As I said, finding a building to build the constructor in was a bust. I should have known that beforehand, as apparently there are only a handful of buildings in the world big enough for that.

Building it out in the open was not quite what I wanted though. While having it exposed to the elements would not be that bad, it would complicate matters.

And I was categorically against building that thing where every spy and his brother could see it.

A conundrum, sure. Fortunately, not an unsolvable one.

Michael offered me the use of an oversized city block that they had already cleared of ruins. It was, barely, big enough, although still in the open.

I had an idea of how to fix that though. I decided to revisit the old technology of the plasma window.

Yes, the plasma window was intended to separate a vacuum from an atmosphere, and still be permeable, and here there would be an atmosphere on both sides.

But I was not working with plasma either, nor a magnetic field to suspend it in. Instead, I designed a dome of gravity, in which I would suspend water. Making the water turbulent enough would blur everything on the other side, and it would be firm enough to stop every weather phenomenon less destructive than heavy hail.

I decided to use a bigger NADA, on location to build the constructor. Nothing too big, just 25x25x25m.

That alone would take me a week to build, but it would significantly accelerate the overall construction.

I also started a 550GW fusactor for the building place. Overkill? Sure, but anything smaller would not be much cheaper, and I would have to design it first. Something I was not in the mood for. The fusactor needed another 4 days to build.

That only left the molecular forge. I could take a commercial product, but that would slow down construction, so I built one of the new designs the Minions had come up with.

Fortunately, thanks to having several NADAs at my disposal, I could build all of them at the same time. The big NADA was the time hog though.

Now I had something new to do. I needed to learn structural engineering. I knew the basics, of course, but if I wanted to have my new buildings structurally sound, and as protected as the fortress, I needed to do better.

Fortunately, much of what I had to learn for this was something that I had learned in other disciplines already, so I planned for three to four days to get it done.

And so it came that I was in my studies when I got a message from Michael. He said something about a minor emergency and wanted to meet in VR. Fun, I know, but what can you do?

The viron was a bog standard office scenario, where I found Michael and Naveen waiting for me. Michael immediately came to the point:

“Good to see you. We have a problem. Somebody ‘appropriated’ Dr. Frederic Pearson, one of Jessi’s doctors. Specialist for the new cyberware.”

I frowned.

“That is… awful, but why are you talking to me?”

Naveen shook his head and sighed.

“I am sure they are trying to pick his brains for real, but we have a couple of Lachesis on him. It seems it is a trap to test our resources, and probably humiliate us.”

I cocked my head, and he continued:

“They have a, let's call it guard detail, of three persons in Do̅-maru power armor, as well as eight ‘people’ we tentatively identified as cyber zombies. Aided by a dozen fighters with heavy body armor.”

“Do̅-maru? That is Kawamoto, right? But again… why are you talking to me?”

Michael sighed.

“We want to hire Mark Holt to go in with a team of Einherjar and clean them out.”

I raised my hands helplessly.

“OK, that is cool, but… why are you talking to me? Mark is his own person. You should be talking to him.”

Naveen placed his hands on the small of his back and raised an eyebrow.

“We want you to ask him.”

What? Seriously? I rolled my eyes.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I can do that, but again, why? Why do you not ask him yourself?”

Michael shook his head.

“He is your friend. If it comes from us, it comes from strangers. Sure, he is somewhat beholden to Enki, but mostly because of you.”

“He is also a mercenary. And I bet he is rearing to test out his new cybernetics. But whatever, I’ll ask him.”

While I was shaking my head dismissively, I sent a message to Mark to please come into VR, and he appeared a couple of seconds later.

“Hey Red, what’s going on? Oh, hi Mike, Nav. What can I help you with?”

I shook my head again and pointed to Michael and Naveen.

“Those two want to hire you for a job, but are too much chicken to ask you themselves.”

Mark narrowed his eyes and looked from me to Michael, then to Naveen, before he asked:

“A job? What kind? And with whom?”

Naveen pulled up a display, showing a picture of a middle-aged African American man.

“This is Dr. Frederic Pearson.”

“Yeah, I know Doc P. He was one of the blokes that worked with me on my combat body. What’s wrong with him?”

“He was been kidnapped. And we want you to get him back.”

Mark looked at the picture for a moment and then turned to Naveen.

“I am not against doing it, but I need more info. Why me? And why are the others of my team not here as well?”

Michael sighed.

“We want to hire only you to do it. We don’t think it would be survivable for the others.”

“Why that? And you want me to go in alone? For real?”

Naveen shook his head, and a wireframe of a building appeared.

“Not alone. We will send a platoon of Einherjar with you. And we think it is too dangerous for the others because this seems like a mouse trap from Kawamoto.”

Eight orange dots appeared in the wireframe.

“We have tentatively identified those as cyber zombies. A bit tougher than a normal human, but several times faster and stronger. They feel no pain and are completely ruthless. Normally, one of our Einherjar should be enough to go against one of them. But they are not alone.”

A trio of red dots appeared in the diagram.

“Those are operators in Do̅-maru power armor. Kawamoto frontline tech. Only a handful of corporations and organizations can buy them. Nothing the Einherjar carry as weapons can take one out cleanly without endangering Dr. Pearson.”

Naveen projected a diagram of the armor beside the wireframe.

“It has 4-6cm carbon composite armor. Essentially the same as a modern infantry fighting vehicle. The monomolecular blades of the Einherjar can damage it, but not fast enough to negate them reliably.

You on the other hand, your combat body is an Einherjar in big, strong, and tough. Your blades should be enough to kill one of them in a couple of seconds.”

Mark looked at the armor and then grinned.

“I don’t need blades for that.”

Naveen furrowed his brows.

“What do you mean?”

As an answer, Mark just smiled and a big hunking gun appeared in front of him.

“I will use that.”

The humungous weapon made Naveen frown harder.

“What the hell is that?”

Mark just smiled harder.

“I call this the MH-15. Or Exterminator. I knew that I would get a super strong cyborg body for months now. I designed this little girl for this situation.”

Then he grew into his combat body and grabbed the gun. I… nearly logged out then and there, but this was my world, I had the power here. Instead I… resized him in my perception.

“I wanted something with extreme power. And I hoped that Viv would crack the problem with the reflex booster, giving me the speed beyond what mere mortals can even dream of.

So I designed this baby to fire as fast as I can pull the trigger. In theory, around 2500 rounds per minute, though I won’t manage that.

It fires a 15x175mm caseless round, with nearly 43,000 feet-pound of energy. It is a bullpup design with the magazine on top of and parallel to the barrel. It uses a rotary bolt that I modified from the G-11 project.

The ammunition is armor-piercing, incendiary, and explosive, inspired by the Raufoss Mk. 211.

They will reduce the power armor to death traps, as they keep the explosion, the fire, and the shrapnel trapped inside.”

While he was saying that, he was petting his gun lovingly, though Naveen did not seem that impressed.

“Caseless? 2500 rounds per minute? This thing will overheat in seconds.”

Mark just shook his head.

“Nope. The 25-shot magazine has a container of liquid nitrogen that is used to cool the barrel and the action. I’ve had some of your engineers go over it a few times. It’s not pretty, but it’s deadly.”

Michael moved a bit closer and looked at the monster of a rifle.

“That should do for the goons in power armor, but it would be a bit overkill for the zombies and the standard goons.”

“For them, I have a 9.7mm Thunderwarrior like you use for the Einherjar. Well, two of them, with the smart gun interface I can both at the same time.”

Yeah, it seemed as if Mark was quite eager to go against those goons.

“Can you give me an overview of the area?”

While Naveen nodded, the wireframe zoomed out and turned into a full building, and then surrounded by other buildings.

It still showed the guards on the outside.

Mark walked around the projection a few times, and then pointed at one of the doors, with a guard in front.

“There! This is where I’ll go in. Can you guys take out the cameras?”

“The cameras are no problem. We already have a few Clothos in the loop. But are you sure about going in there? The only approach is from this alley. The guard will see you long before you can reach him.”

“Would be no problem with the smart gun, but I won’t come in from the alley. Think vertical.”

With that, Mark pointed at the roof of one of the neighboring buildings.

“I’ll jump down from there, use my claws. No sound, and he will be down before he even realizes he is dead.”

Michael frowned.

“That is what? 50 feet?”

“Yeah, looks like it. But no problem. The combat body can take that easily. And with the sneak mode, the guard falling down will be louder than me landing. Only one problem, though. How do you plan to get me there?”

“Two options. Either we use one of our freight skimmers, or maybe Vivian lends us the Carnotaur.”

I frowned at that.

“The Carnotaur is kinda obvious. If you want a stealthy approach, maybe you should try the cargo skimmer.”

“Nah, the Carnotaur can land a couple of blocks away. That will allow Mark and the Einherjar to move into position.”

After a moment, I shrugged.

“Ok, fine with me. But you have to ask Lt. Thomson about it. I don’t control it directly.”

“We will. Now, Mark, how much preparation do you need?”

Mark rubbed his chin and looked at the projection.

“I would like to go over my weapons a last time to make sure they are perfect. So, half an hour?”

“That is fine. We have to move the Einherjar to the fortress anyway.”