Scott was hanging out with his friends discussing the latest news. There had been a brief mention of the Apache Revenge gang getting destroyed by vigilantes in Texas. The governor had managed to replace the general in charge of the Texas National Guard. The new general had announced they were changing the strategy from defending the major cities to going on the offensive against the more organized gangs that had formed.
In Baltimore, there had been a large and bloody riot as protestors claimed the government was wasting money on luxury housing while most people could not even afford a cheap mobile home. Someone had circulated pictures of Adriana’s project, and people had pointed out the high-end fixtures were the same as what they used in some houses costing over $10 million dollars. Trinidad had mentioned that his designs were getting mentions in the press and his products were selling like crazy. The protestors were not going to let facts get in the way of a good looting session, so they didn’t care that the housing project had one of the lowest unit costs of projects awarded. Also, the wealthy neighborhoods they were pillaging were nowhere near Adriana’s project.
In Washington, they were finalizing an even larger stimulus bill; this time close to $10 trillion. Inflation on necessities was getting out of control. It seemed likely the government was going to take over the electricity grid, build a lot more subsidized housing, and greatly expand Homeland Security. This department would become another branch of the military tasked with protecting internal infrastructure like roads, water, communication and electrical systems. It was similar to the National Guard or local police forces, but now it would be a huge new Federal responsibility. Most news channels applauded the government, while a few complained that this was effectively putting the whole country under martial law. They noted that this expanded the government’s surveillance powers and gave broad new powers to silence opposition.
It was not an election year, but anti-capitalist candidates seemed to be gaining support. People were ready to trade freedom for more security. Some politicians were even advocating the end of private property and that everything should be allocated fairly for the good of all. What used to be a radical opinion was getting more mainstream.
A small minority claimed the government made the problems worse by bailing out selected companies and preventing evictions. They argued we would have had a tough correction, but deflation would have strengthened the dollar, which would have relieved shortages. Allowing evictions would have saved some of the banks and encouraged them to renegotiate terms, allowing more people to find a solution. Artificially cheap insurance encouraged people to allow facilities, homes and vehicles to get stolen or destroyed instead of spending money to protect their property. This position made sense to Scott, but it was widely unpopular and would soon be considered seditious in parts of the country.
“I predict the electrical grid will collapse before the end of the year if the government is taking it over.” Barry said.
“You just said you wanted complete control of electricity in Proteus! What makes you think you can do a better job?” Adriana asked with a glare.
“It’s easier to handle power for one facility. I think that a system that complex needs either capitalism or advanced AI to run, unless you have a lot of surplus capacity. Right now, the capacity is tight because so many companies stopped doing regular maintenance. Also, congress screws everything up.” Barry with a smirk.
“At least it sounded like they are going to build a lot of housing projects. That should be good for your business, Adriana,” Scott added.
“No. We got the highest scores on quality of work, value for money and meeting deadlines, but they will make sure we don’t get any more jobs.” Adriana complained. “After the anti-robot protests in Philadelphia and the riots in Baltimore, they will make sure we can’t get work with the federal government. They are talking about sending a big chunk of money to the states, so maybe some of them will work with us.”
“That’s terrible! You do an amazing job, and they won’t hire you again,” Scott shook his head.
“I’m not worried. We have plenty going on with Proteus right now. Melinda said the projects we completed were only a little over budget, so I’ll be getting a big check when the next round of dividends is released. Dollars are losing value so quickly, Melinda said she would issue the checks in pesos!” Adriana laughed.
“OK, Barry is predicting the electrical grid will fail. Any other predictions not from Barry?” Scott asked.
“I think Texas is going to secede, but it might not be this year.” Matt said.
“Really?” Scott asked. “It sounded bad there, but how would that help them?”
“I’ve talked to some of the families that moved here. Homeland is going to start taking guns from everyone. Outside the 4 biggest cities, the people with guns were the only ones able to keep their families safe. In the cities, the national guard was the only thing that prevented massive riots over food rationing. When the Guard hands this mess over to Homeland, there is no way they have the resources to handle it.” Matt explained.
“How are they even going to get a million people to work for Homeland with any kind of training?” Scott asked.
“They’ll pull some people from local police, and probably fill in bodies with anyone who is willing to sit through a two-hour training video.” Matt predicted, “when it blows up, they will just double down. That’s why Texas will secede. I wonder if any other states will join them.”
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All the families had started to settle into the first section of Proteus. They were not finished with enough units for everyone, so some people were camping out in the unfinished main house or crowded into the rental houses of any employees who had room. It would be a couple of weeks before everyone was moved in, but they were optimistic after touring the new space.
The first section was closest to the sea floor. They called this level one, numbering as the levels went down. Housing units were arranged in groups of eight with large windows looking in on a square, uncovered central area. This underwater courtyard contained an artificial reef which had been seeded with coral and various fish. These were sparsely populated; it would take time and effort for these areas to grow into the undersea gardens that Adriana had envisaged.
Each group of eight houses were surrounded by a corridor that allowed walking around the group. Each small block had a lifeboat unit and large pressure doors that could seal the area off from similar blocks. Individual housing units also sealed off from the outer corridor. Interior doors were more similar to what you would find in a house on land, though they were made from painted aluminum instead of wood.
There were one or two oversized housing units for each grouping, claiming corner spaces that did not border the courtyard. This allowed space for larger families needing more than the three bedrooms in the typical unit, or if someone wanted to pay more for extra space. There were a few extra-large units with about 10,000 square feet that would take up a whole side of a courtyard plus 2 corners. These were reserved for people who could afford a large, custom space. None of these spaces had been occupied yet, but Melinda had claimed one, which she would use as both a house and a lab.
24 of the housing groups were arranged in a double ring around the edges of a larger square, which had hangers for submarines and elevators down to a lower level.
The next level down had space arranged for recreation and retail. The large outer ring was arranged like a typical mall with a walkway and open front buildings that would contain stores, restaurants or other businesses. A central area had sunlamps that would imitate a day night cycle, and they had put down grass sod and were planting a variety of plants and trees to make a park. There was enough room for a single soccer or baseball field, plus a similar sized area intended to have paths through trees. This was currently a patch of dirt with a few small saplings. A small freshwater Koi pond was planned, but it did not yet have any water in it.
The second level also contained a large gym, a shooting range, a church and a cafeteria. Scott remembered Glitch_HR had tried to assign ‘cafeteria worker’ to him from the start, but now they actually had a couple cafeterias, and some people were willing to take the job. Someone in Matt’s group was working on robotic food preparation, and they were testing dishwashing and janitorial robots here. The cafeteria workers were a combination of chef and strategic food planner. They would try to build a menu based on available ingredients and troubleshoot issues with robotic preparation. Watching them work, Scott thought the job actually seemed interesting. The cafeteria was intended to be low cost with quick service. Melinda wanted it to be a benefit for residents and was running it like a non-profit.
The third level down had large spaces intended for factories, with large airlocks that connected to the mining tunnels. They also had the power and environmental systems on this level. Barry’s Nova reactor was located here, producing fuel for robots and vehicles and primary power for the whole section. Desalination boilers produced fresh water and dried salt, which was compressed. Most was packed into deep mine tunnels they reserved for solid waste disposal. A large sewage treatment area recycled water and extracted useful fertilizer for the agriculture systems. Air systems pulled CO2 from the air for use in the agriculture systems and pulled out dissolved oxygen from the seawater. They had moved the smelting machinery here along with Matt’s robot factory, which was now twice the size of what they had on shore.
The biotech labs were still in the original base, but there were plans to include a large area in the next section they completed.
Above the sea floor, they had built an inverted gondola system which was constantly transporting people and materials between the base on shore and the growing Proteus habitat. The agriculture area was nearby, with various tubes connecting deep down to a monitoring station on level three.
All the housing, retail and factory space would be treated as private property of individuals or companies. For now, the companies were all various Genysis branches, but it would be open for anyone to buy space. Certain critical safety and environmental systems were owned by Genysis construction and anyone owning space was charged a monthly fee based on square footage, but at different rates for each level. The factory level space was cheapest and the retail level the most expensive. Adriana didn’t want this to be a company store system, so she made the maintenance budget and fee structure public. People could see that the construction company was not making any profit on allowing people to breathe. Power use was separately monitored, and the budget was also public, except for usage by individuals.
They reserved space for Security and included it in the planning, but they hadn’t decided how to pay for it or govern it. Initially it would be managed by the company, but they wanted to hand it over to some kind of government. Maintenance and utility fees could also be handled by a government, since they had not planned to run them as a profit center. Melinda decided that she didn’t want to just make this decision for everyone, so they set up a meeting of the initial inhabitants and company employees to discuss what they wanted to do.
It was not an easy decision. They were small enough that they could provide services, and it didn’t make sense to have a lot of competition for basic utilities. Competition for security or safety services also did not seem to be a good idea. On the other hand, none of the partners wanted to create some socialist utopia where they controlled everything and held ultimate power.
They ended up making a list of basic services and brainstormed on options for ownership and management. Scott even looked at Glitch_HR for people who might have skills in organizing a fledgling city state. They were kind of like a large condominium complex as far as Mexican law was concerned. Legally, they had all the powers granted to a Homeowners Association, backed up by killer robots and high-tech weaponry. Melinda said they should just do whatever they liked and not worry about Mexican law other than paying taxes. She claimed she had a plan to work with the government. They’d either negotiate a special status like Disney World did with Florida, or else they could declare their independence. They weren’t trying to avoid taxes or taking advantage of their neighbors, so Scott was optimistic they could settle things peacefully.