I only risked one trip to the megacity. There was too much I needed to do at my base, so my drones had to handle the rest.
 
I was on the first deck of my ship, the one that was originally a hangar bay. While the overall shape had remained the same, I had made a lot of internal changes to the original design.
 
This ship was the most popular luxury cargo transport that regularly traveled from the surface to space. While it was good for space travel—a bit of it, at least—it wasn’t really designed for that. Its main function was getting about 50 tons of cargo off-planet in a stable, safe, and cost-effective way.
 
I had beefed up its space-faring capabilities so a person like me could survive in deep space with the current life support system for a long time. If I were to add just one more human—or even just eliminate myself and replace me with a normal human—I think they would run into trouble in about 15 years or so.
 
Mostly, I think it would be the water supply. Everything else could be fixed thanks to the 3D printer, which took up basically half of the workshop area that occupied half of the hangar bay.
 
I was so lucky to have found a Rank 0 nozzle head. Molecular 3D printing was kinda slow—it depended on what you were doing—but the accuracy really depended on the nozzle and what base elements you could use.
 
Rank zero nozzles were the absolute best—literally capable of printing basically everything except Rank zero nozzles. No, those had to be made, and not only did one take months to create, but only one in a thousand passed inspections and could actually be used.
 
Rank one nozzles could print every electronic imaginable, even some of the lower-quality processors, which were still fast enough to do anything you wanted. Rank zeros could print rank ones, and so on—that's why they had those classifications to begin with.
 
With rank one nozzles, I could fix most things on the ship. Only some of the components for the propulsion engines and the FTL device couldn’t be made with it.
 
Technically, I also couldn’t replicate the processors I had on board with rank one, and a few I couldn’t even replicate with rank zero. Now I needed to set up this 3D printer to start making me some necessary components and a few nanomachines to get my production of nanomachines ramped up enough to escape this place before it collapsed.
 
The other half of my workshop area was filled with six tables and other stuff for tinkering. I was going to do this so I could keep busy and not go crazy. Unfortunately, a lot of this needed to go out, as I simply didn’t have the room for it any longer. I could still tinker without this nice setup, it would just be a bit more annoying.
 
I got Bob to help me. It was the only drone I had named because it had its quirks. It was mainly a drone to help move and load heavy things, but it had a tendency to do things on its own and do things how it liked, not how it was ordered. Usually, I would program that out of it, but I actually tried and couldn’t—otherwise, it wouldn't function at all. In the end, it got the job done, so it stays.
 
With Bob’s help, we unloaded the cargo area that had the extra supplies and materials. We needed a nice way to get everything on, and using the front airlock was not going to cut it, as that was designed for a standard-sized airlock, while the back one could work as a ramp or a cargo-sized airlock. Currently, it was in ramp mode, which made offloading and unloading things incredibly easy.
 
Originally, the cargo area was 25 meters long and four meters tall. The length remained the same, designed to fit two standard cargo containers that were nearly twice as tall as the normal ones. Currently, the ceiling was only 2.5 meters tall as I created a middle deck. Now, this ship had three decks instead of the original two.
 
The second deck was now 2 meters tall, while the third one, where the cockpit was, was just a little bit shorter. I’m pretty sure the original design for this ship was loosely based on the Osprey, as this one also has two engines in the wings that can be tilted up and down and the front looked similar to that old aircraft.
 
The tilt system was a bitch to work out, and I haven’t actually been able to test it, but theoretically, I will be able to control it well enough that I should be able to land on a planet—even if I would need a bit of flat ground to actually make a landing, as this thing certainly can't hover completely.
 
I will also not be able to use the full power of the wing engines; otherwise, I would risk ripping the engines off their mountings. This engine design was no joke, but once again, I wasn’t actually certain it would work. But I guess we will see.
 
The engines still require fuel. Currently, I was using hydrogen, but I could actually use higher-density gases, and they would be more efficient in terms of propulsion—though not in terms of energy usage and delta-V.
 
The gas tanks, so to say, were in the wings and in the walls, as I literally had no other place to put them. Between decks is where I’m storing the water, and of course, the hydroponics area also holds a lot of water—but that’s for making plant-based nutritious food that I could live off of.
 
In all honesty, this is not going to be a pleasant way to live, and all the other gasses I was going to need were in tanks mounted up near the ceilings.
 
Everything felt so cramped, but I simply didn’t have more room, even if this was barely enough to make a sustainable spaceship for long travel. Making anything bigger would also be currently out of my capabilities, as I simply couldn’t get it off the planet otherwise. Also, bringing enough materials with me to expand the ship in space would be unfeasible—I simply didn’t have the room.
 
Setting up the machines to make the nanomachines was easy enough; it only took some time. I wasn’t going to risk using any nanomachines I found, as I didn’t know what programming they had. Lola was working hard, making what we needed in terms of programming, and I did help her a bit while waiting for more machines to be delivered.
 
When everything was done, my workshop was now completely filled up—the nanomachine printers more resembled resin printers than 3D printers. I also needed a lot of high-end materials, especially metals, so once again, my drones started to strip anything useful from the megacity that even contained a little bit of the materials I needed.
 
The ones that would be too hard to find would be made by the 3D printer. Durasteel was what everything that needed strength was made out of—skyscrapers, ships, cars, everything. It was basically Steel 2.0.
 
It weighed a little bit less, but only marginally, but was stronger in some aspects up to three times stronger than regular steel. But in the end, it was still a basic material. Nowadays, the only reason it was used was because it was good enough, and you could actually mass-produce it without printers that were always slow.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
 
Every other better material needed a precise combination of different base materials, layered into each other in the correct ways to achieve truly miraculous properties. There was another step after that to make even better materials, but you would need presses and heat treatment for that, and I didn’t have those capabilities. What I had available should be good enough.
 
The next week passed quite fast, and all my focus went into getting nanomachines that were good enough to work as a power core. It took altogether three tons of nanomachines in numbers so high that I didn’t want to think about it—but it was done.
 
I was currently on the second deck. Behind me was the hydroponics, and in front of me, up to waist height, was a mass of wriggling nanomachines that now contained nearly a ton of radioactive material.
 
The nanomachines stretched all the way to the main engine, which reminded me that I still hadn’t given this type of engine a name. Well, whatever—I still had no idea what to name it. If I understood correctly, no one had actually ever built it. It was just a theoretical idea that I worked off of.
 
The engine worked like an accelerator that scientists used to collide particles at near light speed. What it does is cycle the fuel to relativistic speeds. The magnetic forces needed to keep that thing in such a small place were intense—that's why I needed such energy density. Then a small trickle would be pulled out and exhausted, which would produce a lot of thrust.
 
While I would’ve liked to use fusion engines, they needed a fusion core to power them, and honestly, I actually don’t know how they worked, cause some things were still kept secret even though quite a lot of information had been leaked over the years.
 
The exhaust port is quite big—basically four meters across and three meters tall. The power that the main engine can reach just needed a wider exhaust. Otherwise, I could risk hitting my own ship.
 
Those particles flew so fast that it was really hard to control the exhaust to get it directly into the right spot, so I needed more variation. I tried to get it tighter, but the simulations always failed. It’s an untested engine, as before this, I didn’t have the power needed. Perhaps I will just blow myself up.
 
I guess it was time to start packing up because, technically, I should be able to fly it.
 
I looked at the screen for the power core to see that it was already producing enough—without active fission—to rival the supply I was getting from the hydroplant. So it was time to disconnect the umbilical cord that was supplying power to the ship.
 
I headed to the right side of the ship, where there were multiple connection locations, and two of them were currently hooked up with power cords thicker than my leg. The other circular connections were for the different liquids and gases that could be stored inside the ship’s holding tanks.
 
They had quick-release connections, so I only had to turn them half of their circumference before they popped free. I started to get warning signals of power overload as the rest of my base wasn’t designed to take in as much power as was currently being pushed through the remaining connections, all coming from the hydroplant.
 
The printers took quite a lot of power.
 
“Lola, push the hover platform to its limit. Also, start charging the bad batteries and start the air compressors.”
 
She acknowledged my command, and I watched the warning notifications level out a bit, although they didn’t go out completely. That should give me enough time before anything started exploding.
 
“Bob, start loading anything marked to be loaded onto the ship, and do it fast.”
 
I jogged as best as I could back to the ship. This was the worst time for my right knee to start acting up. The right side of the ship’s cargo hold was kept clear, but it was a tight squeeze to get through.
 
Damn, this ship is so full of stuff.
 
I made it to the center, where there was a little bit more free room, and climbed the ladder to the next deck.
 
To my left was the hydroponics, and to my right, aft of the ship, were the new power core and the main engine behind that. I had gone over that engine a dozen times, so everything should work, but now, when there was actually hope of escaping this world and this solar system, I was getting a bit more nervous about things actually not working as they should.
 
Then I reached the third deck. To my left, at the front of the ship, was the cockpit. Just behind it, taking up a bit of space, were my sleeping quarters, and as I walked past them to sit in the pilot chair, I managed to glimpse a look at my face in the mirror.
 
Damn, I did look awful.
 
What was left of my skin looked melted—only on the right side was there a bit of normal skin left. My jaw and basically my entire mouth were half-exposed metal.
 
My left eye looked kind of like a normal eye, but it wasn’t—it was just good cybernetics. The right eye was obviously robotic. It was barely functioning because this wasn’t something I managed to get reimbursed for by the company that turned me into this monstrosity.
 
That made me look at the lower left corner of my vision. There, made as small as possible, was a red dot. If I opened that up, it would show me a list of body parts that basically covered the entire list of human organs and many other parts needed for living. They were all from one company—Cyber Life Tomorrow.
 
Terrible name, but they were one of the richest companies ever.
 
It still amazed me how much they were worth, even with so many people hating heavy cyber modifications. The only reason I was allowed to get so many was because it was medically necessary.
 
One of their hazardous material truck—I don’t know how, but it managed to drive into the apartment building my family and I lived in. I was only ten back then, but whatever it was transporting melted through everything in its path.
 
I don’t know how I survived as long as I did, but my family certainly didn’t. In fact, our family was the only one to receive any damages, as the lawyer said after my surgeries.
 
I still don’t know if I should thank or hate that lawyer. I was one of the last to receive what was then called the Five Gifts new lawyers gave.
 
It was a short-run project where every lawyer that graduated needed to take on pro bono cases—five of them—before they could be hired by companies. That meant that actual good lawyers represented people and not companies.
 
Yeah, even before me, the companies were paying quite a lot to get that law removed, but my case basically made it a certainty.
 
That lawyer was ruthless and a genius. If I understand correctly, he was afterward hired by the very best and became incredibly rich. He managed to get me top-of-the-line cybernetics, licenses to use them for as long as I lived, and even monthly payments—even though those weren’t too big. All of this cost the company a bit under a billion credits. They called me the most expensive charity case of all time.
 
The problem was, I was still 10, and it had been a bitch getting enough money and resources so that these cybernetics would grow with me. Now, however, I can barely keep them functioning, as they were still the property of that company. During C-Day, those cybernetics received a kill order to stop working and destroy themselves completely.
 
Currently, the loading bar was stopped at 23%. That was when I managed to stop them from ending my life. Those fucking bastards couldn’t leave it alone.
 
Of course, they probably didn’t even know or care about me as this was not an attack targeting me, it was a general order issued throughout the entire solar system.
 
Fortunately, the few real organs I have left have managed to keep up, and the other cybernetics I had to buy were so under-the-table and obviously made by underground cyber mechanics that none of them ceased functioning because of the order.
 
The worst affected is my left knee, but I also need to consume a protein shake with a lot of added metals and a few other components for the cyber organs to keep repairing themselves—even while trying to destroy themselves.
 
I should have a fix for that problem thanks to these new nanomachines, but I have not had time to do anything with them. That’s the problem when trying to escape this place everything else comes second as who knows how much time I have left.
 
I finally sat down in the pilot chair and made myself comfortable.
 
“Lola, are you housed properly? Display the current diagnostics.”
 
“Acknowledged.”
 
I almost thought I heard ‘m’ at the end of that, but she managed to keep herself from saying it.
 
I powered on the projected screens. While I did have a front window, that thing was going to be covered up by armor plating after I got out of this underground hangar. The screens lit up all around me, as I had many sensors and cameras set up to give me a complete 360-degree view.
 
I saw Bob diligently bringing in more and more boxes—some of them weighed quite a lot. That was one of the first things I brought up. The ship’s weight was a bit back-heavy, but the thrust should compensate.
 
I started to go through the flight checklist I had, but I also needed to add the power core display somewhere. I think it would fit quite well underneath the fuel supply and the engine readouts.
 
Finally, on the right side, I started seeing a list of diagnostics that had been run and were currently being run. All were turning green, which was good. The power core’s passive mode seemed to be enough, and after about ten minutes of diagnostics and checking that everything worked as it should, I went to the second deck and activated the active mode of the power core.
 
Now radioactive materials are being transported to certain locations. They were minuscule in size, but I was still holding my breath. Of course, I barely needed to breathe, as I had compressed canisters of necessary gases to supply me with everything I needed.
 
One thing I still fully had was my sense of smell. Fortunately, the power core didn’t seem to smell like anything.
 
Even half of my left-side nervous system was cyberware. The worst thing was that I didn’t have proper taste—I could only tell if something was edible or not. What I missed most was hearing. The only hearing I had was a fake one, completely electronic. Some noises I didn’t even pick up, but I did hear the small explosion sound, and I could perfectly see the expanding nanomachines.
 
The readout showed a spike in power production. There was a limit to how much power these nanomachines could store, but right now, it was only about 7% full.
 
Then, another small explosion.
 
It made me take a step back, but everything seemed green on the readout.
 
Damn. Why do they have to move like that? This was beyond scary, but it was time to finally try to start up those engines of mine and see if they actually worked.