"Jocelyne, my dear! It makes me strange to be called that way. Godfather…"

"I can go back and call you 'Mr. Hammond' if you wish"

"No, no, godfather is fine! I could get used to it..."

Jocelyne gave a chuckle. It was clear that Hammond genuinely enjoyed his new role. As she chuckled, however, the old man's tone became more serious. "So… how did it go? If you called me you must be back in one piece"

"I'm alive, as you can see"

"What happened with the dinosaurs?"

Jocelyne considered, not knowing how to describe it. "It was an experience... very enlightening. Lord Sobek is an excellent speaker. He made me see a lot of things that were confusing before" she replied. "However, I couldn't get him to open up to us. He intends to keep his boundaries closed... for now"

"For now?"

"Yes. Lord Sobek is right, opening the borders would be too dangerous at the moment. So I intend to eliminate that danger and show the whole world that coexistence is possible"

"What do you want to do?"

Jocelyne sighed, unsure what to answer, then she chose a half-truth: "I want to create a nation where humans and dinosaurs can coexist. I spoke to Lord Sobek and we agreed what to do. I know it sounds absurd, but..."

"You don't owe me any explanation" Hammond restrained her. "Something tells me that the less I know, the better"

Jocelyne was struck by those words. "For real?"

"I'm old, girl, and I can recognize when something involves sacrifices. However, I also know when something is needed. If it is really possible to create a nation where humans and dinosaurs can coexist, then you are the only one who can do so"

Jocelyne mentally thanked her godfather. It was clear that Hammond understood that this was not going to be a smooth change, at least not completely. To be able to create an ideal nation of their own, it was always necessary to remove the weeds. Therefore, for an ambitious project such as making Odaria a country where humans and dinosaurs coexisted, it would certainly have been necessary to roll a few heads. However, Hammond did not seem to object to this. "Thank you... I will need some capital"

"I understand. How much you need?"

"More or less twenty million dollars"

Twenty million dollars wasn't a small amount even for a millionaire; if Jocelyne had asked her father for them she would probably have made his hair white. However, for a billionaire, twenty million dollars was nothing. And Hammond, thanks to Jocelyne, was the richest man in the world, with a fortune so great that on Earth he would have made even Elon Musk pale. For him, writing a check for twenty million dollars, or even two hundred, was like paying his grandson an ice cream.

And in fact, Hammond did not let himself be begged. "I'll make you a bank transfer of thirty million… no, let's make fifty. So you will be ready in case you need more"

"For real? Thank you"

"Forget about it. This and more for my goddaughter... and for peace"

If he had been physically present, Jocelyne would probably have hugged the old tycoon. A few minutes after he closed her call, her phone rang, alerting her that her bank account had just received a fifty million dollar wire transfer.

Now Jocelyne could focus on the first phase of the plan: making Odaria a country completely independent of others. To do this, she would use his business skills, Hammond's money and Sobek's powers.

First she needed to buy land.

In the richer nations, thirty million dollars wouldn't have been enough to buy all the space she needed, but in Odaria the cost of living was much lower. If compared to Earth, Odaria's cost of living was roughly the same as in the South African states.

In wealthy nations, even just enough land to house an apartment would cost thousands of dollars. But in Odaria, a medium-sized 100-square-meter piece of land, with no particular features such as mines or oil, didn't even cost $ 200.

Jocelyne needed different types of land. First he bought some 400 square kilometers of construction land on the outskirts of the capital, and did the same for each of Odaria's ten other large cities. 400 square kilometers equated to 400,000 square meters, which multiplied by all 11 cities involved a cost of $ 8.8 million. He then commissioned a large-scale construction operation.

The aim was to create an area consisting exclusively of two-room and three-room apartments in all the cities of the country. Each of these apartments took up around 50 square meters, which meant that Jocelyne could build around 8,000 per city. However, she Jocelyne aimed to build multi-story houses, so she commissioned the work to an engineer who assured her that she could build 7-story buildings. This pushed the number of available apartments up to around 56,000. Since a two-room apartment could accommodate a family of four, the entire complex could have accommodated 224,000 people, which multiplied by all 11 cities would have allowed the capacity of 2,464,000 people.

Odaria's population comprised some 20 million people, about the same as Mali, Chile or Romania on Earth. Of this population, the homeless rate was just 0.08%, but that did not mean that the rest of the country was doing well: about 10% of the population lived in huts without water or electricity, and another 20%. living in an apartment he could not afford to pay for running water. Which meant that at least 2 million people could not wash or turn on the light and another 4 million could not use electricity. In practice, at least 6 million people lived below the poverty line.

Jocelyne had treasured Sobek's teaching: if people wanted to be free, then they had to see their basic needs guaranteed. Therefore he had decided that the new nation in his system would have provided for this law: that the state would guarantee people a minimum space of 50 square meters with water and electricity attached. A larger or more serviced home should have been purchased, but not all of those below that threshold.

Sobek had explained to him what he had in mind for the future, but if they were to succeed they had to prepare. When the time came for a new government to settle in Odaria, all basic needs had to be ready to be guaranteed to the population.

For houses that didn't have running water, Jocelyne had another plan. But the ones that didn't even have electricity were literally shacks. So Jocelyne had decided that he would build a whole new housing estate first rather than fix the old one.

The cost of the construction would have been about ten million dollars, but he could pay off the debt thanks to Hammond. In addition, with another five million spent under the table, she had ensured that no illegal acts were committed, that the building materials were of the highest quality, that his requests were respected and that the project was completed within a year.

She so she had no problem finding workers: the former prisoners of Marsala, who previously worked in the colony, were now unemployed and desperate for a job. The other heads of household were concentrating on building the mega-energy and recycling plant she had recommended to them, and this attracted many unemployed people eager for a salary; however, there were still a good chunk of them that could not get hired. Consequently, they were ready to jump on the boat as soon as a job opportunity presented itself.

Jocelyne then made sure that when the time came, all the citizens living in the slum would have a new home to move into, one with electricity and water. However, this did not solve the problem of those houses where there was electricity, but no water came.

In this case it was much simpler: it was enough to find a source of water large enough to be guaranteed to everyone. In Odaria, most of the water came from the rivers flowing down from the mountains and was more than enough for the entire population, but since it had to be paid for, not everyone could afford it. The solution was easy: when a new government was established in Odaria, it would be enough to seize these plants and place them under the jurisdiction of the state; after all they were, like everything else, the property of the heads of the household, and… well, Jocelyne knew what the end awaited them. However, it was better to leave with caution, so for greater safety Jocelyne bought land near the coast and commissioned the construction of a water desalination plant; in practice she would have converted sea water into drinking water. In this way the quantity of water would have been much excessive compared to the necessary quantity, thus guaranteeing an abundance of it for everyone.

With these countermeasures, Jocelyne would have been able to guarantee all citizens housing and water and, when the mega-power plant was completed, also electricity. However, he was well aware of Sobek's words that food must also be guaranteed. But that was the simpler part, as it had the dinosaur's backing.

All Jocelyne had to do was buy a modest piece of land and commission the construction of a storage factory. She demanded that it be as automated as possible, with minimal need for workers. The project cost her a whopping two million dollars, but it was worth it. She personally took part in the project and despite the questions the engineers asked her she was adamant about how the structure should be built.

Certainly her requests made no sense to the engineers. But what the engineers didn't know was that this factory would become the largest food production site in the nation, because it would place feeding troughs inside!

Feeders guaranteed endless food as long as they received enough sunlight. All Jocelyne had to do was place the feeders in the center of a room and build a glass dome that would absorb the sun's rays, and then leave the work with robotic arms that would extract the food produced as an assembly line. The reason she wanted so few workers was precisely because she preferred to reveal the secret of the mangers to as few people as possible.

That way she Jocelyne would guarantee the food. However, there was still more to do. In the following days she went from one part of the country to the other and commissioned the construction of hospitals, schools, universities and much more.

Eventually it turned out that Hammond had been right: the total expense was twenty-three million dollars. Jocelyne then deposited the remaining twenty-seven million in a secret bank account, knowing it would be needed in the future.

When she was done, everything was ready. Now all she had to do was wait until all the projects she had commissioned were completed, and at that point she would need just the right opportunity to unleash the great change within the nation.

Sobek was right. The game had begun and they would have leaded it to the right outcome. And when they had won, Odaria would have been the first nation where humans and dinosaurs could coexist. And after that, the whole world had followed it.