I spent most of the next week shoving metal into my creation engine. After all the shit I had to deal with this week I just wanted to hide away and not deal with people for a while. At first it was slow, I barely managed to get four armed bears out a day, but on the third day Nyx changed up the template so two bears and two rifles could be built at once. Things accelerated from there.

I decided to print one fox for every five bears, which meant I wasn’t killing myself every day trying to find rare materials, but I’d still have some detection capacity across my lines. The only other change I made was to give one bear in five a bag for ammo so I didn’t have to resupply each bear independently, just the ammo bags.

On the seventh day I received a call from Jacob.

“Hey kid, just wanted to let you know that my bots finished construction this morning.”

“Already?”

He chuckled, “I have it easy, no fighting with subcontractors, robotic employees that don’t need rest, and access to technology beyond humanity's current limits.” There was a pause, “Anyways, I was hoping you and that friend of yours have time to come and see the new area tomorrow. I need to key you into the security… and I may have something to ask you.”

I heard the hesitation in his voice, “Everything okay?”

“No, but it’s not something I can tell you right now. The Family is discussing how to handle things, we may want to bring in some independents, I’ll know more tomorrow.”

That didn’t sound good. “Alright, what time would you like to meet?”

“Noon. Hopefully that works for you.”

“We’ll be there,” I replied.

I sighed after the call disconnected, hopefully there weren’t more issues, my life was stressful enough right now. I shook my head, that was a problem for tomorrow, I had bots to make now.

Behind me Bob shoved another armful of scrap into the machine.

*************************

I couldn’t believe how different the shelter looked, instead of a pile of rubble there was a brand new, heavily reinforced, bunker on the site. Around the exterior, at regular intervals, there appeared to be tunnel entrances blocked by heavy metal doors, and in the middle of each side were a set of huge garage doors. Other than that, there were no windows, or any ornamentation of any kind.

I found Jacob waiting on the South side, by one of the doors. He raised an eye at my ride, I couldn’t blame him, not everyone drives a semi truck around. I was still unloading everyone when he walked up.

“Quite the group you’ve got here, I was just expecting you and Jane,” he said.

I waved back at everyone behind me, “This is my family. Considering we’ve been living in a cellar, and I aggravated the locals, I wanted to get them setup as soon as possible. The one with the scowl is Alan, the little one hiding behind him is Isabelle, the one with a look of awe on his face is Eddie, and the one leaning on Jane is Jennifer.”

Jacob nodded at each person politely. “If that’s the case, follow me, we’ll start with the living quarters.” He walked up to a reinforced door I had overlooked before. It was set to the right of the garage doors, and as he walked up it silently opened. “I’ll have the system scan each of you as you enter and add you to the whitelist. That way the door will open for you automatically in the future.”

One by one we followed him into a clean, front area. In front of us, to the left was a large sitting room with several couches and chairs. The furniture was new, pristine, something none of us had seen before. Eddie didn’t waste any time, he did a flying jump onto one of the couches.

“I know I, well Indico, paid for this, but it’s a lot nicer than I expected.” I said.

Jacob looked at me oddly, “I just put in some budget furniture so you could get settled in, I expected you to want to replace it.”

“The one I sleep on has springs poking through the cushions, you’d be hard pressed to find anything this nice in this neighborhood.” I replied.

On the far side of the living room was a dining room which could fit all of us, at the same time, and a kitchen. I exchanged glances with Jane and Alan, none of us knew how to cook, the most we usually had to do was unwrap our meals.

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“On the left we have the rooms,” Jacob said, leading the way. When they heard that everyone scrambled to follow. The left hallway had a series of doors, five on each side. Jacob opened the first one to allow us to look inside.

There was a small closet, side table and bed. None of us were used to having private space, and these rooms were larger than I expected. Eddie pushed past everyone. “I call dibs”

Jane reached in and grabbed his collar, “No, I’m taking this one, and Alan or Evie is taking the one across the hall. Eldest always stay closest to the door in order to deal with threats and emergencies, you know that.”

Jacob looked at me strangely, and I just shrugged in return. It would probably take me hours to explain why we did things like that around here. Having something even close to basic above ground living conditions was the same as luxury down here.

Jacob pointed down to a door at the end of the hallway, "That’s the bathroom. I’d say don’t expect much, but you seem pretty happy with what I showed you so far.” Everyone nodded.

I clapped my hands, “How about you all explore a little while Jacob and I take a look at the other area. Please don’t destroy anything until I get back.” Jane nodded at me and started herding the kids down the hall to choose rooms while I turned back to Jacob.

“Cute bunch, you’re really not related?”

“Not by blood, but we’re still a family. We do our best to protect each other, which isn’t easy around here.” I smiled, “It’s worth it though.”

“Apparently,” Jacob gestured back to the main area. “This way to the garage.”

There was a door opposite the main entrance, leading further into the complex. It was cavernous, and relatively empty. “I put extra power feeds on that far side so you can install some manufacturing, and a secure room you can use as an armory next to it. You can fill in the rest of the space as you figure things out.”

I nodded, overwhelmed. I tried to imagine what to use all the space for, but the only thing that came to mind was parking my truck. That covered about one percent of the space, I’d have to work pretty hard to fill the rest of it.

“Did you guys ever check out the other Shelters down here?” I asked after a minute.

“Yeah, most were… serviceable, there were two which were complete wrecks and one listed as being located right in the middle of the reservoir for all the runoff. Cbern is checking out that chemical hell pit to see if we need to do anything there. I’ll be fixing up the other Shelters starting tomorrow.”

I nodded, and we stood in silence for a moment.

Jacob cleared his throat, “I’d leave you to get settled in, but I have something important to discuss with you. There’s an issue, out of town, and at first the Family thought about handling it ourselves, but things are bad so yesterday we decided to bring in some independents. We’re having a meeting tomorrow at Ten AM. We would appreciate it if you’d participate, even if you don’t get involved in the mission.”

I looked him in the face, he was nervous, stressed. I had a bad feeling, if the Family couldn’t deal with the problem themselves it probably wasn’t something simple. I sighed. “Fine, I’ll be there. I promise nothing beyond that.”

Jacob’s face softened. “Thanks, that’s a load off my mind. I’ll have Dyana send your AI the security details, so you can control everything once I leave. See you tomorrow.”

I watched him leave. “Nyx I have a bad feeling, do you have any idea what this is about?”

There’s a lot of chatter from the west coast, but nothing specific. You want me to do some digging?

“Naw, I’ll find out tomorrow,” I shook my head and moved back into the residence. Isabelle and Eddie were playing around in the main room while Jane was trying to figure out the kitchen. I petted the kids on the head when I passed.

“I don’t think you should look directly into the place the fire comes out of,” I said, as Jane fiddled with the stove. She gave me a dirty look.

“How am I supposed to learn without knowing how it works?”

“Faith and Ignorance, just like everyone else.” She grunted and went back to fiddling.

“I need to talk to you before I completely lose you to the joy of cooking.” Jane raised an eyebrow, “We need to set some ground rules, and I want to get you and Alan setup in case of an emergency.”

She wiped off her hands, “Well, look at you being all responsible. I’m used to you running off and doing something dangerous.” I flinched at the comment. “Teddy…”

“There’s a meeting of all the local Samurai tomorrow. It’s probably nothing. Probably.”

Jane frowned, “A meeting of ALL the local Samurai doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“I know, I’m just trying to be an optimist.” I slumped. “If it’s actually something I want to be prepared.”

“How?”

“First, I’m going to give you and Alan emergency funds, and second, no one leaves home without an escort of at least two bots.” I sent her a couple grand with my Augs.

Jane froze, “Where did you get this?”

“Indico gave it to me, in order to help rebuild the shelter”

“Really?” Her eyes narrowed. My danger senses started going off.

“Yes, no more questions. I just need you to look after things if something happens.” Jane continued to glare at me, so I just smiled. Then I made a run for it.