[sub][right] Starring: [color=gold]Flynn and Ethan[/color] [/right][/sub] [sub][right] Location: [color=gold]The Yellow Yacht[/color] [/right][/sub] Onboard the Yellow Yacht, a luxury spaceship of the kind only the wealthiest could afford, a glass of golden champagne fell to the ground, shattered. It spilled into a fine and crimson carpet, an expensive heirloom, and drink mixing with fabric, they made a hideous brown hue. It was ruined. And for the moment, nobody cared. They were busy staring off into space. Literally. Even the stamps- usually tireless, quick- were too stunned by what they were seeing to attend to a mess. There was something more important for once. They had all gathered around the viewscreen to watch it. A woman named Molls, the same who had dropped the glass, mumbled with embarrassment "Have you ever seen anything like it?" She didn't know who she was asking, and there was nobody who answered. Her and her sym and her stamps were all huddled in starboard viewing deck and looking out together, into the void of outer space, where among the stars, a second sun was shining. A new one. It was the Gateway: suddenly coming back to life, it looked like a super nova. The void had caught on fire. The people in this grand room, one of them human and the others not, had their mouths hung open in undignified shock. [i]That's the Gateway[/i], they all realized together. [i]Our Gateway. And its working. It's been three centuries, and its working.[/i] It's strange, how a moment like this blurs all the lines. For the seconds they stood there, all the divisions between them were vanished. They were not Molls, the important Division official, and three of her cyborg-clone servants, and an ingenious sym. They were just five people, stood together, all equally feeling the shock and smallness of watching something so much bigger than them. She nearly imagined that she could feel heat washing over her, radiating out from that portal to a million other worlds. What was out there? But perfect moments always move forward, and through their viewscreen, they watched the brightness of the Gateway fade down. It demoted itself, from supernova to sun to dim star. It was just another light in an aleady star-dense sky by the time Molls felt a scrubbing sensation near her feet, and realized the stamps were cleaning up the spilled drink. The instant was done. Work was resuming. That, more than anything, made her mind accept that this was real, and that she would, today, have a million things to do. "Ethan," she said blurrily, "cancel all my appointments. Actually, clear the whole schedule. All of it. For the next week, I don't even want breakfast pre-planned." "I already did," said Ethan, the sym. He lived inside a tall, humanoid body of yellow steel, and knew Molls' mind better than Molls did. "Except for breakfast. You need to eat breakfast. Also, I already contacted the sym aides to all of the Seven's CEOs and major executives. They will know what has happened shortly." "What if they don't have a sym aide?" Ethan scoffed. Ridiculous. "Right," ceded Molls. Ethan was usually right. "So, they'll know, that's good, and I'll comm with them on that, and..." She looked out again. The Yellow Yacht was a beautiful, rich ship and this was a beautiful, rich room that she stood in, designed for woo-ing corporate executives. It had felt so strange to have it to herself today. Or, relatively to herself. The Oldwell Conglomerate exec she had prepared the ship for cancelled last-minute, and being a Division official and not a corpo herself, she had no real way of changing his mind. The Division couldn't apply pressure, not against a megacorp like Oldwell. So she had planned to instead just sit on one of those soft white couches, watching the stars and talking to Ethan, planning things, while the stamps did... whatever it is that they do. She didn't know. She assumes they'd be doing things, but unless she's about to give a specific order, she never liked to ask. Feels rude. "Hey," she said to a stamp, still high on the moment. "What are you guys gonna do after this?" The stamp who answered was a beautiful human-like one with porcelain skin and hyperfocused, rainbow-shaded eyes. She smiled brightly and said, "One of us will have to scrub the ceiling. I saw a drop of your drink go up there." "[i]Huh.[/i] Well, good luck with that." There was a heavy hand on her shoulder. It was familiar. Ethan said: "I think perhaps now would be time for a nap, Miss Flynn. You will get little sleep in the coming days." [b][center][color=gold] --- --- --- ///---0---\\\ --- --- --- [/color][/center][/b] They had listened first, little AI drones slipped through the Gateway and commanded to stay stealthy. Earth was the first place they went, of course, and what they saw- The news was wildfire. That not only did humanity live, not only were there other colonies alive, but they had all gathered and formed together into a kind of unit, a large and insane Meeting Place established for Earth's descendants to meet as nations and speak. This was a club the megacorps wanted to belong to. A few more rounds of AI drones slipped through the Gate, gathered up every ounce of information and picked up every broadcast they could which was not encoded, and flew back through before anyone could try to hail them. Information was gathered. With the approval of CEOs and shareholders, if not the general populace, a plan was decided on for how they would approach their fellow Old Earth descendants. It was... crazy, some said. But it was Giltian, and it would make sure they could not be ignored. That was the fear: that with all these diverse and varied nations huddled up around Sol, the Gilt corps would be ignored. Some annoying traders to brush aside. They needed to know that couldn't happen. And what was the most impressive thing that Gilt had which could be brought through the Gateway? The Rainbow, the neon city-ship of commerce and luxury, journeyed through the night sky towards the Sol side of the Gateway without warning. On board, four million residents waited and held their breath. They emerged into Sol trying- hard- to make an impression. Fortunately, Gilt was good at making impressions. The ship was already two-dozen colors; when parts of it glowed, and it flared out bright lights into space like spotlights and emitted broadcasts of upbeat Giltian music, nobody would look away. Miss Molls Flynn was onboard. She was thinking: the Gateway had been so beautiful from the outside. Even after the initial flare died down, when it had calmed into a restful glow, it was still so beautiful to Flynn's eyes. On her world, she was the Division's Head of Transhuman Resources, and she had accepted that job for a very simple reason: she liked strange things. Most Giltian's didn't, and it was easy for them to pull back in revolt at the not-quiet-human face of a stamp. Xenophobes. She didn't pull back. She leaned in, and studied. It felt like they were doing the same thing when the [i]Rainbow[/i] flew through the Gateway to Sol. Like she was leaning in, leaning in, leaning in until the light was all around her- and then she found that things were even more beautiful on the other end. The Gateway, it looked the same on this side. But now, through a massive window she shared with dozens of other Rainbow residents, some rich and some poor stamps, they saw Earth. They saw Earth. Not Gilt, the golden desert. Not Argent, the shining snowball. It was Earth for the first time. And it was beautiful, too. It was all desolate, all destroyed, a gray and mucky ruined marble. Poisonous. But it was a wonderful, wonderful poison, because seeing it was seeing humanity's home. "We'll fix it one day," she remembers telling the stranger beside her, who didn't answer. "We're coming back." She was standing in Navigational Command Center now, dressed in a golden-hued suit. Yellow and black were the colors of the evening; the shade of Gilt had to be represented. Hovering cameras were swarming her like planets caught in orbit. They were preparing to make an address to the Meeting Place. Her words would be broadcasted out to every ship and Meeting Place resident that would listen, while some heard only the audio and those who could picked up Molls' video as well. One last swoop of the not-spotlights to draw attention. If you could make sound in a void, the Rainbow would even be blaring music. They settled for turning up the lights and making the Giltian ship pulse with color. Even the near-invisible hardlight shield that incased her took on a technicolor hue, for but a brief moment. (The shielding couldn't stay on all the time; the power cost was more than Molls' salary.) Posing behind her, forming the background of the video, were about ten others. There was Ethan, always by Molls' side, and a mixed group of megacorp reps and syms. Every human had been instructed to wear either gold, yellow or bronze as a primary color, and black, bronze or midnight blue as a secondary. Ethan and the other syms were already golden. There were no stamps. They didn't yet want to the other colonies to see Gilt's stranger doings, at least until they were onboard. So it was all men and robots tonight, for their first debut onto the galactic theater. She cleared her throat, cameras flicked on, and she spoke. [hider=Greetings from Gilt!] "Greetings to the Meeting Place and all the people gathered here! My name is Molls Flynn, and I am delivering a word from the Gilt Division. We are an affiliate body of corporations, companies and free traders who have been working in the Gilt System since the Fall. Now that our Gateway has reopened, we would be glad to extend a hand of friendship, fair trade and mutual gain to all fellow descendants of Earth. And to that end, we have brought along a structure. This city-ship you see now is the [i]Rainbow[/i], and she contains four million residents! Pretty, isn't she? Here you could find every service or product or entertainment imaginable, and we invite members from all nations to come and see the things Giltians can offer. We excel in gene-therapy, touchable holograms and hardlight, and robotics. For those in need of national-scale solutions such as terraforming services, please contact me directly. With time, we can make even a dead world look like Earth- just mentioning it. Yes, we look forward to trading with you all. Come and see the sights!" After she was done, a male speaker said, in a much faster, sped-up voice: [i]"Invitation onboard the Rainbow does not constitute a visa or citizenship status with the Gilt Division. Please do not interact with genetically resequenced individuals without approval from their holders. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Terms and limitations may apply to any and all offers. Thank you and have a nice day."[/i] [/hider] [b][center][color=gold] --- --- --- ///---0---\\\ --- --- --- [/color][/center][/b] [sub][right] Starring: [color=gold]Andrei Fedorov[/color] [/right][/sub] [sub][right] Location: [color=gold]Neo London, Gilt[/color] [/right][/sub] On the lower decks part of the Rainbow, where the wide and crowded corridors were more like streets and alleyways than halls, there was a shift. Reports showed an uptick in holosuite usage. Concerts sold more tickets and the economy started to flow like water. Sales of food, drink, party clothes and sym servant-bodies were all soaring. This city-ship was celebrating and spending quick. The marketplaces that filled the more open parts (there were wider, square-like places on the Rainbow where you could very much forget you were in a ship) were busy and expectant, awaiting the promised foreign visitors. Work productivity alone was going down, everyone so- distracted, drunk, tired? All of them. The affluent classes were throwing themselves even further into their entertainments this week. Andrei understood why, instinctively: they were trying not to think. The Gateways, open? The other colonies, living? Amazing. Frightening. By gold, the thought of Earth sitting desolate, and the Division new to this community so much bigger than themselves, and this heavy, looming certainty that things would be changing forever. They were trying to drown it all out. With entertainment. With tricks of light and sound, and drink. They could not handle the unknown. Andrei Federov was looking down at them from behind a gilded window, high up on an interior deck. And he was pushing down his feelings of jealousy- really, he wanted to be out there with them. He loved play, hated work. But by an awful co-conspiring of fate and genetics, he was the son of a CEO. His mother wanted him reared to be a proper Giltian businessman. He was thirty-whatever years old and mom was still trying to do motherly stuff, putting him over big parts of Earnest, Smithers and Black. If he could only be lower on the totem pole... "Don't you think so, Federov?" A man's voice. Someone else in the small, gray little board room was interrupting his brooding. "No," said Andrei, having no idea what they were asking about. He didn't even turn away from the window. "I don't think so at all, and I think whoever thought of that idea is stupid." "...oh." From the stricken sound in the man's voice, it was obviously his own idea he'd been asking about. Well, serves him right. Andrei should be allotted at least ten minutes of uninterpreted brooding per board meeting. He's going to put it in his next contract. "Alright," Andrei told the window. "Somebody recap me. We already agreed, taking this neon abomination to the Meeting Place wasn't enough. We've made an entrance, but there are, what, how many nations there? And they all have governments and guns and navies? Frankly, I'm nervous. We're here to do business, but if our history books say anything..." "It's that governments can't be trusted," finished someone. "I think everyone here would agree with that assessment. That's why we were thinking-" "Our private navy," an older, female voice behind him cut in. "I know it sounds crazy, but we can't ignore this threat at our doorstep. We all know what states do when they get the chance. That's why we honest traders in Earnest, Smithers and Black [i]need[/i] to build up our forces." They all thought about this for a second, and then she pressed it a little: "For defensive purposes only, obviously. We'll keep them on the Gilt side of the Gate. We've been behind in the navy game anyway. The pirates are getting ambitious, Everette Corp raided us twice last quarter. Having more ships available clears up all these problems, and now with the Gateways open, your mothe- I mean, our CEO- won't be able to ignore the issue any longer." "Well," said Andrei at last, "someone give that woman a raise." "Oh," she chuckled. "Well, the only one here who could give me a raise would be, uh, you, Mr. Federov." "Somebody promote themselves into someone who can give raises, and then give her a raise.* Alright. Alright. Let's get the paperwork going. Lots of ships. Shiny ships. Ships that have little baby ships inside them. Whatever. The merchants of Gilt will not lose our freedom." [b][center][color=gold] --- --- --- ///---0---\\\ --- --- --- [/color][/center][/b] [sub][i][right]*She never received the raise.[/right][/i][/sub]