Chapter 42: The Answer to Life and the Universe

The answer to life, the universe, and everything was ultimately meaningless, but to Celia and what she wanted to do with her life, she was able to accomplish it.

After everything was over, Weston was able to finish breaking into the building, and after making his way through the maze they had created, Celia and Hikaru were promptly arrested. As they were boarding the airship back to Carama, many news ships surrounded the area recording the spectacle before them, trying to ask the two of them questions as the DDF tried their best to ward them off.

Just as planned, Vitoria used the chance to come in with her army of new nano drones, making a grand entrance in front of everyone to let them know what she was doing. The news channel broadcasted the reparation of the dome while Vitoria was able to give her long speech about how repairing the Tropodome was easier than it seemed.

When asked what she was doing there, she reminded the media that she had gotten a notification from the DDF that they found the culprits in the “Amazon Rainforest” as part of the DDF protocols and came there suspecting that the dome might’ve needed repairing.

As for the revelation of the fake part of the Amazon Rainforest, the world was shocked for a long time. The people had trouble trying to decide whether or not the whole thing was a government coverup or a genius ploy orchestrated by the astronauts and space center employees. Whatever the case, the maps were gradually updated across the globe to reveal the true layout of the area before them.

A few weeks after the whole incident, Celia’s parents visited her in the facility where she was being held. Whether or not anyone thought Celia was justified for what she did, the truth remains that she broke the law in the end, and had to pay her share of jail time along with Hikaru. Upon seeing her parents, Celia wanted to cry and hug them, but after doing so, her parents gave her a good scolding before telling her how proud they were of what she did.

On Hikaru’s end, only his father and grandma came to visit him. According to them, his mother didn’t want to come because she was still too ashamed to face him. They said that she had already realized that what she said was too harsh over the years that Hikaru went to study in Euracia, and had been wanting to apologize to him for a while now. Hikaru said that he didn’t know if he was able to forgive her, but was willing to wait for the day his mother would come to visit to find out.

As promised, Weston was relocated back to the UCA so that he could see his wife and daughter more often. As the years went on, he was able to learn more about and support his daughter’s dreams better.

As for Alto, they didn’t actually know whether or not he actually made it to the moon — not yet at least. Alto was still equipped with old satellite technology that had been taken down even at the Guiana Space Center, so until they repaired them, they couldn’t get a status update on Alto.

The problem wasn’t in repairing them however — humanity was well equipped with enough tools and technology to recreate the old radars used in the past — the problem was whether or not the government would allow the reconstruction of them.

This was where Vitoria’s next role came in. Like she said, she began to slowly manipulate the media behind the scenes, pushing the agenda to restart the space program again. She argued that because the Tropodome could easily be repaired, that there was no need to cancel the space program anymore.

The rocket launch on that day had inspired a lot of people across the globe to want to see more stuff like that happen again, even if they didn’t know whether or not it was successful — but at the same time, because they wanted to know how successful the launch actually was, they began to push for the development of large radar technology again to communicate with Alto.

A year and a half later, under the pressure of the movements and support from Vitoria, who the media still hadn’t figured was working together with them, Celia and Hikaru were released early from prison to help other engineers develop a radar system to communicate with Alto if possible, since they were the ones who saw his systems up close. After about half a year of trial and error, they were able to successfully construct a radar and were surprised to see a message being returned back from Alto.

“Hello world,” he said in a string of text on the screen, “in case you were wondering, the rocket launch was in fact not successful, however, I still managed to make it on the moon regardless of this. The rocket flew close enough to the moon that I was able to break out of the shuttle and propel myself towards it through space using my built in thrusters. Do not be discouraged by your failures however. This only means that there is more room to improve. I look forward to the day I am able to communicate with everyone using my voice.”

The message left a huge impact on the world, causing the space movements to flare up with a huge surge of morale and support.

“When the government told us that we still shouldn't pursue space, the world asked in response ‘why not?’, and when they were unable to give us a proper reply, we fought back harder than ever before. Eventually those in the government also began asking the question of ‘why not?’ and soon enough the space program was restarted.”

“Is that why we still have the space program today mommy?” a little girl asked.

“Yes sweetie, that’s where your daddy and I are working today,” Celia replied, “now go to daddy and say hello to your grandma for me. Your daddy and I have to go somewhere today.”

She gives her child a pat the head and she runs towards Hikaru who picks her up and carries her on his back to his mother. The old lady, who’s hair was now gray, walks up to him and takes the little gremlin off his back.

“Thanks for taking care of Amelia for me mom,” he says as he watches his child run inside the house, looking for sweets to eat.

“Oh don’t mention it,” she said, “I still feel bad about what happened all those years ago.”

“Hey now, I already said I forgive you,” he reminds her, “besides don’t tell me you’re only watching over Amelia just because you feel bad. You’re a grandma now, so you have a new responsibility as one.”

His mother smiled.

“I suppose I do,” she said.

“Oh and please stop feeding her so many dangos, she’s getting addicted to them,” he cautioned.

“Haha, I’ll try not to,” his mother laughs as they wave goodbye.

“Now then, shall we go to our usual meeting place?” Hikaru says, turning to Celia as she nods.

They both make their way over to the Tanegashima Space Center which had been restored along with a bunch of other space centers across the world. After their release from prison they had begun dating about a year later, and then held their wedding at the center during its opening ceremony.

On the day of their anniversary, they would head to the control room and have a one on one conversation with Alto, who, after many developments over the years, was now able to communicate with them through a proper medium.

“Hello Celia, hello Hikaru,” he greets them as he appears on the screen, “it seems it’s that time of year again isn’t it? Congrats on your anniversary.”

“Thanks Alto,” Celia replied, “how’s it going over there on your end?”

Alto looked behind him and watched as numerous other robots that were subsequently deployed on the moon work around the facility they had built. Each robot was assigned with a task ranging from the extraction of Helium-3 from the moon’s surface, to the study of rocks and moon dust so that humanity can understand the history of space better.

“It’s been great being the leader of our lunar operations,” he replied, “I can only wish to see further developments in other parts of space in the future… but anyway, how’s Vitoria been?”

“Vitoria said she’s going to retire this year,” Celia said, “a new Head of the Science Department is currently being decided right now. I’m honestly not too excited about it since Vitoria did a lot of things for us and all, but the main gripe we have is that as the Heads of the new Space Development Department and Space Photography Department respectively, we have to go attend the welcome ceremony that all department heads have to attend — which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so boring.”

“Haha, that sounds rough,” Alto laughed, “but I’m proud that the two of you have come this far.”

“Speaking of which, have you considered what I said about putting a super telescope on the moon?” Hikaru eagerly asked, “I wanted to see if pictures of space look different from the moon than on Earth.”

“We are actually having it built right now,” Alto said, “an observatory on the moon would indeed be beneficial to the study of space.”

“Yes!” Hikaru cheered.

“And what about the deployment of nano drones around the moon?” Celia asked, “I know it’ll be a little hard to do given that the moon has no atmosphere but we could…”

Celia continued to trail on and on about her crazy ideas and innovations that she had, as the two of them listened to her constant ramblings they had grown used to. Along one of the walls at the space center was a list of space achievements that have been accomplished so far, which only seemed to grow as the years go on:

Year 2246: First Space Center Reestablished on Earth

Year 2250: First Lunar Base Established

Year 2254: First Mars Base Established

Year 2260: First Manned Mission To the Asteroid Belt and Back

Year 2275: First Manned Mission Past Jupiter

Year 2310: First Unmanned Civilian Rocket to Travel Past the Solar System

Year 2332: First Manned Civilian Spacecraft to Exit the Solar System and Back

Year 2377: First Spacecraft to Exit the Milky Way

Next Mission: To continue towards that unreachable infinity.