Illumount Gardens 117 is a rotating cylinder habitat in the 27.5 orbital band of the star system Stoic, one star of
a binary pair with Nuric, deep within the larger interstellar nation of Plaric. Miles long and a mile in diameter,
it rotates in space to provide centrifugal gravity to the overpopulated city inside.
Most habitats come in counter-rotating pairs or are arranged into polyhedrons, but some markets demand a little more
independence. Some "tugboat" contractors, legislative effort, and a few bribes to Orbit Command can put a
habitat closer or farther from it's sun, increasing power input or leaving hostile ideologies behind. It's just as
hard to transfer to a habitat next door as it is to transfer to one halfway across the solar system, so there isn't
much motivation for residents to have a neighboring city they can't leave. Except budget.
Illumount Gardens 117 was one of a few hundred low-budget housing habitats targeting the lower-middle class
residents of the star system. Of the 4.7 quadrillion people in the system, 4 million lived and worked and laughed
and wondered and cried and drank their sorrows and found their meaning in Illumount Gardens 117.
Between strands of her mid-length silver hair, her eyes reflected every single one of these emotions, all at once,
as the Permislat window nestled in the city above her painted the entire universe across her corneas. Such a thin
piece of transparent human tissue, yet representing an impassible chasm keeping apart those wonders and experiences
from her unsilencable desire to chase them.
Amongst the countless millions of cylinders orbiting Stoic, the Illumount Garden series were of the affordable
options 27.5 times the distance of what would be a habitable zone for a planet around that star, if there were any
planets left. The reduced sunlight at this distance made skylights a rarity in habitat cylinders, as light was
usually produced by nuclear fusion generators and the real estate was more valuable as housing this far out in the
star system. But the Illumount Garden series was one of the few that still had them. This was a nice marketing
touch, giving residents a little whiff of nature in an otherwise bleak industrial housing habitat. It comes at the
cost of better external shielding and living space, but most folks today paid it no mind, like the communal park
squeezed between buildings in a dense apartment neighborhood.
A gray-haired, cleanly and modestly dressed man quietly steps into the elevator, paying only a glancing notice to
Axy as she stared above.
Over the millennia, the housing complexes had been built so high around the two skylights that you couldn't actually
see them anymore at all unless you were right beneath it. In the side of the cylinder Axy lived in, the residents
called their window the "Permislat", because it was like an opening in their world that could never be
shut. The Industrialists won the name battle for that one. Conservationists battled the Industrialists over keeping
its original purpose functional as opposed to bridging over it with new buildings to expand precious living space. A
compromise was reached that side views would be sacrificed with sky scrapers rising ever higher toward the center of
the cylinder, but the top view preserved forever. The diffusers were also removed to allow a clear view of stars
when that side was facing away from the sun.
As the elevator descended back down into the bowels of the city, and gravity began feeling heavier again, dark
crystal starlight was slowly replaced with the artificial glow of neon advertisements and city interface lights. Her
gaze could not be forced to surrender those last moments of wonder, but as the elevator filled with colorful glow,
her expression inversely faded. She was still unaware of her elevator companion.
Sky scrapers inside a cylinder habitat can only be built so tall before the tops start touching. Illumount's city
had grown so tall that a whole new surface had emerged at the tops, where gravity was far weaker but the air seemed
fresher. Deep below were automated transportation infrastructures and walking streets swallowed up completely by the
buildings.
A community of the few avid nature lovers formed atop Wise District, directly opposite the Permislat window - the
only place left people could still see outside the cylinder from. The few people who still cared to at least. Most
people these days work in Virtual Reality from home, and VR could give a viewer any fantasy they desired. In fact,
most jobs in Illumount Gardens 117 were coding positions for the AIs that kept people content working and living in
virtual worlds.
But Axy was a wonderer. Easily mistaken for a cynic of modern times, she despised the facade everyone seemed so
content with. She wanted something...
...real.
Despite having "Garden" in its name, public outdoor gardens were extremely scarce in Illumount. One such
garden existed in that Conservationist community atop Wise district. Desperate to some day secure a home there to at
least live beneath that view, she had applied for a Garden Keeper position, one of the few jobs left in the cylinder
that still required a "human touch". It's not so much the watering of the plants and the pruning of the
branches she was paid for, but to give the richer Conservationist residents an air of "natural living" in
their community; an indisputably hollow endeavor, but it at least allowed her to exist beneath that Permislat window
one hour a day, allowing her to see the day/night cycle a few times times while Illumount spun in place.
"You don't want to be here, do you?" said the gentleman in the elevator beside her. Suddenly wrested from
her gaze, she quickly defended, "Oh, no, I'm very grateful for my position here. The benefits are great, the
people are always so nice to talk to, the - "
"I'm not one of your clients" the man chuckled. "I'm just visiting a friend up there."
"Oh... okay..." She was a little confused. Also, her distain of virtual worlds didn't help her social
skills, which didn't help her conversational abilities.
Sensing her confusion, the man introduced himself. "I'm Erastus Plyther, but you can call me Era"
"Uh.. thank you, I'm Axy. Or, well, Galaxy, but... I think it's kind of silly so I just go by Axy. Oh, not that
I think your name - er, your full name - is silly! I think Erasimus - I mean - what was it again? Sorry, I -
"
"Axy -" he interrupted again.
She stopped bumbling, slightly mortified at her awkwardness.
Everyone has cybernetic implants that project a Heads-Up-Display (HUD) that only they can see, directly onto the
retina, powered by soft A.I. and algorithms that constantly feed relevant data to the user. Era was a rich man, and
had paid access past typical privacy walls. His HUD showed:
[Galaxy Stormforge]
MAT4*
Occupation: Botany, Entertainment
Skillset: Unscheduled
Personality breakdown: Deviant; Diligent; High Attention to Detail
Custom search return: Propensity for: Commercial Intrastellar Navigation (CONFIRMED); Exo-geology: (CONFIRMED);
General Leadership: (INCOMPLETE DATA); Hardlearning: (INCOMPLETE DATA)
*Despite trying, humans couldn't break out of their circadian rhythm as a whole, so 24 hour day/night cycles
persisted, and on those days were based weeks (7 days), months (30 days), and years (360 days). Still, "years"
are difficult to measure age with in a universe where some orbits take days and others take centuries. Not to
mention the struggles of rectifying time dilation in warp travel, long-term cryosleep, and life-extension biotech -
nanobots that repair DNA to help individuals live hundreds if not thousands of years. Plus, despite physical and
mental disabilities having been bred out of modern societies, the fantasy traps of the VR world would occasionally
claim a victim, sending them into a state of mind collapse called "Reversion", which takes the mind
backwards through that maturing process.
A universal psych / maturity evaluation was adopted between star systems that determined basic maturity levels
irrespective of solar orbits, to better ensure protections for everybody. A "Reverted" mind may only be
able to blink or wave a hand in response to stimuli, passing MAT1; City or local governing A.I. would treat that
individual like an infant. A teenager with accelerated brain evolution, physical augmentation, and hardlearning
might have the mental programming to, say, manage long-term relationships and responsibilities, and pass a MAT5 like
an adult. Hundreds of thousands of biological, neurological, and sociological factors go into these determinations,
and everyone is monitored and tested constantly without even knowing. Generally, regardless of age, adults capped
out at MAT5; MAT2 and MAT3 were for children; and Axy - a teenager herself - showed as MAT4 on Era's HUD.
Axy's own HUD displayed a pitiful:
[E. Plyther]
MAT5
Occupation: (INCOMPLETE DATA)
"First of all, don't ever let anybody make you ashamed of your name..." Era inserted.
Her soul sank a little, as though scolded by a father, but sank warmly, as though comforted by one as well. But the
feeling was quickly drowned by her swelling suspicion and discomfort at such a personal statement from someone she
doesn't know - and who didn't know her. Well, who didn't know her outside of a computer's admittedly detailed data
sheet about her.
[Subject Apprehensive!] flashed on Era's HUD, painfully pointing out the obvious.
"...and secondly, I wasn't asking about your job. I was asking about Illumount. You don't want to be *here*, in
this habitat, for the rest of your life, do you?"
Her mind raced. She didn't want a bad impression to get back to those who governed her paycheck, but also... had
never been given an opportunity to answer this question before. Figuring her first impression was already in
shambles, she let her deep longing to be free just barely edge over her repulsion to his insistence at forcing a
personal conversation:
"...No."
"Have you ever been off-station?" he asked.
"Like... outside Illumount? No..."
"What would you do if you could be anything you wanted?"
Her mind again raced. Already an apprehensive social creature she was, she felt disadvantaged in this conversation
with this stranger... but she also had a long-prepared manifesto of what changes she would make in the universe were
she in power. Introverts can talk for hours on topics they've had a thousand conversations in their head about. But
she was also privy enough to tailor a response to a conversation. She still wasn't ready to share her deepest
thoughts with a stranger.
"I mean... maybe move to a planet somewhere I guess?"
"Axy, you've got to set your ambitions higher than that" he chucked, with an attempted disarming
smile.
She relented, "I just... I don't want to be here anymore. Like... I guess I want to explore. See what's out
there."
"...go on, I want to hear!"
"I don't know, that's really it I guess... I just want to find something more real out there than all of this."
"You must get along with the Conservationists".
Poor Axy's introverted mind ran out of words at this point. She could spout a million opinions on Conservationists
or Industrialists alike, but none of them seemed like a good fit to propel the conversation along.
[Subject apprehensive] flashed his HUD again, this time completely misreading her blank expression.
Era swiped a finger through the air down his rugged, hairy forearm, where an implant glowed behind his wrist.
Suddenly Axy's HUD began to downpour information:
[Erastus Plyther]
MAT5
Occupation: Logistics Coordinator, Lexum Firm Shipping; Investor, Lexum Firm Shipping; Owner, Plyther Ore Freighting
Interstellar; (...see more)
Skillset: Logistics, Shipping, Financial Processing
(Transfers Sector), Recruiting, (...see more)
Assets: 12,000 Grargun-class semi-autonomous mining platforms; 310 Warp-lift mining chassis; Warp-mining
certification; (...see more)
He began his pitch as she struggled through this new avalanche of new information.
"I'm an investor for a shipping firm. Right now we deliver freight around Stoic and Nuric, but we are about to
purchase an interstellar shipping firm to begin transporting ore between systems. Our business model is saving costs
by consolidating roles.
Currently, we're looking for a navigator and ore assessor. Someone who's willing to navigate a warp vessel AND get
their hands dirty planetside while docked. It's easy to find people who have certifications for either role, but
Flyers don't want to waste their educations digging up rocks, and Rockers don't like the elitism of the Flyers. So
we end up paying double for labor licenses when assessing new worlds.
Until now, we've only been able to pick from certified Flyers because of labor laws in both system. But now that we
are going to be officially interstellar, we can educate someone ourselves - cross-trained AND cross-motivated from
the get-go."
She stood there, a little confused still, a bit overwhelmed with the jargon.
The elevator slowed to a stop and the door opened with a soft chime. It was her stop. They both stood for just a
moment.
"We need EXPLORERS, Axy. People who want to discover things. See the universe. Tear it apart and make something
new out of it.
We need exploring minds like you.
Do you think this is something you'd be interested in, maybe as a career path?"
She stood, suddenly wrenched from her world of impossibility and thrust headfirst into one of possibility. Her
suspicions not yet dissuaded by his fresh vulnerability, yet she was inescapably intrigued. "Surely this is
just about doing things cheaper... he's an industrialist... rich travelers line their pockets off of people like
me... but what other chance would I ever get to leave? ...but what about my parents? Mom would NEVER be okay with
this..." The thoughts raged, but her face stayed.
From the seething whirlpool of sour and hopeful thoughts, a single word spilled over the edge:
"Yes..."
He smiled a little.
"Here's my contact card". He raised his left wrist, with implant glowing beneath the skin. She did the
same.
Implants govern health and augment the mind - crude data transfers of hundreds of digits to identify one person from
trillions of others do much better being transmitted wirelessly to that recallable database visible behind every
one's eyes. Her chip's soft A.I. documented time, place, chemical signature of this memory, and linked it to this
contact information for efficient recall. A chime confirmed the instantaneous transfer. This is a pretty standard
casual introduction.
But as he waved good-bye between the elevator doors, she had no idea how fundamentally pivotal this introduction was
to her future. All the things she had just signed up for in the years to follow...
The awe, the wonder... the work, the dedication... the fears, the battles, the terrors... the growth, the
existential terrors... the discoveries...
...but most importantly, the hope. The hope of finding something real out there. Wherever that was.
She didn't know it yet, but today was the beginning of Axy's Journey to the Edge of Reality.
