On the OmniNet, information moved faster than light, and popular ideas burned brighter than stars. Arthur Penwright's paper, "On the Nature of Serene Detachment," was not a popular idea. It was dense, academic, and excruciatingly dry. It was read by exactly seventeen people, most of whom were rival sociologists who promptly dismissed it as nonsense.
But the paper contained an attachment. A short, grainy video clip, labeled "Exhibit A."
This clip was not dry. It was not academic. And it was about to catch fire.
It started on a fringe forum for conspiracy theorists called "The Void Gazer." A user posted the clip with the title, "Proof of Latent Psychic Abilities? Or Just a Really Lucky Idiot?" From there, it was ripped and re-uploaded. A military veteran's channel analyzed the plasma bolt's trajectory and declared the sidestep "a one-in-a-trillion event that defied all tactical probability." A philosophy student wrote a ten-thousand-word essay on how the clip was a perfect metaphor for Stoic acceptance in a chaotic universe.
Then, the memes began.
The clip was edited, remixed, and set to music. The image of Leo's calm face was photoshopped onto historical disasters. A popular influencer reacted to it live, laughing until he cried. The video was given a name by the OmniNet's collective consciousness: "The Noodle Incident." Within seventy-two hours, it had been viewed over forty billion times. It was a viral sensation.
But to most, it was just a funny video. A cosmic joke. A mystery to be debated and forgotten by the next news cycle.
Except for one man.
Manny ran the noodle stall on Port Zenith. His life was a constant, simmering pot of anxiety. The station fees were going up, his ingredient supplier was always late, and the local gangs demanded a "protection" fee that kept him permanently on the edge of bankruptcy. He remembered the day of the shootout. He remembered the chaos, the fear, and the weirdly calm customer who had somehow survived. He had chalked it up to dumb luck and tried to forget it.
Then, a teenager, laughing hysterically, showed him a video on her datapad. "Look, old man! Your stall is famous!"
Manny watched. He saw the chaos from the cold, objective eye of the security camera. He saw the plasma bolt. And he saw the man—his customer—step aside with the casual disinterest of a person avoiding a puddle. Seeing it again, removed from the panic of the moment, it didn't look like luck. It looked… impossible. It looked serene.
The customer hadn't been lucky. He had been completely, utterly, and totally unbothered.
A strange thought, born of pure desperation, sparked in Manny's exhausted mind. What would it feel like to be that calm? To be so unafraid that a plasma bolt to the face was a minor inconvenience?
He looked at the spot where the man had stood, right next to the now-patched hole in the wall. He closed his eyes, the noise of the bustling market fading away. He focused on the memory of that impossible calm.
"Whoever you are," Manny whispered to the grimy air of the station. "I believe in you. I believe in… not having to worry anymore."
A soft chime emanated from the cheap datapad clipped to his belt. He ignored it, assuming it was another late payment notification. But then a feeling washed over him, a sense of peace so profound it almost brought him to his knees. The knot of anxiety that had lived in his stomach for twenty years simply… dissolved. The universe was loud and chaotic, but in his heart, there was a sudden, perfect silence.
Curious now, he checked his datapad. It wasn't a late payment notice. It was a credit transfer. For two hundred thousand Federation Credits. More money than he had ever seen in his life.
Manny stared at the number, then at the looping video on the teenager's screen, then at the noodle-making machine that had been both his livelihood and his prison. The money was real. The peace was real.
It was a miracle. He wasn't a noodle cook anymore. He was the first prophet of a new faith.
He grabbed a greasy rag and wiped down his main sign. Then, with a marker, he scrawled a new name for his humble establishment. A few minutes later, he turned off his payment terminal and began shouting to the passing crowds.
"Free noodles for all! Come and hear the gospel of the Unbothered One!"
A small crowd began to gather, drawn by the promise of free food. They saw a changed man. Manny's face, once etched with stress, was now beaming with a calm, infectious joy. He handed out bowls of noodles, all while pointing to the looping video on a newly installed screen.
"Did you see? He did not fear! He did not run! He simply wanted his noodles! This is the path to enlightenment! Worry not about the plasma bolts of life! Only seek your noodles!"
Most laughed and moved on. But a few stayed. A down-on-his-luck cargo hauler, a young couple drowning in debt, a data clerk who hated her job. They listened, they watched the clip, and they, too, began to believe.
A few soft chimes could be heard from their datapads.
The Noodle Cult had just claimed its first converts. Billions of light-years away, Leo rolled over in his cosmic bed, completely unaware that his lunch from three weeks ago had just started his first religion.