Stepping into the front interior hall of the northern tower, it was hard not to be surprised by its design. It was a very open space, with a front desk to the left, and more open space to the right, leading towards where the elevators were. The entire space was black granite with gold highlights through the various "cracks" and seams, making the whole large room seem incredibly opulent, while somehow not looking gaudy. There was a noticeable lack of furniture or decorations, but given that the building was unfinished, that was not surprising.
It wasn't hard to imagine the places that tables, chairs, computers, plants, and more would go, spread out along the interior. There were several flower beds, already filled with dirt and watered with drip-fed tubes, just waiting to bloom and bring some color. There were also several marked-off wall spaces for pictures and paintings, which Sable explained she would have to source from artists.
"Do me a favor and try to keep it local," I said, looking around at a large flat wall with space for several pieces of art. "We are trying to send the message that we are here to help the city, so using local artists will help hammer that home."
As Sable and I followed Jackie and David further into the right side of the large first floor, we saw that the second floor was visible in the open space, with a walkway that led around the room. Further to the right was a wall of windows that overlooked the open portion of the building, the northeastern area where the mall passed under the fourth floor, all of it open to the air but protected from the elements.
"This is all going to be very impressive," Sable said, shaking her head. "I cannot wait for my office. Noah seemed to like my ideas."
"Let's just hope he didn't go too far overboard," I said, before turning to the rest of the room. "Speak of the devil…"
I spotted Noah coming down the stairs, stopping at the bottom step. After we all said hello, Noah led us up through the building, showing off some of the more interesting aspects of the structure, including where some of the amenities, like gyms, massage parlors, and restaurants would be located. These would be for the various corporations that could rent from us, for them to use at their leisure. They were all empty shells at this point, but I could see Sable's excitement when we visited the massage parlor.
"Hand massages are a godsend when you spend six or seven hours a day typing and calling people," she assured me, before actually blushing slightly when David and Jackie gave her a look. "Right. Sorry."
"It's alright, choom. Can't blame you for growing up in a different world," Jackie said with a shrug. "Jackson said it right before. There's a lot of suck going around right now in the world, where you were born just kinda changes what it looks like."
Noah led us to a temporary freight elevator around the back of the first floor, and soon we were rising, heading upwards towards the most recently completed floors. Eventually, we got out and looked around for a bit before climbing a few more flights of stairs. After four flights, we stepped out into a really unfinished floor, with walls open to the elements, and wind occasionally cutting through.
"We have completed around fifty floors so far," the short-voiced AI explained. "At our current pace, I am hoping to be finished within the next two weeks. After that, we can start furnishing the areas we are responsible for, like the ground floor, the various luxury businesses, and the hallways. Opening day won't be far after that."
"Is that the same for the southern tower?" David asked, beating me to the question.
"Just about, though we expect this tower to be complete first," Noah responded. "It has more open areas in the form of office space."
We made our way closer to the edge of the building's floor, looking out over Night City. We had a pretty good spot overlooking everything, though the real view was still two weeks away when everything was finished. Technically, the southern building would have the better view, but for now, it was still pretty impressive from where we were.
"So, at the risk of ruining a perfectly good moment, how are the business deals for selling our stuff?" I asked, giving Sable's hand a squeeze.
"Our deals are going well," she said with a smirk. "Selling Jackie and Frank's food was never going to be difficult, not with samples. Our medical equipment and the implant were a bit different. I had to point out the construction being done, the changes in Rocky Ridge, and our success in selling parts in order to get the companies to agree before we started to produce things."
"Sounds like a pain."
"It was fantastic," she said, shaking her head. "I live for moments like those, Jackson. I might hate my family, but I still carry their blood. Business is in my DNA, and I thrive in the meeting rooms, negotiating with and outmaneuvering my competitors."
"Well… I get the feeling that you're gonna get plenty of chances to have fun," I said. "Once we start pumping things out… things are going to get interesting. It's why I tried to convince David and Jackie, really anyone, to get the implant. There will absolutely be attempts on our lives eventually."
And that didn't even cover when the business conflicts turned into open conflicts. For now, violence would be most likely restricted towards gangs as we eventually pushed to clean up Night City.
Eventually, however, that would change. There was no way Arasaka, Militech, or any other large company would give up their power without a fight, and that wasn't even counting actual countries, who would likely need to be pacified as well.
"I can see the charm for your fancy interface," She admitted, tapping her lip. "I might get it eventually."
"Please do. Even if I pull off all the stops, there is only so safe I can make you guys," I admitted, giving her hand another squeeze. "Having... that, as a backup, would be a huge load off my shoulders."
We stayed for a while longer, eventually chatting with David and Jackie more as they got back from walking around the top floor. Not long after that, the sun set, and we got to watch it from an incredible vantage point. The horizon shifted into some dazzling colors, eventually fading away as we watched. When the light show was finished, we started the trek back down to the first floor. We had halted construction for long enough, and I could see Noah beginning to twitch at the shift of his no doubt tight schedule. As we reached the ground floor, leaving through the same way we came, I stopped just inside the building to give Sable a quick kiss.
"You wanna come back to the Ridge for dinner?" I asked, leaving the vault out since there was no way to know whether people were listening from a distance.
"Sounds like fun," She said, kissing me again. "You're not going to rush off to start building again?"
"Inspiration is starting to slow down a bit, so I'm done for today," I assured her. "I'll be busy tomorrow, though, and probably the day after that as well."
"I'll ask what you're working on when we get back," she said with a wink, before nodding towards the door. "C'mon, the faster we get back, the faster we can stop dancing around everything we say."
I nodded, and we both headed out of the building, making our way back to the cars. I climbed back into the driver's seat of the Warthog, and Riggs was my co-pilot this time, sitting down in the passenger seat, setting the seat back to its max size to just barely squeeze in. Jackie slapped my shoulder from behind to get my attention.
"I invited Misty, Vik, and Rebecca over for dinner, but Misty needs a ride," Jackie said. "Mind swinging by her shop?"
"Sure, no problem," I said, using my interface to message Sable and tell her. "Is she gonna mind sitting in the back?"
"Yeah, I'm not worried," He said with a chuckle.
I raised my eyebrow and looked back at him, but shrugged, pulling out of the parking space after Sable.
Twenty minutes of driving through Night City later, and I realized what he meant. Misty was more than happy in the back, laughing with excitement, and let out another whoop as we picked up speed, flying past other cars on the raised highway on the way out of the city. Not long after that, we were going even faster across the open road outside Night City, the highway mostly clear now that night had settled in. The 'Hogs headlights were more than up to the task of lighting up the road, and its powerful engine ate the drive through the badlands, all the way back to Rocky Ridge.
As we pulled into the parking garage, I let everyone off at the ground floor before driving the Warthog all the way up to the third floor, where I carefully parked the large all-terrain vehicle. Despite the fact that we had just shown it off in a significant way, its engine and other parts were still something I wanted to keep secret for now, so it needed to be secured on the third floor of the garage.
After a quick elevator ride down to the teleport hub, I dropped off my doppelganger and woke up in my bed. I took a few minutes to stretch before heading back out to Jackie's room, where everyone had already gathered.
Dinner wasn't anything too extreme, just a chicken alfredo that was undeniably delicious, even if it was simple. Jackie apologized, despite everyone loving it, as he had been a bit busy to make anything more "impressive."
When dinner was done, it was starting to get late. We had one more round, a quick dessert of strawberries, before turning in for the night. Once again, Sable stayed with me, though we didn't fall asleep right away.
The next morning, I woke up early and left a note for Sable on my pillow again, apologizing for getting my work started without saying goodbye. I had a good chunk of time before the free-fall tunnel was complete, and I could finally start working on the first set of MJOLINR armor, and starting early would let me use the most out of that time. I was going to fill that void by putting together one more starship, a properly advanced Prowler-class. I had made one already, but it originated from before the Human-Covenant war, and I knew I could make something more advanced.
As I arrived at my workshop, settling in there at first simply because it was more comfortable, since it was very unlikely that I would end up assembling the ship there, I dove back into the Halo tech tree, following the starship branch until it led to the stealth and prowler section. As I did, I came to the realization that I could reach significantly further up the chain than I thought. There were plenty of ships hidden by the fog, and I'm sure there were plenty more that I couldn't even see the outlines of, but what I could see was more impressive than I remembered.
"Glad I got a bit of time for this…" I mumbled to myself, focusing on the most advanced ship I could see.
The Winter-Class prowler was eighty-two meters long, which meant I would have to assemble it in the stadium assembler, though it was far from pushing that to its limits. This particular prowler was designed shortly after the Human-Covenant war ended, and was primarily focused on speed and stealth, with very little in the way of combat ability. I could also see that this was the lesser version of three separate iterations of the same ship. Despite that, I could already tell it would still be worth it. There were several aspects of its engines, power core, hull materials, sensors, as well as a few more minor spots that I didn't quite understand, meaning they were likely to be a noticeable improvement over what I already had.
I settled into the familiar design process, wasting no time as I transferred the designs into the computer. Every time I did this, I could feel myself getting better at the process, but it was still shocking to think of how far I had come. When I first started using the computer interface implant, transferring a normal-sized schematic used to take an hour or more. Now I was transferring out a whole eighty-meter starship in only two.
When the plans were done, I spent some time assembling things that had parts waiting from the past few days. These were smaller projects I had tucked in between larger items, as well as some of the random bits I worked on the previous day. I was basically just killing time, once again waiting for the frankly ridiculous level of production I had on hand to create a backlog so I could work uninterrupted.
Once I started, it took me a total of ten hours to assemble the decent-sized ship. It would have taken me longer, but the internal structure was actually relatively simple, and a good portion of the hull was just layers of material designed to mute any sort of detectable emissions. The actually livable, internal ship space was actually relatively small.
While I had no idea how effective the ship would have functioned against Covenant sensors, I was almost one hundred percent positive that nothing on this world would be able to see it when its stealth systems were engaged, unless it crashed into it. And even then, I wasn't sure they would be able to distinguish it from just a random chunk of space debris.
It even had color-changing panels on the surface of the hull. It was rather crude compared to some of the cloak tech I had access to, but in the depths of space, it would have done a pretty good job of keeping the ship from being spotted. I had a sneaking suspicion that some of this tech was experimental, given how sensitive and almost... hand-made, it was. A lot of the more advanced pieces of the ship lacked the shortcuts and corners that usually came with being mass-produced on a large scale, making me think these ships were meant to be put together in much smaller batches.
Though, to be fair, it could just be that ONI had a much less lenient hand when it came to cutting corners.
As I recovered from the sizable download of information I got from completing the ship, I sent a message to Samwise, asking him about the tunnel's status. According to him, they were putting the drop through its final dry runs, making sure that everything was working within parameters. He welcomed me to the control room, which was only accessible through teleport since the actual facility wasn't anywhere near the bunker, but built into a decent-sized mountain, so we wouldn't have to build so deep into the earth.
I grabbed a quick snack before making my way to the control room, stepping through one of the teleports at the hub. As I arrived, I was surprised to find not only Samwise, but a projection of Mary waiting for me. The control room itself was a simple rectangular room, built with our usual industrial paneling and interior. The far wall was covered in screens and projections, some showing a visual display of the tunnel, while others were filled with metrics. Some of them I understood, but by and large, it was a lot of information to take in.
I did find that it could link up to my implant, but I didn't want to inundate myself with information or accidentally activate something, so I held back.
"Mary, Sam, hello," I said with a smile. "How are the tests?"
"The system is running at optimal levels, well within acceptable deviations," Samwise responded confidently. "I believe all that is left is to run the injection process to test the molds and pumps."
"If you think the system is ready, by all means," I said with a nod. "This tunnel is your creation, I'm just here for the final product."
I had to bite back a smile when Samwise stood up a little straighter, clearly happy to be given the responsibility to run the project. He turned back to one of the consoles and began typing. I turned to Mary and smiled.
"How are you, Mary?" I asked. "I know it's been a bit since we talked. I've been pretty busy keeping up with this tech tree."
"I understand, I don't blame you for your work," she assured me, giving me a smile. "I have been keeping busy working on our infrastructure, working with Samwise and Noah to design the tower's mainframe, as well as the Ridges, while also getting to know everyone. It has been a fun experience."
"Everyone but me," I said. "In two days, when this tech tree is over, we can spend some time hanging out, maybe even work together on a project?"
"I believe I would like that," she responded, reaching up to adjust her glasses, despite the fact that she was a projection. "Either way, I'm here because I wanted to let you know I believe I am ready to begin scanning for potential new hires for our factories. Noah assures me they will be done within the week, and Sable was adamant that her hiring team would need time to reach out and do their own interviews, if for nothing else than to keep up appearances."
"How many people are we looking to hire off the bat?" I asked, glancing at Samwise to see if he was ready.
"Two hundred and eighteen," she responded. "That will not happen all at once, according to Sable, but over the course of a month. She predicts that by the time they finish the first hiring run, they will be looking to start a second."
"Yeah… It's hard not to be confident in how much money we will be making off our food," I said, shaking my head. "Should probably get Jackie and Frank working on the second round of releases already."
"I believe Frank is already beginning to consider the idea," Mary responded, looking down at her tablet as if it were real. "Jackie still seems to be struggling to understand that he is going to be richer than his wildest dreams very soon."
`"Yeah… he really doesn't seem to get that…"
Mary and I talked for a few minutes before Samwise said he was prepared to test the injection and activation system for the free-fall capsule. It wasn't exactly riveting to watch, the tunnel wasn't visible from the control room, and even if it was, we would only see it for a moment as it flashed by. We didn't even feel a vibration, as any sort of deviation or vibration would endanger the vast moving shuttle and potentially disturb the production of the sensitive polymer.
The creation process started with a delicate liquid solution, one that was horrifically toxic to humans, to a level that even the UNSC's advanced medical expertise was hard-pressed to completely cure exposure. This liquid was then injected around a very specific crystalline liquid substrate. The substrate mixes with the liquid and was then heated to a catalyzing temperature.
As the temperature increased, the liquid solution solidifies and bonds with the substrate under the heat. Of course, all of this occurs in zero gravity, which ensures that all crystal growth is perfectly aligned. If you were to attempt this in a gravity field, the crystals would be affected by the field and minutely misaligned, resulting in less efficient or even misdirected motion when activated. Under zero-g, the crystallization process is easy to predict mathematically, allowing perfect alignment and perfect translation of electrical stimulation into movement.
With the combination of materials, heat, and zero gravity, the result was polymerized lithium niobocene, the piezoelectric liquid crystal that is responsible for MJOLNIR's strength enhancement.
This liquid is then injected into the millions of thin capillaries that run through the MJOLNIR undersuit, where it naturally settles into place due to its precision-crafted design. Then, the suit's fine electrical field generators can make the suit's limbs move with a level of fluidity and precision that you could never really come close to with servos or hydraulics. You could come close with artificial muscles, like what I use to fine-tune the movement of my power armor, but even that's still limited.
After the test run went without a hitch, the drop was reset, and it was finally time to run the free-fall process for real. All the materials in place, the molds were filled, and the injections were carefully set into place. Once all sensors and scans were green, Samwise gave the command to drop the pod. We watched it on the screen sensor, the model of the tunnel showing how fast it was falling. As it did, another screen showed a model of the injection process, showing how much pressure and heat were being applied. I had to imagine it was mostly for show, there was no real need to show the actual 3D models of the molds or pumps that drive the injection, but I certainly respected the flare.
When the shell finished its drop, the resulting liquid was whisked away, going to a testing facility to be cleared for the hilariously and terrifyingly dangerous chemical source material, as well as to test the polymerized LiNb's alignment.
"While we wait, keep running it through," I directed, both Mary and Sam looking at me with confusion. "I trust Samwise's abilities, and we are on a time limit. Besides, even if it fails and we are making junk…?"
"Resources aren't an issue, so there's no point in holding back," Mary finished. "That's a catch we keep on missing, isn't it?"
"Don't feel bad, I do as well," I assured them. "The value of resources, the desire to not waste materials, is somewhat ingrained. I have to consistently remind myself not to worry about it."
I watched the process complete twice more before I headed down to my workshop and got to work on getting the designs for a MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor, Mark IV, out of my head and into the hands of our production.
As I had already discovered, MJOLNIR armor was really a two-part system. The inner suit was the scientific miracle, between the polymerized lithium niobocene-filled capillaries, the hydrostatic gel layer, and the control system, which was designed to hook up directly to an implant in the Spartan's brain in order to close the gap between the movement of the person and the suit to zero.
The outer armor pieces were generally just an added layer of protection. The inner layer was already pretty tough, as the outermost layer was a woven titanium composite, bulletproof up to some serious calibers and just about as fireproof as the UNSC could make it. The outer armor plates added even more protection, as well as utilities like the magnetic weapon holders. It was also where the armor's fusion reactor was, mounted in the back like a backpack. That's also where some of the suit's thickest plating happened to be.
The helmet was also pretty critical, and was flush with sensors, heads-up displays, bios links to the user's body, and more. As far as the outer suit was concerned, after the fusion generator, the helmet was the most sensitive and complicated piece of the armor.
I had a feeling that, along with a whole host of other small bits, that statement was going to change drastically once we got to the next version of the armor, which was where personal shield systems were first added.
Piece by piece, I assembled the armor, laying the different parts out on a table in my main workshop. Most of the process went by pretty quickly, though the process of "pouring" the polymerized LiNb into the armor's capillaries did take its own time. By the time I was done, a coreless ALEO unit, the base model of both Murtaugh and Riggs, had been delivered to my workshop. This particular unit was controlled by a simple, direction-following interface and was built to be slightly larger than a normal human. Instead, he was around the size of an average Spartan.
Piece by piece, I used my small-scale assembler to put the armor on the ALEO unit, who stayed stock-still in a T-pose, not flinching as I sealed him inside a large metal suit of armor. When everything was set, I cranked the fusion generator to its full-on setting and engaged the armor, only to lean back in my seat as the information washed over me, and I gained a whole new respect for everything that went into the armor.
"And this is just the first version," I muttered to myself, eventually standing up from my chair, shaking off the effects of the download.
I refocused my attention on the assembly pad, where the armored ALEO unit was still standing, locked in its pose. It looked like a proper Spartan all armored up like that, and I couldn't help but chuckle at the bubbling nostalgia in my chest. After a few moments of appreciating my work, I got to work testing the suit.
"Alright, ALEO unit. I want you to slowly and carefully set yourself in a more relaxed position," I instructed, watching as the mindless robot slowly lowered its arms and relaxed its shoulders. "Good now… slowly and carefully walk off the assembler to a clear spot on the floor."
Slowly but surely, the robot moved, walking mechanically across the floor until it was in an empty space. It then turned towards me and waited silently.
"Great… now do a full-speed jumping jack."
To say that the robot moved would be an understatement. The fully armored robot blurred, jumping and throwing its arms up before whipping them back down. It immediately stopped, settling back down into a resting position.
"Alright… Give me a damage report," I instructed. "Keep it simple, please."
"Unit experiencing damage in various servos and artificial muscle groups," It reported. "Damage minor, unit at ninety-eight percent functionality."
"Do ten jump and jacks and ten push-ups," I ordered, watching as the robot moved to obey. When it was done, I repeated the previous order to report its damage.
"Unit experience further widespread damage," it reported. "Stress fractures detected, musculature damaged, servos damaged… sixty percent functionality."
"Alright… so the standard ALEO unit can't handle it… But it's not nearly as bad as if a normal person attempted to wear it…"
I ran a few more tests, which unfortunately ended with the robot essentially pulling itself apart inside the armor as I scanned it to gather more information. When I was done, I deactivated the fusion core and sent what was left of both the armor and the robot to be rendered down. As a pair of MRVNs delivered another few tanks of polymerized LiNb, I could help but smirk.
"Alright, first one is complete… let's see about adding shields to the mix."