As she pulled out, she tapped the horn once, as if to say goodbye, before pulling out of the town. I watched her drive away until she turned out of sight, before turning around and walking down the main road, making my way to the campground. I wanted to get the negotiations for the surveillance gig over as soon as possible, so we could get the info back and put it to work.
Once I was a bit closer, I waved to a pair of nomads watching the entrance before making my way deeper into the camp. Eventually, I spotted Alexander, elbow-deep in the engine of a car, with grease marks up to his shoulders. As I approached, one of the nomads working beside him spotted me, giving the leader a nudge to point me out.
"Jackson, good to see you," Alexander said, giving me a nod before focusing back on the engine. "Give me a second, just trying to get this bolt loose…"
"Take your time," I responded, taking a seat on a nearby bench.
He nodded, before focusing back down into the car's internals. After a moment, he strained against something, before whatever he was prying at came free suddenly, undoubtedly smacking his knuckles in the process. I could see his jaw clench as he muttered a curse, pulling out a thick bolt and nut. He passed it to the other nomad before grabbing a rag and starting to clean himself off.
"Right, sorry about that," He said, leading me away from the car to a nearby table and chairs, set up under a thick tarp cover. "I assume you're here to talk about that gig you mentioned?"
"That's right," I confirmed, taking a seat across from him. "Sounded like you were interested?"
"We are, as long as it was how you described," he responded, the rag in his hand getting dirtier and dirtier, despite his hands still being stained with grease.
"Essentially, I'm trying to get a feel for where Mealstrom's gathering spots are," I explained, leaning forward in my chair. "I'm sure Dakota has a list of their bases, but I want more than that. I want their favorite hangouts, where they buy their smokes, where they get their chrome, and any sort of gathering spots or frequented building. Basically, any place where their presence is common enough that it would lower property value."
"So solely observational, no infiltration or anything?" He asked, watching me with a hard look.
"No, no infiltration at all. Most of this could be done from a passenger seat with nothing more than a tablet and a map," I explained. "You're gonna wanna mix it up to keep from getting spotted, maybe do some walking or get different vehicles, but that's it."
"That… sounds like something we can do," Alexander agreed with a nod. "I assume your friend explained we aren't really looking for eddies, though?"
"He did. What sort of tech are you looking for, exactly?" I asked, eyeing the nomad leader closely. "I think it's pretty clear a lot of our tech is purposely hidden, so I can't offer everything."
"Well, in all honesty, I was hoping you would make some recommendation," he admitted. "Who better to know what would help us?"
"That's a fair point…"
Mentally, I started going over some of the things I could build for the nomads. Mag rifles were an obvious choice, as the nomads would love the ability to mill their own ammo instead of buying it. I could make them various types of armor, but most of my personal armor was only good because Alien Alloy allowed me to compact a large amount of it into the form of scales, keeping it light while retaining its strength. Although…
"I can offer some weapons, mag pistols, and rifles," I offered. "They are pretty tough, and you'll be able to mill your own rounds from cheap carbon steel round bar. Not to mention, they are better than anything on the market these days. Let's say… five of each? Or… I could make you a type of lesser-power armor. Not like what you probably saw the other day, something much more simple."
"Why would we want lesser power armor?" He asked with a frown. "That seems counterproductive to why I was asking for tech from you."
"You want this stuff because you'll be able to repair it yourself," I explained. "Just a bit of tutoring, any of your mechanics will be able to fix them up with parts you'll be able to buy at most shops, with the tools you have around here. Perfect for people without access to high-tech facilities."
"...That is something we would be interested in," he admitted. "Assuming the armor is potent enough…"
"How about this? I get one set of armor built so you guys can test it out," I suggested. "If you like it, I'll print you two more. If you don't, I'll make you six pistols and six rifles. How does that sound?"
"I can agree to those terms," Alexander said with a nod, reaching out with a still greasy hand. He frowned and made to pull back, but I smirked and reached out, shaking his hand happily.
"A little grease doesn't scare me," I assured him. "I built enough of my own stuff that I am well acquainted with it at this point."
He chuckled, and together, we hashed out the final details of the gig, eventually coming to a final agreement. He left to call Dakota to fill her in, promising that he would have people on the job by the evening at the latest.
With one of my tasks for the day complete, I headed back to the main part of town, making a circuit around to say hello to everyone. Jackie had left, but he would be returning later in the day so both of us could get our new lungs.
I knew the thought of getting a new organ, or two in this case, should shock me, but at this point, I was only concerned about how much of my last free day it would take up. I could feel the countdown timer in my head slowly ticking by, and while I didn't bother to focus on it to get a real reading, I could feel it was getting close.
After my walk around the town, I stopped back in the garage, plopping down in my workstation chair. I had a few things that I wanted to build today, but with Jackie's announcement that he was going to give being a chef a real shot, my primary objective was to build him an assistant for cooking.
The only question I had was if I should make him a full AI assistant or a bunch of response programs instead. After thinking it through, I realized he would probably need response programs either way, so eventually, I settled on designing a robot with a response program brain. They would be able to help him in the kitchen, and if he wanted a full AI assistant, I would either convert one of them with some adjustments, or build a liquid skin ALEO unit, depending on what he wanted.
In fact, both Samwise and Noah had asked for a robot to help clean and maintain the vaults, so I was overdue to create a more polished robot frame for more refined duties. After some light planning, I decided I would build a frame, and change subtle things like the coloring and the plating to indicate what exactly their role would be.
I scanned through the few robot plans I had stored away, before ultimately deciding to start from scratch. I was tempted to start with the same frame as Frank since it already had a lot of the features I was looking for, but it also had quite a few more that I didn't need. I was also tempted to use a Mr. Handy, but as much as the Fallout games liked to pretend they were somehow perfect assistant robots to help around at home, the fact of the matter was that it had a high-intensity thrust system attached to its ass.
It was not practical and would have been considered worse than useless in most universes beyond Fallout.
As usual when designing a humanoid robot, I started with a skeleton, before realizing that, since this was not a combat robot, it did not need a super-reinforced, combat-capable frame, and could get by with just a reasonably reinforced structure.
Basically, the idea was to create a design that focused on flexibility, dexterity, and steady hands. Where robots like the MRVNs focused on utility, cutting, hauling, and welding, and the shades and ALEO units focused on robustness and effectiveness, I built something that was more refined.
I started by laying out a general frame, before adding power systems and stabilizers to make them rock solid. Their servomotors were chosen for stability rather than power, while their sensors were the best I had available. I even included artificial scent detection, which, once trained, would allow the robot to smell whether something was cooking or if something smelled bad. That was technically a sensor from a security robot, specifically one meant to locate explosives, but surprisingly, the tech carried over.
Slowly but surely, I added systems, doubling down on several aspects before finishing off by designing a stylish outer shell. I went through two interpretations before settling on one that looked refined, but didn't stand out as some sort of super robot.
When I was done, I sent the design to Samwise so he could take a look, the AI suggesting a few tweaks, which I happily accepted. I was still getting used to the idea of infinite resources, so I had held back in a few places to keep from making the bot more expensive, something Sam spotted and fixed, as well as adding a different set of cameras as eyes. Technically, it was minorly inferior to what I had chosen, but it was actually better at telling contrast and minor shifts in color, making it better suited for cooking or cleaning bot.
When we were done adjusting the design, Samwise agreed to print out a half dozen of them and put them through their paces, while I could get started on another project. Unfortunately, I didn't have a ton of time since Vik would eventually arrive to install our next round of cyberware, our new enhanced lungs. Despite the fact that he would be cutting us open to a significant degree, the actual surgery wouldn't take too long. That said, I was pretty sure I would be done for the day after getting my lungs cut out and replaced.
With only a small chunk of time to work in, I set in to make the most of it. There were a lot of minor things that needed to be designed, mostly as general ideas for Samwise to polish and finish off for me, something that AI was particularly good at due to his inherent analytical nature.
I completed a few background projects with my time, the day passing slowly before, eventually, Jackie popped his head in to let me know that Vik had arrived and was ready to get to work.
After a quick shower to clean up later, I made my way to the Biolab, where Vik and Jackie were waiting. Of course, Frank was also there to act as Vik's assistant, as was Rebecca, though she was sitting in the corner. She waved when I entered, happily drinking a milkshake.
"Right, so who is going first?" I asked, giving Jackie a look.
"Ie best go first, Genio," Jackie said with a frown. "If I see you getting all cut up, I might lose my nerve."
"When the hell did we switch places?" I asked, shaking my head. "You know you don't have to do this, right?"
"I know, but I would like to be able to use my Sandy more often," Jackie said, giving himself a shake. "I can take it. I'm ready."
Vik nodded, before leading him into the surgery room and guiding him to take off his coat and shirt. Rebecca let out a wolf whistle, but stopped and apologized after Vik gave her a look. After he was ready, Jackie lay down on the table, and Vik went over some things, though I couldn't hear what he was saying. After he was done, Vik started the procedure by knocking him out, using a much more serious-looking anesthetic than the ones he used for our other surgeries. After Jackie was fully out, he was strapped in, and Vik got to work.
The first step was hooking Jackie up to a set of artificial lungs, which oxygenated his blood without him needing to breathe. Vik did this by splicing a device into Jackie's arteries, which Frank assisted in. Once Jackie no longer needed to breathe, Vik sterilized his chest before setting up draping to border around the operation site. Then, he began cutting.
Watching Vik flay Jackie's chest open, cut open his ribcage, and slowly remove his lungs, one at a time, was as fascinating as it was gruesome. The lungs that replaced his originals were almost identical, looking pristine, though the previous ones didn't actually look that bad. Once they were installed, Vik slowly began to clean up, spraying some sort of solution over the open chest cavity. Then he began to close him up, fusing bones back together and layering his flesh back into place.
When Jackie's chest was all put back together, Vik used five stimpaks to wash away the cuts and broken bones, one after the other, spreading them out around his chest to ensure they treated everything. When he was done, he stood and pulled off his gloves, the ripperdoc leaving the operation room, revealing a smile as he pulled off his mask.
"That went incredibly well," He said with a smile. "Frank and I will observe him for a while, then we can move him so he can sleep it off. Then it's your turn, Jackson."
I nodded, watching as Frank took various readings using a Titanfall hand scanner, running it over Jackie's chest. Meanwhile, Vik watched the readings from the various machines hooked up to read Jackie's vitals from the outside, sitting down to recover and regain some energy. I hid a smile as Rebecca handed him a glass of water and a snack, Vik thanking the younger woman, who did her best to act like it was no big deal.
When Jackie showed no change, and his readings showed he was drifting into sleep rather than being unconscious, he was moved outside the room to sleep it off, while I laid down on a separate operation table.
"Alright, Jackson," Vik asked, checking the equipment he had lined up on a tray. "You're gonna feel a pinch, then your arm is going to feel cold, then you're gonna wake up in about two hours. When you do, try your best not to talk immediately. Are you ready?"
"Yeah, Doc. Hit me," I said with a smile, letting out a long breath and letting my body relax.
True to his word, I could feel him poke a needle into my arm, my muscle twitching before it settled, the cooling sensation spreading up along my arm, making it all the way to my shoulder. As it progressed, my sight was constricted to a dot before my connection to the waking world snapped, and I was out.
When I woke, I was still lying inside the surgery suite. Frank was standing nearby, and as I stirred, he handed me a small cup of cold water.
"Drink it slowly, sir," he instructed.
Despite my desire to slam the glass back and demand more, I drank it slowly. When I passed the cup, he handed me a lozenge, which I looked at strangely.
"You stopped breathing for an extended length of time while your lungs were removed, Jackson," The AI explained. "Your throat is likely to be uncomfortable. This is to prevent you from coughing."
I nodded and put the lozenge into my mouth, working it around for a minute. By the time I was done, Frank was helping me down the stairs, where there was some food waiting for me. I ate, my hunger suddenly overwhelming me, my thirst returning like a wildfire.
"Please consume all of this to make up for the deficit using the stimpaks will have generated," Frank explained, though I hardly needed convincing. "After that, Vik suggested you return to your room to continue sleeping."
I frowned and tapped my head, staying silent despite my throat feeling relatively normal by that point. Luckily, Frank picked up what I meant pretty quickly.
"Samwise will wake you before your next tech tree arrives," He assured me. "Vik was very explicit. If you do not get the proper rest, he will not install the heart implant tomorrow."
I rolled my eyes but nodded, focusing on my food. When I finished my meal, I obediently headed down to the workshop, escorted by Frank. I stepped through the teleporter and headed to my room, nearly collapsing into my bed. The surgery, as well as the heavy stimpak use, had left me exhausted, so by the time I was dressed and tucked into bed, my eyes were already growing heavy.
I woke up with Samwise jostling my shoulder, my AI friend leaning slightly over my bed. I groggily sat up, patting the robot's arm, only for him to push a large mug of coffee into my hands.
"Thanks, Samwise," I said, letting out a yawn as I stood up and rolled my shoulders to stretch.
"No problem, Jackson," he responded, standing by as I made my way to the chair and desk not far from my bed.
Once I was comfortable, I took a long sip of my coffee, setting it down on the desk and looking out the fake window right in front of it. I let out a long breath before leaning back slightly and closing my eyes, diving back into my mind and looking for the familiar timer. Knowing Samwise, I would only have a few minutes-
I froze, my mind snapping to a halt. For a good minute, I did nothing but watch the timer spin, my body and mind locked in confusion and disbelief. When I finally broke free, I desperately started doing math, checking my mental calendar over and over. When was the last time I checked the timer? Had I ever checked the timer? Even when it clicked in, had I looked at it? Or had I only confirmed that it was there?
"Jackson, is everything alright?" Samwise asked, moving from beside my bed to stand to my right.
"Samwise, how much time has passed since my break week started," I asked, my voice a little weak. "How much time exactly?"
"Six days, twenty-three hours, fifty-seven minutes, thirty-four seconds," Samwise responded. "Just under seven days. Why, what has happened?"
"Seven days," I repeated, opening my eyes and looking up at him. "If it's been seven days, why do I have just over twenty-four hours left on my timer?"
For the seventh time in five minutes, and despite the fact that Samwise had already confirmed it, I double-checked my math, counting out the days in my head. Again, the results were clear. I had passed into the eighth day of my break. Still, my brain was struggling to wrap itself around the idea, sticking and chugging so hard I could almost feel my thoughts struggling.
While I was struggling not to spiral, Samwise called Frank, who quickly arrived and ran a few scans of my brain. While I didn't think for a second that this had anything to do with my brain, Frank and Samwise insisted that it was better to be safe than sorry, which was fair. On the plus side, laying back in my bed while Frank waved a scanner over me, gave me a chance to clear my head and refocus, working past the panic. Once I was given the all-clear, I started to pace around my room, my thoughts much more directed. Still unnerved and concerned, of course, but a lot less chaotic and panicked.
"I don't understand," I repeated, shaking my head as I paused by the fake window, looking out into the night. "Why would I get more time? Why a single day? Why now?"
"There are a few obvious answers," Sam pointed out. "At least to your first question."
"I know," I responded, shaking my head. "If my break time increases over time, there is a real possibility that this whole thing has a time limit, even if it's only a functional limit rather than a literal timer. I highly doubt I just randomly got an extra day, so what if more time is added next break?"
"The other two answers might simply be arbitrary," Frank responded. "From what you explained about entities that liked to engage and spread powers like yours, they tend to be fickle. Your first four tech trees may have been your grace period, and now you are under a time limit."
"I believe that it is too early to panic," Samwise pointed out, and I gave him a look. "Even if this does represent a transition into a slow loss of your ability, it would seem that you still have more tech trees to come. Even if they slow down, you are already considerably ahead of any organization on the planet. As long as you maintain that lead, you could still achieve your goals."
I took a long breath, closing my eyes as I held it inside, only releasing it as the pressure to breathe increased. I repeated this twice more before I opened my eyes and nodded.
"You're right. Even if I eventually lose my power, or some other mechanic is being engaged, I still have a distinct advantage. The plan might need some adjusting if I can't reliably delay until I get what I need, but that doesn't mean it's impossible."
I took another long, bracing breath, releasing it slowly.
"Right. Well, there is no way I'm getting back to sleep now," I said, shaking my head. "Might as well start my day now."
I headed to my bathroom, taking a long, luxurious, hot shower, using the time to first loosen the tension the sudden surprise had wrapped around my body. After that, I spent a few hours considering the day, what I could do with it, and what I needed to get done. When I stepped out, I dried off and threw on some boxers before heading out into my room to find Samwise still there, waiting for me.
"Oh good, you're still here. Listen, do me a favor and write up a reasonable message to Gloria Martinez. Offer her a job at a very competitive rate. Just be careful not to go overboard," I warned, pulling on a shirt. "I'll likely increase it when we meet in person, but I don't want to make it seem like it's too good to be true. Make sure it's under TinkerTech, but explain that this is not an office job but something more akin to a combat medic. Set the meeting place as the TinkerTech offices, and notify Sable I might need a conference room for some meetings."
"Very well, Jackson. Is there anything else?"
"No, that's it for- Wait, no, I need to talk to Noah. I'm going to head up to the workshop and do some work, take advantage of the extra day, so send him there when he is free," I responded. "If I'm getting extra time, I might as well use it. Oh! And at some point today, talk to Jackie about what he wants his small, experimenting restaurant to look like. It doesn't have to be today, but try to walk through one of the spare buildings at the campground with him and plan out a kitchen."
"Very well, Jackson."
I took a minute to finish getting dressed, throwing on a pair of shorts and some shoes before stepping into my personal teleporter and getting sent to the basement of the workshop. From there, I made my way upstairs, dropping down into my workbench chair. I spun around for a moment, looking around the room before opening up my specialized CAD software through my brain interface. As I leaned back in my chair, slowly scrolling through some of the ideas I had been working on. After a few minutes of idly going through the lists, I shook my head and focused.
At the moment, my largest and most important incoming project was the dozens of buildings I would be making once we bought up the cheap land in Watson. I needed to focus my attention there to make sure I didn't miss anything important.
While we certainly had considerable construction power, especially considering that I knew Noah had some massive production facilities working to make the vault, we didn't have much that could be used to build things like apartments and the like in the middle of the city. And while I was not longer terrified of being taken by Arasaka the second we showed off our advanced tech, that didn't mean I was ready to play my whole hand, particularly my ability to teleport things and people.
That meant I needed to come up with a way to one, process our material into parts, two, transport those materials or parts, and three, build with those materials or parts. Thankfully, the building part was easy, at least at first. I could send a few truckloads of MRVN units, and they could follow whatever plans they were given on their own. At some point, I would like to hire people to help, but that would come later. I could also pretty easily come up with a way to let Noah watch over the MRVNs, without exposing him as an AI.
Processing was only an issue if, for some reason, I decided to have the raw materials processed into parts on-site. While this would make using the scrap from the various tear-downs easier, it would make it much more difficult to hide our monstrous production capability. Setting up an off-site processing space would be significantly less risky.
The real issue was transportation. There was no doubt in my mind that Arasaka and the other big companies with a presence in Night City could easily watch all of the roads that led in and out, as well as through the city. While I could probably sneak the first load of materials into the city by just teleporting them in and letting people wonder if I continued to do that, people were gonna start asking a lot of questions, questions I would rather keep unanswered.
That meant I needed a way to get materials into the city from… somewhere else. They couldn't just appear somewhere, halfway down the road out of Night City, like they always existed…
Or could they?
If I had a fleet of transports, all of which were proven to have the ability to appear and disappear, then they could have come from anywhere. Never mind where they actually came from, or if I teleported them in or out or anywhere I wanted. Having them vanish in a way that the Corporations couldn't track would force them to assume they could be coming from anywhere.
I needed to make invisible transports. Beyond that, I needed to make invisible transports that didn't require roads.
Luckily, thanks to Fallout, I had several different types of thrusters and levitation methods in my arsenal of tricks, meaning making something that could fly around and drop stuff off wouldn't actually be that hard. Or, at least, I would have plenty of options for making that work.
I started off with a trailer truck design, only getting through the preliminary stages before I realized there was absolutely no reason for me to be sticking with any design that already sort of existed, beyond making it obvious what the vehicle was.
So, I deleted my first model and started again, this time starting with a much larger ship that had a large internal hangar, something that could store and offload mass amounts of materials. Unfortunately, despite being impressive and capable of hauling massive amounts of materials, I realized that such a large ship would be impractical, requiring multiple steps to get its cargo to where it was needed. Besides, building such a large ship would be a rather massive undertaking, and would require an equally large berth and loading station.
A much smaller transport system would be considerably more efficient, especially since it could drop its payload directly into a construction zone. It would also allow us to use more standardized shipping methods, like shipping containers, which we could easily build and reuse. Even better, I could easily teleport something around the size of a cargo container with very little modifications to our current teleport system.
After workshopping a few different ideas for a smaller, more compact transport system, I selected one and got to work. The final design was simple in essence but complicated and multilayered in execution. A rather boxy design, with four large thruster systems on each corner and a forward-facing "cockpit" for the ship's computer systems. The end result actually looked mildly like an Albatross from Halo, though the scale was off.
The ship's thrusters were direct fusion power to thrust systems used in Fallout, though improved with more efficient materials, while the cargo space was designed to neatly fit a single standard cargo container. It also included an internal way to pull and push the container out of itself, only needing space to deposit the container to do so. The bottom of the vessel was lined with a massive grav-plate system, and an impressive amount of thrust was generated to assist the thrusters and stabilize the vessel in case the intern load was uneven. It was more than up to the job of hauling whatever we could fit inside a cargo container.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the little transport ship was its four-layered stealth system. The first layer consisted of four connected Titanfall-style cloaking systems that were enlarged and programmed to work together. The projection arms extended up from the thruster pods at the four corners and concealed the ship from un-augmented eyes. Under that layer, the ship was plated with the same tech as the Chinese stealth suit. Normally, this would be exorbitantly, hilariously expensive, but since we could generate any material I wanted, making it was no more expensive than covering the ship in tinfoil.
The third layer of stealth was a rather ingenious use of the stealth field from US-created stealth boys. By affixing the projectors along the bottom of the large thruster units on each corner, I could use them to hide the light from the ship's thrusters. It took some modifications to get them to work as I wanted, but it was well worth the effort. It was not nearly as perfect as the Chinese tech, leaving what could be mistaken for a heat shimmer behind as a result of the field. Still, considering the alternative was four bright, glowing pillars of fusion burning heat, it was an incredible step up.
The final layer of stealth was actually the easiest to apply, since all it was were a few microphones and some rather powerful speakers. With them and a heavily expanded calculation system, the in-built response program would learn and silence the noises of the ship for anyone not inside it, eventually making it nearly silent.
This ship could drop a cargo container on the White House's front lawn, and they wouldn't know until President Myers looked out the window.
With just a few dozen of them, we could transport everything we needed into the city easily. We could also have them purposely show themselves flying into Night City, dropping stuff off, and flying away before utterly vanishing. Everyone would desperately try to track them, and considering we could control them with entangled photons and teleport them to anywhere we wanted once they were done putting on their show, they would utterly fail.
Was it complicated? Of course. Would it scare the living shit out of anyone watching? Absolutely! But it would also keep people from even considering some of the more ridiculous ideas, like teleportation or matter transmutation. The fact that we could also use them to haul around other stuff, like as a transport for shades or other armed forces, was just icing on the cake.
As I was about halfway through the design, and frankly on a roll, Noah stopped by to see what I wanted. I showed him the preliminary plans for the ship, which he read thoroughly.
"So, as you know, we are only a few days away from starting the next stage in our plans," I pointed out. "We will be tearing down and rebuilding a huge chunk of Watson. Apartment buildings, entertainment spots, restaurants, shops. Are you ready for that?"
"With all due respect, sir, I have been ready," He responded, sounding… impatient, as if he was bored. "I have been watching over the construction of the vault, but that only takes a fraction of my attention. I have completed the designs for Rocky Ridge and several dozen designs for apartment buildings and other locations for Watson. They are ready for your approval."
"I see. Well, the time to make those designs a reality is fast approaching," I responded, leaning back in my chair. "How fast could you build an underground hangar for a fleet of these ships, with an attached production facility large enough to supply the reconstruction of Watson?"
"If I can put a pause on the vault and use the production and MRVN units from that?" he asked, waiting for me to nod before continuing. "Two and a half days. Three if you want me to produce the ships as well when the facility is complete."
"Get it started immediately," I responded. "Once the ships are built, their first task will be dropping off universal recyclers and MRVN units to start demolishing our first build site. Meanwhile, you can use our topside resources to start preparing for our first build here, the meeting and business center we discussed a while ago. Once my next tech tree finally rolls, we might have to revisit that, but for now, you can start clearing out and digging the holes for the foundation."
"And this is on the lot next to the current security office?" He confirmed.
"Exactly. After that, you can build a proper security office where the BD shack is," I explained. "We can move the Bio-lab into the vault."
"The area around the building will need revitalizing," Noah pointed out.
"Scrape it clean and prepare for the landscape, but hold off from redoing the road or planting anything," I explained. "I'm holding off on most plant stuff in hopes that I get something that will let me do that process on my own, since the plant selection we have available through this world is not only pitiful, but incredibly expensive."
"Very well."
"And Noah… go all out for the hangar and production," I instructed. "This will ostensibly be our private, large-scale production facility for a while. So going all out, as long as it doesn't extend the deadline, and it's still hardened against attack, it is fine."
"... I could build the facility necessary for the basics… and then expand it, so the deadline is met," He offered. "Would that be preferable, Sir?"
I narrowed my eyes a bit. The last time I had let Noah off his chain to build whatever he wanted, albeit with Samwise's help, I had nearly unleashed the infinite vault, as they had intended to simply let the construction crews of our vault continue on forever, building more and more and more. Currently, the vault is capped at five thousand people, but I was still nervous about how big it would end up. It was safe to say that letting Noah off the chain now would result in something that was likely gigantic, considering his definition of "basics" was likely heavily skewed. Still, I wanted an incredibly robust production capability… and this would likely cost me absolutely nothing.
"Yes, Noah. Build me something impressive."
The AI robot straightened slightly and nodded quickly before immediately leaving, almost at a run. Part of me questioned what I had just unleashed, but I brushed it off for now. The time for small-scale production was truly passing us by, and it was time to get serious.
After a quick check of my connected clock, I realized it was late enough to have some breakfast. Jackie was most likely going to be sleeping late, the lucky bastard, so it was time to fend for myself.
I made my way to the Shack, taking a peek at Jackie's stash. The burgeoning chef had moved most of his "seasoned" equipment to his apartment in the vault, leaving our recently printed stuff stored in the cabinets in the Shack. Still, there was enough for me to throw together a couple of eggs with cheese and some toast. It wasn't anything special, but it was food, and it wasn't some crappy cricket burrito or anything like that. The coolest part was that Franky had started storing the quasi-egg, with whites and a "yolk" inside an easily breakable yet sturdy shell. They were even inside a plastic carton!
Once I was done making the food, including the giggling when I found the eggs, I ate quickly, grabbing a small cup of fruit to take with me and heading back to the workshop. At this point, I didn't have much to do, as I had been preparing to start my next tech tree. Even the cargo transport had been something I wanted to work on but hadn't really thought I needed to worry about, at least, not until it was time to start building. Don't get me wrong, I was glad I had taken care of it, and I was happy with what I had come up with. I had just anticipated a more straightforward solution.
Still, there were a few things I could work on. There were just about a dozen little upgrades I wanted to work into my energy weapons, mainly the mag and plasma branches, since those were most likely the two weapons I would be using. Most of the tech came from the weapons of Fallout, but there were also a few specific upgrades in the form of strange bits of SCIENCE! I had unlocked. Most of them were small material shifts, but in total, there was a solid boost to all of my weapons in potency, energy efficiency, and fire rate, though that was something I had to control for the mag weapons, since shooting too fast also meant running out ammo faster.
I also created modified versions of these weapons for our power armor. Most of that was just opening the trigger guard or re-shaping the frame and bit, but I also added drum mags to both the mag rifles and submachine guns.
By the time I finished the updates and modifications to the weapons, ordering the slow changeover to keep from disarming our shades, people were finally starting to wake up. Both Jackie and Kaytlyn stopped separately to say hello, and both of them were surprised at how calm I was.
"Aren't you… isn't it… Like a new week for you?" Jackie asked, not exactly sure how to word it. "Shouldn't you be building up a storm?"
"My break week was extended by a day," I comment, turning in my chair to face him. "And before you ask, I have no idea why."
"An extra day? Just randomly?" Jackie asked, stepping into the workshop and leaning against the doorframe. "Eso es extraño... Is it permanent?"
"Not a clue," I admitted with a frown, leaning forward and shaking my head, running my finger through my hair. "We have some theories… but I don't like any of them."
"Like what?"
"Well… best case scenario, I overused my last burst of inspiration, and the extra day is compensation for it," I responded, my tone making it clear that's not what I thought was happening.
"But what do you actually think it means?"
"I… I don't know. I was panicking earlier about it, but the truth is there isn't enough data to really draw a conclusion," I admitted. "I'm afraid it means I have a limited amount of inspiration before it stops coming, and that this is some sort of reflection of that… but I only have two data points. For a few weeks, my break was seven days, and now it's eight. It could mean fucking anything."
"So it's a wait-and-see kinda scenario, Genio?"
"Just about."
"Well, hopefully whatever your inspiration is, it keeps you busy," Jackie said, before pushing off the wall and turning back to the door. "Vik's gonna be here around four to start our heart transplants."
"Thanks, I'll be around."
He waved as he walked through the door, leaving the workshop behind. Once he left, I started my CAD program up again, taking some time to go over the design for the upgraded basic Fallout-style Power Armor, the one I now intended to give to the Aldecaldos. I had started to make it when I was working on our own, vastly superior power armor, but since I hadn't actually needed it, there were several gaps that I needed to fill in. The process was easy enough, the hardest part of the whole thing being the need to keep the design effective but still simple enough that it could be repaired like I claimed that it could, with basic tools and parts.
When I was done completing those designs, I sat for a minute, spinning in my chair, trying to imagine what the most immediate issues that I could solve were. Sable was taking care of the real estate, and now Noah was on his way to building the necessary infrastructure. I had already completed the transports, and the Nomads were creating a density map of sorts to figure out where Maelstrom was the biggest problem.
The next biggest… event was going to be our war against Maelstrom. This was a group of hundreds of people, all of them heavily chromed and psychotic, armed and drugged to the teeth, desperate for violence. We needed to be ready as ready as we could be.
The shades would serve as our mass troops, basically just throwaway fodder to cut down the smaller, unimportant groups. Riggs, Jackie, Kaytlyn, Rebecca, and myself would be our primary strike team. Between those two options, there was a lot we could take down without breaking a sweat. But we were far from invincible, especially to a frankly ridiculously well-armed group.
I needed something else. Something disposable like the shades but potent like us. I could make some modified Sentry Bots or Assualtrons, armored and modernized to my standards. But while Sentry Bots were powerful, they were also clunky and easily defeated by a ledge more than one foot tall. The Assaultrons were flexible and certainly lethal, but the shades were superior in almost every way, save the Assualtron's robust melee abilities.
What I needed was a large humanoid tank, the best of both worlds in terms of heavy armor and weapons, as well as maneuverability and flexibility.
The obvious answer was to build something like a Spark unit from XCOM, though I was pretty sure they were at least minorly self-aware, so that was a no-go. I had enough of a moral dilemma creating AI for specific tasks, with the intention of making sure they survived and grew, never mind something designed to be "mindless" soldiers to throw and spend as I wished.
Immediately, I threw away the idea that these would be comparably sized to humans. I wanted these robots to be heavy weapons platforms, not just well-armed shades. That said, I still wanted them to be mostly unhindered, at least walking around outside, which meant no towering tank bot big enough to squash a car.
While I didn't have an exact design in my head, or any design, since the XCOM tech tree was long gone, the Spark unit was a pretty good place to start from or at least the general idea. On top of that, the general gist actually meshed pretty well with Titanfall-style robotics, so I could easily extrapolate from there. Hell, I could make a pretty passable attempt at remaking a Spark from just the images I had in my head, though it would likely be superior in several ways, since Titanfall tech tended to blow XCOM out of the water when it came to robotics.
To start the design, I basically took a MRVN unit, increased its size, and started armoring it up, reinforcing any weak points and shoring up any large, obvious targets. That alone went a long way to creating a decent heavy weapons robot, though there was still some way to go. I traded a certain level of dexterity for robustness, eventually redesigning a few different joints completely until I was sure they could take a beating and keep on going. Even so, its frame would ensure it remained a relatively maneuverable system, especially for its size, which was jut about ten feet tall.
When I was finally done, I had an incredibly sturdy, armored robot that could carry a diverse array of heavy weapons. At the moment, it was restricted to large mag weapons with a belt-fed magazine for the ultimate rapid heavy firepower, as well as some explosives, mainly rocket-propelled grenade style. Later, when I was less worried about drawing the ire of bigger companies, I could arm them with energy weapons and bigger explosives, making them all the more deadly.
I sent the final product to Samwise for review, telling him to get some built over the next few days. I wanted at least a handful of them by the time we started leading our attack on Mealstrom.
With any luck, they would be just what we needed to make the fight against Maelstrom a simple conflict with as few casualties as possible.