Jiang Lin picked up her box and stood. The vehicle in front of her, while nowhere near the floating electric cars of before the apocalypse, still looked decent, something like an old-fashioned bus.
Bus No. 8 stopped fully, and both doors opened. She boarded through the front with the others, swiping her wristband against the black reader by the driver’s cabin.
The driver’s cabin was a separate, sealed compartment. The vehicle drove itself, the driver only monitored its status.
“Payment successful. Single ride: 5 points.” A single ride, five points. Jiang Lin decided, in that instant, that living so far out was not a good deal.
The windows were all sealed shut, with only a ceiling fan keeping the air moving. It was getting dark outside, and her intelligent brain notified her of two waiting messages.
She didn’t want to open a virtual screen in public, it felt too exposed, but she had no display device yet. Her old one had been left behind in her ruined apartment, scrapped beyond use anyway.
She frowned. She’d need to properly equip herself soon.
【Not going to check the messages?】 110’s voice returned after a long silence.
【On the bus, no display, and I don’t want to open the virtual screen,】 she replied silently, bored enough to talk to it.
110 paused before answering. 【I can project the content onto your helmet visor. No one else will be able to see it.】
Before she could react, static crackled inside her helmet and the interface appeared before her eyes. For the first time, she thought this system might not be so bad after all.
Two messages waited. One was from the patrol center: report to the center at 8 a.m. tomorrow. Hours were 8 to 5, with a one-hour break. Same hall she’d visited earlier.
The other was from Area 99’s management office, a brief rundown of the district. Once again she understood why the courtyard house had been sitting empty, Area 99 split into high-rise residential zones and small standalone courtyards, but the courtyards were inconvenient, offering only the barest furniture. Laundry, meals, and daily shopping all meant a trip to the high-rise district, itself a ten-minute walk from her courtyard.
Jiang Lin let out a soft sigh and closed the interface.
【Actually, there’s a smart washing machine in the system shop. Not expensive, and better than anything your base provides. Only ten discarded batteries.】
Hearing this, something stirred in her. She hadn’t properly browsed the system shop yet. Bored on the bus, she decided to take a look.
At a glance it seemed to hold nearly everything, from bedding sets to entire walls. Construction materials cost far more than furniture, while furniture itself was the cheapest category. The priciest by far was agriculture. The planting bed she’d been given alone would have cost 500 batteries, while a full, comfortable bedding set ran just one.
“Area 99 has arrived. Stop time: two minutes. Please watch for your stop.”
Jiang Lin picked up her box and followed the crowd off the bus, quietly studying the people around her. Their clothing was plain, the patrol uniform she’d just received was already the finest thing most of them would see. Area 99’s residents clearly weren’t well off.
Although thin and small, her uniform meant people barely glanced twice at her. Following her navigation through a maze of turns, she finally found her courtyard.
It matched Xu An’an’s virtual model exactly: a wall about a person’s height, a locked gate. She swiped her wristband, and it opened.
Inside was a bare little courtyard, roughly ten square meters, with the house tucked into the back-left corner. Another swipe, another identity check, and she stepped into her new home.
About forty square meters, empty and plain, though the walls and roof were in decent shape and the floor was wood. The space split into three areas: bedroom, kitchen, living room. The living room held only a small two-person dining table. The bedroom had a double bed, a wardrobe, and an attached bathroom. The kitchen offered a basic induction stove, a small pot, and a direct drinking-water tap.
Jiang Lin set the box down and opened it, laying the seeds and journal on the dining table first. The rest was standard patrol-issue supplies: eight sets of clothing, two summer, three spring/autumn, two winter, one loungewear, an 800 ml metal water bottle, a spare helmet, and a set of toiletries.
She put everything away, filled the pot with warm water in the kitchen, then sat at the table to examine her purchases more closely.
On closer inspection, the “book” turned out to be a handwritten journal, no wonder the seller had been reluctant to part with it. It was dense with notes on various plants, their preferences, appearances, with hand-drawn illustrations tracking each one from seed to maturity. Whoever wrote it had clearly poured great care into it.
The seeds themselves weren’t uniform, scattered, varied. She sorted them by eye into twelve rough types.
Outside, full dark had fallen. Her watch read 8 p.m., the cafeteria’s last service ended at 8:30. Hunger stirred, and she decided to check it out.
The Area 99 cafeteria sat in the high-rise district, a ten-minute walk as expected. By the time she arrived, almost no one was left, only staff cleaning up. She approached the employee counter.
A middle-aged woman in a white uniform flashed a hint of impatience at her arrival. “Swipe here. I’ll get you your meal.”
Jiang Lin placed her wristband on the same black sensor she’d used before. The woman glanced at it, then at Jiang Lin, mild surprise crossing her face, muttering something under her breath.
“No dine-in. Takeout only.” She pulled a paper bag from the temperature-controlled cabinet and handed it over.
Heat rose off the bag. Jiang Lin took it and left without looking back.
Summer daytime temperatures could hit 42°C, dropping to around 20°C at night. Her patrol uniform regulated temperature somewhat, but the wind still carried a chill.
She hurried home, the streets nearly empty, only the sound of her own footsteps.
By the time she reached the courtyard, most of the bag’s warmth had faded to lukewarm. Curious about the base’s idea of an employee meal, she opened it: a bowl of soup and something like compressed biscuits.
The taste was thoroughly average, the soup basically salted water with a few floating leaves of green vegetable. She was mildly surprised, she hadn’t seen actual green vegetables in a long time. The base likely had its own cultivation system running somewhere. The biscuits were bland. She drank all the soup and saved two biscuits in a disposable container.
【Detected: discarded batteries beneath the soil in your courtyard. Excavate?】 The system’s voice cut through the quiet night.
“I don’t have tools,” Jiang Lin said, a little troubled, glancing around the bare room.
【I can provide a shovel, you’ll owe me one battery.】
“Okay.”
The moment she spoke, a simple shovel appeared on the living-room floor, and her system-shop balance ticked down: -1.
“Can you give me a rough dig location?”
【Battery precision locator, 10 batteries. Go into debt for it?】
“No need.” The courtyard wasn’t large, she’d probably turn up several just digging randomly. She didn’t want to owe the system more than necessary.
Area 99’s streetlights were dim, several broken outright, Jiang Lin turning soil with a shovel in her own courtyard wasn’t going to draw anyone’s attention.
Sure enough, half a meter down, the shell of a discarded battery emerged. She widened the hole and dug a little deeper, uncovering three in total.
【Detected: absorbable batteries. Absorbing.】
The three vanished, and the shop balance read: 2.
Digging turned out to be exhausting work. Beneath the surface sand the soil was packed hard, she had to force the shovel in and slowly pry up small clumps. After a few rounds her arms already ached, and dust coated her in gray grime.
By the time she’d turned over nearly the whole courtyard, she had 12 more batteries, 14 total. She decided not to dig deeper, and simply sat down on the churned-up ground without caring about the mess.
Behind her visor, sweat covered her face, and loose strands of hair stuck to her cheeks, itching. She hated this sticky, filthy feeling, digging for batteries had already earned a spot near the top of her most-hated-activities list.
Remembering she still had to be up early, she left the shovel by the door and went back inside.
“System, can I choose where items from the shop get placed?” She sat at the table and took a sip of water.
【Yes. You can also store items in the system shop temporarily, the way you did with your planting bed.】
That reminded her, she still had a planting bed she hadn’t dealt with. Not tonight, though. She spent 12 batteries on a washing machine and two sets of bedding, setting the washer in the back corner of the living room near the courtyard door.
The system’s bedding sets included covers, quilt, and pillow. She folded her old thin bedding into a cabinet and threw the new clothes and linens into the washer for a wash-and-dry cycle.
The system-made washing machine really was impressive, the full cycle took only twenty minutes. By the time she’d finished her shower, everything was clean and dry.
She changed into her one set of loungewear and lay down under the blanket, everything still feeling faintly unreal.
Just that morning she’d been lying on the floor of her old apartment, dying. Now her food and shelter were settled, and she had a mysterious construction system of unknown origin besides.
Jiang Lin felt a small flicker of anticipation for tomorrow. She’d noticed that some patrol teams worked inside the base while others operated outside it. She had no idea which she’d be assigned to.