I spent the rest of my day after speaking to Yurnel furthering our plans to build Elysium. That was difficult for different reasons.

"I'm sorry Demigod James," the man speaking to me from his phone said. "I don't have the men and equipment to spare for what you're asking me to do. I also can't ask my employees to enter the Canadian cities and work to clear them without giving them hazard pay and transportation. If I were to do this, even with the generous amounts you've offered, I would be liable to lose my company's permits."

"I understand," I said, trying not to let my irritation show through my voice. "It's a shame that you won't be able to help us with this project. Thank you for your time."

I hung up before I heard his answers. That was the fifth constuction company I'd found with the ability to accomplish what the Nephilim needed them to do right now. All five had refused our business in one fashion or the other. This one had actually been polite and had done his homework enough to know my rank title. The third had flatly said that they refused to work with "alien-loving scum-fuckers;" creative and crude as that was, I'd left the woman in charge there with the knowledge that a simple "no" would have been fine. She hadn't been amused.

"Cai, lets do this a different way," I said to the Cyber. "Go through all the names of the people we have on Rallypoint and here on the Phoenix, we're looking for people who have experience with or families in construction. The second option is preferred."

"There is no one who matches such criteria," he said immediately.

"Shit," I swore softly. "Send me Nico."

"Wing Alexander is on his way," Cai answered.

While I waited, I looked over the plans that Kyouka and Carrie had come up with to help jumpstart our recruiting and training efforts. I wasn't a fan of the idea to put ads into schools, so I nixed that one quickly. Placing advertisements in public places like community centers and rec centers was something I could accept but I still didn't like it, I kept that one. Commercials was something I could accept also, so long as we didn't specifically target them at certain people. Internet ads was a decent idea I thought, just needed to make sure that it wasn't abused by other people.

I was still looking through them when Nico walked in.

"You wanted to see me Commander?" he said.

"Yes, sit down," I told him. "I need ideas and someone to help me iron some of them out. Think you can do that?"

"I'm sure I could, but why didn't you call for Applewood or Yamato?" he asked.

"Yamato is busy working out what our plans are for these lawsuits that the world's governments are trying to give us. Everything from destruction of property to invasion of sovereign soils and endangering civilian lives," I answered. "Carrie's spending the day with her sister and her friends. Reconnecting and relaxing. My orders, so it would look bad if I called her in here for this."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Alright," Nico said. "What's up?"

"I'm trying to think of how to build up the capital city that we'll have on Earth, Elysium," I said. "I'm also trying to get construction companies to agree to help us clean up the destroyed cities throughout Canada and Alaska, Greenland can wait and it didn't have much damage anyway. Ideally those same companies would eventually build our city but everyone I found and called today has turned me down. My last call was the last person I could find and they're in the Texas area so I knew it was stretch anyway. Anything come to mind for you?"

"You could try companies from Russia," he suggested after a moment. "They'd still have to come a good distance but they're also not as neccessary for any Russian rebuilding efforts."

"Already thought of it and I can't use them," I said.

"Why not?"

"Russia's keeping China in check," I explained. "With the States effectively gone for now, China took the opprotunity to conquer the 'problem' areas. Korea, both of them, Vietnam, and Taiwan went quick. Last I heard, they were eyeing Mongolia and Thailand. Russia stepped in and told them that if they continued with what they were doing then they'd interfere and stop them; most of the European powers backed them up with that, so China's backed off some."

"If I contact Russia and officially ask them for help with this, then China will take the chance and start another conquest war. Russia won't react in time and even more people will die."

"Australia then," Nico said. "They're already helping America with rebuilding, we can ask for some equipment and supplies, maybe even workers."

"I already asked them," I sighed. "They said that their resources are tied up with helping the States and Central America's housing crisis that's come up. Too many people in small, tight spaces and not enough beds."

"Well then why don't we send ads out to the cities that have too many people in them right now?" he suggested. "It would free up space for people that can't work and it would give us a labor source that we can use for this other than ourselves."

"It's not bad," I admitted. "We could use food, housing, and safety to draw them to us in addition to whatever wages we offer. We'll just have to make sure that they're all trained in what to do correctly."

"Then we say we're looking for professional constructors and liscensed contractors," Nico said. "That'll give us a pretty big pool of people to look into and when we've got enough we can expand it to simple laborers. Easy, breezy."

"Alright send word to the hydroponics facilities on Rallypoint that we need more foodstuffs," I told him. "Also tell Kiv-mel and the tech teams that we need bigger shelters that are capable of comfortably holding up to ten people."

"Ten? You really think that families are that big these days?" Nico asked.

"They are when one worker brings his wife and two kids plus his parents and in-laws and maybe a close friend or sibling," I answered.

"Makes sense I guess," Nico said. "Should we have the sizes be variable? In case we only get a single guy or something?"

"We can, but I'd rather just room multiple singles together," I said. "It'll save space and give us a chance to use the smaller more private shelters for workers that prove themselves more worthy of them. It's kind of hard to find privacy when you're climbing over both sets of parents and your kids. Giving them the chance to have a smaller shelter as a reward for good work will incentivize them to work harder."

"That's sounds like you're taking advantage of them," Nico said.

"That's exactly what I'm doing," I told him. "To make this happen in a timely manner, I need to have the first foundations laid last week and that means that I need to find way to push the workers we get to make it happen quickly. The faster we have a command post on the ground the better off we'll be. Send word out. I'm going to lunch if you need me. Thanks for the help with this Nico."

"No problem sir," he saluted before leaving.

I didn't get to lunch that day. Too many things needing my input and planning.