[02/2033]
It wasn’t long after the gang violence had calmed down, although it still simmered in the background, when Nat and Jess came barrelling into our room and jumped on us.
Kate and I were working on the terminal, going over some contracts while the others had gone back to check a location. Kate had really taken to it, more than I could have ever expected. A few of our more recent jobs she'd organised and haggled all on her own with minimal help from me. I couldn’t have been more proud of her. I'd told her time and again she didn’t need to do anything, but nothing I said changed her mind, so I had started to push more of that work in her direction.
"We found it! We found it! Weee fooound iiitt!" Jess crowed, doing a little dance.
"Found what?" Kate grumbled, picking herself up off the floor.
"The perfect home!"
Glancing at Nat, she nodded, "It does look like the perfect place if we can get it."
I checked the time. "How far is it?"
"A few hours."
"Okay, we will go early tomorrow morning instead of going to the Forge."
I settled back down listening to Jess natter away about the building, with Nat adding the occasional detail. If it was even half as good as she said then it was a good find.
We made our way over the next morning, heading closer to the arcology in the centre of London, just south of the river. We came out in Brixton as normal, with its Victorian brick terraced houses and quaint concrete flats. But as we moved north, this changed.
First, it was just the houses and streets being cleaner and in better condition. We saw an entire row of houses with not a single broken window, almost unheard of further out. The streets felt safer too. Well, they would if there wasn’t the quiet tension from the end of the gang war. Ignoring the patrols, which we avoided, there were even the occasional police car. Not many mind and there was by no means a police presence in the area, but Badges actually responded to calls, unlike further out, which was left to themselves.
This did change the gun culture. You would see gonks openly carrying rifles like you might in Brixton, although you could bet they were still strapped.
A few more blocks of this and it shifted again.
By now we could see the arcology looming up in the distance. The building was massive, dwarfing all the surrounding buildings and competing with the skyline of the skyscrapers in the City of London across the river.
The terraced housing changed and faded the further we walked. In their place were new modern apartments and clean, cared for housing. Not posh by any means but significantly nicer than the grey monstrosities near Brixton. They actually looked like they had an architect design them rather than a block of uninspired concrete. Unfortunately there were also a lot of half-finished ones as well. This wasn’t so bad to start with, but the closer to the arcology we got, the more building sites there were, many of which had barely even started construction.
Entire blocks of terraces condemned to demolition for new swanky buildings that never happened and were now squatted in. That or rented out. By the time we reached the foot of the arcology, most of the terraces were gone and those left were all condemned and in various stages of destruction. What was left were high rises as far as the eye could see. Not large ones, sure, and they all looked strangely squat, like the bottom half had been cut out.
There was a reason for that. Under the multilayer spread of concrete and glass, an entire ecosystem of shops, houses and offices was hidden. While posh glass and steel rose into the sky, most unfinished, an entirely new city had been constructed underground. And this wasn’t like the Labyrinth; this had been purpose-built. More to the point, it was by and large, completed.
It would have been an amazing place if it had been fully realised.
Then there was the arcology itself.
It dominated everything around it, including the skyline, rising magnitudes higher than the surrounding buildings. Sitting directly where the core of Elephant and Castle had once been, with its tube station taking you to the heart of the complex. The arcology and its surroundings were so large it had its own tram system built for it, which was mostly done, surprisingly.
The arcology's base was pyramid-shaped, made up of reinforced concrete, which, about halfway up, centred into a huge circular tower of metal and glass, giving rise to its name, The Tower. The very top of the tower opened up again into a bowl shape of gardens and luxury apartments. It had been built as a new business sector and trendy apartments when London was growing at a rapid pace. For a time it was seen as the place to invest.
With the krash, corporate wars and our own civil war, interest died. Most companies pulled out or went bankrupt. Those who didn’t and tried to carry on soon had to admit defeat due to the conflict.
This left the building sites and arcology as a memento of an unrealised dreams.
As much like the building sites surrounding it, the Tower was far from finished. The entire structure was completed but much of the interior was not. Many of the higher floors were missing glass, allowing wind to howl through the rooms that were not sealed off.
With interest dying out and companies folding, much of the land defaulted back to the government, which had its own things to worry about, leaving most of the land unused. It didn’t take long before people started to move back in, if they'd even left. And where people went, gangs quickly followed.
Barely a mile from the base of the Tower, we turned off the major road. These were modern boing brick houses or small blocks of flats, only 3 or 4 levels at the highest. Most of the building looked nice and in good repair, but we turned onto another street and the difference was startling. They rapidly got worse, not from lack of care, either. It was very clearly from violence. Then the damage took another turn, becoming something like a warzone. Large sections of the roads were destroyed. The surrounding building hadn't gotten off either. Many of them had obvious blast damage with several fully collapsed and were now just piles of rubble. Those that weren't, didn’t look particularly structurally sound.
Enough that I wouldn’t enter them.
Kate sped up to walk next to me. "The gang war you were grumbling about sparked a massive response. As you can see. Obviously in this case, it wasn’t the gangs but the corpos having had enough. And they came in hard. I'm talking borgs and rockets sort of response."
I could see that. It made sense, for all the gang violence, it was rare to have this level of destruction. Not unheard of, but rare. Destroying the turf you wanted to occupy was a poor investment after all.
Coming to stop at one of the dubiously still-standing structures. I say standing, half of it wasn’t. It was in worse condition than many of the houses around it. Interestingly, the plot backed onto a large field. Mostly just weeds and trees. I was thankful there weren't lots of cover, although even with that, I could see evidence of the druggies. Needles thrown carelessly onto the floor, along with other waste. But if there had been hedges that provided more shelter, you could bet there would have been more.
"This is the one we thought would be perfect." Nat said, pointing at it. "If we take the whole plot we will have more than enough space for what we want. But that is not the best part. Follow me."
She led us down a few back alleys and into a concrete tunnel a block or so away, which sloped gently downwards. The tunnel was in surprisingly good nick, not brand new of course, but newer than I had expected. It looked safe for one thing.
A short walk brought us to a crossroads with paths leading off in several different directions. Opposite us, it went upwards, presumably back to the surface, with several others leading down deeper into the Labyrinth or flattened out. Likely entering some part of the complex borough around the Tower.
Some of these tunnels were the same size as the one we came down, easily large enough to fit a lorry through, while others were much smaller, barely large enough for several men to walk side by side. Either way, it looked like a maze, with multiple levels. A drop, thankfully fenced off by a handrail, to our left showed further tunnels and passageways.
Nat confidently led us off to the right, through a small tunnel, although just off to our left, running parallel was a much larger tunnel. A dozen metres later and it opened up into a massive open space. It was clearly a homeless congregation, with rubbish strewn everywhere. What was left of tents, cardboard, and tarp structures marked the areas.
Emphasis on the was. Judging by the blood and bullet holes, they had not been spared from the violence. Nat came to a stop in the centre of the room. "We are now directly under that land we showed you."
I glanced sharply at her. "Really?"
"Yep, like we double checked and everything!" Jess said.
That could be amazing. I could think of dozens of ideas for what to do with the space. From using it for our own ends, or opening some shops or something. If I kept at my ripperdoc stuff, I could open a clinic here.
"What's the climate around here?"
"If we move quick, okay. The entire area has effectively been purged by the corpo and the Wallace Warriors."
I didn’t have to think long. "I say we go for it." I said, grinning at the others.
Jess started celebrating, but Nat bit her lip in worry, suddenly looking uncertain. "Are you sure? I don’t think we will have enough eddies to buy it all." Nat said. "Even with Eli's stash."
"You are quite right. I doubt we have anywhere near enough… if we were to pay for any of it. You saw all the building sites nearby. There should be loads of building materials to klep. That would cut some costs and as for the land… I might be able to do a workaround."
"Ohh the land reserve job." Jess chirped up, showing once again she had a devious mind when she wanted to.
"Exactly. We can check who the actual owner is and see if I can't change it."
It wouldn’t pass deep scrutiny, but it shouldn’t need to. At least not in the short term and when we had more eddies we could make it look more convincing. Maybe when we get the shoemaker to make us some new identities.
We talked the whole way back about the best way to move forward. Hungry biz, so I was glad it was lunch. We had finished stuffing our faces by the time we had a semblance of a plan. "Nat message Lilly and Jeff to see if they can recommend any Transit Rats and builders, or at least know some crew we might be able to work with." Nodding, her eyes turned gold.
Ticking that off my list on my agent, with a reminder to check how it went, I turned to Kate. "Kate, if you could reach out to some fixers and find us a shoemaker. I want this place attached to a different identity than a street rat. But see who is out there and how much they charge. We won't be able to afford it now I don’t think, but it will be something we can work towards. And work with Jess to find some fixers in the area to see which gangs are big. You said it was clear, right? Good, well, we need to see who might move in."
I smiled as they all jumped to work, or slumped in most cases with their cybereyes lighting up, as they used their agents. I sat watching them for a moment, a content smile on my face.
Right, what shit did I have to do? I shrew myself into the spinning chair, judging it perfectly to slide myself to the terminal and fired it up.
So now we might have some land, what do we actually want or need to live there? So first off, I needed a netrunner room. Big enough for all the bells and whistles. Cyberspace diving might not be possible now, but hopefully it would be possible in the future, so that was a must-have.
Which meant enough power and net access. That shouldn’t be too hard. There would be more than enough in those tunnels. Then there needed to be enough room for a rig, cooling and servers.
Same with workshops. Enough room for Nat's gun tinkering and any jobs I might want to do. Not to mention Kate and Jess. They should have a workshop to call their own, even if they don’t use it. Maybe a general-purpose room that one day we could fill with larger fabricators?
Then I needed a ripperdoc set up. The equipment I would take from Pete, but I needed the space. Maybe in the area under the land? No, I wanted my own private one as well, on the off chance I did create a clinic on that level.
So that was a workshop, med bay and netrunning room. What else, a place for vehicles and maintenance on them. We didn’t have any for now, but I wanted some for the future; they were too useful not to have. As transport as well as backup. Cover one with turrets and we had our own heavy weapons platform for support. Who didn’t want that? And with our connections to Lilly and her family, it should be possible to get. A tank might be slightly out of reach, but a boy could dream.
I could at least get some mopeds or motorbikes, which were more common, even if they were still kind of rare.
But we properly couldn’t klep them. Any left on the side of the road and not already pinched, were there for a reason.
Then there were normal living spaces, bedrooms, bathrooms, living room and a kitchen. Maybe an office for each of us? We also needed storage areas and an armoury. I clicked my tongue. What else? Well the last thing that came to mind was I wanted to feel safe there. That was one of the many reasons we weren't renting. We also wouldn’t have been able to afford a fraction of the things on my wish list.
Anyway, to feel safe, it needed to be a fortress. If we could, I wanted to go OTT here.
So chokepoints, kill zones and be heavily fortified. If we couldn’t hold off a small army, I wouldn’t be happy.
Finally, I wanted some filters for the air and water. I was fucking tired of having shitty tasting air and water.
Nodding to myself, I traced a rough layout. It was shit, I was no artist, but it gave us a starting point. I would need an actual professional to design it. I was pretty sure my floating kitchen would not pass muster otherwise. Hopefully, Jeff could point me in the right direction. If not, I would need to pay a fixer.
Shouting and cheering came from outside our room. Huh, they were back from the gig already. I checked the time. No, that much time had just passed. It obviously took me longer than I expected. "Okay everyone, can you look through this and see if there is anything else you want to add?" I said as I pinged them the list of specifications.
Kate was the first to finish going through it. "Walk-in wardrobe."
That surprised a laugh out of me. "What?"
She shrugged. "I saw one in an advert and they looked ace. So if we are making our perfect home, I want one."
"Fair enough." I said, still chuckling, but added that to my list.
Jess and Nat both replied more or less at the same time with a gym and gun range.
"Of course durrr. Yeah we definitely want them. And a sparing room as well. Adding them to the list." Can't believe I forgot about them.
There was a bit more back and forth before bed as we were up early the next morning and out the door before most anyone else was even stirring.
---
We were walking the tunnels, halfway to the Forge, when Nat said. "Jeff will be back this weekend."
"Really? That’s early." We had only seen him the week before.
"Yeah, they need to make a time-sensitive delivery. So we can go to see them on Saturday. Jeff thinks he knows a few guys who might be able to help. But we can properly discuss it with him in person. They're going to stay to the end of the market week. Oh, and Jeff asked me to tell you that Helena has some ops planned."
I fist-pumped in celebration.
"Ace! In that case, let's skip the Forge and go to them. In fact we might miss the Forge a lot the next few weeks. I will let Avery know."
"I also have news." Kate said. "Darrel came through for us and I have some quotes for a trusted shoemaker."
Dreading the answer, I asked. "How much?"
"Well out of our price range." Kate said bluntly. "We might be able to afford it if we weren't going to be using all our savings for the build. But here are their rates."
My agent pinged. I whistled as I read through them. Kate wasn’t kidding.
Most of the services weren't too bad, anywhere from 100 eddies to 1000.
However, those were from your run-of-the-mill shit; the more specialised stuff was significantly more. For example a reliable shoemaker was a rarity. Which unsurprisingly affected the price. His quotes were anywhere from 1000 up to 100,000 eddies. There was even one for a mill.
Crazy shit.
We could get a fake ID from several 100 eddies, but a full identity was 100,000+ eddies. That would pass even the most rigorous inspection, but well beyond what we could afford. We weren't made of money. Not yet anyway. Although when we gained cyberware we technically would be.
No Aden, focus. I shook my head and went back to scanning the tunnels.
We followed the same route as last time to the land registration office and immediately went to the car park. A short walk and a hop, skip and a jump, and Jess and I were in position. With my backdoor into the system in place, I walked through the code gate, unchallenged, like I had the passcode.
I was not expecting any problems, but just to be safe, I used my shield and armour ICE anyway. If I bumped into an enemy runner I would regret not having them up.
Luckily I already knew where I needed to go and found the records wonderfully easily. I half expected Murphy to strike us down or something, but so far so good. Even better, the land was held by the government. If it had been held by a corpo, especially a decently sized one, it would have been a no-go.
But since it was the government's, this should be one of the primary databases for it. I was sure there were other archives, but the Krash had been good for one thing.
I made the changes, creating the proper paper trail, so it looked like the land in question had been bought up cheaply in an auction when the company had folded. I put in just enough to look real. Hopefully the chaos around that time and with lots of the old net lost or corrupted, no one would know any differently. I still wanted another clean identity for it, but that would have to do for now.
"All done."
"That was quick?" Nat asked when we reached the ground floor of the car park.
Shrugging, I said, "With the back door it was a doddle. We now own that land. On paper at least."
Glancing at the time. Lunchtime. "I think we should go home via that plot of land and just explore the area a bit. Jess, you said there were no gangs?"
"Yeah no major gangs in the area, or the ones that do were hit hard from all the fighting. The main gang is the Wallace Warriors. They control the Tower."
Jess paused here and her eyes started to track something none of us could see, a clear sign she was reading notes on Agent. "They are ruthless, with clear military backgrounds. They have loads of MLA soldiers in their ranks and one of their leaders was a general. Meaning they have loads of high-quality, military-grade weapon systems and know how to use them. There was a bit of fighting when they moved in, but are left alone now. The local fixers think they might expand into the surrounding district with lots of their competition flatlined."
Whistling softly, I said, "Okay, not ones to piss off then. Good to know. Sounds like we might be paying them off in the near future. But our plot is outside their territory currently, right?"
"Yep. For now."
The second time though, only increased my appreciation of the area. It was perfect to my mind.
The only slight drawback, which wasn’t really one, was the area being a bit out of the way. But that would mean it would get less attention. To counter that had really good connections. Ignoring the underground tunnels, a few blocks away was the start of the floating motorway. A motorway leading to the Tower that was built high in the sky and led straight south out of London. It even had several junctions that came from underground that connected to the junction outside the underground area.
It just got better and better.
The Skylane even went past the nomad camp and market. Another bonus.
---
After the normal hugs and a handshake for Jeff, we went inside.
"So what this I hear about buying land?" Jeff asked as we settled into chairs around their dining room table. We were inside today as it was fucking hammering it down outside. Even with our coats, we were soaked through and had to change first.
I was not looking forward to going home later.
"Buying might be an exaggeration." I said, laughing. "I've changed some paperwork in the government's databases. So we own some land, at least on paper."
"Hmm, still not sure how that will hold up to scrutiny. Where is it?"
"It will do okay. When we have more eddies I want to do a better job, but it should pass most casual inspections. Here, near Kennington. South of the centre of the city of London, it's near the arcology they were building." I said as I pulled out a map I printed off and laid it over the table. "We have taken that whole plot of land. 60ish metres long and 40 wide. So we will have no immediate neighbours with the roads all around it, making a clear break from them to us."
Grunting, Jeff scrutinised the map before nodding approvingly. "I can see that. It looks good, decently sized but not too big. Yeah, looks good. Nat said you have a list and rough design for the build?"
"Very rough, but here." I said pinging it over to his and Helena's agent.
"That extensive Aden." Helena said as they read over the list.
"That’s an understatement." Jeffs snorted. His eyes flashed gold as he made a call with his internal agent. When it died away he said, "I've sent it off to a buddy of mine. He has a team of engineers and architects and will take a look and make some plans for you. Luckily, his team aren't too busy right now, so should get them to you by the end of the week. But if you want all the items on this list, the build will take a long time, maybe even years. It won't be cheap either."
"Yeah I know, but I think it is worth it. We should have time, the gang won't want to get rid of us and Adrian seems to be on our side, so I would rather do this right the first time than rush it and need to redo it in the future."
"Yeah makes sense. Anything else?"
"Yeah if you look at the measurements I made, you can see there is a large unground space we want to have. Currently it is filled with rubbish and junk, so I wanted it cleared and sealed."
"I actually know the perfect group." Jeff said thoughtfully, his hand stroking his chin. "They've just finished a large job and will be heading out after the market is finished, so they don’t want anything big, but a small job like this will be perfect for them. They will be cheaper too, with the Steele discount. I'll contact them in a sec to see if they are up for it."
Thanking him, we chatted a bit more before the conversation started to move to ripperdoc stuff. The girls turned their noses up at it and vanished deeper into the trailer, while Jeff excused himself and headed for his office. That just left Helena and I chatting for hours.
It was late afternoon when Jeff finally heard back from them. Poking his head in, he said. "They have agreed to do it. Stay the night and I will introduce you to them tomorrow and then they can drive you over to the site for you to show them around."
"Perfect, thanks Jeff. How much are they asking for?"
"Naa forget it, this one is on the house."
"What… no. I can't do that."
"Too late." he said smugly, "It is already done."
----
We rose with the sun, luckily with Helena around, I didn't need to turf anyone out of bed. Fully dressed and fed, we followed Jeff further into the camp. The camp felt empty right now. By and large, nomads timed their journey to arrive around the large monthly markets. There were always some around and some would still be selling wares in said market, but nowhere near the same quantity.
Most nomads went from job to job, either travelling up and down the UK, or even heading into the EEC. All escorting cargo, either as protection or the couriers themselves. But those were the rich clans. Smaller groups moved where the jobs were, having a set of skills that they offered wherever they went.
"Eric!" Jeff called out as we reached a group of lorries. There were a few diggers but not nearly the amount of construction vehicles I'd been expecting from the talks with Jeff. These were meant to be a large construction crew. Working on large skyscrapers and the like.
What I was seeing were landscapers.
At least until the giant stomped around the corner. To call the man large did not do him service. However his size did not come from genetics. He was incredibly chipped in, and obviously so, completely ignoring the normal culture of being subtle with cyberware.
Running my eyes over him, I almost wanted to say he was a borg with the amount of metal he was sporting.
"Jeff!" he said cheerfully, "These the whippersnappers you were talking about?" He cast his trio of cybereyes over us in an assessing manner. Whippersnappers? Only then did I take in his wrinkles and grey hair. I nudged Jess to keep her mouth shut as I could already see it opening.
"That they are, you got the eddies okay? Good. All set and ready to go? You should have the address, but the 'whippersnappers' can guide you if you are still on for giving them a lift?"
"Yeah we can take them, no issues. They can ride with me. You ready to roll?" Eric said, looking at us.
"Yep grampa." Jess said cheekily.
Smirking, he showed us his large truck and then set off when we'd piled in. I got up front with the others in the back.
"So I heard from Jeff what you wanted, but I would like to hear it from your own mouth. What's the work?" Eric asked as he slowly drove the truck towards the motorway.
"Several things really. There is a large underground area we want cleaned out and checked over. I want to make sure it is structurally sound. When that's done, we want it sealed off."
Eric glanced at the truck mirror before pulling out. "Yeah that shouldn’t be too hard. You paid for us for a week so unless there's serious issues, we will be done by then."
We hit the motorway and turned north. There were toll gates with a hell of a lot of security to get through, but as long as you paid, they didn’t care who you were. I was sure if you paid enough, they wouldn’t care even if you were wanted. A couple of kilometres later, as the land became more urbanised, the road started to rise until it was well above the buildings around it. Only the occasional high-rise peaked up over it.
There was a surprising amount of traffic on the Skylane. Not just lorries, but vans and cars as well. Far more than I expected.
We turning off the junction before the arcology, it would be better to get off at that one but none of us wanted to get that close to there just yet. From everything we had found out, the Wallace Warriors were disciplined so as long as you paid, they were no problem and if anything were a stabilising influence.
We turned off where Kate told us to and entered the underground tunnels around the Tower. I was glad Kate knew the way because it wasn’t obvious to me, there were no signs and more importantly, shit signal. So I could easily see myself getting lost.
"And here we are." Kate said as the lorry rolled to a stop at the junction in front of our hopefully new home. We showed them the large concrete chamber we wanted inspecting, but that was it. Eric more or less waved us off and got to work.
"Earl bring the digger and we will scoop as much of it up as pos…."
With the sentence petering out as we got far enough away, heading up to the surface.
"One thing off our list. Kate, are you still looking into getting us the locations of the materials we need?" I asked.
"I have contacted a few fixers. The most hopefully one is a local, based in the Tower, named Sniffer. He's good apparently. Nothing goes on in this area he doesn’t know about and has close ties to the Wallace Warriors."
"Perfect, see if you can find out which construction site we can hit for materials. The last thing we want is to piss off a large corpo."
The rest of the week passed quickly, and we got regular updates from Eric so we didn’t see the point of going down. At this stage, it just took too much out of our day. And they were trusted by Jeff and had a good rep.
So we got on with our normal lives, with me mostly spent working at Pete's. He had been grumbling more than normal about my absences. I paid him no mind, but still went in for the morning shifts. Afternoons were normally spent at the Palace.
It was 4 days in when they asked us to come down for a look, which changed our plans for the day. But in a good way.
I stood in the centre of the chamber and spun around, just looking. It was massive.
Definitely felt larger with all the crap removed.
Harry, one of Eric's men, was taking us round. "So there were a few bits that needed reinforcement. We have marked them on the plans so you know where they are. We did what we could and for most, that will be enough in the short term. But 2 of them will need more work." He said, pointing to all the work as he mentioned it.
Large parts of the wall had a sort of spray paint with a glossy finish. Several parts were still wet, but those that were dry looked very similar to the concrete around it.
"The rest has been cleared out and checked for any holes. We did some basic cleaning, basically spraying chemicals on it. So this entire area should be ready for work whenever you get around to it." He led us back to the entrance. There were 2, a smaller narrow one, for people and a larger one able to give access to trucks. "As you can see, we have filled in the larger door with the rubble from nearby. We thought about doing other things, but the door is fucked and will need replacement anyway, so we just secured the entrance that way. The smaller we did properly, although the lock isn't great."
He meant it too. The lock wouldn’t stop anyone who knew even the remotest thing about picks. Not to mention just cutting it with bolt cutters. But the metal door was sturdy and would be hard to get through. We just needed to find a better lock.
That shouldn’t be too hard.
We came to a stop just outside the door. "Finally, we installed the small sensor you gave us." He said, pointing up. "With its battery, it should last a few years."
"Thanks, I'm amazed you got through it all so fast." I said a little bit speechless. It was starting to hit me that all of it was mine… well, ours, but the point still stood.
"You still have us for a few more days so Eric wants to know if there is anything else before we pack up?" He must have seen our surprise, because he shrugged. "We were paid for a week's work and a week you will get. It's been 4, so you still have 3 left."
"Huh, in that case can you clear and secure a building site?"
"We would need to see it, but I think we could. Come on, let's go find Eric."
We found him hunched over a laptop in the back of his lorry. He made it look comically small, like a toy. With him found I led us to the surface and out to our plot of land.
"Here it is. Can you knock it all down, clear it and then put a fence around it all?"
The fence wouldn’t do much, actually, it would do shit all, but it might scare a few away if it showed someone was clearly working on it.
It was a few moments before Eric replied. He carefully walked around the site first before needed. "Aye should be able to get it done. Harry, go back and grab the others and the tools." As Harry set off in a light jog, Eric turned to us. "We will let you know how far we get. I am hopeful we will get it all done, but complications may arise, so we will see."
With that said, he marched off to the building.
I had wondered why they did not have larger diggers and other construction machines I was expecting to find. I now had my answer. Eric wrapped his arms around a wall and gave a mighty pull, ripping most of the wall away.
My thoughts on the structural integrity of the building were validated when a section of the house fell down around him.
Shit, did we need to rescue him? Oh… yeah. Borg.
Eric marched out from the rubble as if he hadn't even noticed it. The sound of demolition came from behind us as we headed for the tube station, which was barely a kilometre along further up the road.
---
We were relaxing with Lilly at her caravan, Jeff and Helena were out at a clan meeting, when I got 2 messages almost back to back. One was an image from Eric and confirmation of the job finished. The picture was just that of the site and how they'd left it. I assume as proof of work done. Sending a thanks back to him, I turned my attention to the second and far more interesting message.
It was from Jeff's friend. He'd sent us over some mock-ups.
Pulling them up on the terminal, I called everyone over so they could look over my shoulder as I went through them. He gave us 8 designs in total. Some I crossed off immediately as soon as we looked at them. Why would I even accept that? It was just asking to be robbed. The glamour didn’t even have any practical functions.
So the first was crossed off immediately.
The second, fifth and seventh were okay and I even liked them. They needed tweaks of course, but I could live with them.
They were all blown away by the final one however. It was titled 'no compromises'. And it was accurate. The best materials, complicated design. It had all our asks, where the others had compromises. It even took into account my request to make it as fortified as possible, which the third ignored entirely and the others only partially covered.
It was a 4-story building, 2 floors above ground and 2 floors below. Starting on the ground floor, it rose up at a sharp diagonal slope of hardened reinforced concrete, hopefully to deflect explosive up and away from the internals. Around this was a façade making it look like the surrounding buildings and not out of place. They would not be functional, at least not at first.
The top floor had 5 bedrooms, all with en-suites and walk-in wardrobes. There was also a large communal bathroom that had a steam room and jacuzzi, which I thought was a nice touch. They were tiny, but who cared? Avery had a steam room and I loved it.
The ground floor had a main hall and off this was the open plan kitchen, armoury, storage, sitting and dining room. All generously sized. Likely more room than we would ever need, but I liked that.
It would be nice to be able to stretch out for once.
One disadvantage with the design was there were no windows. But we had lived our entire lives underground. Besides, it was a small price to pay for being completely safe. At least in my opinion anyway.
We would see what the girls thought.
Taking one of the 2 lifts got to the first level of the basement. An open room with enough space for several vehicles and any tools or machinery we might need for them. It was oversized, but one day I hoped to have several models, maybe even a van. It would be helpful moving goods if nothing else.
Out the back of this were several corridors leading to large workshops, storage rooms and several others which didn’t have a purpose quite yet. There were also different sections, so each of us had a room we could use.
Going down once more, you arrived at the lowest floor, which had the ripperdoc room, netrunning room, gym, gun range and sparing ring as well as more storage space. There were 2 lifts. A large one to fit larger loads or machinery, we needed to move the rigs somehow, and a smaller one.
He had even gone above and beyond, connecting the lifts to the sealed underground complex far below it and gave a rough design of what we could do with the space.
I wasn’t sure I liked them. Why would I want a pool? I couldn’t even swim. But it was cool nonetheless.
"Well girls, what do you think?" I said when I was finished. I had to stand up and stretch my legs; they’d gone to sleep. That would be the first thing I got for my new office, a nice chair.
Kate started laughing as she finished the last one, smirking at me as she did. "I think it is clear we are going for the last one. It has everything and is almost as paranoid as you."
"Hey, it's not paranoia if there are actually people after you." I joked, jabbing her in the side as retaliation for the smearing of my character, but she danced away, sticking her tongue out at me.
They grew up so fast.
Coming back to the screen, she leaned on my shoulder and pointed at the materials list. "It’s a long list though. With some very hard to get stuff. Will we even be able to source it?"
"True, but if we can, it will be an amazing home. We will need to look to see what we can klep. With the list, you can ask around, right?"
"Gee, thanks." She snarked.
"You're welcome." I said, sticking my tongue back at her.
Revenge was sweet!
We spent several hours looking over the designs, each pointing out different things and changes we would want. For example Nat pointed out, rightly so, that the med area should be on the same floor as the vehicles with easy access. If any of us were hurt, we would come through there first.
It was late evening by the time Jeff and Helena got back. I wanted to talk about it straight away, but Helena put her foot down and so we waited until after tea.
When the table was cleared, Jeff sat down with a beer. "So how did you like the designs, any you fall in love with?"
"I can show you." I said, loading them back up on the terminal and taking them both through them.
"Let me guess, you are going for the final one." Helena said when they had looked through them all.
Was I that obvious?
"Yes, you are." Jeff said.
I was surrounded by fricking mind readers.
"How…"
"Because we know you Aden." Helena said, smiling fondly at me. "Jeff, tell him how your meeting went."
"Sure. I met a nomad who was looking to settle down here with his output. He and a few others were going to settle the area and they happen to be in construction. They're a smaller team, so the overall construction time will take longer, but they do quality work. Since they are starting out, I can get a good deal for you. I've asked around and they have a good rep, so he might be your man."
There goes Jeff's contacts once more.
When we first met, he said he was a handyman doing a bit of everything while leading his clan. I had long since realised he was full of crap. He was far closer to a fixer than anything else. His list of contacts was legendary by this point.
"That is perfect timing, can we have his deets and we will hit him up tomorrow?" Kate asked.
With that, the discussion turned to other things, like the Bloody knives, a new jackknife gang that was terrorising the south streets of London. Jackknifes were basically bandits, although some of the movies we watched called them something different. Raffen, I think.
Normally they grow and then implode as they try to kill each other for a better cut of the loot. This one seemed to be bucking that trend and had survived several months by now and was still growing. It was also more organised. Rather than the random groups roaming about, they patrolled.
The meeting was about whether to crush them or not. Most seemed to be content to leave them alone as they were deliberately avoiding nomads.
Jeff had argued to stamp them out before they became an issue while Helena was on the other side, saying they weren't their problem; their heavily armed convoy would see them off. It was one of the few times I had seen them heatedly disagree.
As we were getting ready for bed, Kate called over to me, "I've set up a meeting with him tomorrow. He said he would need to look at the site and designs before taking the job but he was interested."
"Good work Kate, thanks for doing that for me." Giving her a quick squeeze, causing her to smile brilliantly at me.
---
As Kate had promised, we met Daryl and his input Anna the next day.
I was expecting another mountain of a man like Eric, but Daryl was a slim, modest man. Still chromed up, but more in line with what I would expect with significant portions of it covered by synth skin.
Shaking their hands, we looked over the designs before all jumping in his car and heading over to the site for him to review. We ended up at Jeff's outside tables, haggling by the end of the day. He was happy to do the job, giving us a year completion time and a quote.
I was about to accept when Jeff laughed from the door of the caravan. "Come now Daryl, we both know a year won't be enough time."
"It will, if all the materials arrive on time and there are no complications."
Jeff roared with laughter at that. "And how likely is that? Don’t forget I have been to the pub with you and heard some of your stories."
He grabbed a chair and settled in next to me, haggling all the way. We eventually settled for 1 1/2 years and what was in effect, all our money. More than in fact. Half was up front, with the rest on completion. We would need to keep doing gigs to pay, even with the massive discounts we were no doubt getting.
I shook their hands as they left and sat down with a sigh. "Thanks Jeff, that was a real help."
Before he could reply Kate butted in, grabbing his arm. "Teach me!"
"You're welcome Aden." Jeff said, clapping me on the shoulder, before turning to Kate. "I can take you through some strategies for haggling and take you out to practice, but its experience really, you just get a feel for it."
---