Once they were done unpacking and helping Rachel to clean the new house, Mark and the teens decided to visit Mark's private arcade. They took the stairs to the ground floor, then they walked down the stairs to the third basement level.
Since the system's hacking had erased all of the previous programming, Mark had purchased the relevant software licenses to operate the VR pods beforehand. Everything was above board. Each of them picked a pod and connected to A.M.S.
As they entered the hangar, they found a small crowd looking at the mechs being repaired by the automated systems. Steve looked around. "Wait, are these machines version 2 Reapers?"
Almost all of the machines that were being repaired were indeed the new model produced by the Grease Monkey workshop. The teen leaves for the Repair control room. Alex followed behind him.
Mark decided to check the workshop's voucher account. To his surprise, it was already in the billions. The young man hurried to the design lab; he wanted to check the design catalog. Scarlet, filled with curiosity, followed him.
It had been around 20 hours in real life since the new design had been posted for sale, but when Mark checked the design catalog, his facility had produced around 6,000 mechs. Yet there were hundreds of thousands of mechs cued in, waiting to be fabricated.
Mark made some calculations in his head. "If the 4 production lines produce a mech every 4 minutes, that means I make 60 mechs in an hour. If you multiply that by the hours of the day, that comes to 1,440 mechs. He then factored in the accelerated time variant. The five-to-one ratio changed the whole equation. A total of 7,200 mechs were being produced on a day by the four production lines. The young man saw an enormous problem.
Mark turned towards Scarlet. "The production problem has increased. We can not ignore this. Let's go down and talk with the others for a solution."
Scarlet heard the stress in his voice. "OK, you go talk to them. I have to check on The Waiting Room." They both exited the design lab and moved to their respective locations.
Going down the steps, Mark walked through the hangar. As he crossed the space, the people looking at the mechs being repaired and painted greeted him with enthusiasm. They recognized him as the man with the golden hands. Ignoring this new moniker, the young man walked into the Repair Shop control room.
Inside, Steve and Alex were working on the mechs. Mark decided to bring them up to speed with the workshop problem. "Guys, the production problem is back, and this time it's huge."
Steve looked at him. "We also have a problem right here. The repairs are going too slow, everybody and their mother wants to use our repair shop. The waiting list is massive."
A text bubble floated near Alex. "We need to upgrade as fast as possible."
Mark decided to make the upgrades needed and worry about their voucher's balance later. He approached the upgrade catalog and purchased 36 more Mimi droids. After that, he purchased two more hangar upgrades, turning their total mech docks from 18 to 30. Finally, he upgraded the mechanical arms and scaffolds, giving the repair equipment twice the speed. After the changes to the Repair shop were done, Steve and Alex sighed in relief.
Mark saw the pair working more easily. "I will go to the cafeteria next. I only hope Scarlet does not have a crisis over there as well."
The Cat butler exited the repair shop control room and moved to the second floor. As he entered the cafeteria, he found the place was packed; there were barely any seats left. Scarlet was entertaining the crowd with one of her performances.
Since Scarlet was busy, he decided to add some upgrades and later see if something else was needed. Mark enlarged the room a few times. The space could easily fit around five hundred people.
Next, he upgraded the Cafeteria into a Diner. This upgraded the food quality, added more food options, and increased the output. To operate the diner, Mark was forced to purchase a cooking droid. He made a mental note to design his own later.
Finally, he added a stage with a karaoke function. Then the cat butler upgraded the tables. The new tables had a holographic projector integrated. After Mark finished choosing the upgrades, he pressed the confirm button. With a flash of light, all changes were implemented. All of the patrons loved the new changes. Scarlet kept performing, but walked to the new stage.
Once her performance finished, she addressed the crowd. "Thank you, everyone, let's put our hands together for Guardian, who generously upgraded The Waiting Room! The crowd cheered and applauded. Scarlet signaled them to quiet down. "Now, who wants to be the first to sing in our new karaoke Stage!?
Silence followed that announcement. Suddenly, a feminine voice came from the crowd. "I will take a swing at it." A female avatar with bunny ears and white hair took the stage. The crowd seemed to like the Brave girl.
Mark looked at her Game ID, Bunny Girl Fran. While her figure was not as well-endowed as Scarlet's, she still had a lovely figure. Her white hair made a nice contrast with her ebony skin. Fran started singing with a lovely voice. For some reason, the young man found the voice to be both familiar and soothing.
The sound of someone clearing their throat distracted his observations. "What would Alex think if she saw you gawking at the bunny girl?"
Mark suddenly turned towards the voice. Scarlet was looking at him with a mischievous smile. The young man decides to ignore the question. "Scarlet, what else will you need after these upgrades?"
Scarlet thought for a moment. "I think it's best if we hire some more players to work as hostesses. Also, we can try getting some other recreational facilities. The shooting range has been well-received.
Mark did not want to deal with this. But he saw the value of her proposal. "Let's do this. I will give you a deal similar to Steve's. If you manage The Waiting Room, I will let you have 25% of the revenue from the food sales. What do you say?"
Scarlet loved that deal. "I think it's a Great Idea." A smile was showing on the waifu's face.
Mark decided to dump that aspect of the workshop on her. "OK, so that settles it. Hire the people that you need."
As the young man turned to leave, Scarlet stopped him. "About the spot in Mech City, I have found three promising options. An expensive plot on the High end of town. A spot in an industrial area with a lot of other workshops around. Or a plot of land near the outskirts of Mech City
The options piqued Mark's interest. "Apart from the obvious rent price and locations, what's the difference between them?"
Scarlet thinks for a moment. "Well, the high-end shop will provide a good sales platform that can probably increase our sales even further. The one in the industrial zone will allow us to hire other workshops to help with fabrication, but that adds to the production cost. And the plot on the outskirts costs 50%less.
Before deciding, Mark inquired about the different costs. "So how much is it for each one?"
Scarlet checked the info she brought. "The one in the high-end part of town has a rent of 13,500 vouchers per month. The one in the industrial sector rents for 6,400 vouchers per month. And the one in the outskirts is 1,200 vouchers per month.
Without a second thought, Mark decided to go for the second option. If he could outsource production, one of his major concerns would be mitigated. "Let's go for the one in the industrial zone, it's the one that best suits our needs.
Scarlet showed a smug grin. "I knew you were going to choose that one." With a set of hand gestures and swipes, she sent the com-grid link to the cat butler. "All you need to do is press ok, and the plot is ours."
Mark opened the link. It showed all the information Scarlet just shared. With a tap, the vouchers were deducted from the workshop's account. An A.M.S. system message let everyone in the workshop know that they were now in Mech City.
Renting a plot of cyber space in A.M.S. was not necessary to have a successful workshop. There were plenty of these businesses that existed without ever being part of Mech City. The interactive community mostly existed for networking and advertising. Shops that did not possess a cyber plot used comm-grid addresses, which could be seen in the shop catalog of the store.
However, with the description provided by Scarlet, Mark found an unexpected boon. If his production problem persisted after the upgrades he had planned, the young man was planning to outsource production.
Mark moved to the factory control room. He saved these upgrades for last. The cat butler decided to improve his production lines. All seven production lines are now capable of producing 1 mech per line every 3 minutes. Mark then maxed out the number of production lines he could have without upgrading the factory floor. He now had 20. Two were still assigned to the version 1 Reapers. Mark decided to increase the lines that produced other products by 2, increasing them to 4. The remaining 14 were all assigned to produce version 2 Reapers. Additionally, Mark bought 4 more alloy treatment machines. This would greatly increase productivity.
Making new calculations in his mind, Mark determined his new production cap. With the 14 production lines working tirelessly, the workshop now produces 33,600 mechs per A.M.S. day. This brought a smile to his face. The entire upgrade to the workshop had a cost of 3.2 billion vouchers. After reading this, his smile faded.
While the workshop still had plenty of liquid funds, a little over 1.5 billion, spending so much money gave the young man pause. Even after the new production capacity could tackle the queue in a few days, Mark saw outsourcing production as a good idea. He decided to consult the A.M.S. forums before anything. It was his first time doing this.
Back in the real world, Melly was bored to tears. Marcus and Rachel were talking too much. The imagery from their minds was not helping. The golden-eyed girl decided to use the white room like last time to call out to her Big brother.
Melly went to her room. Since everything was unpacked, the girl grabbed the VR headset and went to her bed. Remembering everything Bart had taught her the day before, she lay in bed and turned on the device.
Melinda returned to the white room. This time, she was not intimidated by the stillness of the room. Instead, the girl used the lack of distractions to concentrate. Melly started hearing the voices of the people around. First Rachel's and Marcus's voices. Then, concentrating a little more, she started hearing four distinct voices. These were Mark and his friends. She was suddenly distracted by two voices she had never heard before. Being a little curious, she decides to concentrate on these voices.
She got a mental picture. These voices belonged to two men who had entered the droid boutique without permission. The intruders broke through the back door, entering the ground floor of the building. They were heading to the lower levels, where Mark and his friends were lying in the VR pods, ignorant of the danger.
She concentrated on the intruder's mind. Seeing their bad intentions, the girl decided to act. No one will harm her big brother. An idea came to her; she would put fear in their minds. She had never done something like this before. But for her big brother's sake, she had to do it.
In the past, she had only been able to cause a feeling of danger and project it around her. But this time, she wanted to affect two specific individuals. The girl read their minds, looking for the intruder's worst fears. One was afraid of spiders, the other was afraid of fire.
She decided to insert an image in their minds. Hundreds of spiders covered in flames climb the stairs from the lower floors. These flame spiders were going to hunt them. Melly used all of her strength on her mental attack. After launching her attack, she sensed it was working. The two mental voices left the building in haste. The girl had succeeded.
Melly felt a headache, but ignored it. Instead, she decided to go tell Rachel and Marcus. The girl quickly exited the white space by turning off the headset. She then got on her hover chair and moved as fast as possible to the living room, where Rachel and Marcus were.
Reaching the Living room, she spoke in a loud voice. "Rachel, Marcus, there are strange people in the building."
Rachel looks at the girl; her face fills with worry. "Melly, you are bleeding, are you OK?" The woman stood up from the couch and moved quickly to the girl.
Marcus was equally worried and followed Rachel. What Melinda had failed to notice was the trail of blood coming out of her nose. Her left eye had a subconjunctival hemorrhage. This alerted the adults in the house.
Back on the A.M.S. simulation, Mark had posted an ad on the forum seeking to outsource production. But he wanted to inspect the production equipment before anything else. Almost instantly, he got dozens of offers from the workshops around him.
He decided to filter the offers by cost. Ignoring the ridiculous responses like asking for 10,000 vouchers per unit produced, he decided to go for the middle range. Three options caught his eye. One offered a production contract for 2,500 vouchers per unit. Another for 2,300 per unit, and the last one for 2,200 vouchers per unit.
Mark decided to reunite with the owners of the three workshops. Since they were online at the moment, all of them agreed. Because the Waiting Room was too crowded, the cat butler decided to move his meeting to a more suitable location. Looking in the forums, the most popular place was a cafe called Bullets Cafe. Mark decided to use this place for the meeting.
As he flashed at the entrance to the place, he was met by the first of his potential contractors. The avatar depicted a muscular woman with tattoos resembling circuits that glowed with a light blue neon hue. Her figure remained feminine despite her physique. She had a piercing in the middle of her lower lip, it was a ring, and her red hair was bundled up in a ponytail. Her Game ID read Akaji the crafter.
Akaji saw the game ID of the player who just spawned in. The woman looked at the cat butler, sizing him up. "That is one fancy avatar you have there, Guardian. With that game ID, I was expecting something more ...sturdy. " The woman chuckles to herself.
Mark lifts his top hat, revealing his tabby cat ears and bows, inclining his head towards her. "Nice to meet you, shall we go inside?" Akaji said nothing. But she found the gesture to be cute.
The two entered the establishment and chose a table away from the crowded areas. As they waited for the two others, they started to have a conversation.
Akaji started the negotiation. "So I can start by offering 15 production lines for your product. While I have 20, I need five for component production."
Mark was intrigued by this. She produced components but not her own mechs. "Can I ask why you don't produce your own mechs?"
Akaji fiddles with the earrings in her ear while talking. To tell you the truth, all of the production licences of my shop were owned by my ex-wife. When we split, she took them. I need more capital to get new ones. The component production has kept the lights on, but I want more. Since I don't have my own mech designs, a mech production contract is my best option."
Mark liked her honesty. "Can I see your facilities?"
Akaji used hand gestures to summon an interface. A screen came out. With the twist motion of her hand, the screen turned towards Mark. "Here you go, Guardian, this is my factory floor."
Mark took a look at her production lines. While the machines were not as advanced as his own production lines, they were decent. Mark was not expecting miracle machines. Not everybody could dump the amount of vouchers he was dumping into his production capacity. Overall, he was satisfied with her arrangements.
Soon after, two more players came by. These were the owners of the two other workshops. As they sat at the table, Mark looked at their respective avatars and game IDs.
One of them wears the Average Joe skin. The game ID on the average Joe avatar reads Stingy Bob. Suddenly, his avatar made a lot of sense. Mark only hoped that the player was not stingy with his workshop. The young man adopted a wait-and-see approach with this potential partner.
The other was wearing a dwarven-inspired skin. The game ID on the dwarf read Flint of the Hillhome. The avatar was dressed in a fantasy-themed armor, and an axe prop hung on his back. The quality of the avatar looked good. The player had spent a few vouchers on it. Either the player had success with his workshop, or he had deep pockets. This was a good sign
As all were present, they began their meeting. After some back and forth, they all decided to rent the production line for a sum of 2,300 vouchers per unit made. Since all of them had satisfactory installations, Mark decided to do business with the three. In the end, the young man rented a total of 30 more production lines.
Bob and Flint had already left the cafe. Akaji continued drinking coffee with Mark. "I don't know why, but I have a good feeling about you. And I'm rarely wrong about those."
Mark felt the same about his new business partner. "To tell you the truth, I was a bit skeptical of the whole Mech City thing. But after my first day here, I think this place will be good for me."
Akaji was a bit surprised by his first day comment. "So this is your first day here? In that case; Welcome to Mech City!"