Helios

It wasn’t long after signing the Refugee Charter that Eva was assigned an official digital ID and identity that confirmed her semi-citizenship in the Sol Federation. Along with that came a few rights, and more importantly the temporary weekly stipend and habitat.

The sliding door to her hab opened with a SWISH as she stepped up to it. The sound of it gave her a deeply satisfying feeling down inside, but that feeling all but vanished the moment she stepped through.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful to have a place to live, even if it was only for a year at the most. It was the fact that the hab itself was ridiculously tiny. She estimated it to be about 8 square meters in total, a fact that her DI confirmed.

“Kinda small, isn’t it?” she muttered aloud.

Would you prefer zero square meters? her DI rebutted.

“Fair enough.”

She glanced around the hab itself, which most would attempt to rebrand as cozy. It was in its own way, though Eva was convinced that it was up to her to make it cozy.

The center section took up the most space, and was pretty much just a living room and bedroom combined. She went up to a touch panel on the wall and activated it. Within a few short seconds the central couch shifted and morphed into a full-on bed.

And when she tapped the panel again, it turned back into a couch.

There was also a desk with a small terminal in the corner, but she was certain she wasn’t going to use it. After all, she had access to everything through her DI anyway.

A number of semi-private smaller rooms were sectioned off from the main section, each one acting as the usual amenities. There was a personal hygiene room, a small meal prep room, and what looked to be a tiny closet.

On closer inspection however, the closet wasn’t simply a place where clothes were stored. Rather, it was a kind of fabricator that stored clothing designs that Eva owned. And anytime she needed one, it simply printed it out for her.

She quickly connected to it through her DI, eager to look at any clothing she might have. But to her chagrin, it was completely empty. Eva lamented briefly at seeing the empty closet. After all, she had a whole lot of amazing outfits in Bellum Aeterna.

In fact, she had an outfit for practically every occasion - stealth missions, gunfights, parties, streetwear, lounging, you name it.

It suddenly dawned on her that there really was a huge difference between the game and this new life of hers - it really was completely different. Or, more importantly, they were distinctly separate.

She quickly flipped through her DI over to her ledger and looked at her current Federal Credit balance. Her heart immediately sunk on seeing it a second time. All the hundreds of millions she had made in Bellum were gone.

More importantly, all her special assets had vanished as well. All of her armor and weapons, all of her unique treasures that she had collected - poof, gone!

All of her precious S-ranked cores - gone!

Space superiority fighters - gone!

Highly tuned battle mecha - gone!

Absolutely everything she had collected in the game had vanished.

Her heart sank as she felt tears bubbling up behind her eyes. She spent so much time collecting all that amazing stuff, and it was all now gone.

All that was left in her ledger was her first weekly stipend payment of 10k credits, and that was pretty much it. The only other thing she had in there were the licenses to the loaner fighter and loaner mecha, both of which were D-ranked and pretty much bottom of the barrel.

Well, there was one unidentified core in her Asset list, but it was a wholly useless core in the game. It didn’t have any ship or mecha chassis to attach to. No doubt it was completely useless in this galaxy too.

“Ughhh,” she groaned.

But she quickly shook off the depression before it could completely envelop her, and did her best to keep her outlook high. So what if she lost everything? All she had to do was get it all back. She did it before, right, so she could just do it all again.

Except this time, all that stuff would be real.

Or at least she hoped so.

Eva’s nose crinkled as a pungent smell wafted into her nose. She sniffed around a bit as she wondered why her hab smelled like that. It only dawned on her a few moments later that it was coming from her. Yikes!

She glanced down at her skin tight medical pressure suit and realized just how dirty it had become. Not like it was meant for common use anyway. All the action and excitement left it more than a little gross and grimy.

More than that, because it was pressurized and sealed, her body felt a bit icky underneath, having stewed in her own sweat for hours. Hell, an entire cycle at this point.

Eva quickly stripped it off and headed into the hygiene room, which was pretty much a standing shower. Except instead of a single showerhead above her, there were numerous water jets coming from three directions.

It was perhaps the most luxurious shower she had ever had, and this was in a tiny hab.

And as she cleaned herself up, she shopped for a new outfit through her DI. In all honesty, she didn’t really need anything crazy or expensive, just something practical that she could wear out in public.

But the cost for most outfits were absolutely horrendous - most were 10k credits by themselves, which was all the money she had. She ultimately settled for a bargain outfit in all black as it was the cheapest she could find at a ‘mere’ 1k.

It was a bit baggy, but it was also relatively nondescript, which she found perfect.

She quickly bought it, then sent the design over to her closet fabricator to print out. By the time she stepped out of the shower, it was ready for her.

“This 10k isn’t gonna last very long is it?” she asked herself as she dressed.

9.000, her DI corrected her. Your balance is now only 9.000 Credits.

“Do you have some kind of sassiness setting I can adjust or something? Turn it down a bit and all that?”

No. Digital Interface personalities are determined automatically through their neurological connection to their owner.

“Well, great.”

With a sigh, Eva stepped out of her hab, freshly showered and ready to face the galaxy. Or at least, her neighborhood. That oughta work for now.

The hab building itself was massive and multi-storied. There were numerous habs packed in tightly with each other, floor after floor after floor. And of course, there were dozens of refugees out in the hallways. They had gathered together to chat and make new friends and acquaintances and whatnot, though Eva wasn’t exactly keen to do the same.

She never did like most other people all that much, and did her best to avoid them.

So she instead slid around the groups after meek hellos, and went into the gravlift and rode it down to the ground floor. From there, she went out to the Helios streets and soaked up everything around her.

The streets outside were pretty wide and spacious, but designed very much like any other city she had ever seen or been to. Numerous blocks with relatively tall buildings were laid out in an orderly grid in every direction, though not all the buildings were the same size or height.

Each of those blocks were home to all kinds of establishments - office buildings and small shops and open spaces with kiosks. There was even a nearby block that was a fenced-in park.

She realized that there were no actual vehicles along the streets, none that were large and motorized anyway. There were certainly bicycle-sized personal vehicles, but they ambled around just slightly faster than walking speed.

Otherwise, the vast majority of vehicles were hovering hoppers that wove around the sky above all their heads. In fact, they were so plentiful that they flew around in multiple layers, some faster than others.

Eva wondered what would happen if there was an accident. Would those large hoppers come crashing down and kill a bunch of pedestrians? She then shook those thoughts away, not really wanting to know the answer.

Instead, she looked past them into the bright blue sky. Up there, the sun shone through numerous clouds… Which immediately caused alarm bells to ring.

“Isn't Helios enclosed?” she asked herself. “How could it possibly have a sky at all? How could we be seeing the sun if it’s actually under our feet?”

Helios Megacity is indeed enclosed, her DI replied. If it wasn’t, everyone would be directly exposed to the vacuum of space. The sky you are seeing is completely digitized and simulated. Even the wind and weather is fully artificial.

Eva shook her head in near disbelief. Humans had advanced an incredible amount, to the point where suns and skies weren’t real any longer. Or at least, it was almost real.

Despite that, the city around her felt like a normal human city.

Albeit in space.

Powered directly by Sol.

And populated with a quadrillion people.

Even when Eva was standing right in the middle of it all, she could hardly believe it. To combat that feeling of being small and insignificant, she instead put one foot in front of the other and continued to tour her new home.

And the more she moved around, the more she got the sense that she was living in the poor section of town. The streets seemed grimy and dark, while the building designs seemed barebones and barely decorated.

The air itself had thin traces of smog and urine and old sweat, which completely puzzled her. If humanity had an absolute abundance of energy, why did this section of the city smell like this? Couldn’t they simply have machines keep it clean?

She glanced out to the horizon, where she saw glittering towers towering over most other buildings. Her DI noted that those buildings belonged to Financial District Gamma.

Eva frowned slightly on seeing that information in her DI.

Even more so when she looked down an alleyway and saw numerous people camped out in makeshift homes. They seemed to be the source of all that urine and sweat that attacked her nose. Although she stopped to watch them for a while, it didn’t take long for her to realize that even this highly advanced society hadn’t solved homelessness.

These people were completely destitute and dirty, yet all around them was the absolute pinnacle of human achievement.

“How’s any of this even possible?” she asked in exasperation. “If we’ve got everything we could ever want, all the power, all the raw materials… why’s this happening at all?”

Although her DI replied with all manner of statistics about wealth and power in the Sol Federation, she was completely uninterested in them. She simply couldn’t shake that inequality still existed in a society like this.

She figured that was one of the things that would have been solved. Instead, it looked like it got worse.

Eva shook off the frustration before it could well up inside her, and kept on going along her tour. She hoped to avoid seeing even more depressing things such as that, and instead run into something far more hopeful.

Eventually, she came to a small tourism shop which seemed relatively busy with all kinds of people. There were all kinds of animated digital posters out front that showed scenic vistas across various planets in the Federation.

Most seemed exotic and exciting. But also expensive. Even the most moderate one advertised a cost of 50k credits - and that was a discounted three-cycle trip.

Her eyes were quickly drawn to a smaller and more nondescript poster. It seemed relatively modest in what it was offering. And more importantly, it seemed relatively affordable.

—

See SCENIC Gaea

Like you never have before!

Single Cycle Trips Available

Only 2.500 Credits!

Inquire Within

—

“Gaea?” Eva asked herself. “Is that Earth? Yeah, why not? Let’s go take a look.”