Chapter Fifty-One - Fashioning a Home

“There has been a noticeable shift in style and fashion. Not to say that fashion wasn’t changing rapidly already. By the mid-2000s, international communication, the internet, and the easing of travel restrictions allowed fashion from different cultures to come together and be mixed, occasionally homogenized, and often brought to extremes.

Now, this shifting has become so rapid that to stay on top of the latest trends means keeping a constant eye on the fashion feeds and paparazzi rags. A trend can start, flourish, and die in the space of an afternoon.”

--Fa-Fa-Fashionista, On The Evolution of Trends, 2057

***

I walked over to the other side of the display and leaned forwards to look at the wire-mesh interior. It showed most of the museum--and we’d have to find a better name for our new home soon--in red, with a few sections in green.

Myalis had determined that all of the red sections would need to be replaced and reconfigured sometime soon, preferably before anyone moved in.

“So, this is the final floor plan?” Lucy asked.

I nodded along. “Yeah, I think so,” I said.

The floor plan gave us ten double bedrooms, good enough for a pair of kittens each, two bigger dorm-style rooms with a few beds in them for any newcomers, and a master bedroom one corridor over. Not too far that we couldn’t run over, but not right next to the kittens either.

The main museum area would be split into a kitchen and dining space, a playroom that was frankly absurdly large, and another little area that could serve as an office or library of sorts for the quieter kittens.

We had one bathroom for every two rooms, with showers in each, and a smaller washroom next to the kitchen. The old vault was right where our bedroom would be, with the rear half of it marked to be replaced by a small armoury where I could store stuff.

The outside wasn’t going to be touched much. We’d hire someone to remove all the ads and signs and such, and maybe we’d add a carport over the parking space for... well, we’d have to buy a van or something. I’d pick whichever old beater would give Gomorrah the biggest headache.

Lucy nodded. “I like it. We’ll have to see about getting nice furniture too.”

“I think we can afford that,” I said before glancing to the side. We had brought over the Dumbasses, both to guard the museum, and to allow us to better communicate with Myalis. It was one of the drones that was projecting the image of the building’s wireframe, and another was sitting nearby, waiting patiently. “Have you found any reliable contractors yet?”

“I have,” Myalis said. “From looking into their records, I have found three suitably accredited teams with overlapping specialties. I would suggest hiring all three.”

“All three?” I repeated.

“Indeed. One has done satisfactory plumbing work on past installations, another has an entire team of electricians, and the final construction company has experience working with both Vanguards, and glass-fronted skyscrapers. The other two lack experience in both.”

“Ah,” I said. So hiring specialists to do the specialist-requiring... stuff. I was so far out of my depth... “That sounds reasonable. Do you have an idea of their price range?”

“Seven, nine, and twelve million credits, respectively. That’s not including the entirety of the material cost, but I’m assuming some of that will be defrayed by the use of Vanguard-grade materials.”

I held back a wince. That was... twenty-eight million? An insane amount of money. “So, for the materials, we can’t build this whole place with samurai-grade stuff, it’ll take way too many points.”

“That is accurate,” Myalis said. “To purchase enough material directly to rebuild this entire area would cost--assuming you want to purchase quality materials--something close to nine thousand points.”

That was a lot lower than I’d guesstimated. “That’s just normal materials, or fancier stuff?”

“Materials that are of a higher quality than commercially available, of course. Glass that can resist temperatures high enough not to melt on contact with your local sun and able to resist considerable impacts, hardened plates for the walls and floors and ceilings, doors that read a person’s bio-signature, temperature regulating systems, and a few more commodities of that sort.”

“Fancy,” I said.

“Standard for a Vanguard’s abode,” was Myalis’ reply.

“Sounds nice, but kind of expensive,” Lucy said.

The Dumbass Myalis was speaking out of shifted, and the wire-frame of the museum changed to a hovering image of some sort of confusing machine. It looked like it was the size of a minivan, with a large hopper on one side and a large screen on the other. “This is a Mark Two Creation Engine. It takes in raw materials, sorts them by their atomic structure, then fabricates any needed material, components, or items.”

“Oh!” Lucy said. “I’ve seen something like that! It’s a big fancy printer. You toss stuff in, and it makes stuff out of it. They have them in some of the really fancy arcologies.”

“Where’d you see that?” I asked.

“Media feed,” was her quick reply. “How much will that cost, Myalis?”

“Aren’t I the one supposed to ask that?”

Myalis bobbed the Dumbass up and down. “The first tier catalogue--matter reconfiguration machines, will cost a mere seventy-five points. The second tier costs one of your tokens, as well as an additional four hundred points. The device itself will cost two-thousand six-hundred points.”

“Yikes,” I said. “But I can make anything with it, right?”

“Not quite. The device defaults to allowing you to only make anything from a blue-print you have purchased, as well as a host of items that would be considered tier-zero. That is, items that require no catalogue to make, such as simple tools and basic materials. That extends to things such as cement mixtures, metal structures, glass panels, and other such devices. Basically, it would allow the contractors to make all the materials they need.”

I crossed my arms and thought about it. It was a damned big purchase. At the same time, if I got blueprints in the future, which were usually a bit cheaper than outright buying something, I could have... basically infinite stuff from those blueprints. Bullets and ammo and things that I’d be reusing a lot were a no-brainer. I’d recover those three-thousand points in... well, last time I’d spent maybe a hundred points in all on ammo, so in thirty more incursions.

That didn’t quite seem worth it. But I could also get guns and maybe it could be used to make stuff the kittens would need. If I died out in the field, Lucy could use the machine to mass produce things. Maybe. “Anyone can use it, then?” I asked.

“Anyone you whitelist. I can monitor the machine and only allow the contractors to pull materials they need.”

“And can you whitelist Lucy and the kittens?”

Myalis bobbed the Dumbass up and down. “That can easily be done. Perhaps a ban on the purchase of weapons for the children.”

“That’s reasonable,” I said. I opened a text file and sent a message to Myalis. Can it run even after I die?

Are you worried about your charges being able to care for themselves? In either case, yes, it can. I will ensure that Lucy and your kittens are always whitelisted by your security protocols, even if you die.

“That sounds cool. Maybe we can place it where the armoury would be?”

“We’ll need another way to get to it, then,” Lucy said. “We don’t need people walking through the bedroom just to get a hammer or whatever.”

“We can add a door to the armoury linking back to the main room.”

“Shall we continue with the purchase then?” Myalis asked.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” I said. “Let’s...” I looked around, we were still in the main museum room. “Let’s move over to where the armoury will be, that way we won’t have to move anything. Also, we’ll have a bunch of cash left over, right?”

“A significant amount, though less than half your initial amount.”

“Right, let’s set some of that aside for decorations and furniture and stuff. We’ll need tables and chairs and... wait, we can just fabricate those, right?”

“With the correct blueprints, yes.”

I rubbed at my nose. That was annoying. “It’ll probably be cheaper to just buy normal things then. Don’t need to get a blueprint for a dozen beds.”

“Not even our bed?” Lucy asked.

I considered that. A samurai bed... “Okay, so we get one bed, but the kittens can sleep on whatever we can afford for a few million.”

“Speaking of monetary concerns, the list of requests from companies who sold you this location has come in.”

“Oh? Can I see it?”

Myalis connected with my augs and I soon had a list hovering before one eye.

“Nearly all blueprints, which, alright, and... lots of decoy stuff.”

“From the bickering I was listening in on, it seems that some companies came together and desperately wanted to buy a clothing fabricator system. I suspect you might cause a bit of a fluctuation in some global markets. Congratulations.”

“Wonderful.”

***