Chapter 4

~new collective~

Talking to the gathered crowd at each tower went about the same, I announced that the residential towers would be going up across the city over the next few days. I spent most of the morning explaining how to work the systems and eventually managed to find someone, at each building, who up until that point, had been unable to assist in the recovery effort due to a non-life-threatening injury that left them handicapped.

I spent a few minutes training them at the front desk until I was confident they could handle the basics and anything more could be forwarded to me through the comms system at the desk.

Surprisingly, there isn't a huge rush to fill the available spaces. Apartment buildings are almost a foreign concept, given the regularity of the wraith cullings, our population is usually spread out over a larger area, it's one more policy put in place to help limit the loss of people that more densely populated areas would experience. The only break in the policy is the years immediately following a wraith culling, when rebuilding efforts bring everyone together, and the empty lots I've chosen are neighbored by emergency shelters.

Everyone in the city, and I do mean everyone, has some portion of the cleanup effort which we've all volunteered to be responsible for. Slacking off is seen as just about the same level as being a wraith worshiper, that is to say, it's not tolerated. So where I would normally expect a larger crowd, that crowd doesn't exist, as everyone is working in shifts to help rebuild.

We clear one lot at a time from around the towers, so my probes could get to work tearing down the old buildings, recycling the material, and placing the new structures.

By the time I get back to the apartment I took my mother and little sister to, both of them are already finished with their soak, and sitting in the living room on the couch. Mom has a children's book in hand and is reading out loud to Mirena.

I wait until after she finishes the page to draw their attention. "Hey," I smile.

Mirena smiles and crawls under mom's arms and off her lap, before running to tackle me in a hug. "Melius!" she squeals.

My mother is far more reserved and dignified, as she sets the book aside, and stands to greet me. "I haven't felt this clean in weeks, thank you Amelius."

"You're welcome," I reply, as I adjust my hold Mirena until she's riding on my back.

"How is Sam?" my mother asks me changing the subject, I know we've already talked about this this morning but she's our mother and she worries.

"He's fine, the hospital should release him sometime today after they finish examining him and realize the injuries are far less severe than originally thought." I reassure her, and she lets out a sigh of relief.

I decided to change the subject again. "I saw Uncle Ike and Aunt Erica earlier today."

"How are they?" she asks, I know she is saddened by the fact that we haven't talked or spent time with them much since dad died.

"Aunt Erica had some lingering injuries from a fall she took during the culling. But the medcenter downstairs took care of it." I reply.

Mirena is getting bored of all the grown up talk and starts squirming. "How about we go downstairs and check out the common areas." I offer.

"Really?" Merina asks, her eyes wide. "Let's go!"

Mom laughs as Mirena enthusiastically voices her support of the idea.

We head to the transport booth and down to the floor above the ground level, down the hallway away from the balcony overlooking the lobby there are community rooms, this is where I'm headed with mom following behind me curious to see the place.

Inside the first room on the left is a brightly lit children's play area, everything in here is for smaller children than Mirena. So we head to the next room, which contains all sorts of constructive toys, designed for smaller hands than mine. All of them designed with the idea of encouraging building and experimenting safely. There are already a few kids in the room with their parents.

"Go check out the place," I tell Mirena, setting her down and ushering her into the room. Sure, these kind of toys might traditionally be considered more appropriate for boys back on earth, but I see no problem with encouraging everyone to be equally capable in both the technological aspects, as well as the more, emotional aspects of life. Mom follows her in, eye's wide as she takes in everything

"Nothing can be taken out of the room," I tell them summarising the rules next to the door. "If you make something you like, that you want to take home, you can have the computer make a copy of it and send it up to the apartment."

Mirena grins and heads straight towards a bin filled with thousands of small brightly colored plastic pieces, in various shapes, with small permanent magnets embedded on their ends. She loads up a shallow container from the stack next to the bin for holding a couple handfuls worth to play with and carefully carries it to the closest of one of the tables throughout the room.

We sit there for a few minutes playing with the magnetic toys, with light discussion on what makes a good frame and how triangles are one of the strongest shapes to use. I can tell mom is impressed with the thought that went into the development for each toy in the room.

The cool part about the toys in this room is that they're all designed so they all complement each other and can be used with at least two other toys in the room. An observant child could conceivably use something from each bin in the room on the same project.

I'd be slightly jealous of all this in comparison to the toys I grew up with at that age, if not for the stuff I have now. Ha, honestly, I am a little jealous.

The near constant hum in the back of my head is interrupted by the equivalent of a mental poke, and the only one capable of that would be... Sammeth.

"You mind if I go check on Sam?" I ask mom. "He's probably bored out of his mind lying there in the hospital room." I tell her.

She laughs, "Go on. I've got it covered here."

~new collective~

At the hospital I pause long enough to poke back, and then walk into the room.

"Amelius!" Sam practically yells dragging himself into a sitting position. "Thank the ancestors that you're here. You've got to get me out of here big bro, I'm begging you."

"Why's that?" I ask raising an eyebrow.

"Are you kidding me?" he stares at me, with a look that says I just told him the grass was blue and the sky had turned green. "The nurse they assigned me is insane!"

"Oh?" I ask intrigued.

"She keeps saying stuff about how 'cute' I am," Sam tells me, shuddering at the word cute.

I walk the rest of the way into the small hospital room, the walls are a dull two tone greyish blue. It's about what I'd expect from a military hospital circa 1930's minus the various torture devices that earth doctors used at the time.

"It's also how she looks at me when she says it." Sam continues.

"Oh, but little brother, you are cute." I tell him patting him on the head, keeping my expression as serious as I can but it doesn't last long as the terrified expression on his face cracks me up.

"Don't even!" he crosses his arms and glares at me.

"Alright, I'll sign you out of this dump and show you the new digs," I tell him still laughing.

"Digs?" he asks confused.

"The more permanent, new and improved place, where we now live." I say with a sigh, realizing I'd let earth slang slip into the way I talk. Oh well, this place could use some more colorful phrasing; to liven things up of course.

"We moved?" he asks uncertainly.

"Yeah, got a nice place with a view. You'll even get your own room." I tell him dropping the sack of clothes onto the chair next to the bed. "First, lets get that brace off you."

Supplies are tight, so as much as the doctor would have liked to put him in a full cast from the waist down, all they could manage was immobilization via splints.

"Shouldn't we get the doctor to ok that first?" he asks nervously.

"Nah, you're all healed up the only thing left is to make sure everything was put back together correctly." I tell him. "See for yourself, think the phrase, health status report."

He looks at me confused for a moment before his eyes widen in surprise. "Awesome!" he says before blushing bright red.

Sam's nanites aren't giving him the always on hud that I have, but he can get a visual overlay from the nanites in his body on a few things, his own health being one of them. Right now, he's got a visual representation of himself with a report next to it, telling him everything is all healed up. I assume the blushing is because that representation is completely lacking in modesty.

The blush fades as he figures out how to tell the display to obscure certain areas.

"Right then," I say pulling apart the velcro straps holding the brace together. With the straps holding keeping him from sitting up removed, he reaches forward to help me with the last of the straps holding him down.

I look at the hospital gown and raise an eyebrow. "I'll just go to stand guard at the door while you dress," I tell him, handing him a set of alteran style pajamas which are probably only marginally better at making you feel covered and receiving a grateful nod in response.

A few minutes later we're headed towards the nurse's desk, and receiving odd looks from the staff who were involved in the reconstructive surgery from the day before. All of them know he shouldn't be able to walk around without severe pain at this point but they're all frozen because he quite obviously is up and walking around just fine.

"Uncle Ike and Aunt Erica have an apartment just under us," I mention casually as we leave.

"They survived too?" Sam's excited he remembers Aunt Erica watching us when we were younger and she makes these awesome desserts. The names might be different from what I'm used to but there are earth equivalents. Chocolate is called danthem, peanut butter is xan, rice is cala. Sammeth openly ponders the possibility of talking her into making his favorite dessert.

~new collective~

I pull up my map and overview my resources so far. I've got my first tower up in the forest outside of the city, and a little over forty probes gathering resources from the mines nearby. I've got three power stations up and running, one in the middle of the city, another just inside the forest outside of the city between here and the tower, and the last one just finished by the hot springs a day's journey south. There are another ten probes moving into position to build the next few residential complexes.

So far I don't have much in the way of defenses placed but luckily the tower's long range sensors aren't showing any incoming threats. It's fortunate, seeing that I won't be able to build any for a while; as my resources are reserved for the next few building projects, and my stockpile reads as half of what it was before. Luckily, that third power plant pulling geothermal from the hot springs is already showing a decent return for the investment.

I'm guessing the tool tips are simplified descriptions of what all the buildings are designed for so use the map overlay to change one of the planned residential towers near the center of the city to an Academy, and then move it up the priority queue. Mom had mentioned something earlier about seeing if we can get the school back up and running.

I should have enough to construct the snowflake shaped base for the city ship upgrade to the control tower in a few days.

The last thing I do before closing out the hud is reconfigure a residential tower design until the entire thing is taken up by the medical facilities, saving the design under the name Hospital, I place one on an empty lot near the hospital.

Countdown timers: Academy - 7 hours, Hospital - 6 hours, Cybercore - 16 hours.

Queued buildings: 4 residential towers.

~new collective~

A/N: I'm working from almost scratch here... that is to say the base upon which I build this story is a rough timeline from the show and some advanced technology from one series which has been blended with another series' advanced technology and introduced by mostly unexplained deus ex machina... the familiar characters from the show aren't really around at this point so everything i'm doing might as well be brand new fiction with a few fanfiction elements thrown in...