Chapter 24

Jim had that satisfied feeling when the two men walked out of the bank later that morning. It’s not often that you can clear the note on your property in one go, the stress and worry that he didn’t know he felt, also evaporated when he signed the forms. He could now put the property on the market and pay Jon back, there was likely to be a bit of profit that they could put in the bank as well once the dust had cleared. He also enjoyed the way that the bank treated him like royalty this morning, not the usual way he had been treated in the place. He knew that was all due to Jon and his importance at the bank, but hey, he still enjoyed it.

Jon had returned to Jim after spending an hour with the girls, going over their news. Fiona wanted to go back to the Warehouse this afternoon to show Susan where they were going to base themselves. She had told Jon about the relocation proposal which had got him thinking. He would need to rethink the access to the Warehouse to enable visitors to go there! He thought he might have a solution for that, if Soper & Klein were going to put some funds forward. He would need to have a conversation with his neighbour, Jacob Spinney.

Along with Fiona, they had gone through some scenarios with Genja as to what she could propose back to the partners. She did like the idea that she could retain some part of a working life. It had always been something she was good at, she just didn’t want the 9-5 grind, five days a week. She had decided to offer herself, one day a week in the office. With that not being a fixed day. The rest of the time she would be open to support from home. She decided that she did want to release a lot of the shares but not all, she retain 10% and then she would see what they would offer her.

Genja had also told Jon to expect her later in the day as she would be coming over with Fiona. He had asked that they touch base with Jane and Claire to let them know. He was sure that after the weekend everyone would be very pleased with the girls making the Warehouse their permanent home.

The guys were picked up by Tommy and Carl, Tommy informed them that the pair had decided on two fully specked Ford F-150 XLT, and Tommy also told Jon that they had been looking at the Honda Accord as a suitable run around to have around the place. That was a quick $100,000 that was spent, in fact another $20,000 was spent on two quad bikes that were purchased while they were at the Honda dealership.

Carl was made up with the shiny new pick up, which would be coming his way. He was continuously thanking Jon for what he was doing for him. When the guys had got to the Simpsons earlier that morning Cathy, Carl’s mum, had pulled Jon aside.

“Do you really think you can help him? I just want my boy to be right.” She said.

“Look at his face, I think I’m already helping him. I haven’t sorted anything out yet but I’m sure I can get someone to help him.” Jon had said. “I will most probably have a talk with the school or even with someone at the college. They always have student support people around so getting some basic stuff shouldn’t be a problem. The biggest thing will be, does he want to be helped?”

“We have been talking a lot since Saturday, he knows that there won’t be a better chance than what you are giving him. If he steps out of line, you just let me know!” Cathy had then hugged Jon. “Thank you for what you are doing.”

The Dealerships had said that they would get everything ready and deliver the vehicles later that day or early the following morning. So on arriving back at the camp, Jon took Carl aside and told him that he was to spend the rest of the day exploring the land. He would have to use one of the golf carts so he wouldn’t get anywhere quickly, But as Jon explained speed wasn’t the issue. He just wanted Carl to get familiar with the whole area and come up with a plan in his own mind as to what needed to be done. He told Carl that they would speak again later. While they we’re in town, Jon had purchased a two way comms system with ten handsets. He would set it up in the Clubhouse and they have handsets with anyone that was away from the base, in the Warehouse, the Gatehouse, while they were out in the grounds and the girls could use them while they were going around the cabins. He gave one to Carl and said that he would be calling him once he had it set up just to check it worked. With that, Carl took off in one of the golf carts, driving up the boundary of the land.

The rest of them headed to the Warehouse to grab some food before they started with the work Jon had planned with the rooms.

“The best way to think about this is think about a large Lego set,” Jon explained to Tommy, Jim and Danny. “You see the caps in the floor, that’s for the Toilet, Bidet, Bath and the Shower outlets. Then those are water in pipes. Believe it or not, the most work to this is the plumbing.”

“Really! What about fixing the glass?” Jim asked. All his experience in construction was telling him that fitting the glass without any framework was going to be nigh on impossible.

“That’s the easy part, let’s go and get some of the stuff we need and you will see” Jon had a big smile on his face.

The Foursome walked to the furthest part of the second floor, an area that none other than Jon had ventured to previously. Sections of glass were set out in define areas, Beds and mattresses, and all the plumbing equipment that would be required. There were a couple of strange looking pallet type trucks that Jon had got made up just for this project.

The glass already had all the doors built into them with fitments, but they were huge sections. Jon walked over to stack that would be the main inside wall, the section that faced the internal walkway. Using the specialised suction cups that he attached to the section he slid it away from the others with ease.

“What the fuck, did you just become superman!” Tommy asked. “That should weigh a ton.”

“It should but it doesn’t, why don’t you try. You’ll be surprised” Jon said as Tommy came over and took hold of the suction cups.

“That’s amazing, this glass must be five centimetres thick, yet it has the weight of, I don’t know, maybe it’s the equivalent of cardboard!” Tommy was truly amazed and on his reaction both Jim and Danny came and tested the weight.

“Well I never, in my life I thought that would nothing could ever surprise me but that takes the prize!” Jim said scratching his head. “What are all these silver things lined down each edge.”

“That’s the secret ingredient” Jon said with a very satisfied smile. “Now you understand what’s so special about what my father created. If it was the bullet proof version it would be about 10% heavier, but even that would be a lot lighter than normal glass or even Perspex. OK, let’s get some of the stuff back up the other end and I will show you how it fits.”

The guys loaded the sections required to do the outer walls on one truck, the fittings were loaded on the other truck. And they returned to where they were going to set up.

“So, now we get help from someone else. Rita, please set up the blueprint for room thirty-one.” Immediately, there was a visual layout of where the walls should go all set around the men on the floor. “As you can see, Jim, the silver connectors will lay on the connectors that are on the floor. If you look up you will see the same corresponding connectors on the ceiling. Rita will fuse them will electric current when the two surfaces meet. That will cause both areas to fuse together and make the wall solid. That’s the same with all the glass, so all you need to do is make sure the connectors connect!”

“That is incredible! And I’ve knocked into the wall accidentally and it didn’t budge!” Jim was truly astounded by the technology that Jon had created.

“Well it’s supposed to withstand two tonnes of pressure but I haven’t tried to test it to the full. The time consuming job is the plumbing. The electrics are built into the wall and that also allows Rita to change the surface transparency. There are a couple of hooks that hold the screen and the mirror in place. The hanging space and the shelving is easier than an Ikea flat pack with all the parts in the pack! Usually when I’m on my own, I have to try and marry up the edges for the connection which can take a little while, but between us that should have that done in seconds.” That was exactly what happened, the main room was put together in a few minutes with the bed frame made and mattress put on it. The Bathroom was slightly different as Jon explained that it was easier to fit all the bathroom furniture before the outer wall was put in place. The whole apartment was completed in just over an hour, it would have taken Jon half a day on his own.

“So there you go! All done in an hour more or less. Shall we do a couple more? I would like to get ten done over the next few days with you guys helping.” Jon said, pleased at the speed it had taken them.

“I think we could do the next one even quicker, now we know what we’re doing!” Tommy exclaimed, getting agreement from Jim and Danny.

The four guys made quite a team and over the next two apartments that they put together, the naturally assigned themselves different jobs to do. There was methodical routine they began to follow and they had cut the time down by another twenty minutes per unit. So after three apartments had been put together it still only mid-afternoon.

Jon thanked his assistants and asked Jim to stick around as he wanted his input with the empty space on the ground floor that he wanted to change to working space.

“I’m thinking of dividing the area up into units along the same lines as the apartments we have just been putting together, and then creating a couple of meeting rooms in what would be the atrium area. My issue will be that I would have to put a ceiling on the meeting rooms just in case privacy is required. Then there is the issue that this our home so strangers will need to come here without the normal checks that we impose.” Jon said

“Well that sounds like a plan when you speak about the layout. Who did the Design for this place, it seemed that that had been worked out to fit the space.” Jim asked

“Yea, Tara’s brother is an architect so I sent all the dimensions to him and he did it without even seeing the place. He had experience of working with the glass over the last few years so appreciated the techniques that could be used for the pipes, electrics etc. We just sent the spec to the manufacturers and they did the rest. It took them about six months to finish the order which gave us time to do all the prep work, including creating the basement area.” Jon continued

“Is he one of the people turning up on Saturday? If he is then maybe it’s better to go it with him. The other issue as you said is keeping the privacy we require. That would mean that there has to be a different entrance for the public to come in on. Then that means that they will be driving here, so the ability to park a car and all that goes along with that. You then will need to think of security as that means we don’t know who will be coming. This isn’t going to be as straight forward as you think.” Jim commented unsure if it would be possible for integrity of privacy standards could be kept.