Chapter 2
Date: January 5, 3025
Location: Kalidasa
This wasn't the first time I had ever been homeless. The path to being successful in my life had led me to purchasing the first office and warehouse space out of my own pocket early on in my career. I'd spent those weeks that the deal was closing living out of my car. A local gym owner owed me a favor, and I'd used that favor to borrow the showers.
Of course, I'd been working towards a deal back then, and still had some petty cash that I'd used for food and gas. Not exactly the same thing I was dealing with now.
The circumstances might have been different, but my goal still remained. I would be rebuilding everything. I just had to start from a lot less than I had the first time around. Initially, I'd considered trying a few pawn shops or antique stores to sell my last few dollars, but had decided against it in the end. There was something in the back of my mind whispering to me that they'd come in handy later.
Shaking my head, I pulled myself from my thoughts and really lookedaround me. I didn't know this city, whether it was built on a grid, or if it were haphazardly thrown together like a ton of the cities back home seemed to be. It was kinda funny though, just like so many lost souls had, I had stumbled onto the doors of a Catholic Church. Or, more accurately, what seemed to be a friendly rivalry.
In front of me was the Catholic Church, a few doors down was a Jewish synagogue, or temple, and down from there was some sort of Protestant church, and then a mixture of religions further on down.
They all had one thing in common, though: a bunch of people who looked like me, with tattered clothes, low-hung heads, and low chances of finding a good meal tonight were being helped. Everything from new clothes to food, and even a handful of small charities that offered 'help with job hunting'.
I still had one of my suits in the duffel bag, along with a couple of pairs of jeans and some shirts. So I was set on clothes. What I needed was food, a place to stay, and help with employment.
Stepping up to the first table, I was given a bowl of soup by a nun, while a larger man with a Priest's collar handed me a paper bag with what looked like modern MREs.
"Here, son," the Priest's voice was higher-pitched than I expected. "Enough for two weeks if you do it right."
Then I was waved on through the line. I meandered past the people offering haircuts, the handful of people trying to help with clothes, etc. Instead, I went straight for the two groups that were offering what I needed the most right now. Shelter and employment.
Of course, not all of the people trying to 'help' were charities or doing it for the right reasons, and I could tell immediately that this was going to be the smartest decision I made today, or the dumbest in my life.
"Quikscell Company," I read the sign.
"I'd steer clear if I were you," one of the other guys who had accepted food whispered into my ear. "It's room and board, but it's miserable work."
"I dunno," I stroked my bare chin. "Any start is better than no start."
"Your funeral," the other man shook his head as I stepped towards the tent full of what felt like slimy weasels.
"How can we help you, good sir?" a man in a pair of well-pressed slacks and a golf-polo grinned at me from behind a cigarette. "My name's Jim Baker, you look like the kinda fella who's seeking gainful employment!"
"Sign says you cover housing on top of work?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
"That we do," Jim blew a bit of smoke in my direction. "Food's gonna have to come out of your paycheck, but we've got beds and work aplenty for you to do."
"So, how do we go about this?" I continued. "Do you need some ID or something to get this process started?"
"Ha!" He gave a short barking laugh. "We don't worry about pesky things like that. Just need your signature on the contract, and we'll take things from there."
If this had seemed shady at first, now it felt downright predatory. No one hired like this unless they were certain that the turnover was going to be high enough and the labor unskilled enough to be worth it.
Some of my early competitors had done similar, instead of trying to hire skilled people, or cultivate their internal workforce with pay incentives, etc. They'd gone with the 'mass employment' strategy of hiring a bunch of people, and cycling them out due to overwork.
The sad reality had been that it wasin fact cheaper to do things that way. It just wasn't sustainable forever. Eventually, something would come crashing down and it'd stop working. No one had hit that point back home yet, though.
"Lemme see the contract," I sighed. Predatory or not, I needed the income. I could deal with some temporary hardship to get myself started here.
"Here ya go," Jim grabbed one of the mass-produced documents. "Sign it and go join the guys over there," He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the group of people lounging or napping in the 'tent' behind him. "We'll probably leave in a couple hours. There's water in the chest over there," for once he actually did look sorry for something. "But we forgot to pick up any ice, so it's lukewarm at best, hot at the worst."
I didn't respond, too busy looking over the contract. Unfortunately, I had no proper sense of pay scale or how much things actually cost here. Not yet, anyway.
Still, it actually didn't seem all that bad. Even when I dove into the fine print, there were mandated breaks, the previously mentioned housing, and you could even opt out of their ludicrously expensive 'meal' plan that took half of your check away to pay for what was probably subpar food.
So, taking note of which options would work out the best for me, I signed my name along the dotted line and handed it over to Jim.
This might have been a mistake. The first thing that happened after getting settled in with the few clothes on my back was a tour of the factory complex. Complete with Jim wildly gesturing at various things he was responsible for.
It seemed the reason they were willing to hire people off the streets and provide them with what was essentially free housing out of old militia barracks they'd bought on the cheap was because they didn't care what quality of work was put out.
They had factories in need of bodies, and they had quotas to fill. If something was broken, they didn't care. It got shipped out anyway. Buyers beware.
If that were the only issue with my new place of employment, I probably could have worked through it, even thrived here. Instead, the moment we entered the factory proper, I was hit with the mental equivalent of a flashbang.
Everywhere I looked, information filled my head as if I had a computer built in. The first tank I looked at, data began to just stream through my consciousness, forcing me to look anywhere but at what the factory was constructing, lest I deal with a massive migraine.
The one time I stopped to stare at one of the Scorpion Light Tanks, I saw exactly what had been done wrong on every vehicle that was about to be shipped. One had an autocannon that would never be able to fire; the autoloader was improperly mounted. A single shot through it would jam it up, and it'd be nothing more than a death trap.
While staring at it, though, information beyond just what was in front of me began to fill in the blanks.
Scorpion Light Tank
Manufacturers: Quikscell Company, Joint Equipment Systems, Hellespont Industries
Manufacturers Future: Benson and Bjorn
Weapons: Deleon 5 Autocannon, Gatling Gun 20mm
Possible Weaponry dependent on technology access and user desires
Engine: SitiCide 100 ICE
Armor: ProtecTech Light (Possible Ferro Fibrous upgrade)
It didn't seem like a lot at first, but it wasn't just the machines and their manufacturers that filled my head. It was everything. The longer I looked at a piece of military technology, the more I began to understand. I knew how to build the factory from the ground up to build every possible variant of the Scorpionlight tank right now.
Then I looked away, and most of that information vanished, leaving behind only a handful of key details and the short pain of the information download.
The rest of the tour went the same way. Eventually ending with us back at the barracks.
"You're all going to be on first shift. So, I expect to see everyone ready to go at five in the morning. Have a good night."
With that, Jim walked away, leaving us in the barracks.
I looked around at the handful of people around me, contemplating whether it'd be worth trying to make friends with any of them or not before they all vanished into their rooms.
Shrugging, I turned and headed for my own room, opening the door to the dimly lit, small room. There was an old, ratty mattress with fresh sheets on it, a metal dresser bolted into the floor, a tiny closet, and a mirror. There was no air conditioning in the entire building, but the concrete somehow remained cool enough that the desert heat wasn't unbearable. The bathrooms, showers, and kitchenette I'd seen were all communal, further reinforcing my thoughts that this had been purchased from the military.
Sitting on the mattress, I pulled out my bag from underneath the bed and opened it, searching for the notebook I knew was somewhere inside. After pulling it and a worn pen out, I began jotting things down.
I didn't know what this "Repository of Information" was, to borrow the term from a show I'd used to watch. But I did know that it came and went. If I wanted to make use of this, then I had to start documenting the information that it provided me.
While I was at it, I also needed to write down what little I remembered of the Mechwarrior 5 game I'd played. There hadn't exactly been a lot of time for video games while running a business, and I barely remembered beating the main storyline, more content to simply run around and shoot at things with the giant 'mechs. But there were probably a few bits here and there that might prove helpful. At least if they existed instead of simply being one of those things that only occasionally worked out to be true.
Regardless, I needed a plan. I already had an inkling somewhere in the back of my mind that Quickscell might be the start. Just had to make sure that everything was lined up.
Flipping to a fresh page, I began to write down the steps. Including the ones I'd already taken.
Step one: Secure food and shelter
Step two: Obtain primary income stream
Step three: Sus out local opportunities and niches to begin a new business in
Step four: Establish business and provide superior support compared to competitors
Sure, it was only four steps, but I'd add substeps and begin working out the fine details of things as I began to acclimate here. It'd only been a few days so far. I was going to need to take some time to figure things out.
Closing the notebook around my pen, I lay my head down on the bed and tried to rest, only for Avery's weeping face to fill my vision when I closed my eyes, just like it had every night I'd spent out on the streets.
Most people saw living in a new world as an opportunity, and it was. But opportunities always come at a cost, and it was one I was paying now.