17 More People

With most of the things on my mental list completed, with the exception of always ongoing to-dos such as building up the fortress, I had gone to Micheal to start the training which we had talked about.

I never would have guessed how hard it was going to be. Before, I had simply done some workouts to maintain my shape, not to build it up, but with Micheal, it felt like he was trying to kill me with exhaustion.

"COME ON! PICK UP THE PACE!" With an ear piercing shout, Micheal yelled at me to keep pushing on.

Sweat covers my body, dripping down my face, my arms shaking, working to hold up the heavy weights placed on them.

My voice strained, I retort back,"I c-can't. It...my muscles...ugh!" I try to push through, but my arms give way. With nothing holding them up, the 30 pound weights fall to the ground. My hands clutching my knees, I take many heavy, panting breaths before I can regain enough energy to stand up.

"Come on Tes, that was barely 30 minutes! You should be able to do this for an hour! At a minimum!" Micheal scolds me. We continue on like this for three more hours, which Micheal complains isn't long enough, but I tell he he also has to be training the security personally.

Those three hours of torture feel longer and longer every day I exercise with him, but I can feel my body strengthening under the harsh workouts. My strength and endurance had even gone up by one, now being at 10 and 9 respectively.

Finishing my workout today, I head to the head quarters in the center of the fortress. Taking a shower, I clean all the dirt, grim, and sweat that had gotten all over me. Drying off, I put on another pair of workout clothing which I had been wearing when training with Micheal; yoga pants and a sports bra. I found the clothes to fit snuggly against my skin, and I quite enjoyed the feeling and comfort of them.

Putting a simple dress on top, I walk barefooted to one of the many offices in the head quarters, a medium sized room on the third floor with a very cozy feel to it. Sitting down in the lazy boy chair, which is very comfortable. Swiveling the chair, I look out the small window which, coincidentally, faces towards the barracks. I watch as Micheal makes the new recruits run through backbreaking drills.

'How are they able to last so long?' I think to myself just as one of them falls to the ground in exhaustion. I laugh in humor, also feeling a little pity, as Micheal punishes the man who fell by making them do endless exercises.

Turning away from the window, I focus my attention back to my work, opening my computer to my bank account. Seeing as my profits from my company are steadily increasing my savings, I can't help but smile. I had made more money in two months than most people would ever make in their entire lives.

My happiness quickly sours when I think about how, in a little less than two months, all this money won't mean anything unless I use it all or exchange it into credits. I still wasn't sure if paper currency would still hold its value to the system after they practically become useless. Calling Natalie, I inquire about how far she has gotten in obtaining warehouses outside most major cities within our proximity.

Updating me on her progress, she tells me that she has successfully bought 15 warehouses, with 20 of them still waiting for the sellers confirmation. She expected to have more than 50 by the end of the next month. I had spent a little more 9 million dollars on the warehouses so far, with all of them being reinforced with steel platings like my fire warehouse.

Other than the warehouses, we had scouted out dozens of locations which we would tell people who wanted to take shelter with us to go to. When the time comes, we will prioritize the family and friends of the security guards and new hires, who all, thankfully, had family close by, with the farthest away being a six hours drive there and back at max speed.

Speaking of new hires, Natalie reported to me that there were many people signing up for the engineering and farmer/biologist job. The one downside is that, although there were some very experienced farmers that we hired, they all knew little to nothing about cross breeding plants, although they did know how to grow them very well.

This wasn't a concern for long, as two botanists, a husband and wife who both loved plants, wanted to be hired here after hearing that they would be able to get the best of the best in equipment and resources. Because they had much experience in the study, structure, and genetic makeup of plants, they would be of immense help when the apocalypse happens, as there are going to be many different new plants which are going to pop up.

We also had a decent amount of scientists wanting to be hired, but many of them were freshly graduated collage students, with very few having real life experience. We still hired any that had high enough qualifications as well as any who studied uncommon branches of science, as every type of scientist would be helpful.

When everyone was told, before they were hired, that they would be living on a company base for 'at least two months', there weren't any complaints. As previously said, many of the scientists here were freshly out of collage and didn't have great living conditions in the first place, so free housing and living necessities were welcomed.

When Natalie finished talking about the new hires, she told me that I should probably take a plane over here so that I could introduce myself and get to see the employees personally. I also wanted to come back home for a bit to check in to see how Amy was doing.

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After resting at my house for an hour and a half, having fun with Amy, I said goodbye to her and headed for my company's office. Driving to it, I walk inside and to the largest of the three conference rooms that we have. In there, all the new employees are gathered and waiting for the boss which they were now working for. After I finished, we would then take everyones bags and head out to the fortress.

When I introduced myself to the new employees, I had to hold back laughter as all of them couldn't help but gawk at me. They weren't expecting to suddenly have a beauty standing and talking in front of them. As many didn't even know that the person running the company was a woman, most expected the boss to be a fat, rich, white, and middle-aged dude.

Afterwards, I had Natalie, and some other assistants which we recently hired, drive us to the airport in some rented vans(we would be buying some later). Natalie and the assistants had already bought us some plane tickets to Bakersfield and to also rented some vans Bakersfield so that we could transport everyone to the base.

I flew in first class for the hour long flight to Bakersfield, with everyone else in business class, which they had no complaints about.

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Arriving at the airport in Bakersfield, we waited for around twenty minutes for the rented cars to be brought to us with drivers from the company we rented from. Going straight to the fortress, we drove past many farms and fields of crops before we eventually arrived

I really did enjoy seeing the look on the faces of the new hires as they laid their eyes upon the fortress and were shown where they would live. I had built an apartment building next to the radio station that could house up to 100 people for now, with the best living conditions that anyone could ask for.

Most of the new hires weren't too concerned about having to live in the fortress since they were given ideal living conditions and ample resources. I had the farmers, after they settled in, make a list of all the materials which they would need to have healthy, rich growing conditions. I also made all the other scientists and engineers list down anything they could possibly need. With the money I was making, these wouldn't be a problem. I had also given the scientists and engineers some rooms, which would be their labs and workshops. The labs were in a large, institute-like building to the west of the HQ while the workshops are connected to the garage.

After preparing all of the labs and workshops to the scientists' and engineers' specification, I had all the farmers come to a storage room which I had just placed all the supplies in. Showing them the supplies that they had listed that they needed, I explained to them that I needed to have crop fields which could produce enough food to support at least 500 people to begin with.

Although it would be extremely hard to feed that much people with the amount of land they were told they could use, they could do it since they had all the resources they could possibly need. Also, I had purchased the fertilizer from the system, and it would grow crops a twice the normal speed!

When I was finally finished showing everybody around and explaining what they had to do, I had around two hours before I would go to sleep. I decided to use that time to relax, since I wouldn't have as much time on my hands as before.

I sit on the couch in one of the living rooms, turning on the television to watch some news or maybe a movie. Flipping through the channels, nothing really caught my eye, so I decided I was going to watch an old romance movie 'Pretty Woman'.

'Living in this house all by myself is really boring. I wonder if it would be fine to bring Amy here and just give her a private tutor to keep up pretenses that I'm concerned about her education. It's not like I don't care if she gets an education or not, it's just that I don't think two more months of school will be of any use to her during the end.' I continue debating with myself on whether or not I should bring her over when my thoughts were interrupted by a loud knocking on my door.

'That's weird. I wasn't expecting anyone.' Wondering who it was, I go to open the door. Just as I unlock it, the door slams open, somebody jumping onto me, with two pairs of arms wrapping around me.

"AHAHAHA! You didn't think that moving to live all the way our here would keep us away, did you? Silly sis, you can't shake me off that easily!"

"Ya, you think you can just expect me to handle everything with you across the phone. No! I need you by my side!" Laughing hysterically, Amy and Natalie make their way into the house, dragging me along with them.

"W-what are you guys doing here?!" I slightly stutter, surprised, and a little happy, that they had come all the way here. I tried to maintain a stern face, masking the fact that I was happy Amy had come here.

"You should be in school!"

"That's not important right now. What we need to do it check out this cool mansion that you hid from us! Come on Natalie, let's go!" Rushing away, Amy and Natalie run down a hallway at random, disappearing to an unknown part of the house.

Sighing, but still happy, I turn off the television, deciding to go and prepare a room for them. 'At least,' I thought to myself,'life here is going to be more fun with them around, though, I can see them getting into trouble trying to take a peek at all those muscular men in the showers.'

Shaking my head at what they could possibly be doing in the future, I try to keep it out of my mind, heading to set up their rooms.