Mai sighed as she sat back from the table, rubbing her full belly. The rebels had been jubilant on their return, despite the losses they’ve suffered, and Yen Ching had insisted on throwing a banquet, against Mai’s protests. Still, when she checked her SASS she was pleased to see her REPUTATION had increased yet again.

I’m starting to become more popular than I ever have in my past life, she smiled as she thought of her sister. Of the two of them, her SISTER had been the more popular, always ready with a smile, free with random hugs and full of laughter. The smile died as she considered the task ahead if she was to ever be reunited with her sister. Life’s never going to be the same.

“Now that we’re stuffed to the gills, I suggest we retire to the command centre,” Yen Ching leaned over, speaking quietly into her ear. “I’ll be interested in seeing what we can do with the base.”

Mai looked around, catching the eyes of her people. Chan, Jock, Hind and Dakota pushed themselves to their feet at her signal, making their way over.

“What’s up boss?” Chan tried to keep it casual, but she could see the tension in his eyes. All of them were twitchy. Unlike Yen Ching’s people they’d seen near-constant combat for longer than she cared to remember.

From what they’d seen since they arrived, life in the Nether City base was easy. The rebels were content to sit and keep things as they were, maintaining a status quo which made things comfortable for them, building up a powerbase slowly.

No way I’m going to wait decades before I do anything, Mai thought as she gestured for Yen Ching to lead the way.

“We’re going to be doing some building,” Mai replied.

*

In the command centre, Mai waited as Yen Ching brought up a map of the base. It was a walled compound. Roughly square in nature, the North, West and South walls being straight whilst the Eastern wall started straight South before kinking to the South West and then heading South again. Four heavily armoured towers were on the edges of the wall, with a fifteen-foot wide gate entering the base between two massive gatehouse bunkers.

Inside the compound were six buildings laid out in a pattern of two columns of three. A ground car garage was at the top of the left hand column. It was small, like most of the buildings, only able to contain a maximum of four ground cars.

Mai tried not to sigh as she realised that yet again the rebels had plenty of options to expand the base, but hadn’t.

Is it apathy, laziness, or something I just can’t put my finger on for the moment?

She turned her attention back to the map of the base. To its right was the canteen they’d just been eating in. It could only seat a few people a time, fourteen, and even then it seemed to be cramped. The other buildings were small bunkhouses and administration buildings.

“Where do the rest of your people live when they’re not inside the compound?” she asked.

“Our base is too small to house them all, so we rotate them. Most live outside of the walls in the buildings directly South, coming in when we’re attacked.”

Mai traced the dotted lines indicating where she could expand the base. She could push the Eastern wall forty feet to the right, and the Southern wall one hundred and fifty feet, which would mean all of the rebel buildings were within the walls.

“If you agree, I want to square this base off. Push the walls East and South. I’ll keep the base in two compounds but consolidate the buildings. I can expand the garage, so it’ll hold more cars. Add more defences to all buildings.”

Yen Ching nodded, sketching outlines on the expansions.

“This will be perfect. Merging the buildings will give us more space, allowing us to get more people into the buildings. Get to work if you will.”

Mai did as he said, expanding the base, dragging the elements she needed onto the map and twisting them, so they’d fit on the map. The nanites worked around the people in the base, expanding the buildings safely, walls and floors flashing red to warn people to step off, only replacing them once they were out of the way.

The changes made a sizable dent in the amount of expansion points available, but there were still plenty left for additional fortifications. Mai decided to change the buildings first before adding upgraded weapons systems and defences. She didn’t want to overwhelm the rebels with massive and sudden change. It was clear they were stuck in their ways, and massive change could cause just as massive culture shock.

“What did you mean you bring your people in when you’re attacked? We’ve not heard anything like that going on.” Mai continued to work on the base as she spoke.

Yen Ching took a seat, scrubbing at his face, looking even more like a tired old man rather than a veteran leader of a still-defiant rebel army.

“We’re constantly plagued by attacks from urbexers, prisoners, gangers and ex-military. They’re mostly powerful, although we’ve had weaker elements try their luck. Those we’re able to defeat, but the others just blitz through. They kill our people, take what they want but never stay. Usually because they’re off attacking other areas of the city.”

He paused, and Mai’s stomach flipped as she realised that he had news she wasn’t going to be happy to hear.

“And that’s why the council has voted against going back into the city. They want to take out the enemy first.”

“What?” Dakota shot to her feet. “You said if we got the bio-boost we could launch an attack on the city!”

“We had a deal,” Mai hissed, laying a hand on her friend’s shoulder as she made to lunge at Yen Ching. “We had a deal.”

Yen Ching raised open hands in a ‘what can I do?’ gesture.

“I’m not the Emperor. We still vote on matters concerning our people. And the vote was that we use the bio-boost to take the city.”

Mai stood, stomach twisted in knots, mouth working as she tried to put in words the rage she was feeling. Yen Ching had manipulated her, and she couldn’t look herself in the mirror if she decided to leave the rebels to the attacks they supposedly faced.

Every time I think we’re doing well, some arse throws a bloody spanner in the works! And he knows I can’t just walk away.

“We’d like to think you’d help us, but since we now have the bio-boost you kindly brought back, we can expand the base and our area of influence ourselves.”

Hind and Jock started shouting, fingers jabbing, faces flushed. Chan looked as though he wanted to join in but seemed happy to let the others do the shouting. Dakota joined in, throwing her arms about and looking as if she’d cheerfully slit Yen Ching’s throat. Mai felt as though she was floating, her rage had dampened down into a slow burn.

“Fine. We’ll help out,” she held out a hand as her people turned their ire upon her. “Quiet. If you’d just asked us to do this without lying to us, we’d have been happy, happy to have helped out.”

Yen Chin screwed up his face, ignoring the others he continued to stare at her. She couldn’t tell if he was feeling guilt, or just finding them annoying.

“I want to know everything,” Mai zoomed the map of Nether City out to its maximum.

“We have five clusters of urbexers,” Yen Ching placed dots on the map, marking out buildings. “And here we prisoners, right bunch of scum and nutters. Never understood why anyone would choose that …”

His voice trailed off as he marked the prisoners’ positions. There were slightly more than those held by urbexers.

“Gangs?” asked Dakota. She’d calmed down slightly, but Mai saw that she still wanted to hurt Yen Ching.

“We’ve got the Talismans, Maggots, Forty-fives, Stilettos, Ground Pounders, God’s Chosen, and the Death’s Hearts.”

“I know all of them,” said Dakota. “Tough gangs. Didn’t realise that they had chapters here too. No-one ever mentioned anything like this. They’re different from other gangs. I tried to join the Talismans, but was told I didn’t fit the type they were looking for. Laughed at me too.”

“Well, that doesn’t make them different,” Chan said.

“What made them different was that they didn’t accept anyone from my level. None of the locals. They just had members show up. No idea where they came from. Always had new members trying to climb through the ranks. If we killed any, they always had more the next day.”

“The last group is the ex-military. They’re the worst. More coordinated than the others. But at least they just take what they want without too much violence,” Yen Ching finished marking the map.

“How do you replace your own losses?” Chan asked, narrowing his eyes.

“People from the city. Defectors from the other groups when they get bored,” Yen Chin started to draw lines across the map, marking out the areas of influence of the various groups. There was still plenty of the city which wasn’t under any one group’s dominance. He started to add golden dots.

“What are those?” Mai asked.

“Various influential members of Nether City. They’re not aligned to any of the groups. Merchants, instructors, guild heads and so on.”

“What’s a Guild Head?” Chan leaned in towards the map.

“We have various Guilds down here. Mostly aligned to professions. Armourers, tailors, bounty hunters, urbexers etc. They control pretty much everything down here. Pay well too if you decide to take on a mission from them. We tend to avoid them as the other factions monopolise all that kind of thing.”

“You mean they did. I think it’s time we changed things. Who’s up for a shopping trip?” Mai rubbed her hands together in anticipation.