I woke up the next morning in a strange place. It took me a few minutes to realize that I was just in the bed of the RV I had moved into. I got up and went to the fridge. It only included two important things, a tube of ground beef and a tube of sausage. Thankfully, though, the previous owner of this RV had filled it with plenty of dishes.
I turned on the stove, noting that the propane tank it ran on was nearly empty, and threw four small patties of sausage in the cast iron skillet on it. This used half the tube of sausage, but it would be worth it to eat a proper meal. I then mixed up a bit of my flour with some butter the previous owner had left in the fridge, divided the mixture into four equal pieces, and put them in the oven. Thirty minutes later I had wiped myself down with a wet cloth, as the plumbing drain went to a tank and therefore a shower wouldn’t work too well, and left the RV with four sausage biscuits.
Tony and Tom were just leaving their RV as well, so I handed them one each. “Thanks,” the big one said. “Tom was just complaining about the fact that we’d have to eat cold cereal for breakfast.” So, I guess the big one was Tony.
“So, what’s your plans for the day?”
“Probably go back down to the camp ground and clean out any of the RVs that would start but had dead folks in them. Once the upholstery is dry, we can bring them back here. Maybe even grab a new trailer or two.”
“Well, keep an eye out for one of those portable fences they use on construction sites. We’ll need to set up some kind of a wall around the place to keep out anyone that wants to hurt our little community.” Tony nodded. “I was wondering, though, how much was Keith paying you? I’ll need to start paying you directly if you’re working for me.”
“Well, we got five hundred each the last two days, but that was probably because he thought it would be a short term job. With you giving us a place to stay and consistent work, we can go lower on that by quite a bit.”
“How much lower? Will two hundred a day be enough?”
“For a full time job? That’s fine.” Tom also agreed, and we shook on it.
“In that case, I assume you want to work five days a week?” They both nodded, so I handed them $1000 each. “Consider it a week’s pay in advance. Not sure how long my funds will hold out, but they should last at least a month.”
“Fair enough. If that’s all, we’ll set out.” I said goodbye and they walked to a transfer truck that was probably built in the 70s. I was surprised it still ran, but they managed to crank it with little effort.
With that, I checked the time on my phone. I would need to leave in an hour or so if I wanted to get to the soup kitchen on time. Seeing Keith pull up, I handed him the last biscuit and instructed him to get the water set up. “You should also see if Lawrence will let you catch the rain water off the roof of his building. That should provide us enough water to keep the place running, assuming it rains occasionally.”
With that I checked in with Gary. He and Bob seemed to be getting along with each other well enough. It would be four days or so before Bob was done making any meat, but Gary had been thinking. Now that he had enough power to pull it off, he had the limited ability to connect to the System Market on Earth. Apparently, the System had a way to teleport materials and manufactured goods between settlements. The system would even task nanites with creating certain items for you if you paid enough Zerka for it. Finally I had found a use for the System currency I had earned.
He displayed a holographic screen for me, and I started scrolling through the available items. There were only three registered settlements on Earth, one in China, one in Australia and one in France. We would require specialized hardware to bring anything in from another star system. This meant that the Market would be limited to System created goods for the most part. That was good enough for now.
I had to register the settlement with the System in order to use it, so I thought for a minute. Eventually I settled on the name “Anarchist Redoubt”. We didn’t have a government, and I didn’t plan on creating more of one than was required to keep the people safe, so the name fit well enough. Plus it sounded cool. Maybe we could start a black market auction or something to take advantage of the name. More than a few people were turning to drugs to deal with the situation and, while I thought it was beyond stupid to get hooked on something, I couldn’t exactly say I had moral objections to people putting weird chemicals in their own body.
‘Say, Vera, is there any way I can do some System shopping while I’m at the soup kitchen?’
‘Technically, there is a skill for that. It’s called “Market Screen”. Though it only works when you are inside a settlement that you have good enough access to the Core of. Here, of course, you are the Leader of the settlement, and that gives you full control of the Core. In other settlements, however, you will probably need to at least be neutral to them. Many places ban those in poor standing with the community from accessing the Market from there. Without an Inventory of your own it will use some of your own energy to make the items appear beside you rather than beside the Settlement Core.’
‘Can you give me that skill?’
‘Sure. Your skills are fully adapted to you now, so it won’t be a problem.’
A screen that was similar to the hologram Gary had shown me, but which lacked any ability to alter the Settlement Core, appeared in front of me. In the corner was an account balance. <112040 Zerka> At least I wouldn’t have a shortage of funds. Gary informed me that he could only bring in goods for the most part. Sending goods to anyone would take around a Ko of power per kilometer per kilogram, and Gary’s reserves were too low for him to send more than a few kilograms to any of the other registered settlements. Apparently the sender always paid the bill for sending goods.
After a few more minutes of scrolling I noticed that it was time to leave. I closed the window and left. There were quite a few things on there that would be useful. First, a better generator would be useful. That would allow Gary to fill his reserves and unlock much more functions. Second, some way to earn more money would be useful. With that he could pay people and use the market as much as he needed. Third, we would need all of the things a proper settlement will use. Restaurants, shops, and the rest will turn my little settlement into a proper town.
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‘Is there a better way to connect you and Bob to the power system?’ I asked Gary. Vera reopened my market screen and Gary directed it to a common system created device. It included several rotating rings, which used some sort of plasma to send energy into the core. It cost fifty thousand Zerka. ‘If I had an entire nuclear plant at my disposal I’m sure that would be necessary. But all I have for now are a few small generators. Have you checked the local market?’
A few seconds later it switched to a device from France. It had four copper rings of various sizes, which sat on springs to adjust to different sized orbs. Each of those rings were connected to a terminal block where a wire could be connected. It was a simple enough design that could be connected to a wide variety of generators. And more importantly, it was from Earth, which meant that it was cheap. The person who offered it was willing to accept Zerka, Bitcoin, or Euros, which meant that he could also pay for it. At 1000 Zerka it seemed a bit expensive to me, so I sent a message to the vendor, offering 1000 Zerka for two of them. I could build something similar if I wanted to, but it would take at least a day. The person had either received a System message or set an alert for counteroffers, because they responded only a few minutes later accepting the offer. A second window opened with a private trade offer, two devices in exchange for 1000 zerka. I accepted and the money was removed from my balance as two devices landed on the ground beside me, appearing in a brief distortion of space. I thanked the vendor and picked up the two devices.
I managed to hook up one of the devices to a breaker and place Gary in it before it was time to leave. I informed Bob that I would have to connect his device once I was back. Gary would be watching the area of the settlement for me, just to make sure that no one stole from us. Keith, Tony, and Tom could defend themselves if anyone was stupid enough to attack them. I wasn’t sure about Lawrence or his daughter, who I still didn’t know the name of, but they were on friendly enough terms with us. If any of those five happened to connect fully to the System I would give them Market access as well. I really needed a way to speed that process up.
I went over to the soup kitchen and worked my shift. They had at least bought an industrial mixer from a bakery off of some salvager, so my arms didn’t feel like they were about to fall off after the three thousand or so rolls were finished. We were starting to run out of flour. At this rate we only had two and a half days worth left. After work I went to my apartment and brought over the flour and rice I had. That would buy us another day at least.
Back at the base I checked in with Lawrence to see if he had a solution to that problem. He had several partial pallets of flour, maybe three and a half in total, including the whole wheat flour. After a bit of negotiation he settled on eight thousand for the lot. I sent a message to Jacob to clear out a spot for us to put it and paid. Tony and Tom had managed to bring in several more RVs and another trailer that day, and were digging a hole with a backhoe when I called them and Keith over. We loaded almost two of the pallets into Keith’s truck and strapped them down the best we could, throwing a tarp over them, and made our way to the kitchen. Jacob and Mary had cleared out a corner of the dining area and helped us move the bags inside.
Apparently Paul had left to help one of the salvager crews that came by here. Jacob wanted to keep the public library in good condition, so Paul was helping them collect all of the local books and haul them over there. With the power being intermittent and firewood not exactly being common in the city, many people were using them for fuel. Jacob was hoping to stop that.
It took us one more trip to get all of the flour there and stacked, but in the end Jacob thanked us. If nothing else the people would have plenty of bread to eat. I informed him that Lawrence still had plenty of food in stock if he still had any cash, and we left.
Back at the base I double-checked Keith’s plumbing work and turned on the water. The drains still wouldn’t work properly, but I figured out why Tony had brought a backhoe over. They were planning on installing a septic tank. He would need to dig up a large amount of the parking lot to properly set it up, but they had asked Lawrence about it and he was ok with it. Proper plumbing would only help guarantee that he got more business.
After setting up Bob’s new base and placing him on it I looked through the market again. There were many useful devices there, including teleportation devices if I was willing to pay, but we didn’t have the power to run any of them. Maybe we could manage one of the smaller ones, but that would be it. With that in mind I searched for power sources. The local market had several different styles of generators. I briefly considered purchasing a large number of solar panels. With a settlement core’s ability to absorb so much energy and output it in any way we wanted with high efficiency, the intermittency of the panels wouldn’t be an issue.
In the end, though, I settled on a power device built by the System. It was a sphere slightly larger than a soft ball, and promised to put out twenty thousand Ko per day. That would put it at around 80 kilowatts if the math I did in my head was correct. That should be enough for a modest amount of trade. I contacted the vendor in France again and they sold me another two at the same price. With the five thousand the System charged for the device I should have enough power to run the settlement for now.
After the device appeared I connected to it. It only had a low-tier AI, so I configured it to output in sync with the generators and connected it to the grid. Gary thanked me for the extra power, and I knew it was connected properly. Still, my detection field told me that the mounting devices for the power source and Gary were somewhat warmer than the outside air. I would have to develop a better way to connect the device if I wanted to use a more powerful source of energy in the future. I suppose I could simply connect the power source directly to Gary and crank up the voltage to avoid the heating issue, but that might be a bit dangerous. I’d have to think about it.
By the time I was done, it was getting a bit late, so Keith decided to head back home. I made one more run to grab my stuff at my apartment, and locked up. I doubted I would be back any time soon.
The next morning I got up and went to make four more biscuits when I noticed I had a friend request.
‘Yes,’ she responded. ‘Now that I understand why you and Wan were so special I knew I needed to do that for myself. So, I hurried and set it up.’
‘So, which paradigm did you choose?’ I asked. Not that I really cared, but I was curious.
‘Space Wizard. It was the last one on the list, and I liked the movies, even though I was a kid when they first came out.’
‘They are pretty good.’ I agreed. ‘At least the originals.’ I told her about my settlement and told her she could swing by tonight if she wanted. It would be nice to have at least one other System connected person here, and I doubt Jacob or Paul would be willing to move here any time soon. Unfortunately, her car was a newer hybrid, so she didn’t have the ability to come out here. So, I offered to give her a ride. She agreed and told her I would pick her up at 8pm.
After breakfast I checked the market again. The second item on my “setting up a settlement” list was a way to make money. A better market connection would fulfill that goal. I looked over the market again. The System offered a Market Terminal, a way for anyone, even those not connected to the system, to buy things from the market. The terminal would gather biometric data from the user and keep track of their balance itself, and could even connect with other Market Terminals in the settlement or other settlements to transfer that balance. That would work for now, though it required a connection to a System Warehouse to work.
The Warehouse device was interesting. It could either create a small pocket in hyperspace which would store up to a few cubic meters of material, or could designate an area of real space up to one hundred cubic meters and expand its storage capability by a factor of ten. This effect would be dangerous, as any object that passed over the threshold of the expanded area would be shredded at the atomic level, so you needed an empty building to place it in.
I bought one and a Market Terminal, and used the empty trailer as the new warehouse for now. The warehouse device didn’t require much power, and the System modified the Market Terminal so it could be plugged into a normal wall outlet, so the last Orb Adapter device was used to set up the Warehouse.
I brought Tony and Tom over and showed them how to use the devices, and warned them to not try and enter the new trailer. At some point I would move the warehouse to a better location, but for now the trailer would have to do.
The two marveled at the terminal device. It allowed them to place items in the warehouse and remove them, and they both figured out how to put items up for sell. I set the device to charge a few Zerka per transaction with another settlement, for the power use, and told them that they could freely use the terminal to trade. I would probably set up a surcharge for the use of the warehouse later, but for now I wanted them to get used to using the device.
The warehouse didn’t have any time dilation or freezing functions to preserve food, as those functions were only available in more specialized or expensive versions, so for now I told them to only store non-perishables in the warehouse. They could fill it up with items for the settlement all they wanted, but I limited their own personal storage space to one cubic meter.