Chapter 248: Lack Of Social Cohesion

It was a bit of a ridiculous sight, large metal containers being pulled by heavily armed and armoured warriors.

But it got the point across.

The first deliveries had simply been made on a flat trailer behind a pickup truck. That didn’t have any sort of security. But these most recent ones were in enclosed trailers, either by truck, or by warrior in power armour.

Sometimes both.

Stocking every warehouse took until late in the afternoon, but that was just in time for the restaurants to grab what they needed to serve a late dinner.

The occupancy had been arranged in advance by the Ark Commanders, based on applications by the residents. So, there was no confusion about who was going to be opening what, or who should be in any given space.

With armed guards in the streets and warriors carrying pulse rifles making the deliveries, the attitude of the city changed quickly, even before the first shops managed to get food out.

Curiously, it was not a tuber restaurant that managed to open first.

It was a noodle shop.

The Arks had been making flour out of the algae for some time, it was an intermediate step in making nutrient paste. And now that they didn’t need to serve it, they were shipping the flour out for everyone to try to find edible ways to prepare it.

The noodle shop owner had been the fastest, as he had brought a whole bag of algae flour with him when he left the Ark.

Mixed with some of the corn flour from the greenhouses, and some spices, plus a bit of boar bone to make stock, he had managed to turn out an acceptable bowl of noodle soup that did not taste like eating grass.

The Corn was another of the System generated high-energy crops, though not as violent as the tubers and raspberries.

So, they had to use it in moderation.

But when it was mixed into noodles, with the boar bone broth, the shopkeeper found that he could serve much smaller portions and still have guests leave feeling full to the brim.

That was a huge win.

Noodle soup wasn’t the sort of fancy dish that people normally went looking for. But if you knew that it would keep you from being hungry for an entire day? That changed the math.

Kalli watched the cameras as news of the noodle shop’s success spread, and more restaurants prepared to open in the new city. They all had plans that they were certain would have them shooting up ahead of their competitors.

But all the ingredients were new, so the first day was not always a success.

For example, a handful of raspberries mixed into a stack of pancakes to hide the taste of algae flour would be more than any regular human could eat. They would be full to the point of nausea halfway through.

It looked wrong to serve a single pancake, so the shop began making them smaller and using their smaller plates.

And then there was the disaster that was someone’s attempt to make a new soup, which came out looking and tasting more like lumpy nutrient paste, despite sharing no common ingredients.

Overall, the restaurants were a success, and by late evening, the digital records showed that nearly everyone had eaten.

Some of them would be unlisted because they had shared meals before the portions were fixed, but Kalli would keep track of the ones who didn’t show up for multiple meals. If they were sick, injured, or being cheated out of their rations, she wanted to know.

She might have been the one that created the hive city, but she wouldn’t just let it degenerate into a living hell that fast.

The longer she watched, the stronger the urge to day drink became.

What had she done? She had made the very worst parts of the city she came from in her past life, right down to the ration cards that determined who could eat, and how much they could purchase.

She had despised those ration cards as a child.

There was never enough to go around, and even once she started working and had enough money that the ration card became nothing more than a base grocery shopping card, the trauma never left her.

Fortunately, she had put credit kiosks in the underground, though very few could use them yet.

Once there were more level 0 residents, they would be able to exchange credits there, collecting their daily work rewards. That would at least get the economy moving a little.

The worst part of it was that she really couldn’t think of a better way to make sure nobody slipped through the cracks than to track the spending on ration cards.

Or perhaps that was not the worst.

The worst might be how fast everyone was adapting to it, and how quickly they realized that the servers could just scan a fingerprint from every guest to pay for the meals, as nobody had the ability to store food rations yet.

Unless they were skipping meals.

[ It’s nearly nine in the evening, a little bit of rum in the tea won’t hurt anything. One for you, one for me. Ah, that’s much better. Now, to settle in and sort out the rationing so that we can get the new factories up and running. ]

Yara wisely chose to say nothing as she watched Kalli slowly fill a teacup with nothing but rum, drinking a shot for every shot she poured into the cup, then draining the cup immediately after.

The Coordinator was clearly under enough stress without anyone calling out the unorthodox drinking method.

"Ah, Yara, what did you need?" Kalli called as she set down the empty cup.

"I’ve got an update for you. The food deliveries are done, the warehouses underground have enough to supply tomorrow’s deliveries, and both the grocers and the restaurants are running relatively smoothly."

Then Yara paused for a moment, realizing that the contents of her report were playing live on the wall of the Hall of Heroes.

"Anyhow, that’s the basics. A bunch of us are going drinking with the undead, if you don’t want to drink alone."

Kalli chuckled and shook her head. "I’ve still got work to do. Say hello to Esmeralda for me."