The gate of the garage slammed shut with a startling crash, making us all jump a bit in our seats.
It took a few seconds before Ryan sighed and opened the door, helping me out afterward. I on the other hand hissed when I said hello to my old friend the pain in my hip. The short time sitting in the skimmer had made it worse still.
Still, I managed to limb along without using the wheelchair. My HUD told me that it was just a bit of leftover damage from the bruise, and it would be better in a few minutes, but my hip was trying to tell me that somebody had planted an explosive in it, or so it seemed to me at least.
Justin moved beside me and offered me his hand.
“I thought your leg was better. What happened?”
“Six flights of stairs happened. It is nothing too bad, just a bit painful for some time.”
I somehow made it to the cafeteria and sat down, much faster than my hip liked. I also gestured for Justin and Ryan to sit down.
“Would it be useful in any way to worry about what has gone wrong?” Justin shrugged.
“Not really no. We got our orders to keep you alive. The boss said he will send additional men to help guard this place. But I have no clue why. Are there any installations coming up in the next few days?”
I had to look it up.
“The old fusactors are slated for dismantling next week. But other than that, not really. The new algae tanks and the purifier are already here and need to be set up, but I wanted to use the bots for that anyway. Why?”
“Because the boss said we have to consider us under siege. That means no one we don’t know gets in. I don’t know how long this situation will last, but it could be that you have to postpone it.”
I sighed, considering the possible problems we could get. Sure, the Wiltons were shut down since the first two Yasoshis had been installed. No need to rely on these timebombs.
“That would be unfortunate. Is there anything else we need to prepare?”
They looked at each other, and Justin nodded.
“Yes, nobody leaves the building until we have green light.”
I was just starting to agree when Christine came into the room.
“Hey, what the fuck was that? Why the hell have you lit out of here like your ass was on fire?” She punctuated every word with a jab to Justin’s sternum.
Justin in turn lifted his hands in surrender.
“Sorry Chrissy, but the boss called. Had me get Kitten and Ryan back here as fast as can. Said something about life and death. So that is what I did.” That took the wind out of her sails, and she sat down on the next chair.
“For real? Fuck, what the hell happened?”
“We were just discussing that. The conclusion is we have no clue. Something spooked Mr. Walker and he decided that I should be somewhere else as soon as possible.
And honestly, if somebody like Mr. Walker is spooked, I try to be somewhere else too.
So here I am, thanks to Justin’s quick reaction. But we have another problem. Apparently, Mr. Walker expects further troubles. Could I trouble you to get the others into a meeting? Thank you.”
It took Christine only a couple of minutes to assemble the cast, and when all were seated the questions began anew and were answered just as fast, and unsatisfying as earlier.
But they accepted that we simply did not know what was wrong. Then I brought up the possible siege and asked what we would need.
Food and water were provided, even if we just used the old systems. Unless whoever would attack us had a heavy weapon it was unlikely, but not impossible, for them to gain entrance to the fortress. I had the security system collate a status report of the various emplaced weapons.
Mark promised to look over it but brought up the possible lack of ammunition. Understandable as they had not planned for a new base and were, like me in the moving-in phase. But that was a problem easily solved. Sure, it would cost money, but that’s what money is for.
Then the question got to a possible aerial attack.
At this time we had nothing to defend against one with. And as good as the passive defenses were, the roof was our weak spot. Mark proposed to put somebody with a MANPAD there.
It seems I was the only one not knowing what he was talking about, as the others began to weigh the pros and cons of the idea. The biggest con was that whoever we put up there was extremely vulnerable. At that point I had to ask.
“Sorry to interrupt, but what is this MANPAD?” After a moment of silence it was Natalie who gave me the answer.
“A MANPAD is a man-portable air defense system. Essentially a small rocket launcher that fires an anti-air missile. They are one-shot though, so after each shot the person has to get a new launcher, and if there are two attackers he will be in deep shit.”
I nodded at that.
“So the idea is to use anti-air weaponry? Then why not use rail gun emplacements? I mean, I have the plans for an older generation of CDF anti-air rail guns, and we have this nice industrial fabber that should be able to pump one out in a couple of hours.”
They looked at each other.
“Yeah, that would be good. And until we have them we should put a couple with MANPADS on the roof. What do you need to make them?”
“I have everything I need. It is basically carbon and a little bit of other materials. I have enough for…” I connected with the fabber and looked up the resource levels… “12 railguns, complete with radar and optical guidance system.
That is enough to kill a grav destroyer in one salvo. The only problem is that with only 2 of the new fusactors installed we won’t have enough energy to power 12 railguns and everything else. But I don’t think we will miss the use of the industrial fabber during an assault.”
Mark cleared his throat.
“Is the number with ammunition or without? If without, where do we get ammo for them?”
Oops, yes, that was dumb of me. “You are right. Depending on ammunition, if we expect 1000 shots per rail gun we can build 10. With 8 to build we can have around 10k. We also could order more carbon. If we order ammo for your regular guns we can get that too.”
“And how accurate will they be. Can we zero them?”
My expression must have been questioning, as he continued.
“I mean, how do we make sure they hit what we want them to hit.”
“Oh… maybe… no… yes, that would work. We could use the household fabber to make remote-controlled drones for targeting. “
The others nodded before Mark changed the topic.
“Can they also be used against infantry?” It took me a few moments to compute what he had asked. Then I needed a few moments more to realize that he was serious.
“Mark, these things are designed to go through the armor of a grav destroyer.
The projectiles are high hypersonic. If you can hit a person, then yes, they can be used against them, but you will likely destroy the building behind the target as well. Or the ground. At low power, we can consider using them against a vehicle. But only a relatively big one. And armored if possible. But persons… no, simply no.”
“Ok, can they be mounted in a way that they can shoot at the parking lot and the street from the roof?”
I had absolutely no idea about that but it took me only a moment to look it up. Sadly unsuccessfully.
“I have no idea. What value do you need?”
“We need the vertical adjustment range.”
That I could find.
“All right, that is -60° to +85°.”
Mark took a double-take.
“Wow, that is pretty good. What are the laying speeds?”
“Lateral is 0.1°/s to 80°/s, vertical is 0.1 to 60°”
“And that thing is an older generation? What the hell do the actual generation guns do?”
“As far as I know, the difference is mostly in the fire control. Something about target acquisition, anti-stealth, and some other things I honestly am not really interested in. The actual gun has been the same for somewhere around 40 or 50 years as far as I know.”
“Anyway, even at these impressive ranges, it won’t cover the parking lot from the roof. We can reach the street though. I would say we place 4 of them on the roof, one on each corner, and put one each beside the entries in case they bring a vehicle with heavy weapons. I assume that there is a way to armor them from the front?”
“Yes, sure, but if we armor all of them we will need more carbon.”
“No, only the two on the ground level. They are remote-operated, aren’t they?”
I could only nod.
“Well, then, we would need 6 of them. How long will it take? And in what order will we set them up?”
In the discussion that followed my only contribution was how long it would take to build the guns, and the ammo for them, two hours per gun and 30 minutes per 1000 shots of ammo.
They decided to make one gun, then 1000 shots, then the other 5 guns, and then the rest of the rounds. And to place one on the roof first, and then the one to the side of the main entrance, overlooking the parking space.
Additionally, Justin offered to have the other men bring more ammo and carbon.
Having the plans complete we all switched our attention to what we needed to do immediately.
For me, that was spinning up the industrial fabber to make the first two railguns. Fortunately, I did not need to stand up to do it. While I remotely supervised the spin-up, I started the NADA by making a few batches of seed stock. I silently cursed the circumstances that would delay the first real use of it indeterminately.
Still, it would allow me to build a few additional nano fabs. If I used metal instead of carbon for the structural parts I could even use it now… of course, I could also make rail gun rounds from the metal… no, I did not think we needed that. The nano fabs were a higher priority.
I nearly forgot to get a local com number but remembered it, fortunately. I send it to Mr. Walker immediately, and then to the people here in the fortress.
After that, I was more or less without a pressing matter and began to think seriously about what I needed to do to make the bio sheathing economically viable.
In the end I had to face facts. I needed to learn bioengineering to adapt the cloning process to the sheathing process.
In a way, I had known that it would come to that when I tested the first iteration of the bioreactor, but I was not particularly interested in the whole biotech thematic.
But I finally had to bite the bullet. And I could not even do it leisurely at a slow pace. I needed the knowledge yesterday, if not sooner. S
o with great reluctance, I tasked the cluster to download all course material and virtual classrooms for bioengineering from UWS.
While I waited for the download to finish, or to be honest, while I tried to do anything but learn bioengineering, I designed a basic 8th gen nano fab.
That was a straightforward job, as I only needed to dumb down one of the first design iterations I had made for my nano fab.
I send that to the industrial fabber as well and had 6 of them build in between the electronics for the guns. Deciding I could procrastinate even longer I designed a basic 6th gen nano fab.
I started with an open-source 6th gen from the commonwealth but cleaned up the design.
Sure, it was never going to win any innovation prizes but it was cheap to build and effective.
The 10th gen open source nano bot library was easily compiled, but I redesigned the seed stock nanos to make them a bit more effective.
The next step required a bit of finesse, though. I had not enough penetration into the US to superspam all the needed recipients through the cluster without burning too many bridges, in this case literally.
I needed to create new bridges and to do that I needed more Q-links that I could seed among the east coast. Or… of course, that was the elegant solution. I would stash the data files as well as a compilation of what Ralcon or Enertech nanos could be used as seed stock and links to a few nanite traders in the Commonwealth at a few places, and then offer a bounty for every forced recipient of the files on the east coast in the dark web.
Two deep creds per recipient should be enough but only if it did not land in the spam filters, and only technologically affine people.
If they managed to get to owners of industrial fabbers I would pay 3 dc’s. To that effect, I moved 20 million dc into an escrow account.
But only for the first 5 to get to each recipient.
I would build the new bridges anyway as sooner or later I would need them, but not for now.
And I tweaked the spam filters here to filter that out. No point in paying $9 to get my message to me, much less $45.
On the other hand, I ran the spam filter through the cluster, so if somebody got through that he or she deserved the bounty. I also registered the designs under an open-source license.
Finally, the time had come when I could not postpone it any longer, and I had to start on the coursework.
After nearly two hours in real-time, which translated to 110 hours in VR I was eager for an interruption, and one came in form of Mr. Walker and about 20 of his men arriving. After cramming essentially a full semester of bioengineering into my head I was ready for a break. I was just glad that I could skip many of the nonsense classes, as well as basic science.
That would reduce the load from around 1800 hours prepared courses plus roughly the same for study time down to 750 hours coursework and 200 hours study time.
Or around 17 hours in real-time. But seriously, I could only take so much of that. So three days in real life it was. And if that was too long for the bosses, well that was not my problem. I had told them it would take up to a couple of years. If that is too long, then they need to get cloned replacements.
It took me a few minutes to get my mind back to the real world. Sometimes I hated it to study in full compression. It is always somewhat disorienting to come back. Urgh, 110 hours of hyperfocus are… hard, even for me.
Mr. Walker was graciously waiting for me to remove the cobwebs before he began to talk.
“Well, Kitten, the gang war you wanted to prevent? You got it anyway.”
Wait, what? All that and the gang war would happen regardless? How? Why?
“I am just glad that it is in a much smaller scope. Unfortunately, a couple of the bosses have stage 5 neural CRS, and of them, 2 are of the type that want to see the world burn.
If they die, then the rest of us will too, if they can arrange it. Kursalin is one of them, the other is Xie Zemin, of the Golden Jade Tong. And the one vulnerability we all have in common is you. If these two take out you, we all die.”
An android brought him a coffee, and I decided I needed one too after that bombshell. So they wanted to kill me to essentially throw over the game board. Wonderful people. After the first sip he continued.
“For the moment I am the only one of the bosses that knows where you are. That will of course not remain for much longer.
I asked Vince and two others to help us defend you. Uesugi Nagisa of the yakuza and Dobromir Kraykowski of the Bosnian mob. All three are among the CRS victims and at stage 3 or 4.
They are also what I would call the adults among us bosses. Each of them will send a few soldiers to help defend this place. I hope you agree to that, but if not, live with it.”
I could have lived without the last sentence, but the rest, I agreed with fully. Three mob bosses were infinitely better than 40.
“I can see that. And you are right, living with it is better than dying without it. Not that I am throwing a party about it.”
I looked into what of my orders had already arrived, and I found the boxed scanner. That would make some things easier, and I placed my attention on Walker again.
“If it helps, I have enough wiggle room to provide 4 additional nano therapies with my better nanobots. It will take most of the night to install the medical scanner, but then I can set up the therapy here.
So they could come Thursday to get it done if they want. I mean, sure, they can get the local nanites, get 60% of the effect and pay around $500k per week if that is what they want.
They can also use the vastly inferior 4th gen nanos Doc Schaeffer can give them. But if they are at stage 4 already they should avoid that if possible. Or they can get the nanos from Nowhere. That will probably take a week or two, so not ideal either.”
Walker smiled.
“I am sure that they speculated for something like that. Four should be enough for the time being.”
“I am also working on a little present for the Doc. Ok, calling it a present would be wrong. I have managed to make enough seed stock to slowly spin up another nano fab. I plan to use that to build a few more. Now he, and you, I assume, will have to decide what class of nano fab he will get for his clinic.”
He looked surprised.
“I thought it would take longer. Even with the industrial fabber.” Yeah, without the NADA it would take until after I had converted the heart, but I had decided that I needed another nano fab in the immediate future. Even if I sold reduced capacity seed stock or nanos through Mr. Walker, it would lessen the tensions here in NYC tremendously.
“Yes and no. I will take the slow approach. Just enough seed stock to provide basic functionality and use it to make new seed stock for itself. It will take about a week for it to be fully functional.
Afterward, it will be faster. If I had to wait before I could make the full load it would take until after your operation. Then it would take about 2 hours to make the seed stock.”
He took another sip of his coffee and nodded. “So, if I understand you right, initially you lacked the industrial fabber to make the hardware of the nano fab, and now you cannot make enough seed stock but you can compensate for that by doing a slow start-up?”
When I nodded he continued:
“And now you want to talk about what the capabilities of the nano fab you want to sell the clinic will have? What are the options?”
“The options are the basic capabilities of the controller, the ability to support OS extensions, the storage capacities of the tanks for the nano fab itself. In essence, it defines how many seed stock nanites can be used to build new nano bots at one time and the versatility of the nanos that can be produced. These go from pretty basic, what I offered Mr. Luciani, for 250 grand, up to what I have here.
To explain the difference, the half-liter bottle of nano bots I produced for your therapy did take me a bit under 30 minutes to make. The budget version would take the same nanos, the same amount roughly 1-2 hours with the same quality of seed stock.
If it actually could make them that is.
I used the best nano bots I have the schemata for. Extremely versatile, they can even be used as emergency seed stock in enough quantities.
The budget fab won’t have the control capabilities to make them, regardless of the seed stock.
The next option is what quality of seed stock to take. Again, the most basic version is what will cost you 100 grand in Nowhere. The quality varies on how many orders the nano bots can follow. Fewer orders mean more work for the controller of the fab.”
My coffee had been placed in front of me in the meantime, and I took the first sip. I was just thankful that the self-declared gods had not removed our ability to drink coffee as well.
“To make it short, better quality seed stock translates into faster fab. The same example, with my fab and the cheap stock it would have taken a bit less than 3 hours to make the therapy for you. With the budget fab, it would be somewhere around 3-4 hours.
The last option is the bot library. At this time there are no open-source 12th gen schemata, and last time I looked there were a whole 3 11th gen available.
Accordingly, you will need to buy schemata.
Again, most basic we get something around $2.5 million. These would not include the nanites I used for you. The best option in the budget would have reduced your chances to survive until the operation by 5% I would estimate. Also not included would be seed stock schemata. Better libraries cost, obviously, more.”
He looked at me for a few moments in silence, drinking his coffee before he answered me.
“I understand. So what are the price ranges, and what would you suggest?”
“Ok, for the basic system, as the Doc does not need the full functionality my nano fab has.
That would cost around $25 million to buy, and $250 million to get the plans, for most.
For you, I would go down to half that, but what I would suggest is something powerful enough to build any designs you can get, in a reasonable amount of time.
I have a design for something like that, that I would have just to finish. I abandoned that design when I decided to upsize my nano fab to the speed and capabilities it has now, so it is a good design. It would cost you $600.000 for me to build the fab and $1.5 million to get the plans. Everybody else will have to pay twice that.
For the seed stock, while I would always suggest getting the best available, I can understand budget constraints.
The best I have would cost you $5 million to get, and $16 million for the plans. For something that I think is enough for what the doc needs you will need to pay 500 grand and $5 million for the schemata. But unless you replace the seed stock you will never get more performance out of the fab.
Lastly the library.
The nanites I used for you, well, the plans would cost somewhere around $20 million, for nearly everybody.
As they are my design you can have them for less, so let’s say $5 million, but honestly, I doubt the Doc will need them any time soon, if at all.
Neither will you.
I offer you my complete basic library that does not include the bleeding edge designs for $5 million.
That would include the seed stock, albeit the most basic one I have, and nobody else would get it at all. This library has a nano bot design that is equally suitable for the nano therapy as the one I used for you, just simpler, cheaper and faster to make.
If I had had the time to look deeper into the situation that would have been the nanites you’ve gotten, but I had simultaneously not the time to do the research and it would have changed nothing timewise for me to use the more specialized design.
As it is, I decided to err on the side of caution and chose my most versatile, and complicated design.”
He placed his empty cup on the table.
“So your suggestion would be a fab that you would cost me 6.6 million dollars for the low-cost option and 11.1 million for the fully powered if you build it for me and we would get it as is, or 11.5 million dollars or 22.5 million respectively if I wanted to build more of them. And that to get a nano fab equally as capable as yours would cost me $28 million to own and $151 million to build more of, correct?”
“Not quite, to get a nano fab equally capable as mine you would need more than the one schema of high-end nanos. Keep in mind that you most likely will never need that but it would cost you around $150 million to me just for the library if I would agree to sell all of them and another $200 million to other nano-engineers.
But unlike me, you simply have absolutely no need for that. But the rest, yes, that is correct.”
He tapped his lips with his right index finger while he considered the options.
“I assume that if I were to request prices from the Commonwealth I would pay substantially more than that?”
“That depends. For the same performance, yes. What I can’t predict is what somebody else thinks would be ideal for you. And you would not, under any circumstances get a complete, if basic, library including seed stock designs for under $50 million.”
“Yes, I thought something like that. You are not doing that for the money anyway.” Wait, what? How did he get that idea?
“I think the version with the best seed stock to buy is what I take. So $11.1 million. When can I expect delivery?”
Now it was on me to think a bit.
“At the moment the fabber is busy making air defense guns for us, so it will be until tomorrow afternoon before I can start on my new nano fab, then a week… I would say Thursday next week if nothing goes wrong.”
The gate of the garage slammed shut with a startling crash, making us all jump a bit in our seats.
It took a few seconds before Ryan sighed and opened the door, helping me out afterward. I on the other hand hissed when I said hello to my old friend the pain in my hip. The short time sitting in the skimmer had made it worse still.
Still, I managed to limb along without using the wheelchair. My HUD told me that it was just a bit of leftover damage from the bruise, and it would be better in a few minutes, but my hip was trying to tell me that somebody had planted an explosive in it, or so it seemed to me at least.
Justin moved beside me and offered me his hand.
“I thought your leg was better. What happened?”
“Six flights of stairs happened. It is nothing too bad, just a bit painful for some time.”
I somehow made it to the cafeteria and sat down, much faster than my hip liked. I also gestured for Justin and Ryan to sit down.
“Would it be useful in any way to worry about what has gone wrong?” Justin shrugged.
“Not really no. We got our orders to keep you alive. The boss said he will send additional men to help guard this place. But I have no clue why. Are there any installations coming up in the next few days?”
I had to look it up.
“The old fusactors are slated for dismantling next week. But other than that, not really. The new algae tanks and the purifier are already here and need to be set up, but I wanted to use the bots for that anyway. Why?”
“Because the boss said we have to consider us under siege. That means no one we don’t know gets in. I don’t know how long this situation will last, but it could be that you have to postpone it.”
I sighed, considering the possible problems we could get. Sure, the Wiltons were shut down since the first two Yasoshis had been installed. No need to rely on these timebombs.
“That would be unfortunate. Is there anything else we need to prepare?”
They looked at each other, and Justin nodded.
“Yes, nobody leaves the building until we have green light.”
I was just starting to agree when Christine came into the room.
“Hey, what the fuck was that? Why the hell have you lit out of here like your ass was on fire?” She punctuated every word with a jab to Justin’s sternum.
Justin in turn lifted his hands in surrender.
“Sorry Chrissy, but the boss called. Had me get Kitten and Ryan back here as fast as can. Said something about life and death. So that is what I did.” That took the wind out of her sails, and she sat down on the next chair.
“For real? Fuck, what the hell happened?”
“We were just discussing that. The conclusion is we have no clue. Something spooked Mr. Walker and he decided that I should be somewhere else as soon as possible.
And honestly, if somebody like Mr. Walker is spooked, I try to be somewhere else too.
So here I am, thanks to Justin’s quick reaction. But we have another problem. Apparently, Mr. Walker expects further troubles. Could I trouble you to get the others into a meeting? Thank you.”
It took Christine only a couple of minutes to assemble the cast, and when all were seated the questions began anew and were answered just as fast, and unsatisfying as earlier.
But they accepted that we simply did not know what was wrong. Then I brought up the possible siege and asked what we would need.
Food and water were provided, even if we just used the old systems. Unless whoever would attack us had a heavy weapon it was unlikely, but not impossible, for them to gain entrance to the fortress. I had the security system collate a status report of the various emplaced weapons.
Mark promised to look over it but brought up the possible lack of ammunition. Understandable as they had not planned for a new base and were, like me in the moving-in phase. But that was a problem easily solved. Sure, it would cost money, but that’s what money is for.
Then the question got to a possible aerial attack.
At this time we had nothing to defend against one with. And as good as the passive defenses were, the roof was our weak spot. Mark proposed to put somebody with a MANPAD there.
It seems I was the only one not knowing what he was talking about, as the others began to weigh the pros and cons of the idea. The biggest con was that whoever we put up there was extremely vulnerable. At that point I had to ask.
“Sorry to interrupt, but what is this MANPAD?” After a moment of silence it was Natalie who gave me the answer.
“A MANPAD is a man-portable air defense system. Essentially a small rocket launcher that fires an anti-air missile. They are one-shot though, so after each shot the person has to get a new launcher, and if there are two attackers he will be in deep shit.”
I nodded at that.
“So the idea is to use anti-air weaponry? Then why not use rail gun emplacements? I mean, I have the plans for an older generation of CDF anti-air rail guns, and we have this nice industrial fabber that should be able to pump one out in a couple of hours.”
They looked at each other.
“Yeah, that would be good. And until we have them we should put a couple with MANPADS on the roof. What do you need to make them?”
“I have everything I need. It is basically carbon and a little bit of other materials. I have enough for…” I connected with the fabber and looked up the resource levels… “12 railguns, complete with radar and optical guidance system.
That is enough to kill a grav destroyer in one salvo. The only problem is that with only 2 of the new fusactors installed we won’t have enough energy to power 12 railguns and everything else. But I don’t think we will miss the use of the industrial fabber during an assault.”
Mark cleared his throat.
“Is the number with ammunition or without? If without, where do we get ammo for them?”
Oops, yes, that was dumb of me. “You are right. Depending on ammunition, if we expect 1000 shots per rail gun we can build 10. With 8 to build we can have around 10k. We also could order more carbon. If we order ammo for your regular guns we can get that too.”
“And how accurate will they be. Can we zero them?”
My expression must have been questioning, as he continued.
“I mean, how do we make sure they hit what we want them to hit.”
“Oh… maybe… no… yes, that would work. We could use the household fabber to make remote-controlled drones for targeting. “
The others nodded before Mark changed the topic.
“Can they also be used against infantry?” It took me a few moments to compute what he had asked. Then I needed a few moments more to realize that he was serious.
“Mark, these things are designed to go through the armor of a grav destroyer.
The projectiles are high hypersonic. If you can hit a person, then yes, they can be used against them, but you will likely destroy the building behind the target as well. Or the ground. At low power, we can consider using them against a vehicle. But only a relatively big one. And armored if possible. But persons… no, simply no.”
“Ok, can they be mounted in a way that they can shoot at the parking lot and the street from the roof?”
I had absolutely no idea about that but it took me only a moment to look it up. Sadly unsuccessfully.
“I have no idea. What value do you need?”
“We need the vertical adjustment range.”
That I could find.
“All right, that is -60° to +85°.”
Mark took a double-take.
“Wow, that is pretty good. What are the laying speeds?”
“Lateral is 0.1°/s to 80°/s, vertical is 0.1 to 60°”
“And that thing is an older generation? What the hell do the actual generation guns do?”
“As far as I know, the difference is mostly in the fire control. Something about target acquisition, anti-stealth, and some other things I honestly am not really interested in. The actual gun has been the same for somewhere around 40 or 50 years as far as I know.”
“Anyway, even at these impressive ranges, it won’t cover the parking lot from the roof. We can reach the street though. I would say we place 4 of them on the roof, one on each corner, and put one each beside the entries in case they bring a vehicle with heavy weapons. I assume that there is a way to armor them from the front?”
“Yes, sure, but if we armor all of them we will need more carbon.”
“No, only the two on the ground level. They are remote-operated, aren’t they?”
I could only nod.
“Well, then, we would need 6 of them. How long will it take? And in what order will we set them up?”
In the discussion that followed my only contribution was how long it would take to build the guns, and the ammo for them, two hours per gun and 30 minutes per 1000 shots of ammo.
They decided to make one gun, then 1000 shots, then the other 5 guns, and then the rest of the rounds. And to place one on the roof first, and then the one to the side of the main entrance, overlooking the parking space.
Additionally, Justin offered to have the other men bring more ammo and carbon.
Having the plans complete we all switched our attention to what we needed to do immediately.
For me, that was spinning up the industrial fabber to make the first two railguns. Fortunately, I did not need to stand up to do it. While I remotely supervised the spin-up, I started the NADA by making a few batches of seed stock. I silently cursed the circumstances that would delay the first real use of it indeterminately.
Still, it would allow me to build a few additional nano fabs. If I used metal instead of carbon for the structural parts I could even use it now… of course, I could also make rail gun rounds from the metal… no, I did not think we needed that. The nano fabs were a higher priority.
I nearly forgot to get a local com number but remembered it, fortunately. I send it to Mr. Walker immediately, and then to the people here in the fortress.
After that, I was more or less without a pressing matter and began to think seriously about what I needed to do to make the bio sheathing economically viable.
In the end I had to face facts. I needed to learn bioengineering to adapt the cloning process to the sheathing process.
In a way, I had known that it would come to that when I tested the first iteration of the bioreactor, but I was not particularly interested in the whole biotech thematic.
But I finally had to bite the bullet. And I could not even do it leisurely at a slow pace. I needed the knowledge yesterday, if not sooner. S
o with great reluctance, I tasked the cluster to download all course material and virtual classrooms for bioengineering from UWS.
While I waited for the download to finish, or to be honest, while I tried to do anything but learn bioengineering, I designed a basic 8th gen nano fab.
That was a straightforward job, as I only needed to dumb down one of the first design iterations I had made for my nano fab.
I send that to the industrial fabber as well and had 6 of them build in between the electronics for the guns. Deciding I could procrastinate even longer I designed a basic 6th gen nano fab.
I started with an open-source 6th gen from the commonwealth but cleaned up the design.
Sure, it was never going to win any innovation prizes but it was cheap to build and effective.
The 10th gen open source nano bot library was easily compiled, but I redesigned the seed stock nanos to make them a bit more effective.
The next step required a bit of finesse, though. I had not enough penetration into the US to superspam all the needed recipients through the cluster without burning too many bridges, in this case literally.
I needed to create new bridges and to do that I needed more Q-links that I could seed among the east coast. Or… of course, that was the elegant solution. I would stash the data files as well as a compilation of what Ralcon or Enertech nanos could be used as seed stock and links to a few nanite traders in the Commonwealth at a few places, and then offer a bounty for every forced recipient of the files on the east coast in the dark web.
Two deep creds per recipient should be enough but only if it did not land in the spam filters, and only technologically affine people.
If they managed to get to owners of industrial fabbers I would pay 3 dc’s. To that effect, I moved 20 million dc into an escrow account.
But only for the first 5 to get to each recipient.
I would build the new bridges anyway as sooner or later I would need them, but not for now.
And I tweaked the spam filters here to filter that out. No point in paying $9 to get my message to me, much less $45.
On the other hand, I ran the spam filter through the cluster, so if somebody got through that he or she deserved the bounty. I also registered the designs under an open-source license.
Finally, the time had come when I could not postpone it any longer, and I had to start on the coursework.
After nearly two hours in real-time, which translated to 110 hours in VR I was eager for an interruption, and one came in form of Mr. Walker and about 20 of his men arriving. After cramming essentially a full semester of bioengineering into my head I was ready for a break. I was just glad that I could skip many of the nonsense classes, as well as basic science.
That would reduce the load from around 1800 hours prepared courses plus roughly the same for study time down to 750 hours coursework and 200 hours study time.
Or around 17 hours in real-time. But seriously, I could only take so much of that. So three days in real life it was. And if that was too long for the bosses, well that was not my problem. I had told them it would take up to a couple of years. If that is too long, then they need to get cloned replacements.
It took me a few minutes to get my mind back to the real world. Sometimes I hated it to study in full compression. It is always somewhat disorienting to come back. Urgh, 110 hours of hyperfocus are… hard, even for me.
Mr. Walker was graciously waiting for me to remove the cobwebs before he began to talk.
“Well, Kitten, the gang war you wanted to prevent? You got it anyway.”
Wait, what? All that and the gang war would happen regardless? How? Why?
“I am just glad that it is in a much smaller scope. Unfortunately, a couple of the bosses have stage 5 neural CRS, and of them, 2 are of the type that want to see the world burn.
If they die, then the rest of us will too, if they can arrange it. Kursalin is one of them, the other is Xie Zemin, of the Golden Jade Tong. And the one vulnerability we all have in common is you. If these two take out you, we all die.”
An android brought him a coffee, and I decided I needed one too after that bombshell. So they wanted to kill me to essentially throw over the game board. Wonderful people. After the first sip he continued.
“For the moment I am the only one of the bosses that knows where you are. That will of course not remain for much longer.
I asked Vince and two others to help us defend you. Uesugi Nagisa of the yakuza and Dobromir Kraykowski of the Bosnian mob. All three are among the CRS victims and at stage 3 or 4.
They are also what I would call the adults among us bosses. Each of them will send a few soldiers to help defend this place. I hope you agree to that, but if not, live with it.”
I could have lived without the last sentence, but the rest, I agreed with fully. Three mob bosses were infinitely better than 40.
“I can see that. And you are right, living with it is better than dying without it. Not that I am throwing a party about it.”
I looked into what of my orders had already arrived, and I found the boxed scanner. That would make some things easier, and I placed my attention on Walker again.
“If it helps, I have enough wiggle room to provide 4 additional nano therapies with my better nanobots. It will take most of the night to install the medical scanner, but then I can set up the therapy here.
So they could come Thursday to get it done if they want. I mean, sure, they can get the local nanites, get 60% of the effect and pay around $500k per week if that is what they want.
They can also use the vastly inferior 4th gen nanos Doc Schaeffer can give them. But if they are at stage 4 already they should avoid that if possible. Or they can get the nanos from Nowhere. That will probably take a week or two, so not ideal either.”
Walker smiled.
“I am sure that they speculated for something like that. Four should be enough for the time being.”
“I am also working on a little present for the Doc. Ok, calling it a present would be wrong. I have managed to make enough seed stock to slowly spin up another nano fab. I plan to use that to build a few more. Now he, and you, I assume, will have to decide what class of nano fab he will get for his clinic.”
He looked surprised.
“I thought it would take longer. Even with the industrial fabber.” Yeah, without the NADA it would take until after I had converted the heart, but I had decided that I needed another nano fab in the immediate future. Even if I sold reduced capacity seed stock or nanos through Mr. Walker, it would lessen the tensions here in NYC tremendously.
“Yes and no. I will take the slow approach. Just enough seed stock to provide basic functionality and use it to make new seed stock for itself. It will take about a week for it to be fully functional.
Afterward, it will be faster. If I had to wait before I could make the full load it would take until after your operation. Then it would take about 2 hours to make the seed stock.”
He took another sip of his coffee and nodded. “So, if I understand you right, initially you lacked the industrial fabber to make the hardware of the nano fab, and now you cannot make enough seed stock but you can compensate for that by doing a slow start-up?”
When I nodded he continued:
“And now you want to talk about what the capabilities of the nano fab you want to sell the clinic will have? What are the options?”
“The options are the basic capabilities of the controller, the ability to support OS extensions, the storage capacities of the tanks for the nano fab itself. In essence, it defines how many seed stock nanites can be used to build new nano bots at one time and the versatility of the nanos that can be produced. These go from pretty basic, what I offered Mr. Luciani, for 250 grand, up to what I have here.
To explain the difference, the half-liter bottle of nano bots I produced for your therapy did take me a bit under 30 minutes to make. The budget version would take the same nanos, the same amount roughly 1-2 hours with the same quality of seed stock.
If it actually could make them that is.
I used the best nano bots I have the schemata for. Extremely versatile, they can even be used as emergency seed stock in enough quantities.
The budget fab won’t have the control capabilities to make them, regardless of the seed stock.
The next option is what quality of seed stock to take. Again, the most basic version is what will cost you 100 grand in Nowhere. The quality varies on how many orders the nano bots can follow. Fewer orders mean more work for the controller of the fab.”
My coffee had been placed in front of me in the meantime, and I took the first sip. I was just thankful that the self-declared gods had not removed our ability to drink coffee as well.
“To make it short, better quality seed stock translates into faster fab. The same example, with my fab and the cheap stock it would have taken a bit less than 3 hours to make the therapy for you. With the budget fab, it would be somewhere around 3-4 hours.
The last option is the bot library. At this time there are no open-source 12th gen schemata, and last time I looked there were a whole 3 11th gen available.
Accordingly, you will need to buy schemata.
Again, most basic we get something around $2.5 million. These would not include the nanites I used for you. The best option in the budget would have reduced your chances to survive until the operation by 5% I would estimate. Also not included would be seed stock schemata. Better libraries cost, obviously, more.”
He looked at me for a few moments in silence, drinking his coffee before he answered me.
“I understand. So what are the price ranges, and what would you suggest?”
“Ok, for the basic system, as the Doc does not need the full functionality my nano fab has.
That would cost around $25 million to buy, and $250 million to get the plans, for most.
For you, I would go down to half that, but what I would suggest is something powerful enough to build any designs you can get, in a reasonable amount of time.
I have a design for something like that, that I would have just to finish. I abandoned that design when I decided to upsize my nano fab to the speed and capabilities it has now, so it is a good design. It would cost you $600.000 for me to build the fab and $1.5 million to get the plans. Everybody else will have to pay twice that.
For the seed stock, while I would always suggest getting the best available, I can understand budget constraints.
The best I have would cost you $5 million to get, and $16 million for the plans. For something that I think is enough for what the doc needs you will need to pay 500 grand and $5 million for the schemata. But unless you replace the seed stock you will never get more performance out of the fab.
Lastly the library.
The nanites I used for you, well, the plans would cost somewhere around $20 million, for nearly everybody.
As they are my design you can have them for less, so let’s say $5 million, but honestly, I doubt the Doc will need them any time soon, if at all.
Neither will you.
I offer you my complete basic library that does not include the bleeding edge designs for $5 million.
That would include the seed stock, albeit the most basic one I have, and nobody else would get it at all. This library has a nano bot design that is equally suitable for the nano therapy as the one I used for you, just simpler, cheaper and faster to make.
If I had had the time to look deeper into the situation that would have been the nanites you’ve gotten, but I had simultaneously not the time to do the research and it would have changed nothing timewise for me to use the more specialized design.
As it is, I decided to err on the side of caution and chose my most versatile, and complicated design.”
He placed his empty cup on the table.
“So your suggestion would be a fab that you would cost me 6.6 million dollars for the low-cost option and 11.1 million for the fully powered if you build it for me and we would get it as is, or 11.5 million dollars or 22.5 million respectively if I wanted to build more of them. And that to get a nano fab equally as capable as yours would cost me $28 million to own and $151 million to build more of, correct?”
“Not quite, to get a nano fab equally capable as mine you would need more than the one schema of high-end nanos. Keep in mind that you most likely will never need that but it would cost you around $150 million to me just for the library if I would agree to sell all of them and another $200 million to other nano-engineers.
But unlike me, you simply have absolutely no need for that. But the rest, yes, that is correct.”
He tapped his lips with his right index finger while he considered the options.
“I assume that if I were to request prices from the Commonwealth I would pay substantially more than that?”
“That depends. For the same performance, yes. What I can’t predict is what somebody else thinks would be ideal for you. And you would not, under any circumstances get a complete, if basic, library including seed stock designs for under $50 million.”
“Yes, I thought something like that. You are not doing that for the money anyway.” Wait, what? How did he get that idea?
“I think the version with the best seed stock to buy is what I take. So $11.1 million. When can I expect delivery?”
Now it was on me to think a bit.
“At the moment the fabber is busy making air defense guns for us, so it will be until tomorrow afternoon before I can start on my new nano fab, then a week… I would say Thursday next week if nothing goes wrong.”
