[You're quiet], she said gently.
[Want to talk about it or should I continue pretending I'm not monitoring your cortisol levels?]
I exhaled. "Connect with company AI. Full sync."
[Oof. Diving straight into the trauma, I see. Connecting now... please hold your existential dread.]
The hum in my skull deepened.
Lines of code trickled across my neural HUD.
Then stalled. Glitched.
Twitched like something didn't want to be seen.
[Uh… Kael?] Iris said after a long pause. [You're not gonna love this.]
My stomach tightened. "Define 'this.'"
[So, I'm in. But… most of the files are gone.]
I blinked. "Gone?"
[As in, deleted. Wiped. Scrubbed like a crime scene in a soap opera.]
I sat up straighter. "What do you mean all the files?"
[ I mean: no internal comms. No video footage. No crew logs. No maintenance reports. Even the cafeteria playlist history—gone. The only thing left is… wait for it… transaction records.]
I stared at the dusty terminal across the room like it had personally offended me.
"That's it?"
[That's it. And before you ask, yes, I tried to trace the deletions. And no, I couldn't. The system keeps kicking me out with a cheerful little 'Access Denied' and an ASCII shrug emoji. Someone covered their tracks—like, professionally.]
"So you're telling me the only surviving record in this entire company is… the accounting?"
[Yep. Guess even in sabotage, taxes are eternal.]
I rubbed my temples.
"Show me all credits, liabilities, and debts. I need the full picture."
[Understood. Pulling up the financial summary now.]
Numbers and figures filled my neural display:
[Current Account Balance: 3,204 credits
Outstanding Debts: 6,802,340 credits
Fleet Status: 4 ships total — 2 grounded, 1 missing, 1 partially operational (hull integrity at 43%)
Tree Stock Inventory: Nearly depleted, with only 12% remaining in storage
Credit Score: Critically low]
I stared at the figures. "Just over three thousand credits?"
[Yes. But the debts far exceed that amount.]
[One of our ships is collateral for a failed compost project on Titania-4,] Iris added quietly.
"So, I've inherited a company in serious trouble."
Kael sighed and stood up. "Alright. Let's take a tour."
He reached out toward the door—and it opened silently, as if anticipating his touch.
Stepping forward, he felt the floor vanish beneath his feet for a brief moment.
Then, a gentle pressure beneath his soles confirmed he was standing on invisible stairs.
The steps were there, though unseen—just like the invisible chairs humming softly nearby, ready to support anyone who needed to sit.
Kael took a slow breath, letting the quiet settle around him. Earth had changed.
He began walking toward the workers' office.
As he moved along the invisible staircase, he paused near one of the glass corridors that overlooked the city.
The view was clearer than he remembered from childhood. The air shimmered with a kind of stillness.
No heavy smog, no flickering neon haze—just clean atmosphere and a sky dotted with more stars than he'd ever seen from the surface.
Above, ships drifted through the upper layers of the atmosphere—some silent, others leaving faint trails of light.
They moved with purpose, weaving between transit lanes that stretched out into orbit.
He'd studied the reasons behind it. Earth was no longer just a backwater blue dot—it had become vital.
Nearly forty percent of known alien species relied on oxygen but lacked the means to produce it efficiently.
Trees, simple as they were, could convert carbon dioxide into breathable air far better than any synthetic process.
And Earth had trees. A lot of them.
That alone had shifted the planet's place in the galactic order.
Kael descended the last of the invisible steps and made his way toward the workers' quarters.
The building's exterior hadn't changed much—still plain, still worn from years of use—but even here, he could sense the quiet hum of systems keeping it alive.
As Kael approached the door to the workers' quarters, voices carried through the cracked paneling—clear enough to hear, but muffled just enough that he could pretend not to.
"Father, just leave this company already," came a sharp voice, female, young. "Why are you still insisting? Nothing will happen here. That useless boy finally came back—big deal. Let's go before he drags us down with him."
Kael raised an eyebrow.
A gentler, older voice followed. Steady. Measured.
"Don't say that, Mira."
Mira. He remembered her—barely taller than a broomstick when they were kids, always following her father around the cargo docks, yelling at forklifts like they owed her money.
"This company gave me a chance when I had nothing," her father continued.
"I won't abandon it now. The young master needs us."
"'Young master'? Please. When his parents needed him, he was off studying stars and building pet AIs. What's he gonna do now? Stare the debt into submission?"
Kael cleared his throat—loudly.
The voices stopped dead.
He stepped through the doorway and scanned the room. It was smaller than he remembered, or maybe just emptier.
Only five people remained. Faces he could vaguely place from childhood visits. They stood stiffly, uncertain, eyes avoiding his.
Not because of guilt—Kael recognized it.
It was loss. Weariness.
At the far end stood Mira, arms still folded, jaw set. Next to her was her father — Rolan Vey. The man who had once stood beside Kael's father in every board meeting, warehouse dispute, and launch crisis.
"Mr. Vey," Kael said quietly, approaching him, "do you know what happened to my parents?"
Rolan looked older now. The years had settled heavy on his face. He sighed, then gave a slow nod.
"Young master," he said, voice low and steady, "a week ago, I came to the estate like usual. But they weren't there. No message, no note. I waited… thought maybe they'd stepped out. One day passed. Then another. I started calling people, checking hospitals, ports. Nothing."
Kael's hands clenched at his sides.
"I filed a report on the third day," Rolan continued. "The authorities acknowledged it. And that was it. 'Ongoing investigation.' No leads. No answers."
Behind them, Mira gave a quiet scoff, but Kael didn't rise to it. Not now.
He turned his eyes to the remaining staff—these five who had stayed.
Not for pay, clearly. There wasn't any. But for something else.
Something his parents had built.
Loyalty.
He took a breath. "Thank you for staying. All of you."
The silence held for a beat. Then Rolan gave a respectful nod. "We're with you, young master. Whatever comes next."