Prelude to an uprising (mature contents)

[Neutral Smith]

This is my second story. You can see it as a successor of Forge of Kingdoms
It takes place on the same planet, with some characters even the same, and some things from Forge of Kingdoms are even mentioned.
The 'mature' part is quite tame, but it does contain violence, sex, slavery, and all kinds of other things that might not be suitable for minors. It is not a happy story.

Chapter 1: Purchase
Chapter 2: Tour

[Neutral Smith]

Chapter 1:
Purchase

“Good afternoon, I’d like to buy a servant.”

The Ork looked up from the datapad he was reading, and put it screen down on the desk.
“We don’t sell servants, we sell slaves.”
The Human shrugged. “I don’t want blind obedience, I want someone who can think. I don’t want to keep an eye on him or her at all times, but he or she still has to prepare my food without poisoning me and keep my house safe and healthy. A servant.”
The Ork shrugged. “Your first?”
The Human nodded. “Yes, my own first. I’m… used to do everything alone, but my time is limited, I have to eat and clean the house and also do my work, and that work is getting more and more, so I need someone to do the household tasks so I can concentrate on the work. I have read some good reviews about this place, I hope this is the only place I have to visit to get what I want today.”
The Ork nodded. “Very well. We have a wide selection here.” and got a second pad and a remote.

After some time the second pad was booted.
“Feline, Canine or Vulpine? We have a few Ursine, but those are better for outdoors.”
The Human sighed. He should have prepared himself better, but he didn’t have the time for it. He knew everything about Inimals, but when forced to choose he didn’t know what he really wanted. “I’d say Feline, Canine is too strong if anything goes wrong, and Vulpine shed too much… Feline, but not a strong one.”
The Ork nodded. “We have a wide selection of Cats, but I don’t think they can be trusted. What about a Cheetah?”
The Human shrugged and nodded. “Sounds good, you give honest information about your wares. Can I see him before I make the… Entscheidung?”
The Ork started to smile. “You know our old language? I haven’t heard that in a long time! Come, I’ll give you a discount! Come on! Let’s geht los!”
The Human shook his head. “I don’t think that’s the right translation, I think it’s something with zien… sehen… anschauen… I have forgotten my lessons.”
The Ork started to grin when he opened the door to the holding area. “You haven’t forgotten. You are that famous Mike, creator of the fine electronics without the help of anyone! Now I’m not going to give you that discount, you have enough budget. With the profit of one of your sales you can buy ten of my slaves.”
Mike shrugged. “Caught me. I sold a few designs to my father, got my name and face all over the place because it was the best thing ever, all the bullshit and half the money… But I do mostly specialized audio equipment these days. I really want to be more anonymous again.”
The Ork nodded. “Of course. Nobody needs to know what you have bought.”
Mike also nodded. “But everyone may know why I have done some things to you if someone I don’t know somehow does know. Kneecaps, fingers, broken bones, cut tendons, some flaying… those things. Verstehen sie?”
The Ork nodded. Not sure whether Mike was joking or not.

Mike and the Ork walked on for some time, there were hundreds of cages, most of them occupied by various Inimals, and smaller Kobolds were handing out bowls of the Pink Slime they got as food, and occasionally energizing the collars of the Inimals who got too close to the bars. Also a few Inimals were ‘guided’ out, with not only a collar, but also their hands bound behind their back and their ankles chained.
Finally they got to a cage with a single female Cheetah, who was reading a book.
The Ork gestured at her. “This is the most expensive one we got, and as you can see, this is a clever one. Chipped in neck and hand, educated, authorized to handle money, never a suspicion of theft. Its previous owner died of old age, and her children didn’t know what to do with it, so that’s why it’s here. Four thousand nine hundred Silver.”
Mike nodded, and got his payment card. “Fine. This one will do.”
The Ork looked in surprise at Mike and then at the card. “Heh… the name on your card simply states ‘Mike’, no last name… You are not going to negotiate?”
Mike shrugged. “No. I like her. Clever, apparently likes to cook given she is reading a cookbook, not too old so I can keep her for a long time, not too young and probably inexperienced in a household. It’s fine.”
The Ork also shrugged when he took the card and held it against the pad. “Alright. You have a remote?”
Mike shook his head while a slight buzzing in his pocket alerted him that some money was withdrawn from his bank account. Nonchalantly he took his communicator from his pocket to check it, but it was the correct amount of money. This Ork did not try to scam him, and he put his communicator back.
“I have a basic single slave model, only two hundred Silver.” The Ork replied, while he was gesturing at one of the Kobolds to get it.
Mike shook his head. “Two hundred is too much for a basic model, it costs fifty if you buy it online. I give you one hundred, but you’ll also have to link it.”
“Fine. One hundred.” The Ork replied while he typed something on his pad and held the small remote a Kobold gave him against it.
Mike’s communicator buzzed again, this time with more intensity to alert the owner of a transaction without a card.
“That big database the Elfique came up with is marvelous. Everyone can know everything if they ask the right questions.” The Ork noted when he also noticed the this time more intense buzzing from Mike’s pocket.
Mike nodded. “Indeed. Ownership handed over, and that follow-up payment within a few minutes is also a handy feature. No need to get my card a second time. Timer is reset again, but I don’t see anything that I want to buy from you within the next four minutes. And I’m glad I’m not a woman, because the next time it would buzz it could give me a… feeling. I have a special model with more features, including a stronger vibration motor.”
The Ork grinned. “My woman likes that too, my bank account doesn’t”

Mike put the remote in his pocket and turned towards the now released Cheetah. “You know how to drive a car?”
“You can look that up in the database. Check her status, you own her now, but you can also see her education, permits and medical status. If you were Elfique you could also see who her previous owners were… I can’t imagine how we could manage before, scan a chip in the neck and all the information is on the screen, and it has only been a few decades like this.” The Ork answered.
Mike sighed. “Databases are not the full truth. Again, can you drive a car?”
“If you check the database you can see that she is allowed to drive a seven seated car and even a medium transport van.” The Ork answered again.
Mike sighed again. “I did not ask a database for information, I asked her. Can you drive a car?”
The Cheetah shook her head. “I have had the courses years ago, but I have never used it, sir.”
Mike nodded. “See, it would be a shame if she damaged my car. But I would have held you responsible because you said she could drive a car.”
The Ork shrugged. “Fine. Let me escort you to the exit.”

The jaw of the Ork almost fell on the ground when he saw Mike’s car.
“Is… Is that a Red Arrow Seraphim?” He finally managed to say when he got closer.
Mike smiled. “Yes, this is an old Red Arrow. But no, this is not a Seraphim, this is an Ophanim, the luxury model, one of the seven that are still in existence, and one of the three that can drive. It’s a shame my new servant can’t drive a car, I really want to know what the backseat feels like when the car is moving.”
“But… but you don’t have a cage? I can bring her to your home if you want to.” The Ork replied while Mike unlocked the doors.
Mike held the right back door open for the Cheetah. “Sit!… No, I don’t like strangers near my home. Databases can lie, and you won’t be able to reach my house unless I give explicit permission for that. Thank you for your time, and I hope this one is good enough and I won’t need your service again.”

“Are you comfortable?” Mike asked his passenger while they left the northern parts of Smithsville, the capital of the Northern Districts and got on the highway. There was a police car following them, but that should not be unusual, there was plenty of crime around here.
“Excuse me sir?” The Cheetah asked, not quite understanding the question. She was clearly used to be asked to do things, or answer questions that required knowledge or memory.
“I asked if you are comfortable. Does the seat have nice angles to sit, enough room for your legs, seat not too soft or too firm, tail in a comfortable position, nice temperature. Those kind of things.” Mike elaborated his question.
“Y… Yes. It’s… nice to sit here. I… I forgot that my back is against a backrest and my tail is not at an uncomfortable angle, sir.”
Mike smiled. “If it is too cold or too warm for you, you have my permission to change the temperature back there, controls are on the central console… You know what that leather is made of? Human and Ork. These days that would be unheard of.”
The Cheetah examined the leather seats with a look of disbelief. It was indeed different leather. “Sir, I have a question… How… how old is this car?”
Mike smiled. “This is a Vulpine made car, one hundred and twelve years old, it was made a few years before the Firestorms. Made when Inimals were free and a bit more… violent. My family always has been neutral between the species, that’s why my family could buy it, but… times have changed, that’s why I could buy you instead. I would rather pay you for your service, but that is officially not allowed, so food and lodging has to do.”
The Cheetah sighed. “Are there no… Unclaimed you can ask to work for you, sir?”
Mike shook his head and glanced in the rear-view mirror again. “There are plenty of Unclaimed who work for me, working in the garden and maintaining the house and the vehicles, but I can’t bring myself asking one to be there just for me every day inside my house, to prepare my food and to keep everything clean.”
The Cheetah briefly smiled. “I… don’t think that being yours won’t be bad, sir.”
Mike shook his head again after they turned southbound at an intersection. The police car behind them was still following. “No, I don’t think so. You will get your own room, and you have to eat the same meat as you prepare for me.”

Mike turned on something that looked like a radio, pushed some more buttons, and started to accelerate.

“> … is accelerating, trying to keep up… damn that thing has the size of a tanker but it’s fast and can also take corners.”

“< I ordered you to call off the pursuit. I repeat, call off the pursuit.”

“> Negative sir. There appears to be a Feline in the back seat holding the Human driver hostage. I repeat we have a possible hostage situation… Wait, they appear to pull into a parking lot.”

“< I have an Advisor standing here behind me, he tells me you should talk to the Human. Ignore the Inimal, I repeat, ignore the Inimal.”

“> Will do sir. Getting out.”

Mike stopped his car in an empty area of the parking lot. A lot of open space around them, but also a bit hidden from view from the road. As soon as he stopped he pushed a few buttons on the receiver to change the channel to a public radio station, and immediately turned it off and got his identification card.

“Sir, get out of your vehicle with your hands visible at all times!” The young but slightly obese police officer called out, but Mike was already with one foot on the pavement. He had done this dance before.
“Sir yes sir, I have my identification in my left hand sir.” Mike replied while he closed the door behind him with his right hand and turned around to face the officer.

“Identify yourself!” The police officer yelled.

“Sir, you can call me Mike, sir!” Mike replied.

The police officer grabbed the card and stared at it for a few moments.
“Is this some kind of joke?” He finally said.

“Sir no sir. It really is Forty-Ninth Adrian sir, but I prefer the name Mike, sir.” Mike replied.

The police officer grabbed his gun and pointed it at Mike’s chest. “Who are you?”

Mike sighed. “You really think that’s gonna help?”

The officer’s reply came in the form of emptying the magazine on Mike’s chest, and after a very quick reload, this officer was well trained in weapon handling, unloaded his second and last magazine on Mike.

Mike sighed and calmly got his card the officer had dropped, a few deformed bullets falling from his torn jacket. “Do you have any idea how much twenty-eight bullets on a semi-hardshell bulletproof vest hurt? I can see you are well trained, never shoot the face at point blank range for easy identification or a decent funeral with an open casket, but damn it hurts and my ears are ringing. I might even have a few bruises, and I’m glad I’m not wearing my softshell today. Now contact your superiors again and ask them what I should do with you. What are the odds of me being an impostor with a bulletproof vest, driving this kind of vehicle, and with an unshackled Inimal in the back?”

Without saying a word the officer walked back to his car, in shock, and a few moments after Mike got back in his car the police officer drove away with spinning tires, and almost causing a crash when he left the parking lot.

Mike knew enough without turning the receiver on. He did not have the permission to kill the stupid officer, but if he did the resulting paperwork would have errors, would get lost, would be forgotten, and he would be acquitted or even never accused of killing the police officer, and the officer now also knew. He pulled the communicator from his pocket to make a call, and he saw that the last bank withdrawal was not the agreed hundred Silver, but it was a thousand. The Ork did manage to rob him, but he was too far away to turn around and make it very clear he did not like that, and it were still business hours so the time to correct it with the bank also had passed. ‘Go back or call them.’ would the bank say. If the second payment was made a few minutes after closing time he could have had his money back.
Just when he was about to make a call to a friend the communicator alerted him for an incoming call, voice only. It was the person he wanted to call.

“Mike here, hello François.”

“…”

“Yes, I had a little incident with a police officer, he shot me.”

“…”

“Yes I’m fine, but I need a new vest. One or two more bullets would not have been a problem, but I think twenty-eight nicely grouped is compromising the strength a little. Although I am happy it’s still cold enough to use something that looks like a jacket. If I only had my shirt we would not have had this conversation.”

“…”

I know the situation is tense, but that should not be a reason to shoot.”

“…“

“No… Yes, a few bruises, your gun hurt me more when you tried that one on me, but you have an old Wolf brand with a higher caliber, this was a Bergvolk one and you and I know those are you-get-what-you-pay-for inferior, and the cheap ammo is even worse, although it didn’t have any misfires.”

“…”

“Yes I bought a Cheetah, I’m far too busy with my work, I had seven of your friends back-to-back ordering equipment after longest night’s celebrations where they could hear it in person, my house is a mess and I gained some weight due to my lack of portioning and no time to prepare healthy food.”

“…”

“Yes I ripped them off, twice the normal price, and Noé payed triple. You know me, they kept on talking, and my time talking is not making me any money. I can’t order someone else to do the work, a single hair that’s not mine and my reputation is ruined.”

“…”

“Of course I won’t allow her in the workshop.”

“…”

“What do you think I am? Some kind of pervert? Of course I don’t have her for that. My left hand is enough for me these days.”

“…”

“That is not love, that is relation management. You Elfique and snobby Bergvolk are not my only source of income you know.”

“…”

“Well… Yes… No, she is in the backseat, she is listening and this conversation is getting very awkward… How is my son doing?”

“…”

“That’s good to hear. Don’t punish that officer too severely, he was just doing his duty.”

“…”

“Yes, that’s good enough for that conspiracy theory believer. Nice talking to you, take care.”

“…”

“Take care of me and my family of course.”

“…”

“Au revoir!”

Mike got out of his car again and patted and shook his shredded jacket and a few more bullets fell out. His jacket was beyond repair, which was a shame, he liked it despite being his grandfather’s old jacket. Now he had to waste money and a lot of time to get a new suit. And a new bulletproof vest, but that would be a standard one, he had plenty of those somewhere in storage.
The Firestorms and the years after them were not a pretty time, and a lot of blood had flowed on the land he owned today and he had inherited a lot of things that would make a small army jealous. But now he could throw away one bulletproof vest.

He got a few loose bullets from the driver’s seat and the floor, and also tossed them away. He hated people who littered, but he was too annoyed to stop himself from doing it as well. This was just returning some metal to nature, just some weird pebbles.
Mike got in the driver’s seat again and turned around to look at the Cheetah. “Are you hurt? Or did you hear any of the bullets hit the car?”
The Cheetah quickly looked down, afraid. “No… sir.”
Mike smiled. “Good. I will explain everything when we get home.”

“I know what you are thinking, but no, I am not a criminal… At least not in the sense that I harm or hurt innocent people.” Mike spoke after a while of driving in silence.
“I… am not allowed to think about that. You are my owner, sir.” The Cheetah replied with a timid voice.
Mike smiled. “Just look out of the window and try to remember what you see. Everything around us now is mine.”
The Cheetah stared out of the window at the passing landscape. Patches of forest and farmland, and glimpses of buildings on mounds or low hills. A beautiful landscape.

“Area Seven, Compound Two. We’re home.” Mike announced when he turned onto a wide driveway through a big and strong looking gate with some small buildings that looked like bunkers next to it, and a larger building that almost looked like a cube further to the right. The driveway was wide enough for even the largest vehicles, but also with a few blind corners and a few more small bunkers, it was impossible to see what was waiting at the end of it.
Finally they stopped between three large buildings.
“Welcome to my home. The building on our left behind us is the garage, I have quite a few vehicles, including some unusual ones like the one we are driving today, the similar looking building on our right is my workshop, the only building you are not allowed to enter, I will explain later, and the building before us is my home, and beyond that are a guesthouse and a combination of a greenhouse and cold storage, and a larger bunker and a few smaller ones. You can’t see it, but they are all connected, beneath us is also a huge basement almost as wide as you see above ground between the house and garage or house and workshop, and it extends a bit beyond the garage and workshop, and on the other side of the road is the central hub of the tunnel system of the whole area. My ancestor, the father of my grandfather’s grandfather, who built this all, designed this as the greenhouse complex, with mostly underground hydroponic farms to use during the Firestorms, but I use the large basement as an underground shooting range. The current government doesn’t like firearms and bulletproof vests in public… but as you might have guessed, I don’t give a shit and I have a special status… and between the garage and workshop is now an underground conditioned storage area, low temperature, low humidity and an almost lethal low level of oxygen to keep everything I have no use for at this moment in a good condition and secure. And between the guesthouse and the greenhouse is an underground water storage.”

The Cheetah looked around her. “It’s… barren. It is quite a lush landscape, but there are not even weeds in the pavement between the buildings.”
Mike shrugged. “Because It’s all concrete, in fact this whole complex is one big building. What you see is literally the tip of the iceberg. All the big buildings have at least one underground level, the garage and workshop are equipped with large elevators big enough for the heaviest vehicles of war… But my ancestors only left me one fully equipped eight wheeled armored personnel carrier, some bunkers, remains of trenches and a lot of small arms up to portable rocket launchers and ammo in case I need it… and my house has an underground swimming pool and technical area below that, and everything is connected via long and shorter underground tunnels. There used the be a power plant, but my grandfather and I decided to demolish it, it was too much work to keep it running as a backup, now I have a huge battery storage that can store enough energy for a few months of normal living in complete darkness. In practice the solar panels produce enough energy for the whole year round and only a small battery should be needed for the nights, but I have it and I like it. This whole area with all the other compounds is interconnected and we are energy, water and wastewater independent, I was told that during the large blackout due to a big solar flare a few decades ago we still had power and our own water from wells and storage for all those months. There are tunnels to all surrounding compounds, big enough to drive through. During the Firestorms they were used to transport goods, when there was too much snow or when it was too hot above ground. Or simply too dangerous.”
The Cheetah slowly nodded. “I… see… How… how rich are you?”
Mike smiled. “Fourteenth wealthiest person ever, second wealthiest Human alive, after my father who is seventh wealthiest ever, but a few of my ancestors are also in the adjusted top five ever. But my wealth is not in the money or stocks, it’s in the land and buildings I own. I’m the biggest private landowner ever… You could call me a king, but I don’t want that. Shall we get inside? Then I can tell you a bit about my history, and show you my house, from the lowest technical room to your rooms at the top floor.”

“Welcome to your new home… Do you have a name? I have not even asked your name, have I?” Mike asked the Cheetah when they entered the living room.
The Cheetah looked timidly at the ground. “No… I have a number, but you have to look it up, sir.”
Mike shrugged. “Alright… Do you like the name… Charlene? It’s a historical name.”
The Cheetah shrugged. “Not really… Sir, can you call me Charlotte?”
Mike nodded. “Fine. Charlotte… Do you know who that person on that painting is?” and gestured at a painting hanging on a wall. It was a painting of a strong looking nude man with a huge dick.
Charlotte looked better at the painting. “I have seen that painting in a book sir… This must be a replica of a painting that hangs in the National Museum, that’s the First King, Adrian.”
Mike shook his head. “No, the painting in the museum is the replica, this is the original. This is the first painting of Adrian the First, the father of the First King, Adrian the Second. At the time this painting was made he was just a smith named Smith, but he brought the Humans and Inimals together, and when he became king he was only the king of those. His son, Adrian the Second, was known as the First King, because he was also the king of the Bergvolk and the Elfique.”
Charlotte nodded. “And you are Adrian the Forty-ninth, rightful heir to the throne, but you just want to be called Mike.”
Mike nodded. “Yes. Adrian the First… or Smith was a seventh generation Humanborn. One in many births of Elfique result in a girl, those are not considered Elfique and are abandoned by the Elfique. Somehow the bloodline that resulted in Smith survived, and the Elfique thought it was a good idea to add in more Elfique blood in the form of Mary, with who Smith had a son, Adrian the Second, even smarter stronger and better than his father. The Elfique made sure that the bloodline was secured by taking it out of the royalty after a few generations, royalty fell, a few times adding in more Elfique blood, the one who designed this all being the last one with an Elfique mother, my ancestors became very powerful but always in the background, and now we are here… Wealth got split between the generations, my father inherited an industrial empire from his grandfather, I inherited all the land from my grandfather, my son will inherit everything my father has and my grandson will inherit everything I have.”

Charlotte knowingly nodded. “Your father is the owner of Anvil Industries? I heard they treat Inimals well.”
Mike smiled. “Yes. They make everything, from pencils to heavy tools and from cars to light weaponry, from furniture to construction and everything else that’s not too big. They treat Inimals well because we know what they can do. Wolves are better with construction, Vulpine for electronics and Felines are mechanics… I occasionally work for him, designing high-end electronics, but I like having my own clients more. I mainly build high-end audio systems, my work is known for the clarity of sound, and it’s just perfectly adapted for Elfique… Because of my relation with the Elfique I have access to their audiogram, their hearing goes a bit beyond the Human hearing range but their discomfort level for loudness at certain frequencies is quite a bit lower, and not everyone understands that. And for the species of Bergvolk it’s again different.”
Charlotte nodded again. “I understand, you make something unique without the help of others, and your clients don’t want to see a single Inimal hair of flake of skin on the things they bought from you… You didn’t mention your mother, or even the mother of your child… Are they dead?”
Mike sighed and nodded. “Yes. All the Human women die when they give birth to someone like me. I was raised by the Elfique, and so were my father and grandfather and those before them, and so is my son, and when I was old enough they brought me to my grandfather to live here and learn to know what I would inherit, and I’m looking forward to teaching my grandson all I know… I do have a brother from a different mother though, although only the first child of a father gets the special treatment. My brother was raised by my father and Human nannies.”
Charlotte nodded. “Isn’t ‘Mike’ short for ‘microphone’? Just as ‘Mack’ can be short for ‘mechanic’, sir?”
Mike shrugged. “You can say that… In fact I might have gotten that name because of I was always interested in audio equipment.”
Charlotte nodded once more. “You said this compound was built before the Firestorms… They knew?”
Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. What I do know is that we, my whole bloodline, are no longer allowed to visit the South Pole, the one who designed this helped there with some research and when he got back he got this built, but he died before the heaviest period of the Firestorms hit. He got shot by some looters.”
Charlotte looked in shock at Mike. “I know that the Firestorms were a violent period in history… And not allowed at the South Pole sir? You told earlier that you can do whatever you want? He helped with research there!”
Mike grinned. “At the South Pole there is a ceremonial pole with a small metal sphere on top. Normal idiots try to lick that ball and get their tongue frozen and stuck on it, but that magnificent bastard ran it over with his recreational vehicle. It was a massive metal pole, there is still a dent in the bumper and I still have that vehicle in my collection, but since then it’s very hard… impossible for me to get there. But I do hope that I will be healthy when my grandson gets here, because I really want to repeat that history. It will cost me a lot of money, but it will be fun.”
Charlotte shook her head. “That would be a very stupid…” but quickly she started to nod. “Excellent idea sir.”

After a few moments of staring at Charlotte Mike sighed and got the remote for the collar. “I want you to say what you think. And stop calling me ‘sir’, that makes me feel old.”

“I’m sorry… not sir.” Charlotte responded, barely audible.

Mike pushed a few buttons on the remote, and the collar popped open, and fell on the ground.

Mike tossed the remote away and gently caressed a trembling Charlotte, from her ear over her cheek uninterrupted over her neck to her shoulder. “I want you to be free.” He gently spoke.

Charlotte looked up. “What? Why?”

Mike smiled “I want you to be free to do whatever you want, from the end of cleaning up after dinner to the start of preparations of breakfast. I don’t want blind obedience, I want you to decide what I get to eat. I want you to say what you think. Now, again, what do you think of my idea of repeating history and running over that pole again?”
Charlotte grinned. “I think I had that in my history lessons. He helped the scientists, he even helped them after a storm, but when everything was done he drove away, but that was only to gain some speed and ran over that pole. He almost got away with it… with that pole I mean. But they also told me that you… and your whole bloodline… are a myth, but also cannot be trusted… Just take it and drive faster.”
Mike grinned. “I think I will… And about that not being trustworthy: I do things Humans and Bergvolk don’t like. I take care of Inimals… Today I will show you around here, tomorrow you will meet a lot of people and learn how they feel about me. Today I have some cleaning up to do in my workshop, you make me food and after dinner I go to my room and you can choose what you want to do without me watching you. Watch on the screen whatever you want, talk to Ralph and Lisa I will introduce you to later today, go to bed, run away if you decide you don’t like it here… it will be a good hunt… Whatever you want.”
Charlotte shrugged. “I think I will go to bed early as well. I’ve never slept a full night in a real bed.”
Mike nodded. “Very well. Let’s start at the bottom.”

“Welcome to the second basement.” Mike spoke when they got to the bottom of the stairs. “Technical area for the swimming pool behind the door to our left, tunnel… more a short hallway but it has soil left, right and above of it so it is a tunnel… to the shooting range behind the door on our right. There is no need for you to be here, I do the technical things, but if I trust you enough and you want to learn how to handle firearms, and I have the time, I can teach you. Shall we go to the swimming pool?”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes… I don’t like this level.”
Mike shrugged. “I understand. It’s dark and still a bit humid. During the Firestorms there was a broken steam pipe down here and even after a century the humidity still lingers. No people died, but the whole house was sterilized with steam. The doors to the tunnels are all air- and watertight, and they were closed that day, the steam could only go up through the stairwell.”

They climbed one level up, and entered a large area with a tiled floor and tiled walls.
Mike gestured at the room. “Welcome to the swimming pool!”
Charlotte looked around. “I don’t see it?”
Mike smiled and typed something on a console. In two areas the floor tiles lowered and quickly got covered by water, and in a third area a wall rose up a little, while the floor the wall enclosed sank a little, and the middle part even more. “To our right is a bubble bath, I don’t know what the person who designed this was thinking, but it’s far from comfortable. The bubbles are nice, but it’s impossible to sit in comfort. There must be some old floaties somewhere, but I have forgotten where, and never had the time to look for them. The big pool is more special, every tile can be adjusted with hydraulic cylinders and forms a column, the whole pool can be shallow, it can be deep, it can be huge stairs down into the water, it can be an island in the pool. Whatever you want, the only disadvantage are again the sharp corners, the columns are square again, they really should have chosen hexagons… And near the back wall is a streamer, where you can swim against the current for as long as you want and as fast as you want. It is said that even Otters were not fast enough to get to the other end.”
Charlotte nodded. “I’m sure Tigers would love this… What’s in the right corner? That’s a lot of empty room with a lot of mirrors on the walls.”
Mike shrugged. “That’s where the fitness equipment used to be. I got that upstairs, in one of the bedrooms. And there is also a sauna with a cold bath, but I forgot to lower the floor for it.”
Charlotte pointed at some huge rolls. “And what are those?”
Mike shrugged. “Those are some sort of huge mattresses that can be unrolled over the tiles, they were used for extra insulation over the tiles during the Firestorms. The pools were closed during the dry periods, and were used for extra water storage. Now the water is at a comfortable temperature, but then it had to be kept cold while not soaking up the heat of the room. I also never got to remove those because they are impossible to get up the stairs.”
Charlotte nodded. “I see it now. They also look like something you could use for ground gymnastics.”
Mike also nodded. “Yes… That’s also a possibility. Or martial arts, I’m a bit too old for it now, but I used to be a good fighter, when I was seventeen they said I was good enough to beat world champions in various disciplines, but I was forced to remain in the background to avoid unwanted attention. I was good at hand-to-hand combat against different species, but I also was an expert in handling various bladed weapons, and I even mastered the ancient sling… I’m not good at using bow and arrow though, but I do have some very powerful crossbows in my collection and I know how to use them.”
Charlotte shrugged. “What good are those skills when someone has a rapid firing gun?”
Mike grinned. “Guns are limited by the amount of bullets you can carry into a fight, and reloads take time.”
Charlotte nodded. “But you are limited by your stamina. If you fight to survive there is no bell.”

Three flights of stairs up, and they got to the highest floor.
“Welcome to your floor… I said that you would get your own room, but you get your own floor. Two large bedrooms with an extra large double bed and two single beds each… So that’s eight sleeping places you can choose from. There is a large bathroom with a bath, shower, toilet and two sinks connecting the bedrooms, and I have put all the leftover Inimal hair products I have in a cabinet there because I didn’t know what I would end up with, and a separate toilet room in the hallway. All the toilets I have are longseats, so no trouble with your tail when you use them.”
Charlotte was shocked when she opened the door to one of the bedrooms. “I… get… all… this…?”
Mike nodded. “Yes. I have no use for it, so you can have it as long as you are with me. I will only come here in emergencies or for maintenance after your permission, but please, keep it tidy. Shall we go to my floor?”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes… Can I use the toilet first?”
Mike shrugged. “It’s yours now.”

“This is my floor.” Mike spoke while he opened a door opposite of the stairs they just went down. “Here we have a spare double bedroom with a bathroom. Double because you have to go through the first room to get to the second. Each room has an extra large double bed and a single bed… I know, it’s a bit odd for a single man to have this many beds in his house, but in the past we had a lot of guests, and my ancestors even more. During the Firestorms this was the home of twenty-eight people, and the guesthouse of seven more, and they all lived in comfort while the world literally burned… or froze solid, depending on the season, around them. The extra beds and some more that were used are in storage now, even the mattresses are still in good condition, even after a century. They really are top quality.”
They walked around the stairs and Mike opened another door in a long hallway briefly. “Here we have another small bathroom, without a bath, only a shower, sink and a toilet. Not used in a long time.” He closed the door again and walked on.
Mike gestured at the sloping ceiling on their right “On the outside of this this wall… or ceiling… it’s at a forty-five degree angle so it can be either… on our right are south facing solar panels, or, a better word, radiation panels, because they do not only convert sunlight from the deep infrared to far ultraviolet into electricity, but also some radio waves and other electromagnetic waves, and I even know of some weird energy spikes that turned out to be gamma rays at night. Not much is converted into electricity at night, but combined with the other buildings it’s enough to keep the house, fridges and freezers running if we didn’t have batteries.”
Mike opened the second door on the left. “And here we have the new fitness area. Extra long and ultra fast treadmill, although not fast enough for Cheetahs, and of course all the other things you might expect in a fitness area, many of them also suitable for agile Felines and strong Canines and things for endurance. I am both strong and agile, I had a lot of training in my youth, and no matter how busy I am, every week I want to spend at least three hours here… Want to spend… Past few months I didn’t have the time and gained some weight… Just tell me when I look bored, so I can go here again.”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes, of course… Can I also use the treadmill?”
Mike smiled. “What part of ‘you can do whatever you want between dinner and breakfast’ didn’t you understand? If you want to use it I will explain how it works.”
Charlotte shrugged. “I’m not used to this generosity… Thank you.”
Mike opened a third door in the fitness room, the second was for the small bathroom next to the stairs, and they entered a large bathroom. “Welcome to my bathroom. It’s huge, it’s… not very clean but that’s why I have you now… Double shower, bath, multi person hot tub although it’s empty and clean because I don’t use it, for some reason a urinal, toilet and bidet next to each other and three sinks. I don’t use this toilet and shower alone because I feel exposed using them, it is a huge bathroom, I use the toilet in the hallway on the other side of this wall, and I have a second small bathroom where I shower. We could use this door to go to my rooms, but I want us to take the official route.”

“Well… This is my bedroom. One big empty room with an extra extra large double bed. I like it, it’s… You will learn tomorrow, you don’t have to be in my bed, I have you for my food and cleaning… And behind it is my dressing room, with the small bathroom with my shower, another toilet and sink… If you wait here I’m going to put on a new shirt… I might even have lost some more bullets along the way… and throw away this jacket.”

Charlotte nodded when Mike returned wearing a new shirt, without a bulletproof vest underneath it. “Looking good sir… Your bedroom is really huge, but also a bit messy, I already made the bed for you. And I smell… Tiger?”
Mike nodded and shrugged. “Yes. Sorry you ended up with me. I must admit, I like female Felines, and they like me. I know, it’s frowned upon, and I want to keep it a secret, but it’s something in my family. Some men like men, you don’t want to be alone with me in a soundproof and easy to clean room when I know you hurt children or helpless people, some have other fetishes. It’s… You will hear it tomorrow when I introduce you to other people. And thank you for already helping me to get my life in order. I… never have made the time for that. I only wash the bedding when needed, about… once a month.”
Charlotte shrugged. “I’m yours. You can do with me as you please.”
Mike sighed and shook his head. “No, don’t say that. You get a lot of freedom, I will never do things that will make you hate me, because I won’t be monitoring you all the time. You must know it will be very easy to poison me or kill me in another way, or ask others to do it. I don’t want that, so I must treat you with the respect you deserve. Shall we go downstairs? It’s getting close to dinnertime and you must get to know the kitchen.”

They went downstairs and Mike gestured at the doors in the hallway. “Front door, central computer room for this complex, behind these doors are the switchboard for the electricity and valves for the water supply, please close them if there is a leak, toilet, garage for the vehicle of the week, although I think we’ll use the Spot Seven tomorrow, and now we go to the living room.”

“Welcome to the living room.” Mike announced when he held the door open for Charlotte. “Now we can get a better look at it. During the Firestorms this was the greenhouse compound, the outside space between this house, the guesthouse and the greenhouse was covered with glass, almost tripling the indoor size of what you see above ground and all for growing plants. It is told that it didn’t suffer a lot of damage during the storms, and it was designed in such a way it could be disassembled and used again… On our right is my office, you are also not allowed there… I’m going to have a hard time explaining why I have an Inimal living in my house… Oh well, problem for later… On our left we have our open kitchen with everything I use, behind that door is the kitchen utility room, with the bigger freezer, deep fryer and air fryer, and all the things I don’t use every day and dry storage of food, but if you have a different style of cooking you can move things around as long as you try to keep the strong smells out of the living room. At the other end of the kitchen is the laundry utility room, washing machine, dryer, ironing and clothes steaming equipment, and main storage of cleaning things for the house. This house is equipped with a central vacuum cleaner system, so it’s only long hoses you can find in closets close to the stairs on every floor you have to move around, and every room has an… outlet? It’s not the right word for it because it’s not letting things out but it’s for sucking things in, but you know what I mean next to the door… Left back corner is a glass corridor to the big cold storage, walk-in cooler with a walk-in freezer and the greenhouse… I use the small freezer in the kitchen for the weekly food, bigger freezer in the kitchen utility for monthly storage, and the big freezer of the cold storage for long-term storage, or the very large pieces of meat. Tomorrow you will meet the suppliers of that meat… You will get to work with the best kinds of meat in the world. I am not the owner of the biggest farms, but I am the owner of the best farms in the world. It is a public secret, but the best pork comes from Canines, the best beef and dairy products comes from Felines, and the best poultry comes from Vulpine producers. They are the best because I just let them do what they do best, I’m not going to force a Tiger to take care of pigs.”
Charlotte nodded. “I understand… Do you also have groceries?”
Mike smiled. “Of course I have those. It’s a delivery service. The Hound who delivers them is treated badly, but when I order I always order some extra sausages or other food for him to eat, and I am the one who puts the groceries away instead of him, and he can eat his extra food. I want you to do the same. But don’t let him waste time, his owner doesn’t like that. But there are also stores nearby, we will go there tomorrow.”
Charlotte smiled. “You are a generous man.”
Mike nodded. “I try… You get to manage the household money, I won’t like it when you waste money, but also don’t be tight with the budget… I see Ralph and Lisa who live in the guesthouse outside, shall we meet them? Then you can talk to them in private… One more thing, this screen here is also for communication, Lisa can explain how it works, workshop where you can see me is short option three, don’t go harassing other people just yet, I want to introduce you first.”

“Ralph, Lisa… Can you come in for a moment? I want you to meet my new servant Charlen… Charlotte.” Mike called his two Wolf friends.
“You… bought a Cheetah? Why?” Ralph asked.
Mike shrugged. “You also need your time with your son, and time spent working for me is not time spent with your son. Charlotte is going to do all the cooking and cleaning indoors, while you can do everything else like you did before, not a lot is going to change… I have to do a lot of cleaning and putting things away in the workshop, and can you, Lisa, for this one time, help Charlotte with the cooking and showing where everything is? And talk of course, I want her to know how you feel about me, what you like and don’t like about me, but I don’t have to hear it. Tomorrow I will take her and meet some of the others, but this is her first day here, not too much in one day.”
Lisa nodded. “Yes of course… It’s funny, you own her, and you are already treating her as a friend.”
Mike shrugged. “Then you can act in a way that makes her hate you… Just kidding, let Charlotte do what I bought her for, and if she has questions she can ask you. She might have a lot of questions when she gets to know everything here, it’s a lot bigger than an average house, even I don’t know everything… Charlotte, also make dinner for Lisa and Ralph, and their son William. But beware, William is a picky eater.”
Ralph nodded. “Fine. But the weather is improving, I want to show my barbecue skills again very soon.”
Charlotte smiled. “I also want to use the barbecue. I have read a few very tasty recipes I want to try. And cooking for one Human and myself is no fun.”
Mike smiled. “I’m going to my workshop and… let’s say at six I expect my dinner. Warn me when it’s almost ready so I can come out of my workshop.”
Charlotte slightly bowed. “As you wish, master.”

The workshops were a mess. The workshops had always been a mess, although a little less since his grandfather died. Years of not cleaning up but just buying and remembering where everything was accumulated on the workbench, floor and shelves. But that’s a result of always being busy building, making, figuring out, repairing and inventing things. Finally he had time to clean, and not worry about the mess his home also had become since the death of the mother of his son.
Although the mess at home was mostly dust that settled in the rooms he did not use. Once a month he did clean the kitchen, and twice a year he gave the toilets and bathroom he used a thorough enough cleaning. But often Ralph and especially Lisa helped him with that. Right when he thought about cleaning they were there. And the guests had to clean up the mess they made themselves. Especially the Tigers.

The electronics workshop was the real mess. It was almost at the level where you forget where you put things and now can’t find them. Material for circuit boards, everything that was needed for building amplifiers and speakers, lots of component reels for his pick and place machines, although many not full. Not only the simple resistors, transistors, capacitors and various connectors, but also the more sophisticated electronics. And of course tools and devices. Everything was everywhere, he wondered how he could work in a place like this, but somehow he did.
He opened the drawer filled with the last of the real DHear audio components, the only thing he kept organized. Since the destruction of the production facilities more than a hundred years ago nothing came close to this perfection. Unfortunately enough for barely two hundred audio channels and a few spare, and if he could he would again buy a warehouse full of these, but Anvil Audio was starting up, and would be producing within a few years. Or at least, that’s what his father promised. In less than a year he would run out of crucial components if his sales continued like they did, and had to search and research substitutes, figuring out the characteristics and above all obtain them in the quantities he needed. And that takes more time. Mike contemplated reorganizing the drawer, but he didn’t see a better way than the chaos it was. At least most of the components were in the right tray, although the organization of the trays could use some work. There also was a box of the lower grade somewhere else…
He glanced at the wood workshop through the window that separated it from the electronics workshop. That was also a mess. But that was for another day. And so were the metal workshop, and the storage areas. Those workshops and storage areas were clean enough to not scratch and damage the materials stored there. Although he could do something about the amount of packaging material that was scattered around.

The Firestorms had destroyed much of the technological progress that had been made. The years before the Firestorms were a technological boom, but the Firestorms brought it all to a halt. Factories and research facilities destroyed in floods and fires, people with knowledge dead, and most of all the food production needed all the attention. Almost half of the world’s population died, not only due to natural disasters, but most of all due to starvation and fights. The Pink Slime was one of the inventions that were created those days. All the nutrition that was needed, but no taste, and above all a ninety-seven percent efficiency in production, very little waste producing it. He did not want to know what was actually in it, but he also had never heard about what happened to dead Inimals.
The food production was almost at a pre-Firestorms level again, and with a lot less mouths to feed the quality should be better, but the cheap mass produced factory food did not leave the market. He was a proud owner of the best farms in the world. His people produced the meat for the elite, the Elfique and high ranked Humans and Bergvolk. But it was a secret he mainly produced for his own people, the Unclaimed Inimals he took care of. But still, the farms earned him more money than he spent.

During the Firestorms the Inimals made the mistake to ask for help, and that resulted in indentured servitude to repay for that help. But in reality they were now slaves, and those who were not slaves were fourth class citizens, not allowed to do anything that could improve their lives, although some of them got excellent education, almost like his, by Elfique. There was nothing he could do about their existence outside the land he owned, he was not allowed to disturb the balance with one side high up and the other side at rock bottom, but his whole bloodline did have a history of being friendly with the Inimals, and he did not want to change that. It would simply cost too much, just being friendly costs nothing.

Six other areas surrounded his home. The farms. Two for dairy and beef with huge areas of grassland, two for pigs farms with oak forests and maize fields, and two for poultry surrounded by grain fields, with his, Area Number Seven, for everything that grows on or as a plant, with large areas of greenhouses and fields with various fruits and vegetables and the central hub of the underground transport system. That was the original setup. Today the compounds in the other areas were almost like small villages, with not only the original buildings, but also other buildings surrounding them like a car workshop, workshops for builders and carpenters, schools, a fire station, doctors, simple shops with locally produced goods. He was even famous for the horses people thought he bred, but in reality it were the Wolves who bred them, he only pretended to sell them, without knowing anything about horses. The horses hated him too, he could not even get close to them to pet them.
One of the villages even had a large fish farm, unthinkable during the Firestorms, then there only were some small underground basins to let at least fish survive. Thinking of it he realized there were at least seven thousand people depending on him. Nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of people his father had working for him, but at least he knew most of ‘his’ people personally.
He had almost three thousand square miles of land under his control, and his influence reached even further, a lot of the human settlements surrounding his land depended on his services. The Unclaimed Inimals he had living on his land were most welcome in times of need, and he made sure they were well equipped to help others, making the Humans dependent on them. The Tigers and Wolves of his fire brigade sometimes even had to travel for hours to assist, because they were better trained and were better equipped than the Humans and Bergvolk. And his power grid and water supply were also very robust, never an interruption, but that was mainly because his land bordered his father’s industrial complex, he had a nuclear power plant that provided a lot of free energy if he needed it in winter when there was no sun nor wind. But in favorable conditions he sold energy to his father, so he didn’t have to push his power plant.
Mike smiled. On paper he also owned the land on which his father’s empire was built.
He wondered how the connecting tunnels to the other areas were built, tunnel boring machines or digging. He knew of some doors to a tunnel between his basements and the central hub, but he had never bothered to open them to reveal a round tube or straight walls, and the motion sensors never went off, nobody came through them. At least there was no water leaking through the doors.
And he had only observed the central hub from the balcony as a child, he never went down to see the tunnels, his grandfather never took the time. There was so much exploring to do in the future when his grandchild would come to live with him. But that would be at least three decades away, his own son was only eight years old. He promised himself that his grandson would have a more ‘fun’ life than he had with his grandfather. But exploring the tunnels on foot would be boring again, he reckoned it would be at least a three hour walk in a tunnel from the central hub to get to a hub in another area. Or an hour on a bicycle.
Then he remembered a fun fact about the tunnels: they were straight. As in: you could shine a laser through them and it would be at an equal height above the floor for the entire length, no horizon.
The people living on his land used his tunnels extensively though, they were the fastest route between the farms and processing plants in the different areas, and hub Number Four was not only connected to neighboring hubs Three and Five and the Central Hub, but also to his father’s industrial complex via a newer tunnel.

The screen in the workshop turned on, and a timid looking Charlotte was visible.
“Erm… Sir… Mike… dinner is almost ready.” She spoke after a few awkward moments.
Mike nodded. “Thank you, I’m on my way. Cleaning up takes a lot more time than I expected, I… got a bit distracted by finding things and starting to count them instead of putting them away for a good count later.”

“So… What’s for dinner? Smells good.” Mike said when he entered the living room again.
Charlotte smiled. “A mixed roast from the oven. Pork belly, a large chicken, and beef. With some carrots, onions and potatoes… You really need to eat more vegetables.”
Mike stared in disbelief at what was put on the table. “You can’t cook three kinds of meat at the same time in one oven.”
Lisa shrugged. “That’s what I said, but as you can see: she did it. Pork first, then fifteen minutes later adding the chicken, and again fifteen minutes later the beef. And then until everything is done. You really have a good cook now. And I agree that you need to eat more veggies. You are an omnivore, not a pure carnivore.”
Mike shrugged. “What I get to eat is out of my hands. From now on I can only say what I don’t like about a meal, and hope I get something bett… tastier the next day.”
Ralph smiled. “Good to see you happy. How is cleaning the workshop really going? I’ve looked through the windows a few times, but it’s really a mess. I have the feeling the only area you keep clean is the area that is visible on the screen.”
Mike shrugged. “Not done today. It won’t even be done if I continued the day after tomorrow. But I never work on a Sunday or a Moonday, so on Earthday I will continue.”
Little William looked at Mike. “Do you know how the days got their names?”
Mike nodded. “Yes of course. Earthday is the begin of the week, the day the Creator created the universe and this small planet we live on. On the second day, Waterday, he divided the land from the water. On Windday he added the breath of life. On Thunderday the work of creating everything else really started, and it could be heard everywhere. On Fireday, the last working day, you can get tired of an entire week of working, accidents happen, and believe it or not, most fires happen on a Fireday. On Sunday you can take your rest in the sun, nothing is made. In ancient times even the shops were closed. And on Moonday everyone takes a rest, you could wish the night was longer on a Moonday to sleep in.”
William nodded. “And what about the months?”
Before Mike could say anything Lisa put a plate with pieces of meat and the vegetables before him. “Here, eat. Explaining all twelve months takes too long.”
Mike shrugged. “This month, Quart, got its name because it’s the third month after Longest Night, and at the end of this month, at the spring equinox, a quarter of the year has passed… But now I want to eat, and then I want to go to bed.”

[Neutral Smith]

Chapter 2:
Tour

Mike went downstairs at seven o’clock, the usual time, but Charlotte wasn’t already in the kitchen.
He sighed when he remembered he didn’t tell Charlotte when he expected his breakfast.
He grabbed his tablet to read the latest news. Turmoil in the east, problems in the west, still some radiation in the south, nothing new, and not much local news. Nothing about a shooting on a parking lot.
The tech section was more interesting though, Anvil Audio had launched, but it was not what he expected. It was some generative artificial thing that turned an idea of a sound and a melody into a ‘proper’ sounding musical piece. This was not what he wanted for his equipment, this artificial… they called it ‘intelligence’… turned cheap instruments into masterpieces, but it also took the soul, the spirit, the… begeisterung… out of the music. It hides the imperfections that need to be heard. Use a computer if you can’t play an instrument or can’t sing.
He grinned. He can’t play an instrument nor sing, and has no feeling for rhythm or melody, but his hearing is… was… there is still a ringing in his ears thanks to that police officer who decided to shoot him yesterday… absolute, not for the notes, but for the imperfections and deformation when audio is processed.
He sighed again, not because he was tired, but because he was afraid his hearing was damaged. He could do some tests, and if there was something wrong with his hearing he could sue the cop. Or, at least, fire a gun close to the cop’s ears in return… Get someone else to fire a gun close to the cop’s ears. He didn’t like to get his own hands dirty for revenge.

“Oh, you are already here… I’m sorry.” Charlotte apologized when she entered the living room and noticed Mike.
Mike shrugged and smiled. “I don’t remember telling you how early I go downstairs. How was your first night?”
Charlotte also shrugged. “Quiet… almost too quiet. I switched rooms, I hoped the other room would be noisier, but that was even quieter.”
Mike nodded. “I understand. You slept in the east or the west bedroom? West has some equipment above it in the attic, with some fans spinning. Or I can give you a noisemaker, I think I have some unsold equipment I can hook up to make you think you sleep in an old forest, on a beach, on the streets of a pre-Firestorms city, on an old battlefield, during a thunderstorm, next to a waterfall… Wherever you want. It is artificial sound, it has a lot of imperfections, but if you want to fall asleep and don’t mind the imperfections it’s realistic enough… But please, use the west bedroom for that, I don’t want to rattle out of my bed when you decide you want to sleep on a battlefield.”
Charlotte smiled. “Or I just have to get used to it… Shall I make breakfast?”
Mike nodded. “That’s why I bought you. To keep me alive and healthy.”

“Are you ready to meet the people I… care for?” Mike asked when Charlotte came outside. It was a beautiful day and Mike almost regretted brushing his teeth and erase the taste of a good breakfast.
Charlotte nodded. “Yes… Is that your Spot Seven? It’s beautiful.”
Mike nodded and patted the roof of the tawny colored car with black accents. “Yes, just as the Red Arrow Ophanim we drove yesterday this is an Inimal made car. The Red Arrow was Vulpine, and this is Feline. Made by Cheetahs and Leopards. It is not as fast as a Fang, a Wolf brand, but far more agile in the corners. Models are One, Two, Five, Seven and Eleven. Model One is just a bare frame, engine, wheels and controls, not very pleasant to drive, and only one seat. Model Two is basically the same, but with two seats and some handles for the passenger to hold on to, model Five is a basic version of the Seven, but faster, and the Eleven is a more luxury version, it rivals the Red Arrow Seraphim, but it has better handling. I only have a One, Five and this Seven in my collection, unfortunately there is only one model Two left, and that’s in a museum, I really would love to make a passenger scream that I and the speed I’m driving are both insane, and the Eleven was just a common car, people didn’t bother to keep them in a good condition.”
Charlotte politely smiled. “I don’t have to know all this. Shall we go?”
Mike shrugged. “I just love to talk. You will get your driving lessons, and you get to drive one of my Bergvolk or Human cars, and if you can handle them well you are also allowed to drive the more expensive cars. People will have questions about the cars, and you must give some answers. You saw how that Ork yesterday reacted when he saw my Red Arrow Ophanim.”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes… That was unexpected.”

Mike smiled. “They only care about the value of the car, they don’t appreciate craftsmanship. Can you imagine having the same model for decades? Parts of the first production years still compatible with the last models. The Berg and Human cars these days change models almost every year, and even the windscreen wipers won’t fit one model year to the next.”
Charlotte shrugged. “Make them cheaper, less reliable, and after the warranty expires you can sell a new car.”
Mike nodded. “Unfortunately yes. I really don’t know what the future classics will be these days. It would be nice to start buying those as an investment.”
Charlotte grinned. “I heard that an assortment of new windscreen wipers would be a good investment… But let’s go, I have some plans for lunch.”

After turning left leaving the driveway and almost immediately turning right they drove onto the square of what looked like a small village.
Mike smiled. “Welcome to Area Seven, Compound Three, although this is not a compound like it was meant to be… We did not survive the Firestorms unscathed, and had to rebuild some. These are just modern buildings, the oldest ones are the three houses over there, about sixty years old.” and gestured in the direction of some very normal looking houses. “There are two more compounds in this area, I’m sure you can guess the names… Wrong, those are Eight and Nine, although they are not connected.”
Charlotte nodded and shrugged. “And what is the purpose of this compound?”
Mike also shrugged. “Administration and housing. Besides you there is only one other active slave living on this land, the Mayor. My grandfather bought him, and when my grandfather died my father inherited him. But that gives Leopold a lot of power, if he wants the roads redone he can contact my father for the big machinery and people, and it will be done. I still have to pay for the work, but Leopold saves me a lot of hassle and arranging things.”
Charlotte smiled. “I can’t imagine what it would feel like to have such responsibilities, but it sure must feel good. It is beautiful here.”
Mike started to laugh. “I also have a lot of responsibilities, but I hate them. I’m glad I have people to shove those responsibilities on to. How much crime do you think there would be here if I had to do everything myself? There is no police here. There are some Inimals with a special status on their chip, there is not only zero-one, which means free like most of those here are, one-zero which means owned, which are also quite a few but their owners don’t know they are here, some have been here for years, but there are also a few one-ones, which means ‘under protection’, that means that they can do whatever their protector can do, and under my protection that virtually means anything, including killing Humans and Bergvolk when needed. They are the police and some sort of army, far better equipped than some militia… If something happens and they get caught outside I get asked if I condone their actions, and If I or one of the Elfique say we do they are free to go. Worst thing we can do is set their status to zero-zero, which means they are free for the taking.”
Charlotte stared at Mike in disbelief. “I didn’t know there were more statuses than ‘owned’ and ‘free’.”
Mike shrugged. “What more does the outside world need? I can give you an entire explanation of how the number on your chip is built up, half of it would be for all kinds of permissions like what you are allowed to handle like vehicles and money, but just let the people believe there is a huge database with all that information makes life a lot easier. The database is only for breeders, to prevent inbreeding. It is there, but access is slow, changing a number is much faster.”
Charlotte shook her head. “No, that can’t be right. I have two chips, and when you bought me they weren’t scanned with a hand scanner.”
Mike shrugged. “Not everything is done with a handheld scanner. The outside world is filled with Berg scanners, every door of public buildings has scanners built in, and yes, also the place where I bought you has them. Not only the doors, but also the windows. If you escaped through the windows the number on your chips, and with that your status, would have changed before the owner even noticed you were gone.”
“But you don’t have scanners here?” Charlotte asked.
Mike shook his head. “No, we have more scanners and an infrastructure behind them here than you can imagine. Being free does not mean you can go anywhere restricted. We have a lot of dangerous places, and we care for the animals for the meat production, we don’t want to spread any diseases, so it is very important to monitor and restrict all movements when needed. Yes, being chipped does mean a lot of doors get unlocked for you, and if you are a Human or Bergvolk who isn’t chipped you have to ask for assistance of someone who is allowed to approve visitors, and not everyone is that.”
Charlotte nodded. “And I thought payments with my chip was impressive. You have to show your card to identify yourself or pay for something.”
Mike smiled. “No. You only have two chips in your body, I have at least three. But I don’t use them very often, an ID or payment card makes me look more like a normal Human.”
Charlotte nodded. “I don’t think you are very normal. You know a lot of things.”
Mike shrugged. “Pretending you are stupid gets you a lot further than being a smartass. But yes, I know a lot of things.”

“Well, this is the Mayor’s office. You won’t have a lot of business to do with him, but it’s just nice to meet the only other slave here.” Mike said when they walked to the door of the larger but nice looking building.

“Good morning, you have an appointment?” An unfamiliar Lioness at a new front desk greeted them.
Mike shrugged. “I don’t need an appointment, I just want to talk to Leopold.”
The Lioness shook her head, and got something from a drawer and put it on her desk, still invisible for Mike and Charlotte. “Everyone needs an appointment, or needs to leave to make an appointment. Information on how to do that can be found at the door.”
Mike sighed. “I want the appointment, right here, and right now. It is not very busy, and it is not lunchtime.”
The Lioness lifted her hand and held a powerful gun in her hand, and pointed it at Mike’s face.
“You are not going to shoot me, are you?” Mike asked.
The Lioness nodded. “Yes. In the face.”
Mike shrugged. “Very well… That cop yesterday shot me in the chest, lucky for me I was wearing my vest, but let me just point out the four rules of weapon handling… First rule: Treat all guns as if they are loaded. It would be very embarrassing for you if it wasn’t. Second rule: Don’t point at things you don’t want to destroy. You point it at me, that’s fair. Third rule, and I must appreciate you following it: Keep your finger off the trigger until you you are ready to shoot. I talk, you keep the finger off the trigger. Very good. But the fourth rule worries me a bit. You have an unfamiliar model gun, but I can see it has a very high caliber, although I do recognize it as a Hammer brand weapon suitable for large Felines. If you shoot it, my skull is not going to stop that bullet, it will fly on and probably also go outside through the window. Do you know who or what is out there?”
The Lioness lowered the gun to have a better look. “Wait… You are Mike? I’m sorry, Leopold told me you rarely come here.”
Mike nodded. “Yes, you can call me Mike, or Forty-Ninth Adrian if you want to use my official name. And you are?”
The Lioness put the gun back in the drawer and extended her hand. “I’m Lisa, secretary and lover of Leopold. Pleased to meet you.”
Mike took her hand and almost winced because of the firm handshake she gave. In turn he also squeezed harder, but Lisa also had some strength left. “That’s a firm handshake.” he managed to say.
Lisa nodded. “You are also the first Human who has a handshake I respect. I’ll get Leopold for you.”

“Mike! Welcome! What are you doing here?” Leopold asked when he entered the front office.
Mike smiled. “I came here to introduce the second slave here, Charlotte.”
Leopold started to laugh. “She is the third slave here, you father bought Lisa to help me.”
Mike nodded. “Good choice. I like her, despite her wanting to shoot me. How do you feel about me owning a slave?”
Leopold shrugged. “I don’t know you well enough to give you my opinion, but I think you are a good owner.”
Lisa nodded. “Yes. I don’t think a lot of people take their slave on a tour to meet other people.”
Charlotte smiled. “Yes… And he basically told me I can do whatever I want between cleaning up after dinner and preparing breakfast. He has me to keep him alive and healthy.”
Mike nodded. “Yes… Well… Leopold and Lisa are just the most important people here, they take care of the big things like roads and oversee the finances of everything here, and now we are going to visit the Hub, point out a few of the important stores where she can buy things, and just some sightseeing, I want to visit a few of the farms. I haven’t heard of them in a while, that can either be good or bad.”
Leopold grinned. “You did a lot of damage… not to us, don’t you worry Charlotte, but you will see.”
Mike nodded. “Yes… I wonder if they removed it or not… And Lisa, safest way to shoot someone is outside, in the back. Not going to put up a fight, not having to clean up a mess indoors.”
Lisa also grinned. “Your father told me the same, get them outside and shoot them center of mass in the back. You just stood your ground. I assume you are also going to teach Charlotte to handle guns?”
Mike nodded. “Of course. Handling cars and guns. But now we are going to meet a few of the seven thousand other people living here. After some sightseeing at the Hub.”
Leopold shook his head. “It’s getting over twenty thousand these days. seven thousand was when you were a little boy, now there are a lot of people working for your father in Area Four and we have a lot of escapees. Things are not going well in the outside world.”
Mike shrugged. “See, that’s why we have you. Keeping track of things.”

After leaving the compound and two more right turns they approached a complex consisting of large concrete and glass domes, with a surprisingly empty parking lot.
“Welcome to Area Seven, Compound One, Four, Five and Seven, also known as the Central Hub of the tunnel system, stores, schools and the hospital.”
“It’s huge.” Charlotte replied when she got out of the car.
Mike nodded. “Yes. Third largest building ever, and here most of it underground, just like my house. First and second largest buildings around of world were some hangars, and those were above ground and flat. One cold week with snow and clogged drains and no power to melt the snow and ice, and the whole structure came crashing down. This is just concrete, steel and glass, and it’s a lot stronger than needed. It is a series of domes, but it is not a contestant for the largest free standing dome ever because of some supports. I… haven’t been inside for a long time. The stores where I order things are over there, but first we’ll have a look inside The Hub.”
Charlotte nodded. “Thanks for taking me along… It looks a bit like what you see in science fiction.”
Mike nodded. “You know what science fiction is? All space flight and aliens and all that bullshit, while in reality the Firestorms fried all the satellites and the debris makes space flight even or new satellites unfeasible for the next hundreds of years. Good thing we didn’t get that irradiated piece of debris here… although nobody saw it fall, just a big explosion at that government building in the far northeast.”
Charlotte shrugged. “My teacher told me it wasn’t a satellite, but a terrorist attack.”

“Good morning, one gray helmet and yellow vest for this Cheetah, and one pink helmet and a teal vest for me.” Mike greeted the Dog behind the counter.
The Dog looked Mike up and down. “Pink helmet? That one is reserved for the owner. Can you identify yourself?”
Mike nodded and held his right wrist against the scanner. “There you go.”
The Dog looked at the screen, at Mike, and again back at the screen. “Chip in your wrist… zero-four-nine-zero? And the system denies me seeing the full number.”
Mike nodded. “Yes, full number is a lot of nines and a few other numbers and you would get a call why you scanned me if this wasn’t a known place. My grandfather would have been zero-four-seven-zero, my father would be zero-four-eight-zero, my half-brother would would be zero-four-nine-one, and my son is zero-five-zero-zero.”
The Dog suddenly realized who he had before him. “Mike… Welcome. Now I see you have had your safety instructions last year, but your photo is a bit… outdated. It’s a photo of a young boy.”
Mike shrugged. “I know. The yearly instructions are always when I’m very busy, but I also don’t want to skip them because then I have to do a full course in case I want to visit, and I really don’t have the time for that.”
The Dog smiled. “You can slowly move the instructions to earlier in the year, after ten months you can do them again… And one more thing that is not in the instructions, don’t stand too close to doors, gates, portals or consoles, the scanners have a tendency to crank up the output when they detect someone, but can’t read a chip… Oh nevermind, you have multiple chips, they will detect you… And Cheetah, your chip please, that way we can register who is in, in case of an emergency. Otherwise you will be detected as an intruder.”
Charlotte also held her wrist against the scanner. “Is there a problem with the scanners?”
The Dog grinned. “They have a tendency to crank up the power output and give people cancer when they can’t detect a chip. We… omit that little detail to Bergvolk.”
Mike shrugged. “It’s by design. My grandfather’s grandfather created the system that way, or so I’m told.”

“What’s with the helmet and vest colors?” Charlotte asked when they were walking on a walkway towards the largest dome, the center of the tunnel system. The Hub.
Mike shrugged. “To recognize the roles of the people here. Yellow jacket means visitor, it’s for people who use the tunnels as a transit system, orange vest means you work here in a general role, like driver, maintenance or cleaning, green jacket means medical staff, blue is for security, red is for the fire brigade and teal means inspection. Gray helmet means didn’t have instructions, yellow helmet means you have had instructions, white helmet is for people who do paperwork, like managers or instructors, and my pink helmet means I’m the owner. There are also other colors, like brown for welding crew and light blue for electricians, but I don’t know the entire list from the top of my head.”
Charlotte nodded. “I see… And who are those people in pink jackets with a black helmet?”
Mike looked over the railing of the walkway, and saw them. One of them waved at him, and he waved back. “Those are Elfique, they designed the whole system. I wonder what they are doing here, and I honestly don’t know what all those white jackets mean. But they have seen me, I’m sure they will come up to meet us.”
Charlotte smiled. “Elfique… the most powerful people that are alive, and they come up to meet you.”

“Bonjour, what are you doing here? I hope there are no troubles with the system.” Mike greeted the rather large group of people, not only Elfique and Humans, but also a few of the Bergvolk, including a huge Troll and some Kobolder, but also a few Foxes and Dogs, and even a Cat walking among the group like they were equals.
The oldest of the Elfique smiled. “No, not at all. We are here because we want to use the science tunnels.”
Mike shrugged. “I’m sure you know what you are doing… What are those science tunnels? I’m not familiar with them.”
The Elfique pulled a paper from his pocket, a map of the tunnel system. “We had the science tunnels built, but the Firestorms hit harder and sooner than we anticipated, and they were never used… Here we have an overview of the tunnel system. Not to scale, not everything is on it, but it gives a general idea. The main science tunnels are these three tunnels, a straight one that runs roughly from west of Hub One and east of Hub Four with an equally long branch starting at the center and going… or coming in, that’s the real purpose… at a specific angle, going a bit more north, but still west of Hub One, those are perfect gravity compensated laser beam straight tunnels that start and end beyond your land with a length of fifty kilometers and the branch is also twenty-five kilometers, and the third one is a perfect flat circle all around, one hundred kilometer circumference, all of them with some more minor branches and loops. We want to use them for particle acceleration and colliding, what they were designed for.”
Mike pointed at the map, his home a prominent dot where a line went straight through. “That goes underneath my home.”
The Elfique nodded. “Yes it does. The middle of the linear accelerator where the particles hit each other is right beneath your house. But there is so much rock between that and your home it’s safe. It goes so deep underground that the entrance to get all the equipment in is somewhere in Area Two, north of the transport tunnel. Even an emergency exit straight up was not feasible.”
Mike shrugged. “I’m sure you know what you are doing. If you happen to create a black hole under my home I want to be the first outsider to know about it.”
A few of the other scientists started to laugh, they got the joke.
The Elfique bowed. “You have a good sense of humor. But a lot of your ancestors had that. It’s a pity he couldn’t get away with a certain item.”
Mike grinned. “I want to try again if you can get me the permission to go there again.”
The Elfique politely smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid I can not do that. You have a far more important role to play than some shenanigans.”
Mike shrugged. “I understand. Can I have the script?”
The Elfique shook his head again. “No. Just be yourself, that’s all I want to say… Tell me Charlotte, how do you feel about being owned by Forty-Ninth Adrian?”
Charlotte smiled. “As far as I know he is a good Human. But this is going to be my first full day being his servant, I haven’t done a lot of work.”
The Elfique nodded. “I understand. I assume you are going to meet a lot of people today. Ask them how they feel about Forty-Ninth, but keep what they tell you for yourself.”
Charlotte nodded. “I… will.”
Mike nodded. “She is allowed to have her secrets. All I care about is getting my food and live in a clean house. What she does between cleaning up after dinner and preparing for breakfast is none of my business.”
The Elfique nodded. “That’s reasonable. Forty-Ninth, shall I tell a bit about the tunnel system? You haven’t been here in a long time, and might not know the details.”
Mike shook his head. “No, I’ll talk to Rufus, he might know details you don’t know. Nice talking to you.”
The Elfique bowed and gestured his guests to enter the elevator again. Mike and Charlotte left for the balcony around the central hub.

“Welcome to the Central Hub, heart of Area Seven.” Mike spoke. “My ancestors divided the land in six areas, and the center, the area around the Central Hub, as the seventh. Each of them a different purpose to maximize efficiency and minimize contagion in case of animal or plant diseases. Two focused on poultry, One and Four, two on pigs, Two and Five, and two on cattle, Three and Six. Adjacent areas were not allowed to have those animals. Of course they were allowed to do other things, anything that grows as or on plants is also a huge part of the entire land, and the Wolves in Area Two are famous for their horses and Area Six has a large fish farm. At the bottom of this large pit you can see the tunnels, with huge numbers above them to indicate where they go to. Two three lane vehicle tunnels, one service tunnel and one emergency tunnel running parallel to a smaller hub in each area, not only connecting them tho the Central Hub, but also neighboring hubs, and Hub Four also has a tunnel to my father’s Anvil Industries and a small airport. We use the old and new measurement system interchangeably, the distance between the central hub and each area hub can be between a bit less than fifteen old kilometers and a bit over ten miles, and the angle between the tunnels is also not a perfect sixty degrees, but it can be anything between fifty degrees like the tunnels leading to Four and Five, or almost seventy degrees like between One and Six. As you might have noticed the roads here are narrow and winding, it’s far easier to go around using the tunnels, an hour by road or just fifteen minutes in a tunnel between hubs is an easy choice.”
“That is a good summary. Of course there are more tunnels, as you can see one level above the big tunnels there are smaller tunnels for people walking and driving small vehicles to the different compounds here, the one leading to the schools is almost too small to accommodate people going in both directions. All safe from the environment in case a new Firestorm erupts. Why walk in a snowstorm or heatwave for five minutes when you can be protected in a tunnel? And of course there are the tunnels from your home connecting to the big tunnels and some other smaller tunnels in other locations.” A Wolf interrupted.
Mike smiled. “Hello Rufus. Thanks for stating the obvious. You can see the words above the smaller tunnels.”
Rufus shrugged. “I don’t see the point in education for Inimals when they are going to be slaves anyway.”
Mike sighed. “Charlene, meet Rufus, my eyes and ears here in the system. He is smart enough to earn a white helmet and a teal vest, but he doesn’t see the point in education.”
Rufus smiled. “With a yellow helmet and orange vest people trust you more.”
Mike shrugged. “When the revolution comes and Inimals are free again you need educated people to lead you. You know the iron fist Leopold uses to keep everything up to code. People need to learn to do things the same way. You can’t use random wire colors because you like them in a critical system. Some people have to make those rules, and other have to follow them.”
Rufus shrugged. “You know we Wolves don’t see colors the same way you Humans do, right?”
Mike sighed. “That’s why I handed out those color identifiers. Use them, don’t keep complaining about something that already has a solution.”
Rufus shrugged again. “I’m not going to use that Berg technology.”
Mike smacked the Wolf across his face with a flat hand. “No excuses. If you are not going to use them let other people use them and correct your work.”
“Y… Yes sir. I’m sorry sir.” The Wolf replied.
Mike sighed. “It took four weeks to correct the mess you made by just random choosing wire colors and abuse of the torque wrench. I haven’t seen it in here, I only heard the stories and had the components on my workbench, but it was awful. I get angry again when I think of it… Sorry for hitting you.”
Rufus shrugged. “A single hit, that’s three hits in total… I’m lucky you are my employer, with someone else I wouldn’t have survived.”
Mike sighed. “I don’t know… How do you feel about me owning a slave?”
Rufus started to smile again. “She must be the luckiest Cheetah alive.”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes, I start to believe that too. He hit you and then apologized… Nice talking to you.”
Mike also nodded. “I hope so, and I hope that I never want to hit her… We are going to visit the stores here, if Charlotte wants to go somewhere else can she contact you so you can guide her?”
Rufus nodded. “Of course. I’m just eyes and ears here, I’m not allowed to work on equipment again. Traveling with a passenger is nice, that way you can talk and listen to what they want to tell you.”
Mike nodded again. “Yes. And tell her the truth, how you feel about me. She won’t tell me… I haven’t heard from you in a long time, so I assume everything is going well.”
Rufus also nodded. “Yes. Your repairs really fixed some weird problems. But sometimes taking things apart and putting them back together really helps.”
Mike sighed. “I had to redo everything, get the old schematics, make new circuit boards, had to dive deep in my storage to get some old things… But I’m glad it’s fixed. And because I now have Charlotte doing the household I have time to put everything back where it belongs. My workshop has been a mess for more than three years, also thanks to you.”
Rufus shrugged. “I heard your grandfather also was a bit… messy when he worked on things. That Elfique… can’t remember his name… had some funny stories.”
Mike shrugged. “Yes, I have the same problem. Looking for things I have in my hand, but I also have a tendency for putting things in ‘special places’ so you won’t lose them, only to forget those places… Very embarrassing.”

“Mike explained me about the helmet and vest colors, but what about the container colors? Do they also have a meaning?” Charlotte asked, staring over the railing at the busy hub below.
Rufus shrugged. “Very simple. Yellow for poultry, blue for beef, red for pork, green for vegetarian and white can be anything.”
Charlotte nodded. “Impressive. I only know the semi trucks and trains from the surface, but here it is like small trains, but on wheels. Four containers in a single load.”
Rufus smiled. “It is a quiet day, but the maximum length is twelve trailers, with a double stack of containers, all powered to keep the cooling on. You really can feel the air rushing out of a tunnel when two of those are coming your way at maximum speed… Or so I’m told. They are all electric by the way… We don’t have a lot of storage area here in Area Seven, we can only store about four hundred containers underground, under the parking lot. Hub Four is really the transport hub, it has a train yard with loading equipment for freight trains, and an airport… It’s rather odd, chicken meat from Area One going south to the train station, and then going east and north again by train to end up on a plate in Wolfenstone, not even thirty miles north of where it started the journey.”
Mike grinned. “I can give a lot of people a very bad day when I decide I’m going to halt all our export of meat… But I don’t intend to do that, happy customers bring in more money than angry customers who can’t buy. Thank you for your time, but we have more things to see.”
Rufus smiled and waved. “Nice talking to you.”

It was a short walk outside, the stores were just on the other side of the parking lot.
“Well… Here are the stores where I order my meat, bread and vegetables. I send them my shopping list, and then someone comes to bring it. Or I come here in person when I’m not too busy.” Mike spoke when they entered the dome. On the outside it was a dull concrete building, but just like the Central Hub it was surprisingly light and spacious inside.

“There are not a lot of stores here.” Charlotte noted.
Mike shrugged. “Yes… we don’t produce things like toilet paper or unhealthy sugary drinks, so that comes from somewhere else. Areas One and Two are close to Wolfenstone, and Area Five is close to Amford, so we have stores there that are supplied by those cities, and in return we also have stores there that sell to the people of those cities… We don’t trade with Schotenburg though, we have a… bit of a conflict with that city. You will see.”
Charlotte shrugged. “So butcher shop, bakery, greengrocer and just a small general store for outside products, but you order those from somewhere else… There are an amazing amount of Humans here.”
Mike nodded again. “Yes. We have the best quality of meat and vegetables, and people are willing to travel for that. Most Humans come from a city near the other areas, but many come here to Seven-Four to buy. Maybe they think it’s better here because I live nearby.”

“I see that Tiana is behind the counter. You… smelled her yesterday. I… erm… well… I will introduce you and then you can talk behind my back. I’m going to the electronics store.” Mike said when the approached the butcher shop.
“Mike! What are you doing here?” Tiana greeted them after she was finished helping an other customer. The cash register still showing a total of over 200 Silver.
Mike smiled. Tiana still was beautiful, even in her working clothes, a thin coverall to prevent her hair falling on the meat. “I’m here to introduce my servant, Charlotte. She is going to prepare my food and keep the house clean.”
Tiana nodded, looking a bit disappointed. “Lucky woman.”
Mike shook his head. “No, I don’t have her for that. You are still welcome in my bed.”
Tiana also shook her head. “She is a woman, and women have their needs. I have a husband, she has nobody but you.”
Mike sighed. “No… If she wants some action I can order some… toys. I don’t have her for my relief.”
Charlotte shrugged. “We will see how our relation develops.”
Tiana nodded. “Yes. Not as agile as my husband, but he has far more stamina.”
Mike sighed. “Charlotte is not a Tigress, nor a Leopard, nor a Wolf, nor some other species I have experience with. I don’t know what she would like.”
Tiana grinned. “But I bet you are willing to find out… Customer approaching.”
Mike nodded. “Yes… Thanks for the advice. I will send Charlotte when the order is ready.”
Tiana took a slight bow. “You’re welcome.”

“Didn’t you want to go to the electronics store?” Charlotte asked when they entered the bakery.
Mike shook his head. “Not today. I just wanted to give you and Tiana some time to talk, but we have had our introductions and buying more things just adds to the mess my workshop already is… Here we have the bakery where I order my bread, once every three or four days.”
“Good morning Mike. I see you have a new girlfriend.” The baker greeted them.
Mike sighed. “No, this is my new servant, Charlotte. I have bought her to prepare my food and keep my house clean. And buy the groceries.”
The baker shrugged. “You finally getting someone to do that… Does the Cheetah want to try a sausage roll?”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes please.” and got the still warm sausage roll and tasted it.

“Too much salt for my taste, and the amount of pepper is also a bit too high for this meat. You could add a pinch of thyme and rosemary.” Charlotte commented after eating it whole.
The baker nodded, a bit dumbfounded. “I never had complaints about it, but it does sound reasonable… I should ask my supplier of meat to do that.”
Mike nodded. “But it still is your recipe, you don’t have to change it because one customer tells you. Or you could change the sausage rolls every week, different versions of it.”
The baker shrugged. “I don’t know… Maybe I can borrow… Charlotte to create new recipes.”
Mike also shrugged. “That’s not my decision to make, but if my house is clean and she has time she can do that. She is free to do whatever she wants between cleaning up after dinner and preparing for breakfast. Early dinner and late breakfast?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No, I want a good sleep. You don’t know how luxurious an eleven hour rest is.”
The baker nodded. “I understand… We don’t rely on Inimals in our bakery, but we also have twelve hour shifts. Preparing, baking, selling, cleaning. Morning shift opening the doors at two in the morning, afternoon shift closing the doors at eight in the evening. We don’t see cooking and cleaning in our homes as work, but it is… You, a slave, have more free time than we, Humans, have.”
Mike shrugged. “But that’s because she is mine. An average slave has far less time to rest.”
“You really work that long?” A customer asked.
The baker nodded. “Yes. First bread ready to sell at six in the morning, and at four in the afternoon we turn the ovens off. Fresh bread and pastries, all day long.”
The customer nodded. “But it is the best bread ever… now thinking of it, it takes me over an hour to get here, and then over an hour to get back home. That’s three hours every week I spend here, you could also count that as work, because I can’t rest while driving.”
Mike shrugged. “It’s your choice to come here. There are more stores nearby where you live, they all sell the same.”
The customer shook her head. “No, that’s factory bread, that’s not the same.”
The baker smiled. “This is the only bakery, but we transport our bread to the other shops by a tunnel system. In less than twenty minutes a bread can, with the emphasis on can, go from the oven to the next shop… But it usually takes an hour to get a shipment over.”
Mike nodded. “Yes… Well… I also have other places to be, now you know Charlotte, when she proves she can drive a car she can pick up the bread and meat for our breakfast in the morning instead of me getting the last bread in the afternoon for my breakfast the next day… I have some old bread in the freezer, when that’s gone we’ll get some fresh.”
Charlotte smiled. “It’s a short distance, I can even come running for it… a nice morning walk.”
Mike shrugged. “You can do whatever you want between cleaning up after dinner and preparing for breakfast. If you want to take a morning walk… or run… before breakfast you can do that.”

“Oh look, my father is here! And François!” Mike said when they passed a garage.
“Are those also Red Arrow Ophanims?” Charlotte asked.
Mike nodded. “Yes… It’s a shame I don’t drive mine today, because that would be something very few people would have seen, the last three remaining road worthy Ophanims together. There are also a few Seraphims in the garage here.”
With some fast cornering and screeching tires Mike parked his car between the most expensive pre-Firestorms cars in the world.
“Hi dad. Bonjour François.” He greeted his father and old friend.
“Good morning Mike” His father greeted him. Not phased by the driving style of his son.
Mike sighed. “Let’s just get to business… What’s with the bullshit with Anvil Audio? I thought you would bring the old quality back?”
His father smiled back. “It’s just market. There is no market for what you create, how much more can you sell? Five hundred sets? It’s so expensive nobody wants to buy it, no matter how good it is. I’m not going to start production for not even a hundred thousand of the components you want. What we created is the future, good sound for everyone, not just perfect sound for a happy few… Amplifiers, car audio, noise canceling headphones, communication audio… If it makes sound one of our chips can be included to let it make good sound. How long are you tinkering to get the frequency response perfect? A few microphone feedback inputs, a few locations to hold those microphones and the intelligence makes the sound better. What you read this morning was the marketing for the masses, everyone can be a producer. And what do you think of the copyright claims? I have hired an army of lawyers to file those claims, ‘As a service for a few Silvers a month’, both sides.”
Mike shrugged and sighed, defeated. “I understand, but I’m almost out of good DHear components, and I was hoping you would be my savior to provide me more.”
François smiled. “Why don’t you just enjoy life? Your son is doing well, you are still alive despite being shot yesterday, you even have your servant with you. Take it slow, relax. Retire. Go buy some new clothes, Jacques is working today.”
Mike shrugged. “Yes, I might do that… And visit that restaurant in One, although it’s right at my side of the border I’m not sure if they like Inimal visitors… Charlotte, I don’t know what plans you had for lunch, but consider them canceled.”
Mike’s father nodded. “Good choice. It’s a pity Four doesn’t have a restaurant like that, it’s perfect for business meetings, One is too far away for me. Although I do go there when I have to visit Smithsville or Wolfenstone… Oh, Cheetah, I’m Adrian, Mike’s father as you might have guessed. Adrian Forty-eighth Adrian.”
Charlotte gave Adrian a hand. “Charlotte… long number… Cheetah, personal servant of Mike, also known as Forty-Ninth Adrian.”
Adrian smiled. “I see Mike has a good influence on you, not as formal as I would expect of someone with your background… Yes, I have seen your history.”
Charlotte smiled. “Yes, your son is a nice man. He gives me a lot of freedom and I’m not going to abuse it.”
Mike nodded. “Yes it’s… There is someone in the bushes over there with a camera!” And pointed to a few bushes next to the garage.

A Wolf and Tiger mechanic jumped up and a few moments later they dragged a young Human male out of the bushes.
“What are you doing here?” Mike asked.
“There are some rare cars I want to take pictures of.” The young man replied.
Mike nodded. “Yes there are. Can you name the brands, models and a few details of them?”
The man eagerly nodded. “Yes. Two of the three road worthy Vulpine Red Arrow Ophanims, you arrived in a Feline Spot Seven in mint condition, and there is a Wolf Fang Eight. And in the garage there must be a few Red Arrow Seraphims, a Cherub, and some more Spots, Stripes, Fangs and an old Canine Pack truck. Only the Vulpine made cars have real model names, the others just use numbers.”
Mike nodded. “Impressive. You have my permission to get every detail of my car, but not the radio.”
François nodded. “You also have my permission to get all the details of my car. It’s… not as original as the other ones, decals and seats are post-Firestorms, but yes, it is one of the three.”
Adrian also nodded. “And also mine… Mike, this young man really has an interest in Inimal cars, may he see your collection?”
Mike nodded and got his communicator. “Yes of course. Timo, can you show him my collection? You have permission to be in my garage until six o’clock, but I will be there before that.”
Timo nodded. “Yes, of course. Do you know what a Spot Two is?”
The young man nodded. “Yes… But there are none left.”
Timo smiled. “Correct. I built a replica. But better… It’s a bit of a hybrid between a Stripe Two and a Spot Two, with the engine of a Fang Six… But don’t worry, it has five-point harnesses.”

After some photographing of the vehicles and Timo explaining about them at the garage they drove off.
Fang engines were known to make a lot of noise, especially in an open frame like Timo’s car has, from a low growling when stationary up to almost a scream at maximum rpm, but the Human screamed louder when they drove away. Or more like, drifted away, leaving a cloud of tire smoke behind.

“Do you trust him? You didn’t even ask him his name.” François asked.
Mike shrugged. “Yes. He is a first or second generation, isn’t he?”
François nodded. “Yes. Jean is his grandfather. The old man did it again. I had one daughter, the start of your bloodline, Jacques had one daughter, and he had three daughters.”
Mike smiled. “I like him… And don’t worry about daughters, you are still young compared to Jean.”
François grinned. “I’m only about two thousand six hundred years younger than my grandfather.”
Mike shrugged. “One in a thousand. Your first child was a daughter, and then seven sons. You also defied the odds.”

“What is Mike exactly?” Charlotte asked.
François shrugged. “He is one of us, but not one of us. He is different, and he is under our protection. His intelligence is far greater than that of an ordinary Human, almost like ours, but he also has Human traits, like passion, compassion and a short lifespan… His bloodline was a tool to unite Humans and Inimals in the past, and he has an important role to play in the future, that’s why we are protecting and guiding him at all costs. If you have ever heard of a conspiracy theory of a shadow government, it’s true. It is to protect the bloodline.”
Charlotte nodded. “I understand, I have seen that yesterday. But his father has far more influence, he is an important person who has a lot more money and a whole industrial conglomerate working for him.”
François smiled. ‘You are mistaken. Forty-Eighth is just a provider of tools, Forty-Ninth is the user of those tools.”
Mike sighed. “I just want to know what I’m supposed to do. Just tell me. All those history lessons, fighting lessons, psychology, manipulation, technology… Why?”
François shook his head. “Just be yourself… That is what you are supposed to do. Your son will be a nobody again, he will live his life in a different world."

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Here is an overview of the tunnel system as mentioned in the story:
https://i.imgur.com/UNSRFFW.png