As I watched the skimmers vanishing into the grey sky and noticed the startling contrast between the nice, obviously well maintained Sikorsky and my downright shabby ABAS with its at best questionable maintenance record, I got thinking.

For one, while skimmers were orders of magnitude more tolerable to lack of maintenance than the helicopters they more or less replaced, which was proved by the 545-E still flying, considering that the idiots inhabiting this building had ignored the much more serious maintenance on the fusactors, I had to assume that nobody hat maintained this skimmer for a few decades.

I had, as we all apparently, simply taken the skimmer as is, without thinking about it, but now I was apprehensive about using it ever again.

Yes, the grav coils were essentially solid state and it would need catastrophic physical damage to render them unusable, the same could not be said about the energy cells or the electronics.

In other words, like the fusactors, the skimmer was a tiny little landmine for us to step on. On the other hand, it was undeniably useful. That meant I either had to find somebody to completely overhaul the thing, or get a new one.

Thankfully, while time was of some import in this instance, money was not. I could afford a couple of dozen skimmers and still live happily ever after.

So, while pondering about how to best get a new skimmer I was thinking about what type of skimmer I would get. At some level, I knew that I would need a utility model again, maybe a bit bigger than the 545. But some nagging thoughts pushed me to look into a luxury model. Try as I might, I was unable to shove these thoughts aside.

Giving up, I analyzed where this idea came from and was a bit shocked when I realized why.

During my childhood, I was regaled with tales of luxury and splendor, while living in squalor myself. It was another little barb to make my life just a tiny bit less tolerable. But someday I promised myself that I would get all these little trappings of luxury, just to spite the assholes punishing me for other people's principles.

It was the angry defiance of a child, and of just that much importance, but a sliver of it took hold.

In retrospect, I did not care about most of that luxury anymore.

A big house? The fortress was all I really wanted. It gave me enough place to tinker to my heart's content, kept me reasonably safe, and, when completely cleaned up, it would be exceptionally comfortable.

I did not need a 200-room mansion to demonstrate my wealth.

The lifestyle? Oh, please. As if I would voluntarily go to any parties or events. Talking with socialites, or playing games with politicians? Celebrities? For all I cared, all these folks could as well just jump into the next black hole.

Clothing? I already was wearing spider silk and CNT clothing exclusively. Yeah, wool was expensive as heck, and anybody who was somebody was wearing as much of it as they could afford, but seriously, that stuff was heavy, hot, and scratchy.

No thank you. I might get myself a genuine leather jacket sometime, or maybe some leather shoes, but in general, I preferred comfortable to expensive, especially as CNT was on the upper end of the price scale anyway.

Jewelry? While some jewels had lost massively in value when the finds in the asteroid belt dwarfed what Earth had produced, others did just rise in worth.

Ironically diamonds, which had been kept artificially rare for centuries were again at the top of the list. But while I could appreciate the history of it and the knowledge, I saw no need to acquire the stuff. I mean, seriously, what would I do with it? Stuff it in a cubicle and revel in the knowledge that I have it? Pass, thanks.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Expensive entertainment electronics? Anything better than what I already had built myself? Dream on. My implants provided me with everything on that scale.

A gaming rig? Better than Glory? Will it work on unicorn farts too?

Music? No physical loudspeakers would ever be able to provide me with a better experience than my implants. A holo display? I used them to show others something, but that’s all. Everything pales compared to the matrix anyway.

Drugs? As a Pure, that was no option at all. Neither was alcohol.

Food? Oh yes, that I will take. And it was already in the works.

Left the pretentious, expensive, and luxurious vehicle, and better a whole fleet of them. And I had just realized that I wanted that.

I wanted it so bad that I could taste it.

I wanted the cushy real leather seats with all the extras. I wanted the real wood paneling. I wanted the impractical but oh-so-exciting design.

In other words, I wanted a luxury skimmer. And I was no longer trying to fly under the radar, so I would get one, and damn the torpedos.

That still left the need for a utility skimmer. Yes, I wanted a luxury model, but the need for the practical one did not simply vanish. After a short deliberation, I decided to just get both.

With my decision made, I immediately felt so much better. And so I rushed towards Glory.

In the matrix, my obligatory playtime was cut short a bit, as I was anxious to get skimmer shopping.

Without any hesitation, I jumped into the luxury segment.

The choices were surprisingly spare. The market of luxury skimmers was dominated by only four manufacturers.

ABAS, of course. They had around 30% of the whole skimmer market cornered, along with nearly 70% of the grav-ship market.

Not surprising when you remember that before the merger directly after the war, Airbus and Boeing each had a market share hovering around 33%. But I simply did not like how their top-end designs looked.

Sikorsky had a small part, and I was intrigued by their designs. But the performance was lacking.

Bell was out from the beginning. I would rather die than buy from the AFS.

MiL, like ABAS, was not esthetically pleasing for me.

Left the smaller, and more exclusive, manufacturers.

Here I narrowed it down to two choices, Kobashigawa and Mercedes.

Kobashigawa had been founded by the inventor of the grav coil, and subsequently the grav turbine. They did not manage to leverage this invention into the dominance one would have expected, as they made the colossal mistake to license the invention to the major aircraft manufacturers around the world, and the duopoly between Airbus and Boeing just changed the playing field.

They had the prestige of being essentially the oldest established skimmer manufacturer and had a reputation for excellence. Only matched by my second option.

Mercedes-Benz was the only luxury car manufacturer succeeding to branch out into the skimmer market. They also managed to keep their reputation valid in the new field.

Naturally, both commanded steep prices, and it did not help that I jumped directly to the absolute top-end of the palette.

The Kobashigawa Hayabusa XR was faster and more maneuverable. But in the end, what decided it for me was that the Mercedes-Benz T 240, while a bit slower and more cumbersome, was simply the utmost in luxury.

You could not dismiss the focus on performance that the Hayabusa had, while the T 240 was more destined for CEOs and heads of state.

The really hard part was that, yes, I really, really, absolutely for reals, promised, scout honor, and guaranteed could afford a T 240. And that was even before I chose the options, which could be summarized into ‘put in whatever you can squeeze in’. In the end, I had to prepay the whole thing before they gracefully accepted my application.

That done, I took much less care to choose the utility skimmer.

Again, the big four offered themselves. Again, Bell was thrown out immediately. Left ABAS, Sikorsky and MiL.

The MiL would have been the cheapest option, but that was not necessarily the best idea. Sikorsky was actually the big player on the skimmer market, but the synergy between grav-ship design and skimmer design showed in my, admittedly uneducated opinion.

I thought the ABAS designs were simply a tad more elegant. Not the overall design of the vehicle, but the designs of the tech built into them.

Especially the energy-cell design was above what Sikorsky had. Add in the avionics, where ABAS’s experience with grav ships and their humungous R&D department could just outspend and out design Sikorsky, and I made my decision towards ABAS.

Yes, the Sikorsky skimmers were a bit nicer looking, but I was shopping for utility here. Instead of going for a 645, the direct successor to my 545, I decided to go a couple of steps bigger and decided on a 675, that would allow me to build an auto-surgeon directly into the freight bay, while still seating 12 passengers, plus the two crew. This thing would actually leave the PEES vehicles in the dust. And yes, I had the thing armored up. The same as with the T 240. I saw no reason not to.

All in all, I had just spent a bit less than $150 million on two vehicles. And the one I actually needed I got for 25 million.

But on the other hand, I had a little take that towards my tormentors, even if they would never know about it.