Chapter 05

City Wide AI coming online…

Cassi will be activated in ten seconds…

Bond imprinting…

Vesta was assaulted with an extremely bright white light. She clenched her eyes shut and even had to throw up her hand to block the light passing through her eyelids.

-Bond with the other present?

-Yes | No

She looked over the prompt for a moment. It took several moments of blinking before the spots receded. She had to assume that the prompt was referring to Spark. When she questioned the prompt it actually became clearer showing his name in parenthesis after the question. She considered if she wanted him to have access to things whatever they may be, but when all was said and done, he was the only person that she knew she could trust even if she didn’t like him. She accepted the prompt.

“What the hell?!” Spark said in surprise and he slapped his hands to his eyes. He stumbled backward tripping over a chair.

Vesta chuckled and went back to the computer.

Cassi is active…

A teenage girl appeared in the center of the room. She was four and a half feet tall with blue eyes that looked like they were overlaid with tech moving around in the whites. Her long blond hair moved as if she was standing in the wind, but there was not wind in the room. She was dressed in a simple white dress with a matching pair of flats.

“Cassi?” Vesta asked.

“Yes mum. My name is Cassi. I have access to everything in the city of Lake Summerrest. I can also manage main city decisions given that an overall objective has been decided.” Cassi said. She nodded her head slightly.

“Well, alrighty then. So where do we get started?” Vesta asked standing up from her chair.

“According to my readings your super suit can use an upgrade. I can also integrate with the new suit to be able to help you here and away from the city. I will also be able to connect you with the city while you are away.” Cassi explained. She crossed her hands in front of her and took a few steps towards Vesta.

“An upgrade?” Vesta asked.

“Yes mum.” She nodded, and a prompt appeared.

-Super Suit Upgrade

-Level 25 -> Level 60

-Accept?

-Yes | No

Vesta didn’t even think about it. She accepted extremely fast. The parts of her super suit began to reshape and become denser. Blue light emitted from the seams of the armor. When the light began to fade a holographic mirror appear so that she could take a look at her new armor.

The new armor was extremely form fitting. It accentuated all of her curves but jutted off of the elbows and knees were three-inch spikes. The mask held all of her hair inside and was shaped as a long downward angle with narrow horizontal panels for eyes.

“You know I liked your old suit, but damn that ass in this new one.” Spark said biting his knuckle.

“Can you find something to do to make yourself useful?” Vesta asked with a sigh.

“Actually, I had an idea. I might know some people that could help out around here.” He said tapping his chin.

“Like who?” Vesta asked. She’d been left with one close friend after what happened, and he just might know some people.

“You guys’ little group wasn’t the only one that I was preparing to join.” He shrugged.

Vesta opened her friends list. She hadn’t really taken any time to look at the list since the event. She was surprised to find that Spark wasn’t the only person on the list. He was the closest though as there weren’t even any others on the same continent as her.

“You know a little break from you while you go off might not be so bad.” She said after closing her friends list.

“Don’t lie you’ll miss me every second that I’m gone.” Spark said pulling out a jump stick.

“In all seriousness, be careful. I might not like you very much, but I like being stuck alone less. I also want to vet whomever you attempt to bring into the city.” Vesta said.

“If you want to kiss me just do it.” He said with a laugh. Vesta lunged at him to punch him, but he cracked the stick before she could do it vanishing into thin air.

“What an asshole.” She growled to herself.

Cassi stood with her hands crossed patiently waiting for Vesta. She looked out of the window at the destroyed city with a fair amount of solemn in her posture. On for an AI, but Vesta could understand that it must have been hard when whatever went down here.

“So,” Vesta clapped her hands together, “What first?”

“Yes mum. We have a few options. Since you have just taken lordship of this city state you have a one-time ability that can greatly increase what you have to work with.” Cassi said.

“What’s that?” Vesta asked.

“Back to day Zero.” Cassi said, and a notification appeared in her vision.

-Use Back to Day Zero?

-This is a onetime use ability when taking owner ship of a new City State.

-This ability will force any residents to leave.

-This ability will revert all city system buildings to their raw resources.

-This cannot be undone.

-This cannot be used after ten hours of Lordship establishment.

-Use?

-Yes | No

Vesta considered the ability for a moment. It didn’t affect city systems, that was good. It would also give her the raw materials that would be needed to build new things in the city. The only thing that she didn’t really like was that it was an all or none thing. She would have much rather had gone through the buildings one at a time so that some of the buildings that were in decent shape could be repaired. In the end she selected yes.

Bright green lights began to flash outside of the windows. Night had fallen so the lights were un avoidable. Vesta stood and walked over to the window. She watched as the buildings throughout the city began to glow brightly and vanished. When the light dissipated she could see a pile of various resources sitting where the building once had. The ability surprisingly left the roads untouched, but she assumed that they counted as city systems.

“Should I activate the city holographic interface?” Cassi asked. The green flashes continued on taking down each building one at a time.

“Yes, please.” Vesta turned away from the window.

A semitransparent version of the city flickered to life hovering in the large open space in the center of the room. Vesta had thought that it was weird that there was so much empty space, but now it made complete sense.

She watched as the buildings throughout the city vanished on the holographic version. She could get a quick readout of what remained as usable resources in each space. It seemed like the return was about a third of what it took to construct the building was being left behind. Its buildings different states of disrepair she was surprised that she was getting that much.

The first thing that she did was look at the utilities systems in the city. Power, Water, communication, and waste were the most important to have online. These were essential for the happiness of anyone that was going to live there. She also had to consider how she was going to get people to start coming to the city.

“Cassi?” Vesta asked considering the map.

“Yes mum.” Cassi said shifting her attention to Vesta.

“Do you know how I can get people to come and live in the city once we get to that point? I mean what’s having my own city without citizens?” She asked.

“There are many ways to bring population into your city. First of all, when you start to get residential areas operational and you can provide the three basic needs, power, water, and food, people will start to arrive automatically drawn in by several factors and also several channels.” Cassi explained.

“So, if you build it they will come?” She asked.

“Essentially yes. But this form is a trickle. There will be missions and buildings that can be built in the future that can bring a boost in foot traffic.” Cassi said.

“Alright so let’s have a look at some to these base needs.” Vesta said.

The first thing that she looked into was power. The city streets were constructed in a genius design. Under the streets were power, communication lines, sewer systems, water lines, gas lines, and an inactive subway system. Vesta had to purchase an upgrade before she could access the subway system information, but the infrastructure was there. The power was generated by a nuclear reactor that was a few miles outside of town, but still well within the limits of the city state. It was in lockdown and was generating the lowest that it could at the moment.

Water was pumped out of the lake, purified and circulated through the town. There were several stations at the edge of town where waste water was processed and separated into two parts, usable water and true waste that was stored. The water was easily distributed throughout the city.

The gas distribution systems were offline, but that was a system that wasn’t used as often as it once was. The communication lines were online and operational within the city limit, but other than Cassi there were not communications outside of the city limits. The main fiberoptic hardline out of the city was damaged, and the cellular relay tower was destroyed. The ability that she used didn’t dismantle it for parts either.

“I have a handful of city missions that I can offer you.” Cassi said look up at Vesta.

“Alright, what do you got?” She said with a nod. With a wave of her hand Vesta dismissed the holographic map of the city. She found that she could control it freely now that she knew of its existence.

Three mission prompts appeared on Vesta’s newly upgraded interface, which she noticed was far more responsive then it had ever been. She started from the top. She knew that all of these missions were going to do a great deal for her city and they needed to get done.

-Power Plant Lockdown

-Your city’s nuclear power plant is in lockdown.

-In order to increase the output of this city system you need to figure out why the powerplant has been put into this lockdown mode and determine the best course of action.

-Accept?

Yes | No

~~~

-Communication Blackout I

-Your city has no external communication structure.

-You must determine the nature of the blackout at the site of the city’s fiberoptic substation. Getting these systems back online is important for the growth of your city’s population.

-Accept?

Yes | No

~~~

-A foul Camp

-There is an encampment to the south of the city that has been behind nefarious deeds in nearby places of populations.

-Taking care of this situation will offer a boon to the population growth of the city. With this encampment in place there is a significant down turn in the total number of people that will be attracted to the city.

-Accept?

- Yes | No

Vesta wasted no time in accepting all of the missions that were offered to her. She didn’t know if they would reward much in terms of experience points, but they were definitely things that she needed to check into for the city either way. She also had no desire to have some camp of scum near her city, period.

“I’m going to take care of these missions. Is there anything else that we can get started before I head out?” Vesta asked.

“You could get the robot systems online so that they could get started on construction around the city. It you designate patches of areas for Commercial, Residential and industrial zoning they can begin to construct buildings for occupancy.” Cassi said reinitializing the holographic map.

Vesta found that there were three hovering cubes that she could grab and manipulate. Each one represented one of the zones that could be applied to the city. She noticed that there were also a few other cubes that floated out of focus. Two she could see what they were, but there were several that were completely grayed out and their discerptions were question marks. The two that she couldn’t manipulate yet were city systems and military zone.

She grabbed the residential zone cube. She held it over the block that was across the street from the main building that she was in and let it go. The cube dropped down to the map and the area that was selected was filled in with a vibrant blue color. She grabbed the industrial next filling in a few blocks to the west of the residential district that she had just set up. She wanted to put enough space to keep pollution from being a problem. Lastly, she grabbed a cube of commercial zone and placed that as a buffer between the two other zones.

“So now that there are zones, how would we turn on the robots, and how will it determine the buildings that will be built.” Vesta asked.

“The buildings will be built at semi-random starting small. As the needs of the city changes as will the blueprints that will be used. The robot system simply must be activated. You will have two dozen construction robots, a dozen maintenance robots, and ten general robots that can work where needed.” Cassi explained.

A panel opened in Vesta’s view hovering near the holographic map. The forty-six robots that were under her command appeared on the holo-map as green dots. When she focused on one a small pop-up said that it was in hibernation, but that it was powered and ready to go.

She began to active the robots one at a time before she noticed that there was an activate-all command. When she ran it, all of the dots changed to a more vibrant green color as all of the robots rushed to the new zones that had been created to get to work.

“Will you oversee the work while I am out completing these missions?” Vesta asked.

“They will be done mum.” Cassi nodded, “If Spark were to return before you shall I send him to your location?”

“Yeah, that is probably for the best.” Vesta said with a long sigh.

“Yes mum.” Cassi nodded and turned to the holographic map. Several different blueprints had already filled in spaces inside the zones that she had established.

Vesta turned to leave the room. She felt confident that she was leaving the work in good hands and she would be able to communicate with Cassi while she was away from the main building.

Stepping onto the elevator she turned to face the office as the doors slid closed. She took a deep breath and pressed the ground floor button.