Chapter Fifty-One – Fashioning a Home

Chapter Fifty-One – Fashioning a Home

“There has been a noticeable shift in style and fashion. Not to say that fashion wasn’t changing rapidly already. By the mid-2000s, international communication, the internet, and the easing of travel restrictions allowed fashion from different cultures to come together and be mixed, occasionally homogenized, and often brought to extremes.

Now, this shifting has become so rapid that to stay on top of the latest trends means keeping a constant eye on the fashion feeds and paparazzi rags. A trend can start, flourish, and die in the space of an afternoon.”

–Fa-Fa-Fashionista, On The Evolution of Trends, 2057

***

I walked over to the other side of the display and leaned forwards to look at the wire-mesh interior. It showed most of the museum–and we’d have to find a better name for our new home soon–in red, with a few sections in green.

Myalis had determined that all of the red sections would need to be replaced and reconfigured sometime soon, preferably before anyone moved in.

“So, this is the final floor plan?” Lucy asked.

I nodded along. “Yeah, I think so,” I said.

The floor plan gave us ten double bedrooms, good enough for a pair of kittens each, two bigger dorm-style rooms with a few beds in them for any newcomers, and a master bedroom one corridor over. Not too far that we couldn’t run over, but not right next to the kittens either.

The main museum area would be split into a kitchen and dining space, a playroom that was frankly absurdly large, and another little area that could serve as an office or library of sorts for the quieter kittens.

We had one bathroom for every two rooms, with showers in each, and a smaller washroom next to the kitchen. The old vault was right where our bedroom would be, with the rear half of it marked to be replaced by a small armoury where I could store stuff.

The outside wasn’t going to be touched much. We’d hire someone to remove all the ads and signs and such, and maybe we’d add a carport over the parking space for… well, we’d have to buy a van or something. I’d pick whichever old beater would give Gomorrah the biggest headache.

Lucy nodded. “I like it. We’ll have to see about getting nice furniture too.”

“I think we can afford that,” I said before glancing to the side. We had brought over the Dumbasses, both to guard the museum, and to allow us to better communicate with Myalis. It was one of the drones that was projecting the image of the building’s wireframe, and another was sitting nearby, waiting patiently. “Have you found any reliable contractors yet?”

“I have,” Myalis said. “From looking into their records, I have found three suitably accredited teams with overlapping specialties. I would suggest hiring all three.”

“All three?” I repeated.

“Indeed. One has done satisfactory plumbing work on past installations, another has an entire team of electricians, and the final construction company has experience working with both Vanguards, and glass-fronted skyscrapers. The other two lack experience in both.”

“Ah,” I said. So hiring specialists to do the specialist-requiring… stuff. I was so far out of my depth… “That sounds reasonable. Do you have an idea of their price range?”

“Seven, nine, and twelve million credits, respectively. That’s not including the entirety of the material cost, but I’m assuming some of that will be defrayed by the use of Vanguard-grade materials.”

I held back a wince. That was… twenty-eight million? An insane amount of money. “So, for the materials, we can’t build this whole place with samurai-grade stuff, it’ll take way too many points.”

“That is accurate,” Myalis said. “To purchase enough material directly to rebuild this entire area would cost–assuming you want to purchase quality materials–something close to nine thousand points.”

That was a lot lower than I’d guesstimated. “That’s just normal materials, or fancier stuff?”

“Materials that are of a higher quality than commercially available, of course. Glass that can resist temperatures high enough not to melt on contact with your local sun and able to resist considerable impacts, hardened plates for the walls and floors and ceilings, doors that read a person’s bio-signature, temperature regulating systems, and a few more commodities of that sort.”

“Fancy,” I said.

“Standard for a Vanguard’s abode,” was Myalis’ reply.

“Sounds nice, but kind of expensive,” Lucy said.

The Dumbass Myalis was speaking out of shifted, and the wire-frame of the museum changed to a hovering image of some sort of confusing machine. It looked like it was the size of a minivan, with a large hopper on one side and a large screen on the other. “This is a Mark Two Creation Engine. It takes in raw materials, sorts them by their atomic structure, then fabricates any needed material, components, or items.”

“Oh!” Lucy said. “I’ve seen something like that! It’s a big fancy printer. You toss stuff in, and it makes stuff out of it. They have them in some of the really fancy arcologies.”

“Where’d you see that?” I asked.