Chapter 1

August 8, 2107

The ringing smartwatch startled Lian who was typing his novel on laptop. He tapped the screen of his smartwatch, revealing a thin hologram containing a pop-up email from his college. Revealing a short sentence, 'HG. Gate B personnel review meeting'. His eyes widened with excitement.

He tapped once more, turning off the hologram. Two humanoid and a robot servants came up, dressing him, combing his hair, and bringing a white hoodie with his university's emblem―an eagle clutching a circuit disk with ‘University of Humanity Gate’ written on it. Nanofiber gloves and a gray backpack are placed on the sofa.

"Sir, would you like to heat up the mushroom soup at 9:30 pm?" asked the robot who handed over the hoodie.

"May―wait a moment." The smartwatch rang once again with an annoying notification, one that always embarrassed him when heard in public. 'Messeji uketorimashita!' He quickly tapped it as he frowned.

Frila: Yuhuu! Dinner at cafe yaww. If you don't come = Robert Malfunction :3 hehehe.

Lian: Is that how to invite people properly?

Frila: Have you ever joined dinner if you're not threatened -_-?

Lian: No.

Frila: Then you know what to do.

Lian: K.

He closed the chat with a loud tap. He sighed heavily and turned, looking at the robot. "Huft... No, you don’t have to. Just throw it away. I'm going out tonight."

"It's rare that you take the initiative to eat out, Sir."

"Nope. I was threatened."

"I see... Miss Frila, huh?" It whispered, as if saying her name was a dangerous thing.

"You're the bet. Be happy, Robert. I sacrificed myself just for you, even when you are just a robot. Be proud," Lian said dramatically.

"If you upgrade me to android, maybe I could process emotions." The robot, Robert, signaled the other two androids to get back to their alert pods.

"No! I won't! I don't like those androids. You, you’re enough just the way you are. I'll leave, there's a future that needs me."

"You mean meetings that require students, which you happened to be one of? ―"

"I don't remember a robot being able to crack a joke, especially one as upsetting as that." Lian turned around after picking up his card-shaped motorcycle key. "Your erratic attitude is what makes you friendless," he continued.

"But, Sir. I wouldn't be like this if it weren't for Miss Frila's wrangling."

Lian was stunned, feeling guilty for letting the anomaly wander in and out of his place. Or rather, he was unable to stop it. "Emm ... mirror please."

Robert's chest turned into a mirror. Lian bent down as he looked in the mirror. A typical Asian face with slightly long dark gray hair. "Hmmm, habit. I forgot to take them off," He complained, realizing that he was still wearing his reading glasses. Lian tapped the frames of the glasses which instantly shrank―turning part of his form into liquid nanoparticles and creeping into the small frames above his earlobes.

After putting the object into his backpack, he continued to look in the mirror. Dark brown eyes with black eyebrows, at a glance made his gaze looks sharp. "Ok. I'm leaving first, take care of the house, Robert." Lian waved as he exited his apartment.

"Goodbye, sir."

Lian went to the nearest elevator take it, there was no one inside. "Basement," he said, the hologram rendered numbers, the elevator starts to descent down from the forty-eighth floor. Several minutes passed until he arrived at basement.

Lian went to the intercom, scanning his retina, it blinked a few times until green light pops, a large shelf moved down to the center of the basement, containing a motorcycle. He picked up the silver disk on top of the motorcycle and tapped it twice, liquid nanoparticles then moved to form a helmet.

Lian put on his helmet and started the motorcycle then sped out of the basement. His resident was filled with people, strolling with their androids or robot servants. He always got goosebumps, everytime he saw androids. They are too similar to humans, and this makes him uneasy about their existence.

After a few minutes of riding, he finally reached the campus. Stopping right in front of the automated parking lot and getting off the bike, the floor of the ramp would automatically move the bike to an empty slot.

"Morning, genius!" Someone greets him who had just arrived.

What a compliment. You're just jealous, aren't you? He mused silently, masking his thoughts with a simple smile as he greeted. “Morning.” Then heads toward the campus building.

A building with the letter G on the signboard was where the meeting would take place. Entering the building, he was greeted with people passing by. Hologram of advertisements from various brands were plastered all over, fighting for airing every minute. There were also ads that promoted their products in a unique way, instead of using broadcast ads, they put their mascots to dance along the corridor.

As he was about to pass by, the mascot's hand accidentally bumped into Lian, scattering its promotional brochures everywhere. "Please be more careful, this is not your own booth," Lian said, annoyed.

"My bad, Sir! I'll be more careful." The cola mascot bowed as he picked up the sheets. "Ah, wait a moment, sir!" He called out to Lian who left him.

"Pardon?"

"As an apology, let me give you a bottle of cola, please―" His words were cut short when Lian snatched the bottle cheerfully and drank it.

"Aahh, cold free cola on a hot day. Thank you for the treat! Bye!" Lian waved as he left the mascot.

In the hallway leading to room eleven, he downed the cola while looking for the nearest trash can. Idly looking at the brand's new packaging, Lian circled the writing of the cola packaging looking for quotes that usually appeared on each bottle.

Lian tilt an eyebrow. Feeling strange, instead of the quotes, it was a question, 'What does blessing means to you? How much of what you see is real? Or maybe delusion whom sees you?’ He had never encountered this before. "Oh! This must be a rare edition! I have to tell Frila."

Lian took a photo of the packaging with his smartwatch and sent it to Frila. In less than a minute, Frila replied saying,

Frila: Can't reply right now. I'm in engineering gate conference.

It turns out that Frila had also received a similar meeting call. As he had arrived at the room, he went in and sat among the students who were busy chattering around. Some people glanced at Lian and looked at him lazily, some chuckled and went back to their business.

Huh, who needs friends like you. He opened his hoodie, letting a sigh as he slumped himself into the chair.

"As always, the best student always arrived before their favorite lecturer, don’t they? Heh," greeted someone from his left. The speaker, a boy with thick-rimmed round glasses and tousled blonde hair.

"It's normal, aren't you the one who came earlier than me?"

"Duh, right." The student grinned. "Oh, yeah. So, where’s Frila?"

"Why are you asking me? As if I’m a babysitter or something?"

"Yeah, you guys are really close. It feels weird to say that you're not dating―eh!?"

Lian gave an exasperated look without replying, annoyed with that talkative mouth. "He's in an engineering gate meeting," Lian snapped.

"Owh, I see. By the way, I'm looking forward to the progress of gate since HG has a genius student coming in, we will definitely make history."

"Your sarcasm is no better than that of a middle schooler." Lian was really fed up with all the sarcasm he had received in the past few years to the point where it seemed normal when people teased him.

"Oh, come on. Don't take it personally, it's just a joke!"

Lian gave him a flat look. The noise from their conversation was instantly silenced when a tall man, wearing a white lab coat with slicked-back and a black hair entered the meeting room.

"Good afternoon! Has everyone gathered?" The man asked.

They all nodded. The man then sat on a chair in the center of the table. "In that case, I'll get straight to the point." He took out a pair of white glasses and a white disk in front of the table. "If you think this meeting is about when the gate will be finished, then you’ll get an F."

He snapped his fingers and the whole room went dark. A faint light gradually shone on each of their desks, a large screen, displaying the university logo. The logo disappeared, replaced by a series of files with the titles 'Subject for shipment to Gate B' and 'Willing Death Row Inmates' as well as 'Luyten B Radiation Estimation for Human Footing Based on Android'.

"If you are aware of the email notification sent. It clearly says the word personnel in there." The man smiled as he tapped his smartwatch, displaying a similar email they had received this afternoon.

"Gate successfully created, at Luyten B."

The student gets a little excited, the whole room filled with joy, their happy chatter. Lian could only marvel at this, but did not express his pleasure even if he wanted to.

"Here are the data provided by androids of series E320, E321, E322 and E323." He tapped the table and swiped it to the center so that the data set appeared in front of them.

Lian could clearly see, the cosmic radiation data levels resembled those on Earth, but with a denser atmosphere. The oxygen pressure is also 1.1 times denser. However, there was something that caught his attention: the gravity of Luyten B was only 1.5 of Earth.

Lian raised his hand in confusion. "Yes, Lian. Do you realized something?"

"Professor Faruna, isn't Luyten B's gravity seems lower than expected?"

That man, Prof. Faruna. Smiled with satisfaction and nodded. "That's right, it's true. The estimation should be 1.7 from Earth. But, why 1.7? It's probably not as dense as expected. The androids there have been examining it for 57 years."

"I see... sorry for the intervened."

"It's okay. Just relax, Lian-kun," Prof. Faruna chuckled.

Lian could hear the snickering of a few people from across tables, gossiping in front of a person directly as if this person could not hear.

"So, in other words, now we can travel between planets!?" said one of the students.

Once again, the room are filled with chatters, it’s even noisier than before. Prof. Faruna clapped his hands until the whole room went silent. "Wait a minute, not so fast, young people."

Lian recalled the data on inmates and personnel for Gate B. Could it be that one of us will be the personnel in question?

"We need humans to step foot in Luyten B. And if you notice, there is a list of willing inmates. But, the purpose of this meeting is not just to discuss the prisoners."

They fell silent, beginning to understand where Prof. Faruna was going with this. "We need personnels who will supervise the prisoners. And... those personnel will be selected from this room. Right now."

No one dared to answer, no one wanted to put themselves forward. Everyone was downcast, not wanting to be appointed. Lian actually wanted to volunteer. However, he was afraid that if he did it now, then the others would only worsen the frequency of their sarcasm.

"Someone? Anyone? No one? All right. Let's leave it to Mr. Cola," Prof. Faruna said as he snapped his fingers.

A cola mascot entered the room with his dance, carrying a ball-shaped vending machine with some small colorful balls inside. There is a lever next to the ball.

"If no one volunteered today, then we’ll just get ‘em by lottery. I’ve just watched an anime which featured this unique tool, so I would like to use it as a lottery tool, you guys won’t mind right?"

"Huh?" Some students snorted, while others looked scared, not of the tool but the draw.

"Alright, Mr. Cola! Please play it!"

"Cola! Cola!" the mascot exclaims. He turned the lever repeatedly, making the balls inside spin wildly. "Cola, cola, cola, cola, cola, cola! Kooraaa!"

The ball stopped spinning and one of the bright blue balls came out. Prof. Faruna picked it up with a wide grin, opening the contents. He unfolded a small piece of paper as he adjusted his glasses.

"The Gate B personnel will be ...."

He deliberately did not continue, seeking for the curiosity fo the crowd. There were those who moved their chairs just to see if Prof. Faruna had just said it or not.

"...Lian, Hans."