An Engineer In Night City - ch 9.1 (Patreon)

Production is out of this world! (1)

A letter sits on Mark’s desk, marked for David to pick up. The letter reads, “I am going to Mercury and will be back as soon as I can. Hold the fort while I am away.” Later that day, David picks up the letter and sighs at its contents.

Mark, on the other hand, comfortably sits on the newly rebuilt and improved spaceship that’s ready to travel the solar system. At first, Mark wasn't sure which planet he should visit first if he should start with the Jovian moon Io to gain access to the various lava spewed by the moon's volcanic activity, or the other Jovian moon Europa to gain access to an unlimited quantity of crude oil under the ice, but in the end, he decides to travel to Mercury, since the planet density indicates it is rich in iron and other base minerals, and that will help him fabricate a lot of his basic items that require massive volume of raw materials.

Confident in his decision, Mark commands the automated systems to break orbit and initiate travel for Mercury. Since he uses the simplified Spage Age firmware update for most of his Factorio System, he doesn’t need to manually build the life support system of the spaceship, using the captured stray asteroids and meteorites on his way to the planet. With the thrusters on the ship stern, he should reach the planet and start the colonization process in less than a month.

Mark thinks back on what it took for him to get there, of the people he helped and the enemies he likely made, and asks his companion Solvernia a question. “Do you think it was worth it, Solvy?”

The Marketable Plushy Solvernia doesn’t answer, instead, her eyes stare into the depths of space.

Mark chuckles since he already knows the answer. “Fuck yeah, it was. Computer, engage!”

The thrusters fire their engines and start the voyage in earnest, accelerating at incredible speeds until surpassing every observed spacecraft on Earth.

The few observers on Earth and in orbit were stunned by the sheer incredulity of the situation, and couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

Yet this isn’t the first time that a ship from Wube Inc. flew away to explore the rest of the solar system, however, this is the first time that the Chief Engineer went on a long trip himself using those “Factory Citadel” ships.

Despite being separated by millions of kilometers in cold space, The Engineer can still control the ins and outs of his factories in real-time, a fact that most people aren't aware of, and those who believe that the Engineer being physically away left his holdings vulnerable, will soon suffer from their hubris.

Meanwhile, a different kind of rumor spreads on the streets, that the reason the Engineer left and everything else runs in good order is because there is another Engineer employed by Wube Inc. with full access to his technology.

According to rumors, the two candidates for the position are Miguel, the first employee of Wube Inc. and chief of security, and what some consider the right hand of Mark. The second candidate is a name that quickly rose in stock despite his young age.

David Martinez.

…

After several days of voyage, Mark's ship reaches Mercury, and after some adjustments of the ship's speed to match the planet's rotation the command center lands on the surface of the planet. The planet is excessively hot, however, the machines will still operate under high temperatures but at reduced effectiveness.

Mark feels vindicated for overpreparing for the trip, as he brought enough efficiency modules that plenty of machines will work at near their original speeds, as the module cuts on the power and heating the Assembles produce.

Outside the Command Center, the environment is too harsh to linger for long even when wearing environmental suits.

Ignoring the heat Mark feels, he starts working on his Starter Base.

As soon as his first miner extracts the first mineral, he unlocks a new technology branch that was previously locked and hidden, the Refrigeration technology. Differently from the later, locked but still visible, Cyrogenics technology, Refrigeration technology is meant to be used on plant bodies with incredible heat.

Mark quickly researched the technology and constructed the initial radiators, which helped cool down an area and distribute the heat away. The excess heat can be turned into 500 C steam to produce energy in a turbine with access to enough water.

Mark notices another technology on the branch and doesn't hesitate to send his spaceship away to collect extra Ice from the nearby asteroids. After several hours of waiting under an anemic mining rate, the ice is delivered to Mercury, and soon the Closed Refrigeration System becomes available, allowing the creation of improved cooling systems using liquids in a closed system, with the Condenser Turbine, it's possible to recycle the water used to run the generator instead of letting it escape into the atmosphere, a machine useful for use in the vacuum of space or a planet with an extreme temperature that lacks water.

Mark builds a viable area for colonization in the first few days, supplementing the energy generation with supercharged solar panels.

The miners freely dig into the ground thanks to the excess energy, with the only bottleneck being the cooling system efficiency. Soon, the Natural Gas Refrigeration system research finishes, allowing Petroleum gas to be used as a refrigerating agent to cool the machines and improve production back to usual standards.

Giddy with success, Mark pastes the blueprint and sees the various holographic ghosts flicker in his vision, and he unleashes his construction robots to work for him.

The swarm of robots soon flies over the surface of Mercury, placing the Assemblers(tm), belts, and inserters to put the Factory into motion.

Mark feels a deep sense of satisfaction at seeing the beauty of his robots working, never quite getting used to watching the construction robots building an entire base in seconds, and soon he builds enough to ramp up production as he sits back and the robots spread through the area.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the rumors of the second Engineer continues to spread. Nobody can confirm it, and even Rogue Amendiares's network doesn’t give confirmation or denial on this rumor, chalking it up as an Urban Legend until more evidence appears.

Unfortunately for David Martinzes, some of his classmates didn’t believe it was a mere rumor and kept pestering the young man.

Annoyed at their behavior, he turns around and follows the advice that V once gave him to deal with the Corpo kid. “I have no idea about any of this,” he barks back, “but I have more than enough means to fuck your lives if you want to find out. Do you think your daddy or mommy will bail you out if you anger me? Go ahead, give me an excuse.”

The school kids quickly backed off, with David's respect among his classmates increasing after his show of power.

…

In Mercury, the Factory growth reaches a new threshold beyond the Starter Base and now it enters into the Builder Base, or Base Number Two. The Starter Base on Factorio exists to build a more permanent base, producing items and unlocking basic technology for the sake of finishing the early game, while the Base Nuber Two is the base that will reach the middle and end game, with capacities to launch a rocket in space. Beyond that, Base Number Two is also known as the Builder Base, where the player uses it to build the large amount of materials necessary for the next stage of Factorio base evolution.

Thanks to Mercury being uninhabited by anyone due to how difficult it is to set up a colony, Mark has the entire planet to himself, which means there is plenty of space to build the third phase of bases, the Megabase.

Mark laughs in joy since Mercury has a relatively similar composition to Earth and is full of minerals. He sees rivers of iron, copper, stone, and carbon flow in the belts on the main bus.

As technology advances whenever a new batch of science packs drops back on Earth, Mercury's production capabilities improve further.

Eventually, Mark unlocks the Foundry, a special building that requires certain atmospheric requisites for crafting. The most common prerequisite is atmospheric pressure far in excess to one found in Mercury, though an alternate prerequisite is the excessive heat found on the planet.

With the Foundry, Mark's productivity with the basic items increases exponentially, and Mark decides to turn this planet into his source of Modules since he has an abundance of iron and copper with the smelting of basic materials using Foundries comes with enhanced productivity by default.

Mark also sets aside another area for a large build quality modulated smelters and assemblers, cycling them through the belt to build a massive stock of basic and intermediary items of higher quality.

“Why roll the gacha when you have the power of money? Hahaha, I’m rich, I’m fucking rich!”

His companion Sovernia only watches as Mark dances around his Factories as he realizes how much he can improve his personal protection and war machines.

Back on Earth, Faraday is called by his superiors at Militech.

“We know about your previous indiscretions with Arasaka,” the man says to Faraday with an even tone, “however, we're willing to both overlook this and give you an appropriate promotion if you manage to perform a special task for us.”

Wary of the offer, Faraday studies the promotion proposal and realizes that he will be made into a Section Director of Militech NC, giving him the position of a junior partner in the affairs of Militech, granting the man voting rights on the board of directors of Militech, while maintaining a powerful position in Night City.

To Faraday, Night City will suddenly turn into his playground. Faraday's greed and pride will ensure he will accept the task, no matter how impossible it might be. “Of course, I will do it.”

“Make sure to keep up the appearance of wanting to betray us, it might prove useful in the long run for your mission.” The Militech superior gives Faraday a folder with useful, but ultimately minor secrets about Militech and NUSA  they're willing to part for this operation. Enough to whet the appetite of Arasaka.

Genuine emotion strikes Faraday, perhaps for the first time to his cold and mercenary heart, as he believes his efforts and worth were finally noticed by the higher-ups. “I will do my best to see this done, I promise this in my life.” With this promise, Faraday does his best to convey the sincerity of his intentions.

The Militech superior doesn't care about the sincerity of the Fixer, nor does he expect the man to succeed, already writing him off as a pawn for another, different scheme.

…

Back in Mercury, the Builder Base finishes construction while the Megabase begins to take shape. With Coal liquefaction unlocked, gaining access to heavy oil became a trivial matter on Mercury, digging deep into the carbon reserves inside the crust of the planet. With the large use of cliff explosives, the various cliffs and valleys of the planet were leveled into a massive plane, allowing Mark to build his new Megabase.

While it is a megabase, it won’t be producing science. Instead, it will produce Modules, Plates, Steel, Chips, and other intermediaries to be shipped back to Earth, while the Engineer continues to expand the BN2 Complex north side.

Mark also creates new inbound and outbound areas to export the produced items in Mercury to other polities in the world, such as Night City, other Megacorporations, and the occasional country that doesn’t have an issue with Wube Inc.'s existence.

Mark sends a message to David, asking him to set up a meeting with the mayor so that they can talk about revitalizing and expanding the city infrastructure, and the creation of several rail lines that will connect Night City with the extreme points of their independent area of influence, and thus making the city less dependent on megacorporations for basic survival, with the idea to create a better environment for the corpos to thrive without also having to deal with basic issues themselves, focusing on their real purpose.

Behind the marketing language, Mark wishes to keep his promise to the mayor to better the local infrastructure, and he believes that a population that isn't on the brink of starvation that isn't eating nutrient paste would act less like assholes to each other than otherwise.

Back on Earth, David receives the message and wonders if his boss is high on new pollution and thin air to ask for something like that from the Mayor. He probably will receive approval from the Mayor, but the idea that megacorporations won't take the opportunity to fuck people over is unnatural.

In another location, Maine's crew finally receives the dreaded phone call from Faraday.

“I need you to perform a job for me,” Faraday starts with a displeased tone, “I know that you are working more intimately with the Engineer, but I believe your group still owes me some degree of loyalty.”

Maine frowns at the man but nods. They could walk away from him right now and the name of the Engineer would be enough to protect them, but Maine doesn’t want to have that kind of black mark on his resume, and he and his group trained hard to reach where they are. Unless Faraday can throw Smasher at them he's confident they can deal with whatever double-crossing bullshit the fixer can throw at them. “Alright Faraday, give me the detes of the job. Just make sure that it won’t impact the Engineer. I’m not stupid to go behind the man’s back. We all know what happened with the last idiot who pulled that shit.”

“I know,” Faraday says, "I’m sending you the data. Unfortunately, I need this done on the indicated day, otherwise the whole operation I’m running will collapse.” Faraday looks pained for admitting weakness, almost like the next words coming out of his mouth hurt him. “This mission must succeed at all costs. Please. Do your best to succeed.”

Maine realizes that Faraday is either desperate or the mission i extremely important to him, if the "please" sounded sincere instead of sarcastic. “Alright Faraday, we will do it. But after this we’re even, you can still can on us, but the terms will change accordingly.”

“Very well, I hope we can still work together in the future, once this mission is concluded.”

When the call ended, both men thought they outsmarted each other.

Post Chapter notes

I underestimated how long it would take to edit everything. I wrote 6000 words faster, but the editing turned out to be brutal. And boring, which is what makes it take longer. I'm also thinking of changing how I write the story internally to take advantage of "mass production" techniques I recently learned. Again, I still can't guarantee high technical quality, but it should improve production speed and give me breathing room to do other things during my day.