“Did sister Rina already wake up?”When Aron opened his eyes, his little brother’s question was the first thing he heard. It would still be a little bit before Rina completed the logout procedure, but Aron, due to his intimate connection to the simulation, had completed his logout almost instantaneously.“She did, yeah. What’re you doing here?” Aron said, ruffling Henry’s hair and eliciting an annoyed groan from the young boy.“Mom told me to come ask if you would go out and play with us now that we can leave the Cube,” Henry wheedled. He was just shy of grabbing his big brother’s hand and dragging him to the elevator.“Sure,” Aron laughed. “Let’s go play, I’ll bring you to visit the air and sea scrubbers.” Now that the empire had gone into full swing, he would focus on carving out as much time as he could to spend with his family.“Yay! I’ll go let mom know so she can pack our stuff!” Henry exclaimed, then ran to the elevator. “Oh, I should let Uncle Herschel and Aunt Virginia know t
As people’s attention was split between the media’s reports on the growing economy and the progress of the Three Percenters receiving their blessings, a breaking news story intruded into the public consciousness via a link on everyone’s devices and a special report on every television screen and radio station. Following the link took people to a report about a bright light discovered in space headed toward Earth at an almost unimaginable speed.Located a few days before by a member of Australia’s Anglo-Australian Observatory in New South Wales’ Siding Spring Observatory, it had at first been dismissed as a scanning artifact caused by a glitch in their system, or perhaps even a smudge on the telescope’s lenses. After taking the telescope offline and cleaning the lenses, they scanned again, only to make the alarming discovery that a meteor of unconscionable size was rapidly approaching Earth. But Australians being Australians, the discovery was met with a resounding “meh” and they simpl
“Any questions?” Aron asked.With that, every reporter in the audience raised their hands, all of them eager to ask the first question the emperor would answer since his investiture.Aron wasted no time in casually pointing to a random reporter in the audience. “You, ask.” He was obviously still dissatisfied with the media and wouldn’t bother treating them kindly at the moment.“Thank you for the opportunity, Your Majesty.” The reporter bowed, then asked, “How will the effects from Ceres gravity be mitigated so they don’t have any impact on the tides and weather?”“We’ll use the same technology that you saw in the rescue ships following the terrorist attacks. Our researchers discovered artificial gravity some time ago, and that opened up an entirely new branch of physics dedicated to manipulating gravitational fields. Part of Ceres has already been prepared for habitation, and the internal structure reinforcements and walls all incorporate gravity plating, which allows the controller
After Aron faded away, billions of people rushed to the Akashic Record to read about the space elevator for themselves. The emperor was, after all, the most famous, not to mention powerful, celebrity on Earth. And as they read, more and more discussions sprang up on Pangea that ran the entire gamut of opinions. Some bashed the empire for attempting something so dangerous that it risks wiping out humanity with Ceres like Chixculub wiped out the dinosaurs, while others countered with the idea that he had obviously practiced it thousands of times in the so-called universal simulation. He must be positive that it would work, since he is also on Earth and wouldn’t escape if the shit hit the fan... or the meteor hit the planet, as the case may be.Still, both sides agreed that it was a risky plan; the only thing they disagreed on was whether or not the risks had been taken into account and mitigated.Astronomers, physicists, and engineers, on the other hand, were among the many excited, but
In a cube on the outskirts of Athens.*Movement detected,* the VI of a medical pod reported. It was the first finger twitch of the person inside its pod in over two weeks.Theodora “Teddy” Costas was one of the first three people in all of Greece to be brought to a cube for emergency treatment after collapsing in the middle of a grocery store. Ironically, she had been shopping for groceries because her parents and extended family had been caught by the lockdown in her house, and she was running out of food.The VI monitoring her medical pod was immediately overridden by the AI in charge of all medical pods, Aceso, who increased the supply of fast-absorbing nutrients to provide Teddy with instant energy and logged her into the simulation to gather data about her situation.(Ed note: Aceso, or Akeso, is one of the Asclepiades, the daughters of Asclepius. She was the Greek goddess of the healing process, so she fit as the AI in charge of overseeing an important piece of tech like the med
“I kinda understand... I think. But what’s this ‘evolution’ you were talking about?” Teddy asked. She was an active talker and spoke with her hands in great, wide gestures, but out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a problem. Then she looked down and noticed an even bigger problem... or two of them, to be exact.She was naked!She turned bright red all the way from her hairline to her nipples and stammered, “Uhh... ummm... uhh... can—can I get some clothes please?” She felt a bit embarrassed. She tried to keep herself in shape, but between being a full-time student and working a part-time job on campus and another one off campus to help pay her tuition, she often found herself skipping gym sessions. Thus, she wasn’t in the best shape, but an objective observer wouldn’t think she was a sloth, exactly.That said, the evolution she had just undergone had definitely improved her shape; she just didn’t notice it since it was hidden from her perspective. All she could see when she looke
{I understand it’s difficult, just try your best,} Aceso said, scribbling something on her notepad as she calmly watched Teddy laying on the couch. The silence stretched on for a while, then Aceso suggested, {Why not start from what’s easy to remember and go from there?}Teddy nodded, then closed her eyes and started working backward from the moment she regained consciousness. “Well, there was the pain. I think I heard somewhere that you’re supposed to forget pain after it’s gone, aren’t you?”Aceso nodded. {That’s generally the case, yes.}“Right, well... I remember it....” Teddy continued working back toward the lump of “new stuff” that had been embedded in her brain. “I think I can maybe show you? Can I try that?” she asked.{Go ahead. Nothing in here can be damaged.} Aceso smiled encouragingly at the young woman.Teddy raised her arm and pointed her palm at the ceiling. “Now all I have to do is, uhh... think cold. Like, cold thoughts, not the word cold. Oh ow ow ow!” she yelped a
“No matter how many times I see it, I still can’t get used to this. Aron is an absolute miracle worker, there shouldn’t be a doubt in anyone’s mind of that,” Felix, the head of Hephaestus Heavy Industries, said as he watched the growing space elevator. Just the millions of GEMbots and constructor swarm queens on the surface was something he had a hard time wrapping his head around, let alone the unfathomable number that had to be working to hollow out such an enormous asteroid. And all of that with no human direction at all!Not to mention that he was standing on the bridge of an honest-to-goodness spaceship, watching the construction progress in actual space, as he wanted to see the process with his own eyes. Sure, he could have watched it in the simulation, but there was just something... different, something... more, about watching it with his own two eyes in reality.“But why’d you have to drag me out here with you?” Sarah complained in a joking tone. She was actually enjoying the