Chương 99: Interlude: Snow on Veyra

"Rodi! Rodi!!" Aquila was shouting from the doorstep, but Rodi ignored him, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. Supposedly if she could start circulating her mana, she might be able to hold more of it, and it would improve her spell-casting, but she'd been trying for weeks and getting nowhere. She was 90% sure that the guy who'd sold her the book on the technique was a scammer, but not quite ready to give up. Besides, what else did she have to do?

Aquila burst into the studio and went straight to the closet.

"Why don't you ever check your messages?"

"I do check my messages," Rodi said.

"Just because I'm not glued to my infoscreen…"

"You should have been today." He pulled out her backpack and tossed it at her. She caught it reflexively.

"What's going on?"

"Pack," he ordered.

"We need to be on the 8PM transport."

"That's six hours from now," Rodi said. She shook out her pack, holding it up to give it an automatic enchantments check. It had been—how long? Eight months? The turn of the year? —since she'd last used it. They'd been stuck here on Veyra for twice that long.

"You think I can't pack for a weekend away in five minutes? Do I seem that far gone?"

"It's not a weekend." Aquila dropped to his knees before her. He took a deep breath, then beamed at her, the smile he used to charm big donors.

"We got it." She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"It?"

"Earth." He breathed out the word as if it were precious.

"Earth?" Rodi laughed.

"Right. Their integration started what, two days ago?"

"Six. Six days." Aquila's smile hadn't faded.

"Mana density won't hit twenty percent for months. And when it does, you know the job's going to go to Central Broadcast or Community Public Service or that smarmy Iliax Group, because they always get the integration jobs. I don't know why you keep putting bids in." Aquila nodded.

"Uh-huh. And they probably would have gotten this one, too. Except—" He held up a single finger.

"Earth triggered the alternative integration enhancement conditions protocol."

"What?" Rodi sank back onto her cushion. She let the pack fall to her lap, clutching it with hands that suddenly felt cold.

"After six days? Is that even possible? Isn't it one of those mid-tech worlds that poisoned their environment? Dying planets are the worst." Aquila spread his hands.

"The System says they did it." Rodi scowled. She looked up, racking her brain, then conceded defeat.

"I don't even remember the requirements. Level 20 native inhabitant?"

"That's one."

"But in six days? That's over 60, 000 XP. No one gets 10, 000 XP a day. Much less for six days in a row. Not possible." Aquila shrugged, then patted her crossed leg.

"We can talk about it on the transport. They want us there by tomorrow morning, Earth-time, and the fact that I said we could do it is the only reason we've got the job. The earliest any of the others could commit to fielding a team was three weeks out."

"Yeah, because all their teams are actually working," Rodi muttered, but she scrambled to her feet.

"What should I bring?"

"Everything." Aquila spread his arms wide, as if he wanted to hug her studio and everything in it. Or maybe it was the whole world he wanted to hug.

"We'll be there for years if this goes well."

"If." Rodi didn't want to be a pessimist, but their communications company was currently three people and a handheld recorder.

"Three stations. News, education, and public access. The contract is System-enforced. We've got metrics to meet, but we're guaranteed to keep one station. Public access, if nothing else." Aquila wrapped his arms around his own body and gave a delighted little shiver.

"I mean, assuming…"

"Assuming they don't all die?" Rodi let the sarcasm tinge her words.

"Yeah, assuming that." He didn't let her harsh tone diminish his enthusiasm.

"It's a dying planet, A. They're all gonna die," Rodi muttered the words as she started stuffing her possessions into her backpack. Her words weren't really directed at him, but he responded anyway.

"Maybe not. One of the conditions they met was the one about a System-enforced contract." She closed the drawer she'd just opened and stared at him.

"A System-enforced contract? With someone off-planet, you mean?" He nodded. Rodi made a scoffing noise.

"How did they manage that? Nobody goes to an integrating world to make a fair contract." The System did not enforce unfair contracts. You could show up with a handful of beads and a friendly smile and walk away with resource rights to half a continent, but the System wouldn't back you when the locals figured it out. A System-enforced contract was different. It meant someone had offered fair terms. To a world undergoing integration. That was… okay, obviously not unheard of. But as unlikely as snow on Veyra.

"They would have had to meet more than two conditions, though, right? Three out of five? Something like that?" Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Aquila nodded.

"What was the third?"

"Citizen (4)." Aquila's smile wasn't his donor smile anymore; it was much too close to a smirk for that.

"On the sixth day of integration?" Rodi stared, then sighed, setting her backpack down.

"Okay, Aqi, what's the chance this is all some kinda complicated practical joke? Was Tennai messing with your infoscreen?"

"System-enforced," Aquila repeated, before pushing the contract to her System HUD. Rodi read the terms. Establish Multiversal Information Network on Tier One Integrating Planet Earth. Three channels. Open access to MIN Library for educational programming, Tier One... She squeaked. She would have been embarrassed if she hadn't been so excited.

"Open access—" She took a deep breath. Open access to the MIN Library. Not a limited educational grant. Not a curated research package. Not the specialized planet-specific access. Open access. She'd be the one deciding what Earth's planet-specific access included.

"Yes!" Aquila raised his arms to the ceiling and spun in a circle three times before coming to a staggering stop.

"Now pack. I messaged Tennai, but I'm going to go check on him. I'll meet you at the transport at 7: 30. Don't be late!" He disappeared out the door, but Rodi kept staring at her HUD. Somewhere in the MIN Library, there were a thousand explanations of mana circulation, and at least one of them would tell her whether the book she'd wasted three weeks on was brilliant, useless, or an outright scam. Not that she'd have time to find out.

Managing the informational programming for an entire planet was going to keep her busy, after all. Okay, for a dying planet. But sweet goddess, it was gonna be good while it lasted. —— Emma was in a very good mood. Okay, sure, they only had twenty-four more hours until they had to deal with the government officials sitting outside the gate, but at least the baby wasn't crying anymore. Plus, the healing tent was almost empty.

There were a couple of people with injuries too severe for Olivia's young healer to truly help, but she was still trying. More importantly, the teams Emma'd sent out to hunt for rifts had returned, with levels, loot, and an eagerness to go back out and do it again. A few injuries, too, but nothing serious, and the news that leveling up healed injuries was finally spreading. Spreading as fact, that is, not as a ridiculous story made up by people mad with power.

This whole integration thing would be so much easier if everyone had an Identify ability. Convincing people you knew what you were talking about when your class was Survivor and you had no magic to show off was a pain in the ass, even if you controlled a clearly magical enclave. Sure, at Level 12—14, now—Emma could have killed people to prove that she was stronger, faster, and smarter, but that was not her style. And she couldn't exactly show off her mapping ability inside an enclave.

Yeah, the System needed a suggestion box.

"Emma! Emma!" Emma glanced over her shoulder at the call. Nat was standing in the doorway of the core building, yelling her name and waving to her. Regretfully, Emma pushed herself to her feet.

"Back to work," she told the toddlers she'd been sitting with. She glanced at the mom on duty and tipped her head to her small charges.

"You good?"

"Thanks for the break," the mom said, stuffing the last bite of sandwich into her mouth.

"My pleasure." Emma kept her sigh internal as she walked away. The conflicting demands—grow the enclave but keep the kids safe—weren't getting easier. She might know intellectually that she couldn't run the enclave as a daycare, especially with the former powers-that-be pounding on the door, but she wasn't ready to tell any of the parents who had trusted her with their children that they were on their own.

"Hurry!" Nat waved again.

"You need to see this." Emma didn't exactly hurry, but she picked up her pace a little. Hurry was for spurting blood and heart attacks. The ground floor of the core building had changed. The walls had become screens, surround sound included, and all of them were showing the same thing: a man, more or less, seated behind a desk with a typical television news backdrop behind him. Man first. He was blue. And his hair was… not. It was a crest, blue and gold feathers in a long trail down his back.

But he wore a business suit, a white shirt, a tie: he could have been Stephen Colbert. If Colbert were blue. With feathers. And also sort of ridiculously, inhumanly beautiful. Emma was not planning on having any interspecies romances or fun times, but she could appreciate beauty when she saw it. And this guy was gorgeous.

"What the hell is this?" she said.

"The Multiversal Information Network," Nat replied, eyes on the screen.

"News from the Multiverse." A scroll bar, just like CNN, ran across the bottom of the screen. Current System Acceptance: 18%.

"We've been checking the history books," Mr. Beautiful Feathered Guy said, "and Earth's accomplishment is unprecedented. The last time the alternative integration enhancement conditions were met was over eight hundred of your years ago, on a planet named Mortis. Mortis was six weeks into their planetary integration when they triggered the first enhancement, not six days. But they went on to become thriving members of the multiversal community, so Earth is off to a great start.

"But let me cut to the chase: what does it mean to you that the first integration enhancement has been triggered so early? Typically, the Multiversal Information Network opens only when a planet has achieved twenty percent mana density. This isn't because the Multiverse wants to deny you access to useful information, but because maintaining the informational infrastructure requires mana.

"As mana permeates the atmosphere, mana cascades and pools form, causing random transformations. Think of this as mana weather. Earth will see less mana weather in the upcoming months as the System uses more of the available mana to provide your enclaves with the Multiversal Information Network. Unfortunately, it will also take longer for Earth to reach 100% mana density, and for mana technology to become fully operational. As for us, we're going to be a pretty bare-bones operation around here for a while, folks.

That said, we have some very exciting programming planned for y'all."

"Does he really have a southern accent?" Emma asked, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"An accent, yeah, but I'm not sure it's Southern." Nat didn't stop looking either. Other people were joining them in the core, all the floor space being rapidly filled as the word spread that they were getting television. On the walls. Television on the walls.

"Maybe sort of European?"

"Hot?" Emma asked, just to confirm.

"Yep." Nat folded her arms across her chest.

"Is it broadcast-level mind control?" Emma checked in with her mental state. Did she feel like she had when the mayor had been trying to twist her thinking?

"I think he's just cute."

"Really cute," murmured a woman from behind them. Emma didn't recognize the voice, but there was a chorus of agreement, female and male alike. He clapped his hands together.

"So, let me just recap. We're going to have three channels of programming for you fine folks: news, education, and public access. The news—" he gestured at his setting, "—will be top stories of the day from around the planet. Education, subsidized programming from the Multiversal Information Networks Library, curated to reflect your needs. And public access—your station, with your footage, your stories, your submissions. Our upload address is here."

He did the classic YouTube sideways hand wave, which meant he clearly expected some information to appear on the screen. Nothing appeared. He waved again.

"Here." Still nothing.

"Rodi?" He called, as if expecting a response, before blinking and saying, "Ah, apparently that mailbox is not available yet. But it will be soon." He didn't wink through the screen, but Emma felt as if he had. Like he'd just delivered a personal, knowing, slightly amused message straight to her. Judging by the murmurs in the room, everyone else felt exactly the same way.

"Meanwhile, congratulations where it is due. And, of course, the System is always pleased to recognize those who have gone above and beyond. So without further ado…"