Brad's Point of View
The sensation of Reka's lips on his cheek made Brad smile involuntarily.
"Working hard, my love?" she asked.
Even after five, about to be six years together, the spot where she kissed him still tingled.
"It doesn't feel like work," he said honestly. "Galiban is a great teacher, and I think your brain pills operate on an emotional level."
His wife leaned forward in interest. "Oh?"
"Things that you care about are easier to remember," Brad explained. "Like what you were wearing the day we met. It's burned into my mind like it was yesterday. The mind accelerator pills make you care, honey. I thought I was interested in space propulsion systems before, but not like this. They turned me into one of those guys who could spend hours arguing about the blueprints of fictional ships on a sci-fi forum. Back in the day I was more like, 'it just looks cool, why are you worried about the placement of the warp nacelles or whatever?' Now I have strong opinions."
Reka rested a hand on her stomach while she listened.
Definitely showing now, he thought happily.
Following his eyes, Reka smiled playfully at him. "Like my body like this, do you?"
"God, yes," he said heatedly. His wife was so perfect. Seeing her carrying his child drove him crazy.
She laughed lightly. "I'm willing to bear you as many children as you desire, Brad. We'll have to find planets for them to rule, though."
He gulped. "Planets?"
"Naturally," Reka confirmed. "Oh, don't worry. We'll have plenty of time together as a family, and once we're at that level I'm sure some manner of rapid transportation can be devised so they can visit us regularly."
How far ahead was she thinking?
"Hundreds of years, thousands," she answered, as if reading his mind. Placing his hand on her belly, she said, "our little princess will be wanting an inheritance someday, and any other children that follow will want the same. You wouldn't wish for us to be like those 'boomers' I've read about and leave them with nothing, do you?"
"Definitely not," Brad said. "It's going to be a big project, though. Now I see why you've got me studying."
If it was for their children, Brad felt like he could do anything. There could be no stronger motivation.
"Your resolve does you credit, my love," Reka said, "but I think it's time for a break. How would you like to see me make the next batch of fusion crystals?"
That sounded good to him, so Brad waved goodbye to Internet Galiban (one of many) on his laptop screen and followed his wife back to their bedroom.
Their specially-reinforced magic containment bed pretty much dominated the space. Intricate patterns that felt like braille when you ran your hand over the bedposts covered the whole frame. When they were actually having sex the whole thing lit up like a Christmas tree. It was super distracting at first, but the alternative was explosions.
Reka told him the bed was actually draining her the whole night, even while they slept. Just being in close proximity could cause her magic to flare up, and the baby compounded the effect.
Six pillars surrounded the bed in a Star of David formation, which, according to his wife, was used as a magical sigil in her old world.
Weird coincidence, he thought.
"Help me gather them?" Reka asked.
"These are pretty big," he said, picking up something that looked like a fancy light bulb from the top of a pillar, "heavy too."
Reka laid a shoe box on the bed. "Put it in here," she instructed.
When he did so the cloudy glass, or at least it looked like glass, lit up and grew hot, a heat he could feel even after stepping back a few paces. Pink spirals, invisible before, revealed themselves on the inner walls of the shoe box as if a blacklight was shinining on them. Gradually, the pink spirals appeared to "drink" the light emitting from the crystal until it dimmed and became clear.
Reka sighed. "That's just step one. Put the crystal back on the pillar, Brad."
He reached out cautiously, expecting the crystal to be hot, but it was quite cool to the touch and slotted back into the pillar easily.
While he did so, Reka produced a speck of something that looked like a grain of kosher salt.
I wonder if we're still using the same crystals grown in Stardust City, a memento of their college days that seemed so long ago.
Brad had seen her do this before, but not with the big shoe box, just the little one her engagement ring had come in. After placing the little crystal in the box, his wife held out her hands as if in prayer. The air around the box grew hazy, like the hottest, most humid summer day he could remember. Then she started chanting, softly at first but growing in volume, the hazy air now seeming to vibrate and pulse as if it was a living thing.
The smell of ozone tickled his nostrils, a scent he'd begun to associate with his wife's magic. Physics, what Reka called the "deep magic" could be altered, the rules bent by the arcane energy at her command. There was a sense of unreality, a feeling of suspension, like the moment just before a roller coaster plunged downhill.
His wife's eyes were red now, as red as they were in her demon form. The air, or whatever it was that undulated in rhythm with Reka's chanting, became granular motes of dancing light, changing color from pink to violet to sickly green. They orbited the speck of stardust, a prismatic light show carved out of reality and time itself. Brad couldn't tell you how long he watched.
"Phew," Reka exhaled, jolting him back to the present. The lights were gone; only the crystal remained. "One down, five to go. Remember when it was one a month? Six a day is passing tedious. Sing me a song while we work?" she asked sweetly.
There was no way Brad could say no to that.
His singing harmonized strangely with Reka's magical chanting, drawing him deeper into the ritual. One by one, they emptied the devices atop the pillars and used the energy to fortify the much smaller fusion crystals.
"As ever, you make the day's labors lighter, my love," she said once they were finished. "We're now producing crystals at a rate faster than power plants can be erected to utilize them. Soon, all the realms of RECA shall have their energy needs met by us alone."
"What are we going to do with all this excess magic?" Brad asked.
She tilted her head quizzically. "I confess to being at a loss, my love," Reka said, sounding more human than usual. "Being with child...I never anticipated the power it would unleash. Magic and life are linked. I suppose I should not have been surprised."
"I don't know, honey, more drugs maybe?" he ventured.
Reka shook her head. "A trivial amount of magic. If the effect need not be permanent, as in a consumable, the arcane power required is but a fraction. The cancer cures and internal organ regenerators are about to hit the market. We dare not share the mind accelerators with anyone who might mean us ill. The last resort would be providing a small group of Vanguards with a permanent power source, as with Galiban's butler model."
It was definitely something to think about. His wife was magic, and Brad would need to learn more about what that really meant. "Oh yeah," he remembered. "Andy texted me. How would you feel about visiting that new aerospace industrial park? I'm already doing a little design work for them, you know."
His wife brightened immediately. "A fabulous idea! We haven't had a proper outing since the war."
Arranging a security detail and small motorcade was easy enough and they were on their way just after lunch.
Pedestrians, once they realized who was in the car, waved enthusiastically as they drove past. Brad and Reka waved back. After a bit of a drive, they came to a high fence that completely concealed everything behind. The guards were expecting them and the royal motorcade was speedily admitted within.
Beyond the fence, Brad observed a sprawling complex of sheet metal and concrete: factories, offices, dorms for the workers, warehouses for raw materials, in short, everything you would need to build drones, satellites, or rockets. He texted Andy that they'd arrived.
"Hey buddy," his friend greeted as they got out of the car. "How's married life treating you? Congrats on the kid, by the way."
"Thanks, man, it's everything I ever wanted," Brad replied. "How are those SpaceY employees settling in? I heard we poached most of them."
"Not just that," Andy said. "Galiban hacked everything. We've got their designs, their workers, pretty much looted the whole place after Trask disappeared. Final assembly and launch takes place in China, but we're making all the parts right here in Hungary. Everybody is stoked, honestly. They can just do their jobs building cool shit without dealing with Elron's nonsense, and your wife pays us well."
"But of course, Mr. Son," Reka interjected. "How goes the big cleanup?"
"We want to do it all in one go," Andy said, "and warn the world beforehand. Don't want people to think they're under attack, you know."
"That's acceptable," Reka agreed.
"What's the big cleanup?" Brad asked.
"Space junk," Andy said, leading them into a big building that looked like a cross between an aircraft hanger and a Rainforest fulfillment center. "The Damocles satellites have super sensitive radar. We're going to map every little bit of debris in orbit and blast it with plasma all at once. The satellites just need some more time to map everything. Once it's all clear up there we can talk about the heavy duty stuff."
They passed by a full sized Damocles satellite and Brad was in awe. That thing could stop an ICBM, no problem. "Man, you're talking about putting serious tonnage in orbit, real permanent infrastructure."
"Hell yeah," Andy said enthusiastically. "It's going to have to be pretty modular and piecemeal, though. Our rockets are reusable, but they can only carry so much each trip. The possibilities are endless: space stations, shipyards to construct real starships that aren't designed to ever enter an atmosphere, support facilities for eventual asteroid mining, even orbital industry."
"I've read about that!" Brad gushed. "Like semiconductors, the crystals grow better in microgravity. We could have more powerful computers if we made the chips in space."
Andy nodded. The robotic assembly line they were walking alongside was almost completely silent, eerily precise as disembodied mechanical arms put together something with no wasted movement whatsoever.
"Your work?" Brad asked.
"Hey man, I've got the secret sauce," Andy replied cryptically.
Brad looked at Reka than back to Andy. With that silent confirmation, he said, "I think we're on the same stuff."
Andy froze. "Dude."
Brad looked into his eyes. "Duuuuuude."
A shit-eating grin spread across Andy's face. "I would KILL to have had these pills in college, bro! I'm making stuff I didn't think was possible! So that's how you were doing structural integrity work, didn't think you learned that in college."
"I didn't," Brad said, "but Reka has me on the pills and studying on gram.com, just to give me something to do. Thanks, honey."
Reka smiled. "You're welcome, my love. Are you boys having fun?"
They both said yes.
"I've got so much to show you, man. Fusion is saving the planet and everything, but carbon isn't the only thing that pollutes. Theoretically, we could put every 'dirty' industrial process in orbit, fully automated courtesy of yours truly. Though," he hesitated, "getting all that crap up there and back down to Earth will be a problem. Rockets, no matter how many we have, won't be enough."
Rockets won't be enough, huh, Brad considered.
"Honey," he asked, "you know that process you use to alter things," he said meaningfully. "Like with the fusion crystals?"
Reka perked up, immediately recognizing what he was alluding to. "What of it, Brad?"
"Well, what about something big? Something like thousands of kilometers of cable?"