The Network

Unsurprisingly, the house was a mess, dust had accumulated everywhere. But that’s an easy fix. Bringing up the network it doesn’t just allow you to materialize objects, it also has other uses, such as this one...
Bringing up a small 3D holographic model of the house in front of me, I can select each room, once that’s done I can then check the option ‘Deep Clean’ hitting okay and within the matter of seconds, the house returns to the look as if it was brand new.

“Again… this is absurd, are you sure this is earth, how is that possible?”

Elfie was still standing behind me. Well I guess any normal individual wouldn’t want to sit down in a house full of dust. Signalling for her to follow me I enter my parents old work room, I remember they had detailed documents on multiple inner workings of the networks many different systems... but that's not the only thing I'm after.

“Should be around here somewhere…” I mumbled to myself as I shuffled through dozens of papers.

“You familiar with the red giant UY Scuti?”

Asking that question I continue sorting through the papers, the best I can do is offer my own knowledge until find a more detailed version.

“Yeah, pretty sure I read somewhere that it’s over a thousand times larger than the milky ways sun.” Elfie responded.

Alright, well it’s good that she already has the image in her mind.

“Well to put it simply, picture the network being an artificially created planet, that’s to around roughly the same size as that red giant. It was spearheaded by the first known creative back in 3800.”

And when I say first known, I meant it was the first time in history someone reached the requirements and achievements needed to be given that title, there were others in the past but they’ve simply been forgotten about.

“Do you understand what you just said?!” Elfie asked in disbelief.
“How am I suppose to believe that?” she added.

Makes sense she’d react like that from her perspective, I mean… in the grand scheme of things, 4000 years isn’t really that long, since the early 1900’s, technology just began rapidly improving, especially artificial intelligence. The entirety of humanity relies on it now.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but A.I. wasn’t that advanced back in the early 2000s right?”
“No, it was just starting to bear results, however quite a lot of people disliked the fact it was being used in creative ways” she answered.

Hmm, I did read about that, around the year 2100, most of the populous were In uproar over the use of A.I. in creative fields. Apparently it halted the progress of the subject by about 50 years or so until they came up with a way to make the masses happy. Not that it mattered anyway with the current state of the mind.

“Well anyway, that artificial planet is called the network, it’s entirely running off of A.I. there’s no need for a single human to work on it. Think of it as a self sustaining library that contains every last little bit of information and knowledge that’s ever existed, and also a warehouse that holds infinite amounts of minerals and materials.”

That is the most simplified way to put it, it’s just a central hub where everything is stored, so if something were to malfunction it’ll doom the entirety of our race, since we’re all linked up to it by birth, we’re all basically part of a hive mind.

“That’s insane…” Elfie mumbled.

Stopping what I was doing I glanced over at Elfie, she clearly looked shaken up… I too wonder what life would have been like back then. When everything was still so new.

“But it was a needed change, since there’s 3 trillion people all across the universe—
“Trillion?!”

Since the first batch of settlers got sent to another star system the population just kept sky rocketing, earths population alone is minuscule in comparison, with only around 11 billion residing here, so not that large of an increase from Elfie's time.

“Correct, and the network allows instant communication no matter where anyone is, you can call someone who’s thousands of light years away and there wouldn’t be any sort of delay” 

Unlike in the past where it could take days to send messages to probes that were still located within the milky way, it isn’t even hard to get from planet to planet physically either. At every planets capital exists a train station, a 'Creative' around 4500 began the first stage of construction of the cosmic trail, it’s a series of train rails that run all throughout each solar system, traveling so fast that time dilation doesn’t exist.

During the testing phase a few people returned back only minutes after leaving but had aged multiple years, it was quite a horror to the assistants back then, it wasn’t until space warping was created, when the train approaches close to light speed, which only takes around a minute, you’ll be able to initiate a space warp, in a simple sense it’s like an instant teleport. It took just under a millennium to refine it to what it is today.

“So are you saying we’re able to travel at light speed?”

Those words from Elfie flew right through my head as I finally found the document I was looking for.

“Aha, I knew they left it here… and yes, currently the cosmic trail supports speed slightly below that of light.”

And the reason for that was one simple fact… the network made it so that anything that went anywhere close to the maximum speed was prohibited due to it's inherent risk, but, hypothetically if something were to breach past that threshold, time warping could be possible.

“Elfie, I think I have a lead, on how to get you back home!”

Shouting that right in front of her face I slouch down onto the couch, turning the table side lamp on and pointing it towards the paper in my hand.

“You do! How?” she said excitedly before sitting down right beside me.

“Take a look at this, I don’t expect you to understand it because well… I don’t either.”

Holding the document towards her she gazed at it intensively. What the document was, is the very first draft and blueprint that my mother and father came up with, a very simplified page on the theory of crafting a train that can surpass the speed of light and subsequently, the goal of this was for time travel. Not that my parents were doing this with malicious intent. They just had a dream of being the next ‘Creative’ and sadly, they didn’t succeed.

“What’s this mean right here?” Elfie asked before pointing towards a segment labelled ‘fuel source’

“Fallen star— no! It couldn’t have been…”

The thing that caused the explosion back then… they weren’t trying to power the thing with a condensed star were they!? 

A ‘fallen star’ refers to a star of any kind, being ripped from where it once was and replaced with an artificial version as to not disrupt the gravitational force keeping that solar system in check.

“They were using something like that as power?!” I shouted out.
“What! Huh? Used what…” Elfie replied in confusion.

How did they even get their hands on something like that? From what I know there’s very strict rules on who and what can be worked on in regards to something like that… they didn’t steal one did they? I hope not.

“Wait… what’s this.” I mumble.

Noticing small words in the bottom right corner of the paper I bring it closer to my face, until the time is right… what does that mean, comparing it to the rest of the written words it feels off, as if it was added later on but, it’s hard to tell things like that since the ink we now use doesn’t fade in the slightest, no matter how much time has passed.

Letting out a deep breath I slump further into the couch, but a flashing red light catches my attention, it was coming from a drawer that was slightly cracked open. Getting up to check what it was i stopped... A camera? Looking at it closer I notice the familiar swirl star symbol, the same exact one that’s on anything related to the network.

“We have to go!” I said whilst gritting my teeth before snatching her off the couch by the arm.

Throwing the door open and running out of the house I was prepared to make a run for it into the bushes but my path was blocked.

“You must be Taro.”

Standing in front of me was a familiar face, it was the same man that dropped the news to me that my parents had died, he was wearing the one and only uniform you’d see someone wearing these days. There were only 10 people who worked in the entire universe... and that was at the network, people referred to them as the ‘10 Seats’ the lower the number the more important. And the one standing in front of me was the one most commonly known as the—

7th Seat
 ‘Archie of Perseverance’