurt that Matt would drop everything to help program his robots to build whenever she came up with something. They had built a small test submarine the first month. It sank due to a faulty seal when they tested it at a 300 meter depth, but the next version could handle 600 meters down to the sea floor. The whole area nearby was a relatively shallow shelf extending from the peninsula for about 150 miles off the coast, so this design could handle anything nearby. There were a few areas of shallower water including some small islands and a protected whale sanctuary further out, before the depth in the Gulf dropped down to about 1600 meters or more. The current design was not expected to handle this depth, but Zaliha was using what she learned to design a much larger vessel. The next generation was intended to handle depths up to 3 miles and it was intended they would use it when building a base on the Atlantic ridge.
The first two iterations had been piloted remotely by wire, but the third version was intended for a small human crew. Adriana was helping with some of the environmental systems along with a couple engineers who were working remotely. Scott had been drafted to help program the user interface for the controls, and he was also working with a small team located remotely.
The first test run would stay in shallow water. They had an underwater dock on the fifth level of the new base where Zaliha and Adriana were running through a list of tests and working with a couple engineers who would take over submarine maintenance once they had a fleet. The test pilot was a local marine biologist who they had hired recently, and she was accompanied by their scuba expert Jansen. Jansen was an adrenaline junky who had seemed bored since the Russian attack. He went on frequent dives troubleshooting problems and helped a bit with the construction projects, but he didn’t seem happy unless there were sharks circling in the water or people shooting at him. Testing a new submarine design seemed interesting enough that he had volunteered several weeks before they had even started building.
The submarine had basic systems installed but did not have the finishing touches or conveniences they would add once they confirmed it wasn’t a death trap. Jansen and the pilot, Feliciana did not need the galley, sleeping quarters or even the bathroom finished for the initial run.
For the first run, the water intake clogged with algae after about half an hour underwater. This was not an emergency, but it could eventually cause damage to the environmental systems on a longer trip, so they reworked the intake and self-cleaning systems. The control software had a few bugs, and the crew requested some adjustments to make it easier to use. The test was a huge success, so after some minor modifications they had planned to produce several of these small submarines. They would be used during the construction of the first habitat a few miles off the coast. It would be too far to control with remote relays, so the subs would allow them to manage the robots without programming them for every contingency.
The submarines were designed to be easy to use - requiring a similar level of training to driving a car on land. They spent a lot of effort building simple controls with effort on automatic troubleshooting and automation to manage most systems. They would have different modules that could be swapped out for various activities - controlling robots, moving equipment or scientific analysis. A crew of up to 5 people could stay in the submarine for several weeks if needed.
After a few more test runs and reworking minor systems, a crew started adding the finishes and conveniences for longer duration trips. In a few months, most of the core personnel would be used to driving around in the submarines and construction would start on the habitat. The habitat had features in common with the base near the shore, but it was on a much larger scale and needed to be mostly self-sufficient underwater. They needed to produce their own oxygen and food. They would need living, recreational, and commerce spaces. Space was reserved for medical, manufacturing and shopping areas. Transportation options needed to connect with the main base on shore, but also needed to reach up to surface shipping. They planned an underwater gondola system to connect with the shore, although the cars would float above the wire in this design. There would be a floating dock on the surface connected to the habitat with an elevator system.
Barry and Dr. Springer had planned an ambitious system to power the facility, but Adriana didn’t know the details other than it was something different from their first-generation fusion devices.
Security features including the ability to seal off or evacuate entire sections. There were too many things for one person to plan so Melinda had hired a small team of experts who were working for their construction company. Economically, the plan was to let people rent or even buy space in the habitat.
Adriana wasn’t sure who would even be living down there, but she was designing it with space to eventually support up to 50,000 residents. The project seemed to be bigger and more expensive than what their small company could handle. Adriana did not really understand how it was going to make money, but she really enjoyed designing and planning something on this scale.