Chapter 168: Chapter 163

Standing in the middle of nowhere within the Nexus Severalty, the combined classrooms of urban planners and administrators murmured amongst themselves about what their joint practical outing would involve. They were dropped off in a desolate zone, one of the huge swathes of empty reserved lands within the Nexus, with the closest settlement being a good thirty minutes away via subway.

 

One of the six professors leading the group called for silence. “Right boys and gals, silence now. Silence.” An eccentric but otherwise genial ghoul, Marcell Whister was once a civil engineer before the bombs fell. Now he was one of the many ghouls staffing the Nexus’ education system. 

 

“To continue the theme of cooperation between city designers and administrators, you will soon begin a very real practical exercise.” As if on cue, there was a noticeable rumbling in the distance, and the students could make out bulky silhouettes off in the horizon. The ghoul professor’s withered lips curled up into a smile, which his colleagues soon mirrored. 

 

“Sev has graciously provided us with an excellent means of turning theories into practice.”

 

Silhouettes quickly grew larger, much larger. They were comically oversized trucks, about the size of a warehouse.

 

Professor Whister needlessly cleared his throat as the fleet of behemoths slowed to a chugging stop before the students. Small human heads could be seen waving from behind the massive windshields. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you: the Nexus Severalty’s first fleet of Mobile Construction Vehicles.”

 

One of the giant trucks veered away into the empty land, and the students watched in awe as the vehicle anchored itself to the ground and seemed to unfold under the clanking and grinding of metal. The driver’s cab sank to ground level as the chassis of the MCV spread apart to form a sturdy foundation. Cranes were unpacked from the truck’s cargo hold and soon rose up. As the vehicle turned into a building, complete with spotlights and power generator, a swarm of Mr Handys flew out and circled lazily around the deployed MCV.

 

Professor Marishka Roon spoke up once the noise settled down. “Each MCV is powered by its own fusion generator, initial stores of construction material, and once deployed, will have fabricator and design consoles to order the four hundred modified Mr Handy robots slaved to its system.” 

 

She waved a lazy hand in the air, acting as if she hadn’t dropped her jaw like the students back when she first saw the thing. “With this, dear students, you can design, build and rebuild whole cities. But for now, we shall start small. You will each be divided into groups and assigned an MCV and land of your own. There will be engineers who will guide you through the operation, so I suggest you listen closely to them. Once you’ve acclimatized yourself to the system, we will hand out your task for the day.”

 

After dividing the students, the professors watched with faint smirks as the groups broke into excited runs towards their MCVs, and soon the massive vehicles were driving out to their assigned plots of land.

 

“Fifty credits say that at least one group overlooks power and water,” Professor Roon commented drily.

 

“Sucker’s bet,” her colleague, Professor Adam Stein snorted. “I still say we should’ve brought in the architecture students for this.”

 

Professor Whister chuckled. “It’d be a bloodbath.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

The professors bantered for a while more, over the sounds of deploying MCVs and the buzzing of robots. They paused as a shadow was cast around them. Looking up, the group saw a Quetzal transport descending, and in no time at all it was landed right before them.

 

The boarding ramp lowered, and the familiar form of a black-coated man appeared. “Professors,” Sev greeted with a smile. “Time to oversee your students?”

 

Doing their best to hold back their excitement over the appearance of Sev himself, the ghoul and human academicians embarked on the aircraft and took to the skies to visit each MCV site.

 

“Study aid aside, any further thoughts on the use of MCVs?” Sev asked the mildly starstruck professors.

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“The lightweight materials makes for a quick setup,” Professor Stein opined after a thoughtful hum, “Though against hazardous environments, we might have to consider reinforcing the foundations and structural integrity to ensure that the buildings last.”

 

The Nexus’ ruler gave a nod. “We’re working on that. The alloy sheets we’re using now are durable, but the labcoats back in Ix are figuring out how to make the fabricators churn out more effective heat insulation. And there’s a prototype or two in the works for quick-deploy foundations for long-term stability.”

 

“I don’t recall it being brought up before,” Professor Whister asked excitedly, “But what is the efficiency of the reclamation system?”

 

Sev gave a light shrug. “No more than forty percent at the moment, but considering that the plasma shredders can break down concrete, plastic and metal from ruins to create the building materials, forty sounds good so far. The waste is mostly heat and light, with some water vapors…so that’ll be used as a secondary power generation for the MCV.”

 

The professors bobbed their heads as they listened attentively, and all six were already reimagining the future of semi-automated city building. More questions were posed about the MCV system, and Sev freely answered all of them.

 

“I think we can accommodate another tour once the next MCV iteration is up. Maybe you can make it a field trip for your classes?”

 

Even as they all gave their affirmatives, the professors were already quietly rescheduling their curriculum for more flexibility to make it to such an event. Professor Roon for example decided then and there to review her existing syllabus when she returned from this excursion and figure out what could be trimmed, skimmed or pushed aside to accommodate a tour in the near future.

 

Having Sev personally appear to deliver the project packages left a strong impression to the students, and even the most jaded of ghouls stood straighter in his presence and paid their full attention as he went through the requirements for the day’s exercise.

 

Professor Roon’s wager proved to be warranted in the end; two of the towns builts for self-sufficiency were initially missing power generators and water pumps. Thanks to the efficiency of the Mr Builder robots, the mistakes were quickly corrected within hours, along with other varying errors like insufficient green lungs, overly inefficient pathways, and missing subway stations.

 

All in all, the students gave a decent first run at their practical. The professors had to quietly step in to put an end to the discreet fight over the packages Sev had handed out, but other than that, it seemed a decent showing of one of the first batches of the Nexus’ higher education.

 

Sev seemed impressed at the joint class exercise, enough that he announced a little competition: the top five scorers of the semester would get to join their professors and other specialists in rebuilding New York City. 

 

The bottom five would join the architecture classes when their turn eventually came for the MCVs. 

 

*****

 

Note to self: On the next update to the MCVs, make sure to figure out a way to patch in voicelines. Maybe set a hard limit to how many buildings the bots can work on at a time?

 

Hm… Maybe for the sake of efficiency, right? 

 

‘Unable to comply, building in progress.’

 

Yeah, definitely worth bringing up. And add a counter to see how often that comes up.

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