When I reached the tree I hopped off of the horse and yelled to Kelli, “What do I do with this thing now?”

Her voice came to me telepathically. “Tell it to go back to the stable.”

I said, “Great, another voice in my head.” I patted the horse on the side. “Okay boy, thanks for the ride, head back to the stables.” The horse whinnied and trotted... Err glided away from me in the direction of the stables.”

I made my way to Sammy's room. She was still asleep and Yepa was snoring, stretched along the side of her. I kissed my wife on the head and scratched Yepa behind the ears and headed to my office to try to work a little bit on the city.

I pulled up the holo and with Kelli's help started to add a few minor things. At the North and South sides of our borders on both sides of the river, I put up two small bunkers on each side of the road with a laser firing turret in each one. I looked at the city and decided that it was such a mess that I was just going to have to redo it.

I needed to find my new Mayor, and I knew that it was going to be the old bar owner, whether he wanted it or not. I asked Kelli to find me the location of Johnny and I got on the elevator and ported to the stable. I was on my horse and at the first igloo hotel in minutes. I found Johnny helping some people carry their meager belongings to their new apartments.

When he saw me he came right over. “Heya Chief, I think every single resident of the city is holed up in one of these two hotels, everyone is scared and grouping together.”

I nodded. “Good, that is kind of why I am here. I am going to be working on making changes to the city tonight and I don't want anybody to be in an old house when it suddenly disappears.” I looked around and saw that there was an android standing behind a reception area in the lobby. I said to it, “Kelli, are you there? And what are you doing here if that's you?”

The android turned to me. “Yes I am here Chief, this is a building manager unit. They came with the igloo. I am using it to assign rooms and handle any problems that may arise.”

I said, “Okay, can you tell me if we have any residents in any of the old buildings out in the city right now?”

The droid responded “Only two Chief. We have two teenagers named Jake and Melissa in a house over on West 10th street three blocks from here.”

I shook my head knowing full well what was happening there. “Kelli, run a droid over there and roust them out of that house, in the meantime I want you to clear every building and house left standing in the city, we are going to redesign this tonight so I can cross one more thing off of my list. Also, I want you to design bracelets for the people of the city who took the oath. All the same features except for the Village access and the liqueur restriction.” If we ever had a spy they wouldn't be wearing a bracelet.

I looked over at John “So how did the discussion go with our citizens?”

He said, “Everybody is terrified. A lot of people and most of the women want no part of combat. We have more than enough people who will volunteer to be guards, but their armor and weapons need upgrading in a major way.”

I said “That's not a problem. Select 48 men. I will have full kits arranged at the store for them. Laser rifles and armor. We have four posts at the moment. I think three men per post on a rotated 6-hour shift 24 hours a day. A six-hour shift should be perfect to keep people alert. What else?”

He looked at me a little guiltily. “Well, you are about to knock over my restaurant, that was being used as a major hub before you got back here.”

I smiled “Johnny my friend, I have already thought about this, I am going to build a big inn with a pub in it just for you. We will need a place for our visitors to stay, and our new Mayor to be able to keep an eye on them.”

He looked up at me startled. “I haven't been...”

I cut him off. “I am electing you, sorry, but desperate times and all of that. Maybe in a year or so when shit calms down, we can start holding elections, but right now people need stability. I'm afraid I can't take no for an answer.”

He slowly nodded thinking about it. “I guess I can download a bunch of info about Mayoring and leadership stuff from the store. Maybe talk to Kelli about how I can split or change my class...”

I patted his shoulder “That's the spirit. Now, what else?

He said, “Well the people that don't want to hunt will need something to do, so we figured maybe crafting buildings? We are going to need a meat processing place for the hunters, and a blacksmith’s forge, and a tanning building. That is all going to stink and be loud, so we were thinking maybe on the banks on the other side of the river?”

I said “That's a good idea. I was also debating on putting up two bridges on each end of our border filled with guns so if any shit hits the fan our guards are just a bridge run away for support.”

“I am also going to be putting up a long greenhouse for a farm, we are going to need farmers asap.”

He said, “I hate to mention this, but people were already chirping about being put into an apartment complex with everyone else.”

“I 'm sure they are, but we need everyone to pull together and having us near each other will be a good thing in the long run. Just tell them, for now, it's too expensive. I plan on building single-family homes and using them as rewards for people that take their leveling seriously. These people don't know this right now, but this might be the safest city in the entire world at the moment. I want you to ram that down peoples throats if they dare to complain about anything. Now I need to get back to Sammy and work on the city a bit.”

John raised his hand. “One more thing Bear, did you know that there was a cruise ship down at the A.J. Dock when this shit happened?”

I shook my head. “Nope, I wasn't even here.”

He said, “Well there was, and still is. It detached from the dock and is beached just on the other side of our new borderline. There are monsters constantly coming out of it. Big mutant rats and slugs and all kinds of nasty stuff. I think it might be a dungeon now!”

I sighed. “Great, another thing to worry about. If that is true we will need to double up the guards down there. Just because something can't spawn inside of our city doesn't mean it can't simply run in here from the outside. I am going to have to talk to Kelli about some kind of fencing options. Okay, Johnny, I'll grab Jax and Smitty and look into it tomorrow. If you need me for an emergency just use Kelli through the android here. Ask if she can handle it first before you wake me up!” I waved goodbye and hustled out of there before he gave me more things to do.

Five minutes later I was back in my office. I looked down at a map of the city as seen from the air. The Village sits almost in the exact middle of the farthest northern corner of the city where Cope Park used to be.

The Governor's Mansion sits three blocks directly in front of it. I already had it in my mind that I was going to leave it there as a last fall back point for the city folk. It belongs to them. They donated all of their credits to make it bigger on the inside so they could hide there and I want to leave it as a rallying point for them. We will use it as a guard's barracks. I want to make it better though. I think of the classic castle look with battlements on each corner and a gate and a keep and I switch it up, making it bigger and better. Easy Peasy.

I envision the city as ¾ of an umbrella with the waterline at the very outside of it. I build four roads in a pattern going out from the Village. One on each far end leading out to our borders, and two that go out diagonally to either side of the new castle. I put four roads in a u-shaped semi-circle starting at the water and getting smaller as they come up to the castle.

For the inn I use a replica of the Village, but much smaller. I sink it into the ground to make it only look three stories high. I place it out looking over the water directly Southeast of the castle lining it straight up with the mansion to keep everything nice and symmetrical.

I have the System build two new bridges that connect to the border bunkers and have turrets mounted on either side and in the middle of them. This is getting fun!

I make four new two-bedroom houses and place them on each side a block away from the inn. They are designed as copies of the village as well, but these four are green, yellow, orange, and brown. These will be used as an incentive for leveling.

On the other side of the river on the bank starting from the bridge, I build a big blacksmith building, and three crafting houses for textiles, leather, and alchemy. I then place a few 100 yard long 50 yard wide greenhouses that should be more than big enough for our small town. I put a meat processing building at the other end of it.

After a long talk with Kelli, we decide that we need protection from the river just in case, and the cheapest option is a force field fence. All you can see of it are poles sticking up about every fifty feet, but she assures me that it is working and that she will be notified if anything attacks it. We run it the length of our riverside property.

I throw up four more houses in the same style on that side of the river as well. All of our private houses from now on will be exact copies of The Village in different colors. I don't want anyone getting jealous.

The city looks a bit like a gridded military outpost, so I start putting trees all over the streets. I put in Japanese, and Sugar, and Red maples, and I sprinkle in pink Oklahoma Redbuds and Pink Dogwoods and the place is instantly bursting with colors. Next to some of the trees, for defense inside of the city, I sink some pop-up turrets into the ground, just in case. I line the roads coming into town with Silver Spruce and tall, skinny Black Spruces and I think I am just about done for now. There will be much more needed I am sure, but for now, it will do. I will have Kelli find us a City Planner class of some kind to handle the future stuff.

I want nothing more than to sink into bed, but before I do I need to take care of my stats and skills. At level 23 I have 9 points to distribute. Because of the Cha bonus, I got from acquiring my War Chief social skills it now sits at 115 so I skip that entirely. I throw 5 into Con, 2 in Str, and 3 in Dex. I'm sitting at 55 Str, 55 Dex, 60 Con, 86 Int, 86 Wil, 32 Per, 115 Cha, and 30 Lck.

I'm not 100 percent sure if I am doing the stats right and make a mental note to ask Onida. Just as I am thinking that I hear someone walking through the apartments and get up to see who it is. I walk to the kitchen and see someone I don't recognize pouring a drink. I say “Umm, excuse me can I help you?”

A woman turns to face me and it takes me a second to realize that it's Onida even though it doesn't look like her...

I say, “Onida? What happened?”

She gives me an all-knowing grin. “I had some cosmetics done at the shop, what, you don't like it?”

I do like it... She has changed her skin color, and she is now has a deep, deep brown tan like a Hawaiian girl who spends all her days at the beach. Her hair is straighter now and has deep, subtle streaks of purple through it that match her deep purple eyes.

She is wearing black leather pants with boots to match and a silvery top of that standard skin-tight body armor everyone wears. She looks stunning, and I realize I am staring.

“It's okay, stare all you want, I am pleased you like it and it is no big deal to me what I look like. My hair used to be green before we met, you know.” She starts walking towards me “You're starting to feel it now too aren't you?” She asks me.

“Feel what?” I say, even though I know what she means. The bond is drawing me to her, making it hard not to want her. I try to avoid looking her in the eyes.

She laughs at me. “I know what a bond does to people Blackbear, you cannot lie to me about it.”

I say, “Maybe your right, but I need to wait until Samantha understands what has happened before we can become closer.”

She nods, “Of course, I understand. Let's go see how our wife is doing.”

As we walk back to Sammy's room I ask her, “Can you take a look at my skills, please? I have 9 points to spend after hitting level 20 and I don't want to mess it up picking the wrong stuff.”

She takes a second looking at it and says “Strange, all of your second tree skills are area effects. I would say put one point into each of those so at least you can get used to how they work. I would also take each of those off tree perk skills because most people put those off until it's too late. That leaves you with two points.”

“I think you should dump another point in Psyche Strike and start using that every fight from now on, That is a very powerful skill, It automatically interrupts. Save one point until you figure out what you use the most or whatever one you feel is weak.”

I do exactly what she says and we walk into the room. Yepa gets up and stretches. I tell her, “Go take a run in the park and eat Yepa, I have her for the rest of the night.”

The cat chuffs at me and pads off. I slip off my shoes and pull off my bodysuit. The Genome treatment has made me three inches taller and solid as a rock. I catch Onida peeking at me in the mirror and smile. Trotting into the bathroom I have a quick scalding hot shower and then I slip in the bed next to Sammy and rest my head on her shoulder putting my hand across her stomach. I am instantly dead tired.

The last thing I notice is a half-naked Onida slipping in bed on the other side of Sammy. The bond makes it feel perfectly natural.