Chapter 195: Two Years Later, the World Still Hasn’t Exploded

A thick brown report lay in the afternoon sun on Lucian’s desk.

[SOLARIS OPEN GRID]

ANNUAL INCIDENT REPORT — YEAR TWO.

Major regional incidents: 17. Minor station incidents: 3,842.

Recorded contributing factors include:

Operator errors: 611.

Material and mechanical failures: 204. Administrative disputes affecting maintenance: 39.

TOTAL CONTINENTAL INFRASTRUCTURE COLLAPSES: 0.

Lucian was twelve now. He had grown enough to need new coats, and somebody kept adjusting his chair lower without asking him.

He stared at the third figure.

“Six hundred and eleven cases of plugging in the wrong wire?”

Evelyn’s voice came through the communication crystal on his desk.

“Nine hundred and forty last year.” He tapped the report.

“Progress.”

It was unpleasant to hear himself say that about six hundred and eleven errors. It was more unpleasant that he meant it.

He had planned to spend the afternoon on the Trading Alliance’s third-quarter accounts. Railway dividends, dwarven-language Nameless Knight licensing, Tartarus loom royalties, agricultural investments in the south. Ordinary, profitable work.

Three urgent petitions from provincial governors sat beside the report.

He opened the first. Two mining towns in Eastmount disagreed over the route of a mana cable through a maple forest. The governor requested that Lucian personally select the optimal route.

He glanced at the terrain map. He could produce a recommenda-tion in ten minutes.

His pen hovered.

Then he put it down and stamped the cover.

REFERRED TO THE EASTERN ENGINEERING COUNCIL FOR LOCAL REVIEW AND VOTE.

The System supplied a comparison from the council’s published schedule.

[DISPUTE RESOLUTION]

Host recommendation: Approximately ten minutes.

Local hearings, deliberation, and argument: Six to fourteen business days.

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“This is why dictatorships keep happening.”

“I heard that,” Eleanor said from the mirror beside his tea. “Political history research.”

She sat in a temporary governor’s office in the southern border provinces, travel dust still on her field uniform. Land-reform documents covered her desk.

Over the past two years, she had spent long stretches negotiating boundaries and rebuilding local judicial arrangements. Some months they hadn’t seen each other at all.

Lucian took a sip of chamomile tea. “When are you coming back?” Eleanor paused over her papers. “Miss me?”

“The southern fertilizer agreement needs your signature.” “Oh.”

He looked at his cup.

“The kitchen’s making honey-roasted salmon on Friday.” Her smile reached him clearly through the mirror.

“I’ll be home for dinner.” The connection closed.

Unified System v3.0 opened his activity log.

[HOST ACTIVITY REVIEW — PAST TWELVE MONTHS]

Direct combat: Limited.

Emergency interventions: Declining.

Business, investment, and research: Excessive.

Sleeping late and lying down: BELOW HOST’S FIFTY-PERCENT TARGET.

[COMBAT POWER]

Still increasing.

Recorded occasions requiring its use: Decreasing.

Lucian reread the last line.

The world after Keystone had hardly become perfect. Provinces split grids, discovered the costs, and negotiated mergers again. Dwarves sold drop breakers everywhere. Sylvia’s three new language branches argued with one another in academic journals. Evelyn had just certified her second engineering class.

An amber notice appeared on the operations screen.

[REGIONAL INCIDENT: UNDERRIVER PASS]

Station overload.

Initial request: URGENT PERSONAL ASSISTANCE FROM LUCIAN VANCE.

His hand went toward the silver dagger on his desk. A second notice replaced the first.

[REQUEST WITHDRAWN BY REGIONAL OFFICE]

Rotating western team completed isolation and breaker replacement. Restoration time: Fourteen minutes.

Grid supply restored.

Lucian stopped halfway out of his chair.

The request had spent longer traveling through the old escalation chain than the repair crew had needed to finish.

He sat down again. “Oh.”

Then, looking at last year’s comparable incident, “Fifteen minutes faster.”

The central-assistance log showed one hundred and eighty-four requests in the first year. Sixty-one in the second.

He returned to the accounts.

* * *

At seven that evening, Lucian sat alone at the cedar dining table.

Friday was still a few days away. Eleanor remained in the south; Sylvia and Astra had their own plans. Regulus was drinking with veterans at a border inn.

Lucian took a bite of grilled river fish. In the quiet, he could hear leaves moving outside.

The kitchen door opened.

Valeria came out wearing a flowered apron over her black dress. She set a steaming plate of garlic spinach in front of him.

“Eat that.”

“Mom. I’m twelve. I chair a company with operations across the continent. Surely I’m exempt from spinach.”

She tapped his forehead with a chopstick.

“You’re twelve. Eat your vegetables. You’ll need good eyes to count all that money.”

Lucian sighed and picked up his chopsticks.

At eleven, he stretched out on his bed and opened the Admin Console.

[OPEN EMERGENCY INCIDENTS]

3.

Two minutes later, it became two. Then one.

He hadn’t touched anything. Far away, local guilds, knights, and engineers were closing their own reports.

Lucian folded his arms behind his head and looked up at the glowstones in the familiar ceiling.

“Huh.”