Chapter 32: A Chat with Vitoria

Celia could hardly contain her excitement as she made her way up the elevator to Vitoria’s humble apartment. Despite being a renowned researcher, to her surprise, Vitoria lived somewhere that was much similar to somewhere where the average person like Celia would live.

Upon knocking on the door, she was greeted by none other than Vitoria herself, the sight of her alone, almost making Celia want to pinch herself to check if she was dreaming. However, she resisted the urge and composed herself before her.

“Hello, my name is C-Celia,” she said, still trying to calm herself down, “I’m the engineer that’ll be working on the commission you posted on the ProtoTask app.”

“Oh thank goodness you’re here,” Vitoria said, her gentle voice completely different from the formal persona she put up on the podium, “for some reason there seems to be a lack of engineers working on the ProtoTask app today so I didn't think anyone would actually come. I don’t know if you saw what happened earlier today, but the microphone function on my drone broke today because of it.”

She led Celia inside her house and showed her her drone. It was a light gray, flat, cylindrical-shaped drone with glowing white markings on it and a black underbelly.

“This is my support drone Lua,” she introduced her, “unfortunately she got hit by a can full of soda, while her microphone function was out and the impact caused it to break."

Celia picks up Lua and closely inspects her for a bit.

“Yeah everything else seems fine,” she said after a while, “I should have it fixed in no time. It’s unfortunate what happened earlier today though — I was watching it live on a news channel before it was cut off. I didn’t expect such a negative reaction to what you said.”

“Really?” Vitoria asked in a surprised manner, “ah, well I suppose younger people like you might not understand.”

She looks Celia up and down while she works on her support drone and thinks for a moment.

“You look to be about college aged right?” she asked, “if that’s the case then you might’ve learned about the hurricane that nearly destroyed the entire world over a century ago; Hurricane Astraeus. It was largely caused by the result of a phenomenon known as Global Warming that the Tropodome we have nowadays was built to solve. The hurricane leveled many cities and ended many lives; it was a once-in-a-millennium disaster that ultimately led to the world being united.”

Vitoria then sighs as her expression grew solemn.

“The thing is… there’s people still alive who’ve had grandparents that were victims of the disaster,” she continued, “they were deeply traumatized by the loss of their family members and homes — and rightfully so. They’ve passed these stories down to their younger generations making them become avid advocates for the creation and preservation of the dome, but at the same time, they’ve been scared into their souls about the dangers of what happens if the dome didn’t exist anymore. The thought of the dome collapsing, even temporarily to improve and add upon it, frightens them, especially because they can’t see what’s wrong with the dome itself.”

She then looks at Celia and asks, “can get a little bit ideological with you?”

“Sure,” Celia replied, adjusting the wires inside the drone.

“I think the people have gotten too complacent,” she said, “to them, the dome is perfect the way it is. They don’t think about the dome collapsing on them until the threat of it is presented right in front of their face. Now, they are right in that the dome has never experienced any problems so severe that it the entire thing had to be taken down, but that doesn’t rule out the probability of it happening. As a scientist, I understand that prevention is better than cure, and I’d rather have occasional maintenance on small parts of the dome than wait for it to inevitably collapse entirely..." 

She then looks over to Celia and asks, "what about you? What is your stance on this?”

Celia looks up from her task, surprised that she was getting asked for her opinion by someone she highly respected.

“Well... I agree of course,” she replied, “if we just left everything as is, then everything will eventually collapse. This includes things such as buildings, prosthetics, robots, and everything — and the Tropodome is no exception. If everything that could implement a constant maintenance check actually implemented it, then I’d probably be out of work on the ProtoTask app with how rare things would go wrong. Or who knows, maybe it’ll turn into a maintenance check instead of a repair app. Either way, I think a controlled collapse of the dome is good for it, especially if we can finally start implementing the things I see online.”

Vitoria tilts her head in surprise.

“Hmm… you’re actually pretty smart for an engineer your age,” she remarks, “no offense by that. It’s just that a lot of young engineers typically lack the experience to see things this way. I guess I should’ve expected that seeing the sheer number of commissions you’ve completed on your profile. That’s impressive for someone your age, although… do you not have time for university?”

“University… is something I’m not too worried about,” Celia said, “I felt like I wasn’t learning much from there and wanted to obtain more hands-on experience in the real world.”

She slightly bent the truth, but she wasn’t completely lying either. She truly believed that the entire journey she had together with Alto and Hikaru so far was much more beneficial to her growth as an engineer than the 2 years she spent learning at her university.

“Hmm… now that you've actually gotten to experience the world, do you believe that you’ve obtained more experience by exploring the real world than from your classes?” Vitoria asked.

“Well, not to discredit the time I spent learning at the university — it was still worthwhile to learn from there because it’s where I built up my main skill set — but I think that at some point down the line, putting what I learned into practice definitely became a lot more beneficial for me,” Celia explained, “I mean, I did end up getting an internship at Terrastock because of it, that I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten.”

“Terrastock?” Vitoria asked, “as in the third biggest terrasteel company?”

Celia nodded her head.

“Is that so…?” Vitoria said, pondering for a moment, “we buy some of our terrasteel from there, especially our facilities in the Silk Axis. If you’ve scored an internship there, then you must definitely be a much brighter engineer than I originally thought — no offense. Engineers like you are definitely rare to come by, and our company can definitely use someone like you. How about another internship offer with my team? You’ll get some hands-on experience with how nano drones work, and might even be hired on the spot based on your performance.”

WHAT?!  Celia's mind screamed so loud that she was afraid Vitoria might’ve heard it, another internship? With Vitoria herself? On her team? Please tell me I’m not dreaming right now… but... wait… no, I can’t. I have other duties and responsibilities that I must complete first.

“Sorry…” she finally decided, “but I can’t. I’m working on a huge project with someone right now, and I don’t want to turn my back on them.”

Vitoria smiled.

“That’s fine,” she said, “the offer will always be on the table until you’re ready to accept it. When you’re available, just be sure to give me a call.”

Celia still couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but she knew that in reality she may never get the chance to accept the internship. Once they get the rocket working, she’ll most definitely be caught since not only will a part of the dome be punctured through, a rocket flying through the sky is easy to spot from a distance.

A hole through the Tropodome huh…?  she thinks to herself, isn’t that similar to what Vitoria wants? Maybe I can convince her to… no never mind. That’s definitely way too risky, and I can’t risk throwing away the entire operation when we’ve been this lucky with it and this close to getting everything working. Besides, Vitoria works for New Genesis, the company that’s in charge of maintaining the dome and our greatest opposition right now… there’s a higher chance she’ll turn us in than agree to work with us.

After a few more minutes pass, Celia finishes working on Lua, and hands her over to Vitoria.

“Here,” she says as Vitoria thanks her for her help.

The two of them bid each other farewell as Celia begins to make her way to the subway station, when suddenly, her phone begins vibrating with a barrage of text messages. Confused, she pulls out her phone to see 5 missed phone calls from Hikaru as his texts begin to pop up rapidly on her notification bar.

“CELIA!”

“We need to meet up!”

“Now!”

“This is an emergency!”

“I finally figured out what’s wrong with the city today”

“We might be in deep trouble right now, so we need to meet up at our apartment asap!”

“What the…” Celia murmured out, what's going on?