30 - Replenish

Maya flopped down onto a comfortable chair as the last customer exited the shop. It wasn’t that there weren’t anyone else interested in buying stuff, she had just run out of things to sell. Even the excess duracloth that she had was snatched up by people once she explained it could be made into tents or other things. That was after all the emergency tents she had made were taken by Oyekan and Adenuga.

She should have been happy, but Maya stared at the stress filled faces of the survivors of Ibadan. They had seen death and destruction on such a massive scale and they were still in the middle of it. A city of over six million had been reduced to just over a million people in nearly nine days.

“We can only do so much,” Maya said as Roci stood beside her. They watched as the people continued to dismantle the whale, hauling off the flesh. It was a miracle of spontaneous organization, with no input from Adenuga or Oyekan, Lidapo had vanished off somewhere. People were working together, helping one another and they formed a human chain to move the flesh from the beast to awaiting trucks, carts, and wheelbarrows to be hauled off where they could be stored.

“There are so many of them,” Roci said.

“An entire world of people like that,” Maya said. “Broken, starving, scared, and trying to survive Integration.’

“I understand why the System has to force Integration upon universes, but…” Roci shook her head, trying to comprehend the scale of the destruction she was seeing for the first time. “It’s terrible.”

“All we can do is use what we have to ease their suffering a little, to help them stabilize, and eventually help them grow.” Maya stood up and closed the screen. “Alright, we’re done here,” she said briskly. “We have about twelve hours of Cage time left and we still need to see Tender.”

Maya had brought along a communications array to contact Tender, but had instead given it to Ezra. Maya understood what she had done was messing with the political structure of Ibadan, she had forced her decision upon them and there would be repercussions.

Ezra knew that his life would be in danger, but as the whole world was in the grips of an apocalypse, that wasn’t a new thing. He would have to fight against the entrenched leaders and Maya knew that they would not relinquish power any time soon. Oyekan had his own base and people, Adenuga and Ladipo were seen as the city’s leaders, even though they were knee deep in their own forms of exploitation and corruption; people still looked at them as a source of security.

Maya didn’t envy Ezra in his mission. It was a lot to throw upon a person, but as the saying went ‘sink or swim and it was all the deep end here’. There would come a time, Maya realized, when one of the Reps she would make would fail. Either from incompetence, political maneuvers, or monster attacks. She knew she would have to steel her heart against that kind of failure, sooner or later.

“Ready?” Maya asked.

Maya closed her eyes and thought about the space station. She thought about Tender and his half dozen eyes, about the work he was doing, about the astronauts who were in the station and the planned orbit they would follow if everything went well with fixing the station.

Pressure filled her head and she felt the threshold release it’s hold on the city of Ibadan. She could felt Ibadan falling away, she was disconnected, untethered in a vast darkness but a feeling called to her. Maya could feel the ISS, a shape and feeling of what it was formed in her mind. She grasped at it and opened a threshold.

She opened her eyes and activated the view screen.

“Am I getting better at this or what?” Maya asked as she saw the space station. She had managed to settle the threshold upon the Pris Airlock once more.

“It appears Tender and Veskari have been busy,” Yosi said as she watched the screen.

“It’s been over a standard day and they’re not limited to biological limitations,” Roci said. “Plus they’re also pretty knowledgeable.”

“Well, they’ll be surprised to see you talking,” Maya said getting to her feet. She opened the door at the Pris airlock, forming the balloon shell over it and activated the short range comm device. “Hey, Tender. We’re checking up on you and Vesky.”

“Boss?” Tender’s voice returned.

Maya felt herself smiling. It had been nearly two weeks since she had last heard his voice. “Ah, the dulcet tones of Tender. How I missed it.”

“It is good to hear your voice also, boss.” Tender replied.

“How’s Veskari?” Yosi asked.

“I am here, Yosi,” another voice chimed in.

“If you two wanna whisper sweet nothings to one another, I can open another comm channel. This is just a check-in to see how things are. We’re on our way to Haltor’s World after this and running low on power.” Maya created a small side room for Yosi and activated a different channel for her and Vesky.

“All is well here, boss. Veskari and I have managed to create a module with gravity and power, a place where the astronauts can work and study if they wish. The astronauts have been very helpful and inquisitive about system tech and its usage. I hear they have all completed the first knowledge cube in the engineering set,” Tender reported.

“That’s great news,” Maya responded as she pulled up an image of the new space station that Tender and Veskari were building. It wasn’t some grand design, but a simple box attached to the ISS. A twenty meter long and five meter wide structure that was one fifth of the ISS’s size.

With Big Snake’s mana core the ‘station’ was fully powered Eventually it would be detached and pulled into a higher orbit. The joy of science fiction system tech was that those inside the new station wouldn’t have to worry about pesky radiation and with the mana core, it would be far more compact. Maya had plans of making it a livable space, albeit very spartan in amenities, and one of her eventual goals was to see if she could move people around via the Cage.

She felt that it was possible, but also that it was somewhat dangerous. Maya knew it was her Dimensional Awareness giving her the gut feeling, but she still needed to experiment with it. But power was the bottleneck.

“How is the mana core doing?” Maya asked.

“The core has finished its reactivation sequence,” Tender said. “It has begun producing power and within another standard day should be ready to begin charging the mana batteries.”

“Awesome,” Maya grinned. “We’re gonna need that power soon. We just discovered the main mana battery for the ship and have refurbished fifty emergency mana batteries.”

“That’s a lot of batteries,” Tender replied.

Maya gave her own report, telling him of their new additions, Badblood and Scotty, along with the Tarvana and what she thought it would mean for their future in the RSH. Roci also chimed in, telling Tender about her engineering abilities and the turrets she had made.

“We’ll be back soon,” Maya said. She felt a tug of emotion as she looked at the station. She hadn’t realized how much she had depended upon Tender until he was gone. Maya shook her head. “We’re off. See you soon. Stay safe and be good.”

“Yes, boss.”

Maya smiled and closed the threshold. She sighed and closed her eyes once more and focused upon Haltor’s World.

***

Nothing much had changed on the Tier 1 hunting planet. Maya pulled up the image of the former settlement of Kobono’s Town and saw it was still abandoned, the vast crater that had been formed after the dimensional instability that had brought its destruction was slowly becoming a small lake from the rain falling.

Maya watched the area and scanned for signs of life. It seemed once the salvage had been taken from the town, it was abandoned. Yosi claimed that sites of dimensional instabilities were considered cursed. SIL did not want to live near it as they feared another instability would occur again. Maya didn’t know if it was a Nerigana cultural thing or if a lot of SIL in the integrated multiverse believed it, but from what she saw of Kobono’s Town perhaps seeing a tear in the fabric of reality made everyone nervous to be around a spot it happened.

“We got a million credits to spend,” Maya said. “Prioritized food and processors, if we can find something to machine metal, that would be great. We have eight hours”

Maya pulled out the shipping pallets from her inventory. There had been plenty of resources within the Hangy to produce half a dozen pallets. Eventually she planned on making shipping containers, but they were resource intensive.

Roci focused on the engineering materials they would need. After Scotty had been set up, they had realized they needed more tools to streamline the whole assembly process of making turrets and weapons. There were some dumb bots that Yosi claimed were used in manufacturing, but they were on the pricier end of things. Roci and Maya’s solution was to make more drones and use relatively cheap processors to power them.

Nan continued to peruse medical supplies and biomass. She had been well received by the people of Ibadan as she managed to patch up and heal a lot of wounded men and women. There were even a few diseases she had cured, including one case of cancer. Although Maya would have liked to have stayed until their power ran out, they were in need of more biomass and supplies.

Yosi focused on what could make them profit. She had a keen eye and nose for making credits and dug through the near endless amount of data of items being sold on the Network. It had taken a moment for the people of Ibadan to get used to Yosi, they hadn’t ever seen an alien creature before and then they hadn’t been ready to be aggressively haggled with by her. But once they figured out that she was a merchant, Maya was amazed at how quickly people adapted to it. By the end of their stay in Ibadan, Yosi was making deals and quipping with the customers like old friends.

Maya took a shower and then a nap while the others busily marked items for purchase. She immediately dreamt as she closed her eyes.

She walked in a vast field of red grass under the rainbow skies of the RSH. On the horizon was a massive mountain and as she watched, it began to erupt. Spewing out hot blue lava, not molten rock but something else. She gasped and looked to see Roci standing over her.

“Maya, you have a message from Pegarios,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Just a dream,” Maya yawned and got up. She pulled up a window, shared it with the others, and activated the message.

Pegarios’ blue face appeared before her. He looked more tired than he had before, but also extremely happy.

“Maya, I come bearing exciting news. Mother has reached out to some contacts in Tzonia and they are all extremely interested in what we have,’ Pegarios grinned. “I have sent the specs of the items, even the damaged enchantments, and there is already a bidding war going on.” He laughed. “We are nearing to Tzonia now and once we arrive, we might have sold everything. I look forward to your response and also hope that you are acquiring more goods.”

Maya grinned at the message.

“This is good?” Roci asked.

“Very. We’ll be millionaires when they sell,’ Maya said.

“We already are.”

“We gave Peg about nine million in goods, wholesale value. If he can sell them at retail, we’ll be looking at nearly thirteen million credits and Peg will get about four million.”

“That is good,” Roci said. Maya smiled at the girl and realized that Roci wasn’t interested in business. She, like Maya, wanted to build and create, not sell.

Maya put her arm around Roci. “The more money we have, the more we can build and the more we can help others,” she said.

Roci nodded. “I understand.”

“Alright. Now we need to send a reply.” Unlike her first communication with Pegarios, she didn’t send an e-mail and instead sent a video. “Hey, Pegarios. Good to hear from you and that’s some great news. We have a few more items that will pique your interests along with some ‘you know what’ parts. I believe I can meet you in Tzonia, if you got a secure spot I can park my wall. I don’t know how it looks on sensors, but probably somewhere out of the way. If you got a spot in Tzonia, send me all the info you can about it. How it looks, the area around it, all that stuff. I need a decent grasp of the place to form this door. Hit me up as soon as you can.”

Maya sent off the message and sat back and sighed. “Things are working out well,” she said. “You make your wish lists?”

“I have mine,” Roci said.

Maya opened a window to see Roci’s list of things she wanted to purchase. “That’s a lot of volex explosive gel,” she said.

“I have run the numbers on how much ammunition we will need if we intend to scale up, not only for our defenses, but also for the fight back on Earth. I believe that with this manufacturing module, we will be able to begin mass producing your SAK.”

“My SAK,” Maya chuckled.

Although Maya could create the turrets that had been designed, she discovered that making the SAK was on a whole different level of industrialization she just didn’t have. She could source the material, but she couldn’t make it just yet, the same went with ammunition.

Maya brought up the information on the manufacturing module.

Karzonn’s Light Industrial Manufacturing Module - low-grade, Tier 1

Karzonn provides you with the best tools to create what you need when you need it. Using our patented rapid manufacturing system, you can create machined parts wherever you are. Ultra efficient mana usage and capable of making nearly anything you wish.

150,000 credits

“Not bad.” Maya hit the ‘buy’ button. Roci happily rushed to the pallets to see the machine appear, once it did, she rushed off with it, surprising everyone with the casual strength she displayed. “Holy shit,” Maya muttered as Roci moved a machine that was a three meter cube of metal.

“What?” Roci asked.

“Nothing, kid. Just when did you start hitting the ‘roids?” Maya asked.

“What?”

Maya chuckled. “Don’t tell Tender how much you can lift, that boy’s got issues about his strength.”

Roci shook her head and set down the module, already crawling over it to figure out how to make it work.

“I have my list ready,” Yosi said.

“Not much.” Maya replied as she looked at the list.

Yosi sighed. “There isn’t much to buy in this backwater,” she said. “In regards to tools, weapons, and the like, especially low-grade items. Although this is a Tier 1 hunting world, the companies that deal in such low value items aren’t going to be selling on the Network.”

“We got some pretty cool stuff last time,” Maya said.

“Most of it was items that the owners were willing to take a loss on or salvage,” Yosi said. “If we’re going to access bulk goods and low-grade goods, we need to move to a higher grade system.”

“Well, hopefully Peg comes through with a place we can go to in Tzonia,” Maya said. “Otherwise we’re stuck here.”

“I understand, but don’t you feel the economy of this place is stagnant, there is no real profit to be made here.”

Maya paused and thought on what Yosi said. “You’re right,” Maya said. The adage of ‘buy low, sell high’ was the driving force in commerce, but Maya had realized she was ‘buying medium, selling low’. Her profitsense and her own accounting books told her she was losing money. “Weird, I didn’t even notice that until you told me. When you think on it, we’re a shitty business.”

Yosi chuckled. “I agree. Our profit margin is abysmal. The only way we are making credits is by finding the enchantments on the Hangy, if not for that, we would have run out of credits a long time ago.”

Maya nodded. “Maybe Peg can help in this regard too. Their family is in the mercenary business after all, ” she said.

“Ah, they should have access to low-grade weapons and armor,” Yosi said grinning. “I hadn’t thought about that. They just seem so… criminal. I suppose.”

“We all have our biases,” Maya said. “I think I’ll send him another message. If he can gather up a few million in simple weapons and armor, re-designed to fit a human body, I might be able to make a legitimate trader out of him.”

Maya sent off another message, asking Peg if he could get his hands on low-grade weapons and armor, tools, and equipment needed in low infrastructure environments. She wondered what he would think about that. She hadn’t told him her own business at all, all he knew was that she had access to some old enchantments and wanted money.

If she were fully honest with him, how would that change things? Would he be more receptive or would take advantage. The frustrating thing for Maya was that she didn’t know the full value of the items she was buying. She knew she was probably being ripped off by the Network purchases, but she didn’t have a choice in that matter. She needed the stuff they were buying and Haltor’s World was the only place she knew to go for those items.

Once Tender got the mana core up and running around Earth, then they would have enough power to at least attempt some exploration of the multiverse. She didn’t need to have any face to face interaction with the locals if they were savvy enough to have Networks operating. Maybe there were some places in the multiverse where she could get far better deals on weapons and armor.

Maya signed off on the items that Yosi was purchasing.

Last of all came Nan, she had a simple order of more biomass and alchemical ingredients that Bell had told her he needed. The items were cheap and they were also massive in quantity.

“We will need to get those food processors up and running,” Nan said.

Maya grimaced. She had only managed to fix one food processor and that along with Nan’s medical equipment from the Hangy and the Hab were what was making the ration bars they were eating. But the medical equipment was designed to heal and replace limbs, not make food, therefore it wasn’t as efficient as the food processor.

“There is a industrial processor that is available for sale,” Nan said.

Maya pulled up the info. “It says it’s for livestock.”

“With some slight modifications, it can be used to mass produce ration bars,” Nan said.

“Do we know how to make these slight modifications?” Maya asked.

“I am sure you will figure it out. But on a base level, the livestock food processor does the same thing as a SIL food processor. All you would need to do is put in the parameters of the creature you are creating the food for and then allow it to work.”

Maya looked at the processor. “You’re quite the saleswoman, Nan. You got me sold on this.”

“I will take that as a compliment,” Nan said, flashing a sharp toothed smile.

Maya ran the numbers and sighed. “We’re gonna be eating ramen for the next couple of standard weeks,” she said. “If we buy this processor, we’re gonna be in the low five figures, credits wise.”

“I understand the processor is expensive, but the benefits are simply too good to pass up. With the biomass we have purchased, we could feed all of Whiteclaw’s tribe for a decade.”

“You already sold me on the idea, Nan. I just like grumbling.”

“Understood.”

Maya rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Alright, we all set on what we want? We need to head back and make sure Bell hasn’t gotten lonely with our absence.”

***

“Hey, Bell. You awake? Come and lend us a hand getting this stuff into storage,” Maya called out on her comm as she exited the Cage.

“You’re back!” Bell said, relief flooding his voice.

Maya paused. ‘Uh… what’s up?”

“Rogue AIs,” he said. “A lot of them!”

Maya opened a window and the word ‘a lot’ did not do the amount justice.