“Master Daniel, there are guests waiting on you.” Husk had appeared just as I was Jacques and I were finalizing our plans.

Jacques naturally still had some things he needed to put in motion. He had to gather his team and set up his contingencies. He had just wanted to get my verbal agreement that I would participate in his heist. This initiation drive the cock and ball raiders were holding was supposed to commence in a week, so we had to wait anyway. That suited me anyway because I had a lot of things, I wanted to focus on at the Ascension marketplace before I could afford to leave on an expedition.

Of course, no matter where I was in the apocalyptic world, I could always return to my world with the snap of a finger. Once I was in my world, I just had to find Kiera and pull her coordinates again to return to the museum basement. Thus, no matter how far I went or how desperate the situation got, escaping and returning to my base was exceptionally easy.

This was one of the reasons I hadn’t panicked so much about bringing Kiera back home where she belonged. The second reason was that I felt kind of bad about it. She had lived such a rough life, and now she was able to live in a relatively comfortable place, eat good food, and sleep on a comfortable bed. Until I could provide her with the same things in the apocalyptic world, I was reluctant to bring her back to it.

 I knew I should feel the same for Katarina. It would have been all too easy to slap the spare Perco I had lifted from my sister onto Katarina and then bring her home with me. Well, that was if she even had the sorcery skill. I was a bit hesitant to find out. If I found out she didn’t have any ability, then there was nothing I could do and I would only end up feeling more helpless. However, even if the stars aligned and she could be moved, she had yet to experience my world, so she didn’t know how good things were. It was almost better to leave her in ignorance. That’s what I was thinking. Since I hadn’t talked to Kiera about it, it was difficult for me to say how she felt.

“I’ll be on my way then, mon amis.” Jacques stood up fluidly like he had been expecting the interruption from the beginning. “Remember to meet me at the agreed place next Friday.”

“I will,” I responded, giving a single curt nod.

We parted ways, with Jacques exiting the building while I followed Husk up to the second floor. I didn’t ask who was waiting on me, but as we crossed the board into the museum, I quickly figured it out. When I came out onto the second-floor balcony overlooking the main showroom of the museum and saw the familiar ragtag band of merchants, I knew who had come to visit immediately.

“Tom!”

“Hoi, Daniel!” He lifted a hand, smiling.

The raiders had already fixed up the chairs and the tables for our guests. As I moved down the stairway, I could see that the men around Tom were looking around hopefully. That’s when I remembered a concession we had given them the last time Tom had come.

“Can you bring some bottles of water for our guests?” I asked the closest employee, a young raider woman in her teens.

She gave a nod, and it was only a few seconds later those two buckets of bottled water were brought out. The raiders had brought the bottled water, but they had kept it in case I forgot about it, it seemed. The raiders still had reluctant expressions on their faces. They didn’t like giving out supplies for free. To me, it was just water. I could buy a filter and fill up all of these bottles for pennies. However, seeing the excited expressions on the merchant’s faces, I started to wonder if this gimmick might be advantageous to us. Come to the Ascension marketplace and get a free bottle of water. It was worth a thought, at least.

“I caught the construction going on coming in. I have to admit I was rather shocked to see a few dozen people clearing out the street between the museum. You’ve moved forward with the plans to create a trade route?”

“I have,” I responded. “I recently came into some extra security, and I believe we can have a route to the Rink open within a month.”

“I saw that security too. I was shocked I didn’t wind up shot. The workers just waved me on. You should have those turrets set to more than just mutants though.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t be a problem,” I responded.

Normally, robots and turrets were rather dumb. On their own, they only had a handful of settings. They could be set to kill everything that moved, like the museum turrets. They could also be set to shoot at only mutants and monsters. However, calling the difference between a raider and a Wastelander was difficult. The best security systems needed to be connected to a centralized control hub, and it would often make the call based on aggression like the mall had.

I didn’t have a centralized control hub. Instead, I had a peer-2-peer network that had been set up by Cecelia. As long as the robots and turrets were within range of each other, she could control them and use them as her eyes. We could create a chain of them, and create a link of robots for some distance. Of course, if a single robot was killed, the link would be broken and we’d lose all the robots past it until I got back in range again.

As for when Cecelia left with me to another world, she had a small dummy program run. It was a copy of her subroutines just smart enough that it could monitor and control the turrets. It wasn’t as accurate or as intelligent as she was, but it did the job. It still was a concern of mine that every time I went back to Earth, the security system would become just slightly more vulnerable. That’s why I hoped to find more defenses eventually.

Tom chuckled shaking his head. “It’s almost hard to believe how well you’re doing. When you told me to pass the message onto the Mayor of the Rink, he was ecstatic, but even he wouldn’t have thought construction would have begun so quickly. If that path does open, it’ll become one of the safest routes in Argos city. I don’t see any reason why your bazaar wouldn’t thrive once it’s open.”

“That’s still a month from now,” I responded. “We need to thrive before then. Do you have anything that can help us do that?”

I didn’t want to beat around the bush with a bunch of duplicitous talks. I sat down across from Tom while his men were handed bottles of water which they eagerly and noisily drank. Tom seemed to notice their etiquette, making a helpless face.

“I apologize. My men were quite eager to make the trip again. It’s hard to say what it is, but that bottled water is especially delicious. Even the moisture collectors can’t seem to match the taste.” When he noticed that I didn’t say anything else but was instead waiting for him to answer the question, he sighed. “I’m afraid that I came based on our previous conversation, it seems that you have already fixed your personnel problem.”

“You brought slaves?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not a slaver, Mr. Daniel,” He shook his head. “However, I did make it as far as Twin Elms, and I put out a request on your behalf looking for skilled laborers. However, it seems like I’m too late. It appears you were very successful with the slave traders.”

I cleared my throat awkwardly and then leaned forward. “Um, not exactly. I’m still in need of a few people.”

The ones that had come with us from the mall weren’t my slaves, but they were simple labor. I didn’t know if any of them had particular skills. However, even if they did, they likely had their wants and desires. They were only working for me so that they could receive the safety and food after the calamity that had taken everything else. Most of them were merchants, guards, or the family of merchants and guards, so it was unlikely they had the kind of skills that I was looking for. Plus, I couldn’t even guarantee some of them might not try to leave with this very caravan, let alone stay and become a permanent member of my staff.

“I’m glad to hear that.” Tom nodded. “In that case, I was able to find you three contracts.”

“Just three?”

“Lives may be cheap, but skills can be difficult.”

I let out a breath, calming myself down. I couldn’t allow myself to get too excited before everything was finalized.

“Alright, what are the skills?”

“There are two men and one woman. They are all in debt. If you pay off their debt, then they will willingly work for you for an agreed-upon amount of time. They will even wear the collars.”

“Isn’t that slavery?”

“No, as the contract will be programmed into the collar. Essentially, after a certain number of years as agreed upon, the contract ends and they are free again.” It’s the best way Twin Elms handles debtors and low-tier criminals without resorting to slavery.

So, it was indentured servitude instead. If it made them feel better, I didn’t mind.

“Alright, what can they do?”

“One of the men is a construction engineer. He could be useful in building that tunnel.” Tom looked at me hopefully, but we had already found someone to take on that job.

This guy sounded a bit more knowledgeable than the foreman, but I could only get so excited. “Next?”

Tom gave a nod and then pulled out the next sheet of paper. “The second man is a maintenance man. He has experience maintaining fusion generators.”

“We’ll take him!” I declared and then coughed. “Ahem… the third?”

“The woman is a software programmer.”

My eyebrow quirked. “Tell me more about this programmer.”