Divine Artifact in a Scientific World-Chapter 131: Couch Time (5)

She shook herself mentally and focused on business.

"I’m doing fine. Though, I’m still struggling to find an appropriate building for the research institute. The legal requirements are annoyingly complex. All the buildings that meet our physical requirements are located in areas with incompatible zoning. And all the places with appropriate zoning have nothing available that meets our needs."

"Then ignore the building, focus on the land and location. I don’t care if we have to pay extra to demolish the existing building and build from scratch."

Does he really not- Then she checked her connection with him. Yes, he really didn’t care about the extra cost.

"There is one site that is in an ideal location, has room to spare, and nothing to demolish, but it requires some extensive environmental cleanup. The land is being offered for next to nothing, but the buyer has to commit to the cleanup or the sale won’t be approved by the government."

"How much land?"

"Thirty acres. Only three miles from the main NSU campus."

"Damn, that’s awesome. What are they asking, and is there an estimate for how much it will cost to clean it up?"

"They’re asking ten kay, plus closing costs. As for the cleanup costs, I’m not sure. I talked to one company that’s approved to do that kind of work and they said it would cost anywhere between ten and one hundred and fifty million credits."

"And how much would the land be worth if it didn’t need cleanup?"

"Around twenty million credits."

"Hmm. If anyone thought it could be cleaned up for twenty million or less, it would have already sold. Did the company give you a cost breakdown?"

"Yes, most of the cost was for excavation and transport. The tests showed that the contamination was really deep in several places, so a lot of dirt would have to be moved just to get all of it. If it wasn’t for that one spot, the cleanup cost would be ten times lower."

"Buy it!" he said firmly.

"What? Really? Why?!"

"I want to build an underground facility. A bunker. And that will require moving a lot of dirt. Since they have to dig out all that dirt anyway, might as well put the bunker in the hole they leave. We might even be able to make it a secret bunker."

Oh! That’s why. If you had to pay the costs anyway, why not take advantage of the situation?

"Okay, I’ll talk to Abagail and ask her to get things rolling. Do you want her to put out a request for bids on the cleanup job?"

"No, hold off on that. I might know a company that can handle both the cleanup and the bunker build."

He did? He’s only eighteen. Where would he have made such contacts?

"Buy the way. How are things going with you and Rina on the simulation software improvements?"

"It’s awesome and so incredibly annoying at the same time. We spend most of our time building each computer simulation from one of your micro-snapshots. It would be so much faster if we could go the other way around."

"You mean build one of my simulations using one of yours as the baseline?"

"Yes! Rina can generate thousands and thousands of test cases easily. If we could run your simulations based on those test cases, we could increase our speed by at least a hundred times. When you created that simulation for our first conversation, how did you make it?"

"I told Jeeves what I wanted, and he made it for me."

"Can he make a simulation based on one of our simulation design files?"

"I... don’t know. I never thought of that. Let’s ask Jeeves and find out!"

The weird Saxon butler man appeared in the middle of the room.

"Jeeves," Jack asked, "The simulation feature description says I can build one from scratch. Can I just give you a digital file that describes the simulation and have you build one from that?"

"That is possible, sir. Assuming the file format is documented sufficiently, and the format provides the necessary details."

"REALLY!!!!" screamed Rina as she launched into the room and stopped in front of Jeeves and started firing questions at the assistant like a machine gun.

"Rina!" said Jack.

She didn’t seem to notice. Most of the time, when she got like this, it was annoying, but right now Nora thought it was kind of cute.

"RINA!" shouted Jack.

Rina flinched. Then slowly turned to face Jack, looking like a puppy that’s just been caught with a shredded PhD dissertation in her mouth.

He beckoned her with his finger. As she slowly walked towards him, he shifted on the couch so he was sitting on the edge, legs spread. She walked up until she was arm’s length away from him. Then he reached out, grabbed her, and pulled her into a hug. Nora had known Rina for a few years now and she had never seen her allow someone to hug her like that. What was even more surprising was that Rina relaxed. Then, to her utter astonishment, they kissed!

After a brief kiss, Jack caressed Rina’s face and said, "Better?"

Rina nodded, and Nora questioned reality. She’d been certain Rina was intensely uncomfortable with physical contact, let along kissing.

Jack turned to Jeeves and said, "Help Rina and Nora work out a simulation design file format that you can use to create simulations."

"As you wish, sir," replied Jeeves.

Rina, still hugging Jack, said, "Can I get started now?"

"Sure," replied Jack, then gently pushed Rina towards Jeeves.

Rina grabbed Jeeves’ hand and pulled him out of the room.

After watching Rina leave, Nora turned to Jack and said, "I wonder what other useful information we could extract from Jeeves, if only we knew the right question."

"Who knows? If you think of any questions, be sure to write them down."

"Sure," she muttered. She couldn’t be angry with him. She hadn’t thought to ask either, and, really, she was happy that they would soon have a more efficient process for improving Rina’s software.

Then it hit her. She didn’t need to wait for Rina’s software! If Jeeves could create a simulation from a design file, then she could skip the slow computer simulations and run the real Genesis Heart simulations directly!

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