Three days went by in the survivors' base downhill from the military base, each day bringing its own highlight, and hope finally started to sprout among the Earthlings.
The apocalypse had left the people with personal tragedies, traumatic memories, and unhealable scars. Every day during the past five months was a relentless struggle, but this day brought something worthy of celebration: the first in almost 150 days post-apocalypse, the completion of the first living quarters.
The day the soldiers from uphill came down with a large concrete-mixer-like vehicle was the day when work on the living quarters really started. Following them, Adam Clay—the highest-ranking Earthling in the alien military—came with what seemed like a flying cargo bed with propellers that could hover above the ground. Each of the two strange vehicles was a marvel in its own right, and with them, walls started popping up, making use of both old and new concrete foundations.
The Construction Crawler was using a large robotic arm with a printing nozzle at its end to lay down the concrete into walls that started rising to the height of 25 feet per building, guaranteeing every house would have two stories at most for the time being. When the walls of each story were finished, metal decking and rebar cage reinforcements were laid to hold the new story before pouring concrete all over it to form a new floor. Windows and doors were made by installing their frames, then pouring the concrete layer.
(A/n: A real construction technology. Check this short. Of course, the one in Wartopia is way far more efficient.)
The walls of these buildings were hollow, as the printer would lay them in two layers, for reinforcement, plumbing, and power to move through before getting sealed with foamed glass insulation agents made from a mix of silicate powder and carbon compounds. Metal door frames would also be installed, aligning with the hollowed walls, in order for the sliding doors to move in and out through these dedicated door pockets.
As for the roofs, they ended up being triangular-shaped, taking a longer time to install due to the amount of temporary decks used to define them from above and below. It took two layers of insulation before getting covered with solar panels for power production mounted on insulated structural rails.
What turned into an argument, however, was urban planning done by the Titanites, which wasn't to the liking of Senator Carter, as all the buildings were consolidated together in one residential cluster, which seemed too tight for living standards and the available space everyone was working with.
The Wartopian mindset was to build high-density population zones like Silo Cities or Urban Clusters in order to easily fortify and control the population, a far cry from the American way of life outside urban zones.
The Earthlings complained about the bad use of the space surrounding them, but these voices were easily quietened when Adam explained the benefits of an Urban Cluster town, which guaranteed shorter utility runs, easier heating, and easier defense.
He also stated that if anyone wished to build outside the fortified town, they would be welcome to get a Privateer license and take their chances building their own homes, but they wouldn't be allowed to take resources that belonged to the camps, and if the military wanted to expand and they were in the way, their holdings might be seized.
While obviously tyrannical, Adam enforced this set of rules to a fair degree, as he was, to this point, feeding the people for free. However, they weren't freeloading, in a sense, as most of the group was split between construction, service, and drills to qualify for recruitment. The problem, however, was that consumption barely matched production.
By the end of the third day of construction, four two-story buildings were finished, and as the people housed in the nearby hospitals were called, the first snow finally started to fall.
Last year, this scene would usually bring joy to the residents of this world, but this year, it brought nothing but dread. Once winter hits with full force, food and energy production will plummet, and it may escalate to famine.
Moreover, no one was sure if the monsters, especially the strays and the wild Krants, would survive the winter. So far, food production was dependent on the surviving Krants from the day they attacked the base, as Flint would lead a team of recruits to patrol and hunt Krant workers, which were perfect for the Grub Processor.
During those three days, Adam was busy being the tech wizard, running around the two bases making things that needed programming and electronic knowledge. While Wrench had assembled a Hoverbarrow on day one, Adam assembled two Hoverbarrows on days two and three, the last one fully by himself.
Moreover, he installed Blazer-based heating systems with control thermostats in the four residential buildings, which consumed energy like crazy as they needed to be operated 24/7. These heating systems were his design, but he derived them from the Life Support Units blueprint, Wartopia's all-in-one survival solution for literally everything, including deep oceans and the vacuum of space.
However, there was one last building to lay down at the start of the fourth day: the Command Center for the Survivors' Base.
Shelter was necessary, but actual management and governance infrastructure were now the next priority. Some people asked to dedicate the fifth building for residential use as well, but Adam fiercely disagreed, as he needed to install a Base Computer for this base to be able to manage it from above.
The new Command Center was much smaller than anticipated by the survivors, but they noticed the pattern of building as Elena was laying down the instructions on the computer of the Construction Crawler.
From what it seemed to those who were close, Elena was putting 3D blocks together to form the shape of a building; each cube was 12 feet in dimension, and its walls were customizable to fit either a doorway, a window, or open entire sides to connect with other cubes.
This sparked a rumor on how this was so similar to a video game some of the students were familiar with, and it sparked a conversation between Adam, Senator Carter, and Professor Hendrick.
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It was midday on the fourth day of construction and the sixth day of the survivors arriving in Springhead. Most of the Men-at-Arms and Recruits were busy with the construction work; as for the few in the base, they were only Adam, Captain Creed, Yuki, Wrench, and two more recruits to act as helpers.
Adam was in the Command Center, finally detaching himself from the work to eat his bland gruel made of diluted grub bars, only flavored by his hobby of miniature painting, as this was the only time he could do it while not crafting or doing maintenance.
He had three miniatures he was working on at the same time: two female figures and one vehicle, and he was struggling with the vehicle.
He dry-fitted the vehicle so many times with parts taken from other kits in order to make it fit a Star Paladin. His bits that he hoarded like a dragon were spread everywhere on the Workbench, the scanner going through them to find the conversion parts he was looking for.
"Goddammit, Benchy. Stop recommending resin parts. I'm already hating myself with this sub-assembly."
While his arsenal for miniature building had expanded greatly with the salvage of new tools and the new ones Wrench kept making for Adam, Adam's mad perfectionism regarding his builds, especially with the mold lines and pinning parts together, demanded nothing less than the tools of a brain surgeon who came from a family of clockmakers.
"You don't want me to go to the Fabricator, right, Benchy?" Adam asked his workbench, as he was used to talking to it in those past few days due to its arms being lively and reactive.
"You're actually scaring me talking to yourself like that." Megan walked in with a heavy jacket all over her, snow on her shoulders, as she dusted it off.
The interior's temperature was warm due to the heating system Adam installed, so she took off her jacket and sat herself down in front of Adam, rubbing her buttock against his groin.
He hugged her tightly and spent a minute close to her before she felt warm enough after numbing his legs. She stood and went for the water heater at the other side of the Command Center, before pouring herself a mug of herbal tea.
"The two troublemakers are on their way. Once the Hoverbarrows move and deliver the cement bags downhill, they'll come up on an empty one," she said sarcastically as she rested against Adam's workbench.
"Are the preparations ready?" he asked.
"You tell me. Yuki seems relaxed regarding her plan to control information." Megan shrugged before sipping her tea. "Then again, I've never seen that girl nervous."
"Thankfully!" Adam replied as he returned to the suffering of trying to fit a seat from different vehicle models inside a War Bug model.
"I've never seen you struggle with a push-fit build before," she said, pointing at the comical-looking vehicle.
"I need a bigger seat in the middle and can't fit that one from a Walker Gear model."
"Can't you mold something with resin from your spare bits?" she asked.
"I'm no longer working with resin," he replied with an aggressive tone.
"Why?"
"I don't want my gravestone to say 'Adam Clay, slayer of Gobzkin, died from resin dust'."
"Ah! Your allergies, right!" Megan nodded and thought for a while before asking, "You still can't port any 3D Designer software to the Fabricator?"
"No. Only scanning, but scaling up the design is a nightmare," Adam shook his head while complaining.
"How about this? You make a clay shape, harden it with Blazer, create a silicone mold around it, and fill it with something that fits."
"Heh!" Adam laughed before standing to push Megan against the workbench. "Filling it with things that fit is my specialty."
"I knew you would say that!" Megan smiled and leaned back against the workbench, parting her legs slightly for Adam to get closer. "Want to go for a quickie?"
"How long do we have?" he asked, getting close as he felt her warm breath on his face.
"Ten minutes tops."
"Your boy needs at least thirty."
"Show off! I'll be done with you in five."
As she pulled him closer and was about to go for a round of heated coupling, but right then and there…
SKRRAAAAK!
… the industrial saw of the Workbench came to life with a loud screech, making Adam and Megan jump in an instant. Adam hugged Megan and jolted away with her.
Adam checked on his girlfriend's backside to see no injury, then turned with worry to the Workbench, only to see the saw blade installed beneath it whirling fast before losing power gradually.
"WHAT WAS THAT?" Megan screamed, her heart jumping from her chest as she started sweating from shock despite the cold day.
"The saw blade… it didn't come out, thank God!" Adam let out a breath of relief. "It must be the circuit beneath the bench. Your weight must have triggered it."
"W… weight?" Megan looked at him, a tad offended and still in shock, before shaking her head and storming out.
"Wait, babe!" Adam called and was about to go after her, but he turned back and went down on one knee before the Workbench, extending his arm beneath it. "Damnit, Benchy."
> !!ERR//%^@~Xx::≠≠≠
> ##$@!~?NŒ//STOP//^
> %{///}@@@!!-
He couldn't notice the terminal screen of the Workbench as he went through the messy wires beneath it, but as he found the one connecting power to the saw blade, he unplugged it immediately.
"Shit!" Adam stood up immediately and went after Megan. "Babe! Wait up!"
As he left, Benchy remained in a spiral of incoherent errors that he wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of their meaning if he were to see them. However, as it diagnosed its systems automatically, the machine's temperature started rising to a non-critical degree as it displayed…
> COMMANDER…
> (⸝⸝๑﹏๑⸝⸝)
> … IDIOT!
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