Scraping together what he could afford and borrowing what he couldn’t, Thomas bought a warehouse in the middle of what was laughingly called the rough-side of the tracks area of the city. There were no tracks here. Hell, most of the roads should have been condemned. But there was plenty of poverty. Plenty of crime. Plenty of angry. Plenty of tears.
He was working three days a week. Just enough to pay the bills, eat, drive and have an active pay-as-you-go cell phone. The rest of his cash went into his project.
Week one was painting. Repairing. Reconnecting ancient circuits in the walls to make it all work. The building he bought never had been up to code, but it had been wired with thick, heavy cables that had survived decades of decay. Where floors would rot, at least he could be certain of heavy wire underneith. He knocked down walls, laid tarps and did emergency surgery on a top floor that was one good thunderstorm away from falling down anyway. All the runes in the world would account for nothing if what they were burnt on fell apart. And he needed space. Lots of space.
Posted under Short Stories