Neil Ng didn't disappoint. He introduced me to a house with a garage that was just perfect for my uses. I couldn't help but be amazed by the immense size of the garage parked beside the house. Not only could my Toyota fit inside, there was still enough space for me to conduct my experiments.
Without hesitation, I bought the house. Of course, moving in would take a few weeks. I didn't bother with renovations – I didn't like wasting money on that, and I wasn't too fussy with the interior. So I could move in as soon as one week after I paid for the house and signed the property to my name.
Another major event that happened through the week while I was getting ready to pack up and move was Bu Fan's secretary finally getting back to my company. I wasn't expecting the email, at any rate. One moment I was experimenting with the now annoying blueprint of a shield boat, and the next moment William Wang came rushing over while waving his smartphone.
"They sent it! Bu Fan's company, I mean!"
"Sent what?" I asked distractedly, still trying to figure out how to regulate output of energy from the reactor. At these sizes, a single disruption could see the plasma reactor blow up into a nuclear detonation the size of Nebraska. Okay, not that big, but you wouldn't want one of your ships to nuke half of your fleet when its reactor blew up. It just wasn't practical.
"Have you forgotten? The contract with Bu Businesses! CEO Bu Fan's secretary has just sent us the copy of the contract through email!"
"Excellent. I'll be relying on you then." I glanced up at him, relieved. "If the terms and legality all look right, go ahead and sign it."
"You mean give you to sign it. Your signature is required, Mr. CEO."
"Uh, right. Yeah. Thanks." I nodded gratefully. Then I waved my hand. "You know I'm not good with all these legalities and profits and losses thing. I will have to rely on you."
"Heh. That's why you hired me. Got it, I'll look through them, make adjustments, send the contract back, and if they accept the changes, you'll sign it."
"Yup."
Then I returned my attention back to the shield boat, feeling a hint of frustration. An idea came to me.
"While we are working with Bu Businesses, we'll also need to expand our company. The two of us can't keep doing everything ourselves."
"Yeah," William agreed readily. But he knew me better than that, realizing that I brought the topic up for a reason. "You have problems figuring out the shield boat?"
"A few," I admitted. "I need a bigger research and development division. We need to hire more technicians and engineers. The shield boat is a lot larger scale than I thought. It's not something I can build in a military camp. We need access to shipyards, I need more technicians and engineers to oversee entire parts of the boat. I can deal with the plasma reactor and shielding technology, but quite frankly, building a ship is out of my specialization."
Not only that, I couldn't just draw blueprints. I needed to run actual trials, stress-tests and build the prototypes. Even if I could get the components from Lily's company, I couldn't possibly assemble such a massive prototype myself. Occasionally, I had requested help from the combat engineers and technicians from the military, but this wasn't their job and they often had training missions and other operations to keep them occupied.
I needed my own dedicated staff.
"Roger that. I will begin the hiring process." William grinned. "With how popular our company has become, we'll probably be able to easily recruit the staff you need."
"Don't just hire anyone," I reminded him. "We actually need competent people – engineers and technicians who know what they are doing. Of course, since you're at it, you can expand the admin staff. Develop a human resource division, to help you with all your work. I don't want you to overwork yourself."
"On it, boss. Thanks for your concern." William thought for a while. "I can ask Maya. She works for a human resource company. She'll be a great help."
"Excellent." I spun the holographic blueprint of the shield boat around. "Then let's do it."
With all these in place, we retired slightly early for the day. I couldn't do anything else with the blueprints unless I could gather the staff and materials required to build the prototypes, while William had to wait for Bu Businesses to respond to his alterations of the terms in the contract. Basically business negotiations. What, you think a contract was so easy to sign? You've been reading way too many romance CEO and son-in-law stories. There were plenty of negotiations and back-and-forth before both companies would finally agree to a contract.
To put it in military terms, there was a lot of hurry up and wait.
"Sir, your belongings."
"Oh, right. Thanks."
Before I could proceed toward my Toyota, which was parked in the carpark of the military base camp, a few soldiers approached me. I recognized them as the staff handling affairs in the barracks. They had been of enormous help over the last week or so, after William and I were driven out of our apartment and needed a temporary place to stay.
The military had temporarily offered us the use of the barracks because they wanted to protect us. After all, I was a valuable military asset, and it wouldn't do for me to get killed. They would incur a huge loss with the shield generators currently solely produced by my company. So they were concerned, and the safest place was essentially the army base camp.
However, it wasn't a permanent solution. While they did have a couple of sentries guard me and William, we had to move out eventually. William already did, moving into his new home with Maya Mo, while I was slowly bringing my belongings to my new house.
These soldiers were here to help me pack. They gestured to my boxes of belongings.
"Are we bringing more of them over today, sir?"
"Yeah. Thanks for the trouble, as usual."
It sucked that I didn't have my own staff or servants to help me with such menial labor and had to instead depend on the military, but I wasn't some rich CEO. My fledging company couldn't afford such expenses. Come to think of it, we still hadn't gotten our own office and had to rely on the military. That was fine. Such a thing wasn't something to be ashamed of. In business terms, we called it outsourcing.
Not all CEOs had to own pristine, towering skyscrapers for their companies to operate in. Renting out a hangar in an army base camp was just as appropriate an office as any luxurious skyscraper. Especially for someone in my chosen industry.
I packed the boxes into my Toyota and drove off. The soldiers loaded a bit more stuff into their rover and trailed me. They must have struck an interesting sight, a military vehicle tailing a civilian car, but I ignored the stares. Not that I could see much of other people's gazes while inside my electric car, anyway. Unfortunately, I wasn't very fond of attracting attention.
My new home wasn't too far away from the army base camp and I reached it in twenty minutes. The soldiers parked by the driveway, the private and lance corporal disembarking and then helping me carry the boxes into my new house.
"Thanks, guys." I saluted them and they stared at me. Oh, right. They weren't officers. Why the hell would you salute non-officers? "Sorry. Force of habit."
"No problem, sir." The two of them looked amused. I decided not to tell them I used to be in the army. That would be embarrassing as hell, especially since I had forgotten all military protocols and fire discipline. Fortunately, I remained familiar with military weapons, which was why I was working in my current job, and why the ministry of defense was paying me big bucks.
"Thanks for your help. I'll take over from here."
"Any time, sir." They saluted me this time, and I raised both of my hands in embarrassment.
"I'm not an officer."
"You're a DXO, which is the civilian equivalent of an officer, actually," the lance corporal said. "A non-uniformed officer."
"Uh, right. Of course." Then I frowned. I was pretty sure that was a Country S term, not one you would find in Hua Xia, but whatever.
I watched the two soldiers climb into their rover and drove off, then I proceeded to unpack my stuff. Most of my belongings were personal items, such as miniatures, books and stuff. I had few furniture, which meant I needed to buy them as soon as possible. For now, I could survive with my computer, a work desk, a bed and a shelf for my books. I left my miniatures in the boxes – I probably wouldn't have the time for tabletop war gaming in the near future.
Damn…I so wanted to visit my friendly local gaming store for a war gaming session, to roll dice and watch toy soldiers and giant robots shook at each other (or at aliens). But I had work to do.
Some of my boxes contained tools and stuff, which I unloaded into my new garage. I had my Toyota parked away in one section, and then I gathered my equipment in the cavernous section next door, so to speak. It resembled a hangar.
Right now, it looked empty, but I was eager to fill it out. Honestly, I was tempted to bring some of the stuff from the military base camp back to my garage so that I could continue tinkering with them and experimenting on them, but I wasn't allowed to. I wouldn't make it past the security checkpoint, carrying "sensitive" and "restrictive" material.
It made sense. Civilians weren't allowed to carry weapons with them in public or at home. It would pose a danger to public security.
"Then why did I bother getting a big garage for?" I moaned, placing my hands on my hips and staring around the vast space. While I did so, my smartphone buzzed. An email notification or something. I deleted the advertisement and scrolled through the screen. As I did so, I went through my contact list inadvertently and I stopped at Francis Fang's number.
"Oh? Right…didn't he have a DYI store?"
An idea formed in my head and I grinned. The weekend was coming up, and while I originally planned to unpack my stuff and buy some furniture, I decided that I might as well drop by Francis's DYI store and check it out.
Maybe I would be able to obtain something for my garage…