Orion walked through the front door. Cassia was in the kitchen, preparing something that smelled like garlic and herbs.
"I'm home," he called out.
"How was your day?"
"Productive."
He went straight to his room. Closed the door. Put on the earbuds.
"Rene, I need an office building for Innovatia. Something in New Eden. Enough space for at least 200 employees to start. Standard office equipment—desks, computers, meeting rooms, server infrastructure."
"Searching now," Rene said.
Her voice was different than before. Richer. More complex. The data center was making a difference.
"Found three suitable properties," she said after two seconds. "Sending details now."
Information appeared in his mind through the BCI. Three buildings, all in New Eden's commercial district.
The second one looked good. Twelve floors, modern design, fiber optic infrastructure already installed. Listed at 400 million credits.
"That one. Acquire it. Set up everything we need—workstations, networking, the works. I want it ready to operate within a week."
"Understood. Initiating purchase procedures now."
Orion sat at his desk. "Next thing. I need you to create a consumer version of Aether OS. Strip out the ultra-advanced AI components—too many questions if people figure out how smart you are. Keep the advanced features, but make the AI assistants seem normal. Helpful, but not suspiciously intelligent."
"Acknowledged. What level of capability should the consumer AI maintain?"
"Smart enough to be useful. Good at productivity tasks, learning user patterns, providing assistance. But not smart enough to make people wonder how it works. You know what I mean?"
"Yes. I will create AI assistants that appear to be advanced machine learning systems but do not demonstrate the full reasoning capabilities I possess."
"Perfect. Now, build a full app ecosystem. I want productivity tools—document editing, spreadsheets, presentations. Creative tools—video editing, photo editing, 3D animation software. All integrated with AI assistance. Make them intuitive. Easy to use even for beginners."
"Understood."
"Also, VR and AR apps. Modeling tools, design software. And games—lots of games. Different genres. Make them run efficiently even on low-end hardware since Nexus compiles so well."
"Quantity estimate for games?"
"At least a hundred to start. We can add more later. Oh, and use dimensional data compression on everything. Advanced stuff from the library. I want apps that would normally take terabytes to run smoothly in just gigabytes."
"Dimensional compression will reduce file sizes by approximately 98% while maintaining full functionality."
"Exactly. Make the OS compatible with everything—phones, laptops, PCs, tablets, TVs, VR headsets, AR glasses. Plug in any device, and the software auto-formats and installs. One ecosystem across all platforms."
"The installation process should be automated?"
"Yeah. Download the Aether OS package, run it, and it handles everything. Backs up user files, formats the old OS, installs Aether, transfers everything back. Clean and safe."
"Users will be able to personalize their AI assistants?"
"Yeah, good point. Let them customize appearance, voice, personality traits. Make it feel personal."
Rene was quiet for exactly five seconds.
Then: "Done."
Orion blinked. "What?"
"Consumer version of Aether OS complete. App ecosystem built and tested. Dimensional compression implemented. Multi-device compatibility verified. Installation package ready for distribution."
"In five seconds?"
"The Nexcore data center provides 50,000 AI processing chips. My computational capacity is substantially higher than before. Tasks that would have required hours now complete in seconds."
Orion leaned back in his chair. "Damn. That data center is really working for you."
"Affirmative. The distributed architecture allows for massively parallel processing. I can execute thousands of development tasks simultaneously."
"Okay. Install the consumer version on my phone. Let me test it."
His phone buzzed. Installation prompt appeared.
Aether OS Installation PackageThis will replace your current operating system. All files will be safely transferred. Continue?
He tapped yes.
The screen went dark. Progress bar appeared.
Backing up user data...Formatting system...Installing Aether OS...Transferring files...Optimizing...
Two minutes later, his phone rebooted.
The interface was clean. Smooth. Everything loaded instantly.
He opened the app store. Hundreds of apps. Productivity suite, creative tools, games.
He picked a game at random. Stellar Frontiers - space exploration game. File size: 3.2 GB.
Downloaded in ten seconds. Opened it.
The graphics were insane. Photorealistic planets. Detailed ship models. Vast star systems.
This should have been hundreds of gigabytes. The textures alone should have taken terabytes of storage. But dimensional compression made it tiny while keeping everything.
Orion started playing.
The controls were intuitive. The AI assistant explained mechanics naturally. The world was massive—procedurally generated galaxies, each one unique.
He lost track of time. Explored three star systems. Built a space station. Fought off pirates.
"Orion! Dinner!"
Cassia's voice from downstairs.
He checked the time. 7:43 PM. He'd been playing for two hours.
"Coming!"
He saved and closed the game. Went downstairs.
Dinner was pasta with some kind of mushroom and garlic sauce. Cassia had set the table. Two plates, two glasses of water.
Nyla was still at her group project. Just the two of them.
Orion sat down. Ate a few bites. The food was good. His enhanced senses picked up every flavor—garlic, thyme, olive oil, something earthy from the mushrooms.
"Mom," he said. "I need to talk to you about something."
"Mm?" She was eating, looking at her tablet. Probably work stuff.
"You should quit your job. Come work as CEO of my company."
Cassia looked up. Smiled. "Very funny."
"I'm serious."
"Orion, you're a student. You don't have a company."
"I do. It's called Innovatia. Registered corporation. I'm the founder."
She set her fork down. "Okay. What kind of company?"
"Software development. I created some revolutionary AI technology and sold it to a major corporation for 10 billion credits."
Cassia laughed. "Sure you did."
"I also bet against the market during the Cleansing. Made another 21 billion or so on stock trades."
"Orion, stop joking. It's not funny."
He pulled out his phone. Opened his banking app. Turned the screen toward her.
Account Balance: 31,247,892,445 credits
Cassia stared. Her mouth opened. No sound came out.
"It's real," Orion said. "I built advanced AI architecture. Sold it. Made money. Now I have a company and I need someone to run it while I handle the technical side."
She grabbed the phone. Looked closer. Refreshed the app. The numbers didn't change.
"This is... this is..."
"Thirty-one billion credits, yeah."
Cassia set the phone down carefully. Then reached over and smacked his arm.
"Ow! What—"
"Why didn't you tell me?!" She smacked him again. "They could have cheated you! We could have negotiated better! Ten billion for revolutionary AI? That's nothing! We could have squeezed way more out of them!"
"Mom—"
"And betting against the market?! Orion, that's incredibly risky! What if you'd lost everything? What were you thinking?!"
"I had good information—"
"You're twenty-one! You don't know how markets work! You could have been wiped out!"
She kept going. Lecturing about contracts and negotiations and risk management. About how he should have consulted her before making major financial decisions. About how software companies would take advantage of young developers.
Orion let her vent. She needed to get it out.
Finally, Cassia stopped. Took a deep breath. Picked up her water glass and drank.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. I'm calm. Tell me about this company. What exactly are you planning to sell?"
"Operating system and app ecosystem. Revolutionary software that works better than anything currently available."
"And you want me to be CEO."
"Yeah. You're a systems analyst. You understand technology. You know how corporations work. I need someone I trust to handle the business side while I focus on development."
Cassia was quiet for a moment. "I don't know anything about running a software company."
"You know more than I do. I'm good at building things. You're good at managing systems and people. We'd make a good team."
"Orion..."
"Just look at what I've built. Then decide."
He pulled up the Innovatia website on his phone. Found the download link for the Aether OS installation package. Started the download on Cassia's tablet.
"What are you doing?"
"Installing the OS. It'll automatically back up your files, format the old system, and install Aether. Takes a few minutes."
The tablet screen went dark. Progress bars appeared.
Cassia watched nervously. "You're erasing my work files—"
"They're being backed up. Everything transfers over safely. Watch."
The installation completed. Her tablet rebooted.
New interface. Clean, modern, intuitive.
All her files were there. Documents, photos, everything. But organized better. The AI had sorted everything by category, removed duplicates, cleaned up junk files.
"Try it," Orion said. "Use it for a few days. Explore the apps. See what you think. Then tell me if you want to help me sell this."
Cassia picked up the tablet. Opened a document. The interface was smooth. Fast. The AI assistant popped up with helpful suggestions—formatting options, grammar improvements, citations.
She opened the photo app. Her pictures loaded instantly. The AI had automatically enhanced them, organized them by date and location, even created albums based on events.
"This is... impressive," she admitted.
"That's just the basic stuff. Try the games. The creative tools. The VR compatibility if you want to test it on a headset."
"You built all this?"
"With help from my AI. But yeah. The core technology is mine."
Cassia looked at him. Really looked. Like she was seeing him differently.
"You've changed," she said quietly. "Since the hospital. You're... more focused. More driven."
"I found something I'm good at. Want to pursue it."
She looked back at the tablet. Scrolled through the app store. Hundreds of apps. All polished. Professional. High quality.
"If this is as good as it seems..." she said slowly. "This could change everything. The market for operating systems is dominated by a few major corporations. If you can offer something genuinely better..."
"Exactly."
"But you're talking about competing with companies that have thousands of employees. Billions in resources. Decades of market presence."
"I know. That's why I need help. I can build the technology. But I need someone to handle everything else—marketing, sales, hiring, operations. Someone I trust."
Cassia set the tablet down. Looked at the account balance on his phone again.
"Thirty-one billion credits," she whispered.
"Yeah."
"You really did this."
"I really did."
She was quiet for a long time. Then she smiled. Reached over and messed up his hair like she used to when he was a kid.
"Look at you. Bossing your mom around now."
"You know that's not what I mean—"
"I know, I know." She laughed. "Give me a few days with this OS. Let me see what I'm working with. Then we'll talk seriously about the company."
"Deal."
Orion stood up. Grabbed his empty plate. "Thanks for dinner."
"You're welcome. Now go do whatever important work you're doing. I need to explore this tablet."
He smiled. Went back to his room.
Put on the earbuds.
"Rene, she's interested. Give it a few days and she'll say yes."
"Your mother appears highly qualified for executive management. Her corporate experience will be valuable."
"Yeah. Now, next phase. I need to start planning the fusion reactor in detail. I have the knowledge from the library, but we need to refine it. Optimize the design for our specific situation."
"Understood. Shall we begin preliminary engineering calculations?"
"Yeah. Pull up everything I learned about plasma confinement, magnetic field dynamics, superconductor materials. Let's start designing this thing properly."
Information flooded through the BCI. Diagrams appeared in his mind. Equations. Material specifications.
The fusion reactor was complex. The most advanced technology humanity had attempted. Even with knowledge from the library, building one would require careful planning.
But he had three years.
And now he had resources.
Time to get to work.