Part 26: Fit The Twenty-Third : It's Educational!

Fit The Twenty-Third : It's Educational!

We had very little money left for the rest of 1942, so I spent the rest of the year playing Monopoly and watching buildings getting built. I loved work, I could watch it all day.


But finally, the annual injection of cash arrived, and not a moment too soon.


So once the plans were approved, Funkytown University was finally plonked down right next to Firetop Mountain.


This also marked the beginning of the expansion of the city across the river; prior to this, the only built-up area on the north shore was the prison. The new suburb, was to be named Pompeii, after the old farming district.


The university was free, but it had to be powered and watered, so those utilities were run out to the site. I also wanted to start settling the area as soon as possible to give it "life". Pompeii railway station was also laid down to ease the commute of students from the centre of town.


Most of the people very quickly abbreviated the name to "Funk U", which I considered a little vulgar but then what the fuck did I care? We had a uni.


The city colleges would probably pursue more vocational curricula, while the uni allowed the students to pursue more advanced and/or esoteric studies.


And so Pompeii began to grow around the campus. It was all very nice. Though I'd have to put in a police station at some point.

But still, for all that, some things never really changed. Randall, for one.



For crying out loud, Randy, we've just put in a university!

Really? I didn't notice.

You were at the goddamn inauguration.

OHHHH that uni. I'm sorry, I thought ...

You were on one of your shroom benders, right?

Later in the week, I was taken on a flight on one of those bloody choppers that kept buzzing around the city, and it swung around to the north of Pompeii and Firetop Mountain.



.oO( how nice, there's some hikers are walking over the mountain - hang on... the bloody uni's jutting into the caldera? What gives? )

I was so disorientated I had to reach for the sick bag.


I had a joke with the town planners that we should heritage list that brutalist quad that was down in the old time, but it'd already been ripped out and replaced with... something almost as repulsive. Oh well.


It was about time for another connection out of Funkytown. Achewood hadn't been hooked up yet, so that was a possibility.


Pompeii was also without a police station at that point, so I'd have to organise that.


And the transport networks were feeling the heat in a number of places, particularly the rail network. With freight and passenger services fighting over the line all the way from City Name to Greenfield, I'd have to organise an alternative rail route.


So, with the budget still rather limited, we had to prioritise.


First, a new road all the way out to Achewood was laid out from Pompeii, from the steps of the new police station there.


The connection was made, at somewhat of a price...


And so that was done.


In the middle of town and around the parks, traffic bottlenecks were increasing as well, to the point where some residents were leaving to find better commutes. I'd have to extend the subway network and maybe actually sort out that highway, too. I was thinking we'd start that around 1950.


At least 1944 had been a better year for revenue.


Partly because the population was comfortably over 110 thousand, and businesses and factories were also doing well.


I was a little bothered that many of the residents were becoming smarter than me, though it'd be fair to say that few of them envied my job.


And I felt that was strange; it wasn't a bad job. You got to play god, you got to spend lots of money on ludicrous things like hammer factories, you met a lot of interesting people, and got to sleep with some of them. Not necessarily by choice.

And at least this blasted war looked like it had reached a turning point, so maybe we could get onto happier times too.