Chapter 22: Making A Call

Four hours later.

Ahh, that was a good sleep.

As I was getting a nice stretch in, careful not to wake Alice, I started exploring the various ways I could get hold of that property owner's information in my mind. Seconds into that line of thinking, I concluded that it would be easiest to just look up the information I'm seeking on the undercity's public database and in the event I can't find it there, I'll just hack into the government servers and obtain the information I want from there.

With a plan in mind to acquire the information I needed for my upcoming negotiations, I got out of bed carefully so as not to disturb Alice and crept over to my desk where my desktop was located. The second I arrived in front of it, I slowly rolled out my desk's chair, not making a single sound in the process. Moving the chair into my preferred position, I sat down and turned on my desktop PC. As soon as it booted, I typed in my login credentials and proceeded to get down to business.

A short browse through the undercity's internet, I found out that a William Andrew Broward purchased the property. So with my target found, I continued onto my next objective to find all I could on the man.

No more than half an hour later, I collected all his contact details, plus an assortment of other miscellaneous information related to him. Including plenty of information on his family and what other things he was involved in, which I discovered wasn't much.

Having said that, I found the man was from a normal upbringing and was just finally beginning to generate some actual wealth for himself and his family. Unfortunately for him, he got a property that came with a few too many problems, more than he could handle, obviously.

And from my hacks into the government bank, I discovered the state of his finances, which weren't too good from the looks of things seeing how he had most of his liquidity locked into the facility he bought. The man also didn't own it outright and had a loan to pay off.

So if he doesn't rid himself of it before the undercity government finds out what lies within the mine, he will certainly fall into financial ruin after they come and take over the property to exterminate the molemen. That's what happens when you take on more debt than you can safely afford and something major pops up.

I would feel bad for the guy but the lowlife left his employees to die in the mine from what I can tell and is trying to unload this mess onto some poor unsuspecting sap while he himself gets off scot-free besides a small loss of money. In addition to that, the fucker hasn't compensated the families of the employees that died in the mine and those said families could use the money since they aren't well off from what I've found.

The more I dig into this man and the situation, the more pissed off I'm becoming by the minute... Yeah, I'm gonna fuck this piece of shit over good and rake him over the coals. But besides that, I think I'm going to modify my plans a bit and inform my gramps of the mess attached to the property and get him involved in the negotiation so he can exert additional pressure on the sly bastard.

The only issue with getting my grandpa involved is I'm going to have to explain to him how I'm going to handle the threat of the molemen. I know from the stories that he's told me over the years that he's well aware of just how dangerous they are, so that will be an interesting conversation.

I will also need to let him in on some of my other abilities because there is simply no way he won't pick up on the how do I know there molemen behind the collapsed section of the mine when I was only there for a short period and had zero way of peering behind all the collapsed rock.

There is no reasonable way I could have found out about what was behind the rubble unless I had some sort of unique ability that I've yet to share with him. I could try to reason it's because I'm a marked one who was lucky enough to not die from radiation poisoning and survive the transformation process you have to go through to become a marked one.

The issue with that is, one I'm not one and two I don't have the main identifying feature of marked one, that feature being the tattoo-like marking one gains when they become one. Three, I have never been exposed to any radiation, and four, neither of my parents are a marked one from what I can tell.

I suppose I could try the route of a transcendent human, but my abilities are already spread out across too many categories to be considered as one, so the old man will be able to sniff out that bullshit excuse from a mile away. There is also the fact that there hasn't been a single transcendent born in the undercity, not even once in its whole existence...

Looks like I'm gonna have to tell him and since I'm already going to be letting him in on my other abilities, it probably won't be too bad of an idea to let my grandpa John know of the system I have at this point. Alice already knows about it, so what is one more person I trust, it will also make convincing him a hell of a lot easier for me.

On top of that, if I'm letting my Grandpa John in on my secrets I know I'm going to have to tell him about what I plan on doing in the future earlier than the rest of my family because he'll be able to put two and two together relatively quickly thus I might as well get that out of the way too.

This could all backfire on me, but I believe I know my grandpa well enough after ten years, so I don't think it will be all that challenging to get him on board with what I want to do. Other than that, I'll need him to keep my system and the rest of my abilities hidden from the rest of the family, at least until I've made most of my preparations.

There is also the situation with those dead miners' families to deal with. I'm not particularly alright with them not being compensated for the loss of their family members. So something will have to be done about it.

As for that something, I'll think about it over the next few hours... I believe that's about it for the moment, though when night turns to morning and my parents leave for work for the day, I'll give my grandpa a ring to meet up with him to talk.

Alright, now that I've gotten that investigation and thinking out of the way, I'm going to head to the gym and get a workout in. I have to keep grinding as much as I can to have any chance of achieving my goals one day.

Immediately upon completing that thought, I stretched my arms above my head, got up, and quietly made my way to the gym in the basement, leaving Alice behind in my room to continue getting sleep.

The moment I set foot in the gym, I quietly closed the door behind me and got to work by loading up a barbell with quite a lot of weight and began curling it. From there, I continued doing my sets and after doing 15 sets; I transitioned on to another exercise before doing the same number of sets again. After repeating this process across a number of different exercises, three hours had quickly flown by.

"Damn, time sure flies by when I'm working out." I thought aloud after taking a look at the clock hung up on the wall of the gym.

Well, I've worked up enough of a sweat. I better go wash up and head back upstairs before everyone starts waking up.

Drenched from my workout and my parents and Alice going to wake up in a short time here, I strolled over to the gym shower and cleaned the sweat I accumulated from my regular intense workout.

As soon as my refreshing cool shower came to an end, I clean as a whistle stealthily went back upstairs without making so much as a noise before anyone woke up. And climbed back into bed with Alice since she very much preferred waking up with me by her side.

After settling back into bed and getting comfy, I let my mind wander while I waited for Alice to wake up. Not long into my thinking with both of my thought processes Alice instinctively snuggled up against me, so with not much else to do in the meantime I began slowly caressing and running my fingers gently through her raven-colored upper back length locks since I knew she found it soothing.

As I continued slowly running my fingers gently through her hair, a content expression eventually made its way on to her still-sleeping face, thus I kept it up while I waited for everyone to wake. Several minutes later, I detected a change in Alice via my perception, so I looked her way and as I did, I saw her slowly open her eyes.

"Morning, Dom." She said with a bright smile after taking a few seconds to fully wake up.

"Morning, Alice." I responded while taking the chance to stop running my fingers through her dark-colored hair, even though she appeared reluctant.

"So how'd you sleep?" I asked shortly thereafter.

"Great, and you?" She replied.

"I always sleep well when I have my Alice." I answered while wrapping my arms around her, causing her to giggle.

Some brownie points farmed. Alice raised her head from my chest and inquired. "So, what did you accomplish when you woke up? I don't think your investigation would have taken you all that long, knowing your capabilities."

"I got a decent bit accomplished during the night. First, I investigated the owner of that third property as I told you I planned on doing. Besides that, I got a productive three or so-hour workout in."

"And what were the results of your investigation?"

"Well, to start, I found the guy's contact information relatively easily, as well as some other useful details regarding him. Once I had done that, I did a good amount of digging to see what else I could find. What I discovered from said digging was what I had originally expected. The guy is an honest-to-god scumbag. He didn't even compensate the miner's families when they lost their fathers and husbands." I explained, getting a slight bit pissed off again towards the end.

"What a horrible and selfish person. How could he do something like that?" She responded, agitated after sitting up.

"It's like I told you previously, Alice. There are good and bad people in this world, so you always need to keep your wits about you and be cautious of others, especially those of whom you've just met and don't know that well. And even when you think you know them, it all may just be a facade. But generally, you can tell whether someone is a decent individual from how they operate and what actions they take in different situations." I said, reiterating something I had learned the hard way back in my younger and inexperienced years in my previous life.

Not wanting Alice to be in a crummy mood right at the start of the day, I began stroking her hair and continued. "So with the guy clearly being scum and needing to be dealt with, I'll have no qualms about taking that role for myself and putting the screws to the guy."

"Besides gaining some good karma for my actions, I'll also benefit from the situation by fleecing him for a big discount, so it's a win-win in my book. On top of that, I can get the miners' families financially compensated. It's not the same as getting their family members back, but at least they'll be able to live good lives from the money they'll receive from the situation."

From there I kept soothing her and after a couple of minutes, Alice suddenly piped up and requested with determination in her gaze. "Can I join you when you go to negotiate with this guy? I want to see how you'll deal with him."

"Sure, I already planned on having you join me."

"...You already planned on bringing me. I'm glad you are, but why is that?" She asked, surprised though happy at the same time.

"Because I want you to start gaining experience with the negative aspects of the world we live in besides what I tell you every now and then. I mean, you already know my dream is to go out into the wasteland when I'm 18 to conquer it, restore civilization, and bring humanity into a new age."

"And with us being a packaged deal you'll be coming along so I can't exactly have you be unprepared for what awaits us in the wasteland now can I." I answered Alice, putting a smile back on her face before she dived towards me and began rubbing her face back and forth on my exposed chest.

Following our conversation, the two of us got up and headed out to the living room, beating my parents there first. So while we waited for them to show, Alice and I got comfortable on the couch, cuddled up together, and talked about this and that.

They eventually came and the moment they did, the bunch of us went through the usual morning greetings before my mother Jane went into the kitchen to cook us all breakfast. Less than an hour later, my parents were out the door going on off to work in the company my grandfather Henry built, oh so many years.

With my parents gone for the day, I picked up the phone and gave my gramps a call to get him involved and tell him about the many things I've been keeping a tight lip on from mostly everyone, Alice being the only exception.

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