The warehouse is ten meters wide and over thirty meters long, and the length of this corridor is almost the same as the warehouse's length.
"The first door leads to the counter you saw just now. There's nothing in there at the moment, so let's check out the workshop at the back."
Mercer said, walking over to the second door and opening it.
Pira, who had been marveling at the surroundings, exclaimed with shining eyes, "Wow, is this the workshop? It's huge!"
It's safe to say that Mercer used most of the first floor of the warehouse for the workshop. This room is eighteen meters long and nine meters wide, taking up nearly half of the entire first floor.
The more than one hundred square meters of the workshop floor aren't tiled, but it's equipped with lighting, central air conditioning, several large workbenches, a sink, and large trash bins for waste disposal.
Among them, like the large worktables, Mercer has already set up computers and some basic modification equipment, placing them neatly.
"Yes, this place will handle the production of heavy equipment and weapons in the future—the kind that's inconvenient to move around. I've left a big door at the back of the warehouse and reserved over a hundred square meters for parking and storage. That's the back door over there."
Mercer took them for a look. There wasn't much to say; it was just a simple space for parking and storage. The big door is a sturdy, automatic, rising metal roll-up door, prepped with automated turrets and equipped with cameras and other defensive facilities.
"Where's the room?" asked Rebecca, who hadn't been here before, with great enthusiasm. "Don't we have a basement? Why didn't I see any stairs?"
Mercer smirked and led them back to the corridor, walked to the end, and knocked on one side of the wall. With a press, a small section of the wall suddenly flipped, revealing a slightly old-fashioned numeric keypad.
"How cool! Isn't this just like those spy movies from the past?" Kyoko, who had tagged along, couldn't help but exclaim in excitement.
She had been staying at the camp recently, either surfing the internet or watching various Mewtwo movies. Seeing something like this now was truly thrilling for her.
"Even though it looks like an antique, the beauty of this thing is that it's not connected to the network. Enter the password, and only when it's correct will it activate the network mode and call the elevator. Even if I scan it with my Prosthetic Eye, I can't detect any signal from it."
Mercer said with a smile, "You can also open the door from the basement directly. Even if this thing breaks down, as long as the basement server is still running, just call the AI, and it'll open the door for you."
As Mercer pressed 20720101 on the keypad, the end of the corridor wall suddenly parted, revealing a metal elevator wall.
"It was originally designed as stairs; I thought it wasn't cool enough, so I replaced it with an elevator. Even if there's an unexpected power outage, someone like V can pry open the doors and jump down—there's a bit of maintenance space reserved in the elevator shaft so you can climb down."
Mercer said as the elevator doors opened.
"Damn, this was worth the money—it's awesome!" V exclaimed in amazement.
But Mercer just rolled his eyes; it was hard to say who had been going on about how fast Mercer was burning through cash these days.
He stepped inside, followed by Lucy, Pira, Qiwei, Rebecca, V, and Kyoko, all filled with anticipation as they descended underground with him.
When the elevator doors opened, even the usually quiet Qiwei and Lucy brightened up, visibly excited.
As for the more lively Kyoko and Rebecca, they immediately bolted out with a cheer.
"Wow, this... not bad!" Pira exclaimed with wide eyes, excitedly waving his arms. "Hell, there's even a chance to live in a house with a living room!"
Instead of designing the basement to be brightly lit, Mercer opted for a darker tone to emphasize a homely feel.
After the elevator descended, all they could see first was a spacious living room eleven meters wide and ten meters deep, seamlessly connected to an open kitchen.
Mercer decided to coat the walls with gray paint and had a pretty talented Adcardan create a graffiti of "Spark Team" in colorful letters on the wall behind the sofa.
The black sofa is one of the few brand new items, an eight-meter-long L-shaped couch ample enough to seat the entire team together, paired with a four-meter-long, over one-meter-wide large coffee table, and a distant, hundred-inch TV.
There are even fake green plants on both sides of the TV—just AR projections, with bamboos seemingly standing by the walls, adding a bit of life to the basement. If you get bored of them, you can change them—cherry blossoms or peach blossoms, whatever you like—but you have to pay to unlock the patterns...
To avoid feeling claustrophobic in the basement, Mercer placed a large screen on the other side of the sofa, where windows usually are, continuously playing a simulated forest scene, also serving as lighting.
The lights were deliberately chosen to be not too bright, opting instead for warmer, yellowish tones.
"Pretty nice! Feels a bit like home, just lacking a few ornaments, and the cupboards seem a bit sparse, so it looks a bit empty."
V commented.
But Mercer simply replied, "I figured this would be a place for everyone to gather, so I left plenty of space. You can bring in things like game consoles, a pool table, or whatever miscellaneous stuff you want."