During the terrorist attacks, the asteroid belt.In the silence of space between Mars and Jupiter, a rocket engine had been decelerating for a few days as it neared the first marked object in the main asteroid belt of the solar system.Many such vessels had been sent, each of them targeting specific asteroids in the belt. This one in particular was approaching 4 Vesta. Its velocity had already decreased to a point where it would survive if it impacted its target, but the engine continued slowing it down as it approached for a soft landing.*Initiating anchors.... Initiated. Deploying anchors for catch maneuver,* the VI responsible for monitoring and controlling the vessel logged and reported back to the central AI.*Approaching target. Distance 600... 500... 450....* It continued reporting and logging the flight data as it approached 4 Vesta, continually updating the record as it happened.When the rangefinder reported fifty meters remaining, the deployed anchors were launched and the
Aron had found himself alone with Rina’s mother just after attending his final state funeral. He had spent 72 hours nonstop visiting the funeral locations, prompting discussion among the people about whether he was among the blessed or simply superior to “normal” humans on a genetic level.Many people easily “debunked” the possibility that Aron was among the blessed, as it was obvious that he wasn’t in a medical pod in the process of receiving a blessing. In fact, he seemed perfectly fine as he flitted here and there, attending state funerals. Even though the wave of fainting people had begun a few days prior, even those who were among the first to be blessed were still in the medical pods and showing no sign of the process being complete anytime soon.So that left the second option. It was an open secret that ARES soldiers were genetically enhanced, as they hadn’t even tried to keep their performances to mere human levels. Thus, there were thousands upon thousands of video clips show
February 1, 1 AEThe lockdown had officially ended after the empire had completed the majority of the transitional work. Currencies had been exchanged, workers had been retrained, agencies had been built and fully staffed, and all seven billion citizens had registered for their IDs. The only ongoing work was the initial medical treatment in the imperial hospitals inside each of the cubes scattered across the world and the retrial of prisoners who had requested one. No matter how efficient the empire was—and it was VERY efficient—they simply didn’t have enough medical pods or legal staff to handle that many jobs in a short period of time.That said, imperial clinics had been built outside of the cubes, filled with row after row of shiny, brand new medical pods, and subordinate AIs had quietly taken on quite a few of the cases in the justice system. The two tasks would be completed over the next few months and had been downgraded to low priority jobs in the background.Currently, the on
“It should be any time, now,” Nova said. She was in the secure pod vault with Aron, watching over Rina as the final stage of her awakening was progressing and documenting the changes in her.“I’m actually a bit excited... and curious, and nervous. I didn’t get to see anything happening during my upgrades at all,” Aron distractedly replied.Just as he was about to continue, Rina’s pod beeped, a notification that movement had been detected. She was waking up.Rina stopped absorbing the liquid mana in the pod, so Nova stopped the mana feed and allowed it to drain out of the pod and into the room, where it evaporated and joined the rest of the mana in the atmosphere. The mana density in the pod vault was so high it would awaken any five people, but to Aron, it was akin to a warm breeze on a hot day, practically unnoticeable.After a few minutes of outward inactivity, Rina blinked open her eyes and released a low groan. Due to concerns about interfering with the awakening process, Nova had
“So let me get this straight. While you were in the pod and completely incommunicado, you weren’t undergoing a genetic enhancement, but receiving an upgrade in your ‘blessing’?” Rina asked. “And because I was close to you when you were finishing, it triggered a blessing in me even though I finished puberty awhile ago? And not just me, but 3% of everyone from the ages of 14 to 22—kids, basically—are still unconscious as we speak?”Aron had explained everything to Rina, leaving out only the system. The system’s existence would be kept solely between him and Nova, and he wouldn’t even tell his parents or little brother, let alone his girlfriend. Some secrets were dangerous, and the less those around him knew, the safer they would be and the less stress they would be under trying to keep his secrets.The only person he could trust to keep his secrets, especially now that humanity had begun awakening to mana and would be rapidly developing special abilities that may include methods to read
Aron brought up Rina’s status screen. It was similar to the one his system generated for him, as he had used it as the core inspiration for the runes he’d used in its creation. It displayed everything that was known about her, like her name, height, and so on. It also included two entries showing whether or not she was awakened, and what system of magic she had awakened to. The field showing her individual magic system was blank at the moment, however, as it had yet to be discovered.But none of that mattered just then, because the most important and attention-grabbing field—at least for Aron and Nova—was the affinity section of her status, which read “Affinity: neutral”.The excitement on Aron and Nova’s face couldn’t be hidden, prompting Rina, who had yet to understand the importance of mana affinities, to ask, “What’s got you two so excited?”“Having a neutral affinity is wonderful! Based on what we know, we expect that the majority of awakened will have an affinity to a certain ty
“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