VR Imperial Palace, emperor’s council chamber.After settling Youssef, Jeremy, and their families in their new quarters in the Cube and getting their initial round of genetic enhancements underway, Aron brought the two new ministers to a meeting in his council chamber.The newcomers looked around, seeing a well-furnished, round room. Since they had entered from the imperial wing of the palace, where they would soon be taking up their own offices, they had entered on the side of the room behind the council’s bench. It was a U-shaped table made of mahogany, with understated oak paneling on the front of it facing the middle of the room. There were seven seats at the bench—three to the left, one in the middle, and three to the right. The one in the middle was obviously the emperor’s working throne, a comfortable, yet imposing wingback chair upholstered in royal purple velvet with gold accents and gilded legs. The chairs to the left and right were less ostentatious, yet equally inviting.T
{All of the agencies assumed normal operations almost a month ago, and as of today’s recruiting drive, all agencies are now fully staffed. Mandatory overtime has been canceled and regular workdays of eight hours have been implemented. All government functions have been moved to the public simulation, unless their services are physically impossible to provide in the simulation, like hospitals, and proof of imperial citizenship is required to receive benefits from the empire.{We’ve completed 71% of all initial health screenings and repairs, but the awakening has paused that operation. All of our pods are currently occupied with people undergoing their awakenings, so the Imperial Health administration is focusing on taking over existing structures in cities and towns across the globe and repurposing them to be used as clinics. Awakeners have all been transported to local cubes, and the Imperial Health Agency’s clinic plan is 64% completed. Rural China and India are proving... problemati
Aron turned to Nova, who was in charge of all things related to the private simulation, and asked, “How’s development on the Henry’s Eye system? Can it detect the mana levels in awakened?”{Our current sensors are sensitive enough, but that’s the problem—if anything, they’re too sensitive. Right now, the researchers are working on filtering algorithms to discard false positives caused by pockets of higher concentrations of mana. Due to needing to be able to detect the minuscule amounts of mana emanating from the distant object the visitors are traveling on, the number of false positives we got when we turned it around and looked at Earth was ridiculous. Fifteen billion results were mislabeled as awakened humans, not including the ones that are actually undergoing the final stages of their evolutions now. And those that have already finished and woken up are so weak as to be virtually indistinguishable from the background mana density in most places.{That said, we expect them to stren
Gaia nodded. {I ran four filters through the entire Akashic Record database, each time selecting for a different quality that would benefit the empire specifically, as well as humanity in general. First was loyalty, second was their opinion of the empire, third was ambition, or in less polite terms, corruptibility, and fourth was how motivated they would be to benefit humanity by bettering the lives of the people. The ones that filtered to the list in front of you are the ones that scored in the 90th percentile or higher in all four categories, with at least one in the 95th percentile or higher.}“What happened to the rest of the candidates?” Jeremy wondered.{That depends. The majority of them were assigned to lower positions in the various agencies, but a few were passed to Nyx for further investigation and monitoring. We may be able to know everything there is in a person’s head, but the imperial code doesn’t cover thoughtcrime. But that doesn’t mean we can’t predict the likelihood
{The second-to-last item on today’s schedule is the military,} Nova said. {With the designation of Mars as ARES Command, Lab City is in the middle of the final push in materials science to develop a new alloy that’ll turn the entire planet into a fortress. The design is finished and will include surface domes and a tunnel network that delves all the way to the solidified core, where we’ll house the necessary reactors and quantum superclusters. Work on that front has already begun and the mobile atomic printers we deployed reached the halfway point two days ago.}“How long will it take for the necessary advances to be completed?” Aron asked. “If necessary, I can join in on the research and cut the time down by quite a lot.”Only Nova knew that he was talking about purchasing another knowledge from the system. She thought for two whole nanoseconds before answering, {That won’t be necessary for now. The research should be completed within a month or two, Lab City time. There are better t
“Alright. On to the elephant in the room. How should we deal with the awakened?”Youssef and Jeremy remained silent. Neither of them had any idea of the full situation at all, having only been ministers for a few hours now, so to throw out suggestions now would simply show their inexperience rather than their abilities. One thing they had realized, however, was that the emperor was an awakener himself. But how was that possible? He hadn’t been absent at all, let alone for the weeks it would take to undergo an awakening!Still, it didn’t matter, so they pushed the thoughts about that until later when they at least knew what they should know as ministers.Aron could see the thoughts on their faces, but didn’t care. As the highest level members of the government and part of his inner circle of advisors, the two had a valid need to know about everything save the existence of the system. “From the data Akeso collected, it seems they’re already capable of immense destruction if they’re trai
After the meet and greet with the rest of the council was over and everyone had familiarized themselves with each other, the council room was left empty and dissolved into the qubits from which it had been created.The two new ministers were in turmoil, each of them considering many different things. The meeting itself had been extremely productive, which surprised Youssef; he was too used to meetings where the main focus was on snatching credit and being seen by upper management rather than resolving issues and enacting plans. Conversely, the emperor, despite his lofty position, was willing to involve himself in even the most minor details of the operation of the empire. Not that he was a micromanager, either, but he had actually listened to the advice and suggestions of his advisory council instead of stubbornly insisting that his was the only voice that mattered.Jeremy, on the other hand, had no experience in society and had felt that the council meeting was more akin to a group
“By the way... when do you think His Majesty became an awakener?” Jeremy askedYoussef thought for a moment, trying to come up with a timeline in which the emperor could have awakened without noticeably being absent from the public eye. But he couldn’t remember a stretch of even a week since the founding of the empire where Aron hadn’t made an appearance. “If it happened after the empire was founded, it was probably in the first few weeks. But that isn’t feasible either... so he must’ve awakened much earlier than that.”The younger man nodded at the idea that Aron had awakened before founding the empire. He hadn’t made that many public appearances at all up until The Last War, only showing himself when it was absolutely necessary, he was forced to do so, or when he introduced his first products.“Even if he did awaken earlier, it just goes to show that he’s a very patient man and seems to have hidden it quite well. I can’t think of anyone I personally know that wouldn’t parade their n