Settling into her new home wasn't difficult to do. After a few busy days introducing herself to Nexus Spire, Vivian gave herself some time to get to know her own home, and she did it by lounging around, watching films and television, and playing retro videogames. She gorged herself with many different foods that she had discovered since she had arrived. She also made sure that her bed was adequately lived-in.
A few days of lounging around her home was heaven and, while she didn’t objectively hate her job, she wasn’t excited to getting back to it. She did, however, feel somewhat differently about an upcoming date with Delano.
It was only a few hours after Vivian accepted his contact information that Delano messaged her and asked if she was interested in getting some coffee. She felt good about this turn of events, but there was also an underlying uneasiness. It may not exactly have been a "date," and it certainly wasn't an official work date.
After a little research into the coffee shop that he invited her to, she discovered that it is near the top of the spire, so she dressed accordingly. Vivian slipped into an opulent maxi dress and collar that matched the blue in her eyes.
Once she slipped on her peep-toe heels, she stepped outside to be picked up by an ultra-elegant personal transport. It arrived, silently and gently touching the landing platform. Sliding glass doors opened into a large cabin with plush ergonomic seating on a central dais with a full 360-degree cylindrical glass wall that provided an uninterrupted view of the city and the spire as the vehicle climbed toward its upper levels.
The Vista Barista was exactly what the name indicated. When Vivian arrived on the roof of the building, she was greeted by her suitor offering her a hand as she stepped out of the transport.
"Hi," Vivian said softly, already intimidated by the large man's gentle smile.
"Hi," Delano replied, himself intimidated by Vivian's beautiful visage.
The two were awkwardly silent and still, their touching hands freezing them in place. Vivian was afraid that the man would bow and kiss the top of her hand as if it were an old movie, but she felt a subtle disappointment when he refrained from doing so, instead guiding her to the entry elevator.
The descent into the Vista Barista was breathtaking, as many things so often were on this planet. The beautiful elegance of the café was eclipsed by the view that inspired its name. After stepping out of the elevator, they moved to a secluded enclave next to the inclined glass wall, allowing them to peer out and see the not-quite skyscrapers and skybridges stretching out interminably to meet the curvature of Nexus's surface.
"What do you think?" Del said. Vivian looked over the expansive grid of buildings below them.
"It's quite the sight," she said with a calm demeanor.
"You don't have acrophobia, do you?"
"When I arrived here only weeks ago, I might have said yes, but extreme heights seem to be unavoidable in this city."
"That's true, at least if you are fortunate enough to live above the surface."
Del did not need to order his coffee, as his digital companion understood his tastes and ordered his drink ahead of time. As soon as they were seated, a waitron approached and placed two drinks on the table between them.
"What is this?" Vivian asked. Del was unsure of the name himself and would have needed to access his companion for the information. Instead, he just looked to the waitron.
"This is called a Nitro Cascade," she said. "It is an espresso infused with nitrogen, layered with a cascade of frothed salted caramel cream, and accented with cracked cacao."
"It really is very good," Del said, sipping at the caramel froth. Vivian took a sip of her own and hummed with satisfaction.
"Wow! That's incredible, thank you!" She said. The waitron smiled with a polite nod and left the table.
"You do live above ground, yes?" Del asked.
"You know I do. You sent the transport, didn't you?" Vivian replied. Del nodded with a smile, and Vivian continued, "would it have been an issue if I didn't?"
"Not in the least bit, but I will be honest, I was surprised to find out that, not only do you live above ground, but you actually live on The Spire's exterior, and on a platform, no less."
"What about it surprises you?"
"We did meet on the surface, first of all. Not many people from The Spire ever set foot on the surface. That and my intuition."
"Intuition, huh?" Vivian grinned. "What else does your intuition tell you about me?"
"If I'm being honest, now that I have an idea of how you live, my intuition is a bit thrown. I don't really know what to think of you."
"Is that a good thing?"
"I'm not quite sure," Del said, then leaned forward and squinted his eyes at her, as if he was trying to peer past her stony facade. When he was unable to make it through, he smiled. "But I admit, the mystery is interesting."
"What mystery is that?"
"Where do you come from, Vivian Frost?"
"Would you believe me if I told you that I popped out of thin air?" Vivian sat back and sipped her drink.
"That tends to happen a lot these days." They both laughed at the tired joke. "So, what do you already know about me?" Del asked.
"Hmmm." Vivian put a finger to her chin. "I can't really shy away from the obvious. You're the CEO of a pretty big company, right?"
"I'm not sure if it's really that big yet." Del was trying to be modest. It wasn't working. "I only started it maybe a month before you got here."
"Ohh, you're the founder too?" Vivian batted her eyes, flattering the man. "What business are you in?"
"It's a corporation, so there are a few things, but we mostly focus on erecting megastructures from Plasteel, much like The Spire itself."
"Being that your business is so new, I don't imagine that you've built anything yet?" Vivian asked.
"Nope, not as of yet, but I have some ideas, and we're currently working on getting together clients and contractors."
"Can you tell me one of these ideas, or is that a breach of client confidentiality or proprietary information or something?" Vivian's question elicited a laugh from Del.
"This one's a bit down the road, probably won't happen for a few years yet. I'm planning a terraforming support station. A satellite with enough mass to stabilize a planet's orbit, protect it from impact, and with its own OTech drive. It will be the largest megastructure in human history by far. Unless someone beats me to it."
"Wow!" Vivian's excitement was subtle. "That's quite the ambitious project!"
"I certainly agree."
"It seems like a lot of work."
"That it is."
"Well," Vivian said, tucking a lock of her platinum hair behind her ear, "I appreciate you taking some time for me."
"I would say that I just couldn't resist, which is true, but I have to admit that I am still doing work as we speak." Del brought his hand up and tapped his neck at the the base of his skull. Vivian wasn't completely oblivious. She could see the flickering in his eyes.
"Whether or not you are multitasking, you are still dedicating your meat to me, and that's still nice... Unless... your not using a surrogate body are you?"
"Of course not!" Del reached his arm out and placed his open palm between them on the table. "I am still mostly meat, and my grey matter is right here."
Vivian's hand reached out and hesitated momentarily before placing her palm against his. Del used his other hand to cup her fingers. He was warm to the touch, and even as gentle as it was, she could feel his blood beating against the tips of his fingers.
"And I'm already enjoying the time I am spending with you."
"Is that so?" Vivian asked coyly as she took a sip of her espresso. "Is this what you do for fun?"
"What, take women out to coffee shops?" Del laughed. "Not really. It is fun, as I said, but unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time to myself in a while."
"I see. What would you do for fun if you had the time?"
"I don't really know, to be honest." Del presented an embarrassed smile.
"Really?" Vivian said with a confused smile. "You have to at least have time enough to think about it, right?"
"I suppose that without a BSI, it's hard to imagine having access to an entire galaxy of information, people, AI's and quantum computers, and all at the speed of thought."
"That sounds like too much."
"I think it certainly can be, but if you have a good companion, they'll quickly learn how to organize and present data in a way that your brain is most easily able to consume and process."
"Your companion, huh?" Vivian asked. Del already knew where this was going, but let her continue anyway. "Aren't those often used for sexual companionship?"
"They are, yes, and I assume that's probably their primary use for most people."
"What about for you?"
"Not for me. My companion is almost exclusively used for scheduling, resource and data management, translations, etcetera. I'm not too into the sexual aspects of companions. I hope it's not to forward to say that I much prefer actual flesh and blood."
"Blood?" Vivian raised an eyebrow. Del shook his head with a nervous laugh, letting his professional demeanor drop.
"Well, not blood, per se. It's a common idiom!" Del could see Vivian's laugh at his sudden discomfort. "You know what I mean."
The first stop on their continuing itinerary was originally a throw-away suggestion from Del, an OTech History Museum funded by TitanArc that had just had its grand opening. Vivian and Del grabbed a luxurious transport and were at the Museum at the foot of the Spire within minutes. As they approached the building, Vivian could see a small degree of discomfort in his aura.
"I wasn't able to attend the grand opening in person, so this is the first time I'm seeing it," Del said as they stood outside the entrance, nursing the last of his coffee. "I feel like I'm indulging in self-congratulation."
"For what?" Vivian asked, "I don't imagine you built this with your own two hands, right?" Her snappy response elicited rolling eyes from Del.
"Nonetheless."
"Well, it's a museum. You also didn't gather all of the information provided within, did you?"
"Not necessarily, but OTech is my field of expertise, you could say."
"I remember you mentioning Plasteel, but do you do a lot of work with OTech Drives?"
"Sure, mostly as an energy tap and general logistics."
"Did you go to school for it?"
"Well..." Del crossed his arms, displaying subtle discomfort with the question. "Not exactly. I did go through school and have a few business degrees, but I would say that I have done a significant amount of research into OTech through context."
"... Context?" Vivian asked.
"My companion has been with me since I received my BSI when I was a kid. It has since become exceptional at providing me information that is relevant to whatever I'm looking at, interacting with, or even thinking about."
"Hmm... Doesn't that get intrusive and annoying?"
"Not really. If I'm being honest, I haven't actively thought about it in a while. It's very good at knowing when I want or need it and being unseen when I don't. Sometimes, I'm not even sure if it's my own thoughts I'm experiencing, or my companion whispering to me."
"That's... a little creepy, if I'm being honest." Vivian punctuated her words with a laugh. "How do you know that your companion isn't manipulating you?"
"I am! I do not believe I would be in the position I'm in without it."
"But how do you know that it's doing it for your benefit, and not its own?"
"I suppose I don't, really. As far as I can tell, it's only been of benefit to me."
"Well, keep an eye on it, at least." Vivian finished the last of her coffee and stood in front of Del. "In any case, you can use your companion to be my own personal docent while we're here."
"Fair enough!" Del said, finishing his own drink. They disposed of their cups and approached the entrance.
The building was quite large, but still paled in comparison to the Spire that it was built up against. It's design was a unique blend of gothic architecture and soft brutalism with most of its facade drawing attention to the exposed Plasteel structure.
Once inside the building, they were presented with a large, open-concept room with subtle guidance toward the exhibits detailing the known history and appearance of the Observers. They followed the exhibits in chronological order with Del acting as an effective docent.
They discussed why the Observers were named the way they were, that before they appeared over the major cities of Earth, they had been spotted many times throughout history. The Observer's exhibit included paintings and photos of what had previously been described as UFOs, UAPs, and even as angels, demons, and Gods.
The appearance of the Observers was extremely well documented with several billion hours of video. There were several displays in the Observer's section, each one playing a randomly selected portion of one of the countless videos collected for the museum's archive.
Just past the arrival, there was a section dedicated to the data cubes that were provided by the Observers, including one of the cubes themselves. It had taken decades to decipher the data within, and there were prevalent theories that not all of the data had been extracted, even to this day.
The cubes contained detailed instructions on the production of the OTech drives and Plasteel. From this point, the path split off to sections dedicated to each of the gifted technologies. It was little surprise that Del drifted toward the OTech Drive sections.
Once plans for the OTech Drive were sufficiently decrypted, engineers across the globe began assembling them. The next stop on their current exhibition route was an exhibit that doubled as a memorial to the more than 200,000 lives that were lost during the first test of the technology. The event was known as the Lunar Teleportation Disaster.
"Two hundred thousand?!" Vivian was shocked as she looked over a photo of the disaster site: a massive, perfectly spherical crater that was left on Luna.
"There were a lot of people working on it, and most were living with their families."
"Their families?"
"Yeah. A lot of people don't realize what it was like before OTech drives. A trip from the Earth to its moon took days, and the rockets could only take a dozen or so with each trip."
"Damn. Could you imagine what that would be like?"
"I can't," Del said, but paused to recant. "Well, Not exactly. I'm actually a bit of a homebody, in a sense. I haven't used OTech travel in years myself, but I am acutely aware of just how necessary it is for today's society to function."
"So, where do you think they went?" Vivian asked, to which Del simply shrugged which an accompanying sound of unsureness.
"I have no idea, and as far as I can tell, nobody else does either. There are theories that they were essentially vaporized and their atoms scattered evenly across the universe. Other theories state that they are still in the place between places, as it were, and some think that they arrived wherever they did intact, though continued survival for much longer afterward is highly unlikely."
"Did they find out what went wrong?"
"Well..." Del held out an arm in guiding Vivian toward the next section. "The other primary technology gifted upon us by the Observers was Plasteel. Not the name, actually. That comes from science fiction stories. The scientific name is damn near unpronounceable, but the Observers provided its chemical structure and instructions on how to produce it.
"What's important," Del continued, "is that it's the only known substance that can constrain the effect of the OTech drive's influence."
"I guess they didn't know that?" Vivian motioned back toward the Lunar Disaster exhibit.
"They did. The problem was that the plasteel shell didn't have quite the right composition," Del said. Vivian nodded along, listening intently, but she could tell that Del was starting to feel self-conscious. After a brief pause, Del rubbed the back of his neck. "I apologize. I didn't really intend for this date to turn into a history lesson."
"It's okay, really!" Vivian said with a warm smile while grabbing Del's arm.
"Are you sure?"
"I am." Vivian began to blush before she continued, the light red in her face a fine contrast to her blue eyes and stark white hair. "You have a great voice, and I'm not really all that educated on the Observers and OTech."
"I see." Del smiled and shyed away from Vivian's gaze as they continued to meander about the Plasteel exhibit. "Thank you."
They were at the back of the Museum, which was up against the wall of the Spire. The exhibit even included the Plasteel structure of the Spire itself as a part of the display, a real-world example of the kind of engineering that humanity was capable of producing thanks to the material.
"What do you know about the Observers?" Vivian asked.
"Not much. About as much as anybody, I guess."
"I didn't see many images of the Observers themselves," Vivian said, gesturing backward, "just their ships."
"That's all the footage there was of them, to be honest. They never left the ships, and we weren't able to get in."
"They never left their ships, as far as any known footage can tell. Some people think that the ships themselves were the Observers, and that they didn't have biological bodies like us."
"What do you think?"
"Hmm..." Del grabbed the scruff on his chin as he thought. "I follow along with the most popular belief that they were the Greys."
"... Greys?"
"Yeah. Kinda big in alien folklore from the 20th century. I mean, not physically big. If you've ever seen movies or TV shows about aliens, you've probably seen them."
"Ahh the little bald dudes with massive heads and big black eyes?"
"Those are the ones. Though, for some reason, I imagine that the Observers are much taller."
"Where do you think they went?" Vivian asked. She was met with a simple shrug from Del. Vivian asked another question. "Where do you think they came from? Do you think they're even from the Milky way?"
"I have no idea," Del said. "I imagine, if they've had this FTL technology for a long time, even the distance between galaxies would be nothing to them. They could literally be anywhere in the universe. Maybe they didn't come from this universe at all."
"Really?"
"Well, maybe. I don't know the specifics of how the OTech drive works. Nobody does, really."
"Do you think the Observers are the only other intelligent species out there?"
"No, I don't think so. When the Observers arrived, all of their ships were identical in appearance, and we named them 'The Observers' because the ships resembled many of those that had been spotted in the skies of Earth for centuries before contact, but those objects were in many different forms. That makes me think they were made by many different species."
"Do you think any of the other ones are among us?" Vivian asked. "You know, in secret?"
"So you have seen the old sci-fi stuff."
"I'm more of a sitcom person myself, but I have seen sitcoms with aliens, so I'm not completely unfamiliar."
"I think they are among us. In this day and age, I don't really think there's many people who don't think so, if they even think about it at all."
It wasn't quite the romantic date that either had expected, but they both found themselves smiling nonetheless.
The exhibition continued into the section detailing the theoretically infinite power generation capabilities of the OTech drive. Even Del learned some things from the exhibit and had already started coming up with ideas for how it could be incorporated into future projects.
The museum exhibition meandered and came to an end at a gift shop, as museums so often do. They enjoyed browsing through the trinkets and novelties, but didn't buy much, except for a couple of t-shirts that in plain white text on black fabric read "I survived first contact and all I got was this stupid t-shirt." They handed off the shirts to a service bot to have them delivered to their residences as they left the museum and went to the Cherry Estate restaurant next door. After ordering their food, the two simply sat and smiled across at each other.
"So, enough talking and lecturing from me," Del said. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"
"There's not a whole lot to tell, what do you want to know?"
"Anything, really. All I really know about you is that you like sitcoms."
"That's true!" Vivian was short with an elusive smile. Del laughed.
"Okay, so what about your childhood? Were you raised by parents, or maybe companions?"
"I suppose it was more of a companion thing. I had parents, but they weren't around a lot after I was five or so."
"I see, that's not too uncommon."
"Is that the way it was for you?"
"Well, sure! I'm not above admitting that I come from a family of reasonable wealth, which in my case meant that my parents were often away on business. I got my BSI pretty early and... I don't know, I feel like I've been along for the ride since then."
"Aren't we all?"
"That's a fair point, but it seems that the ride for some people is much more fortunate than many, many others." Del's smile shifted when he thought about the extreme wealth disparity present across the galaxy, and especially on this very planet. "It's hard not to notice that you seem to be doing alright for yourself."
"Yeah, I do consider myself pretty fortunate as well."
"Can I ask where it comes from?"
Vivian hesitated. She wasn't exactly playing coy, nor was she ashamed of her work, but she was already starting to like him. She didn't want to imply that this was a work function, and that she would be expecting payment.
"Well, uhh..." Vivian looked away as her cheeks reddened. "I suppose now's a good a time as any... I'm actually an escort." She could only look at him through side glances to see his reaction. It was swift.
"Is that so?" Del said. His tone and expression was a cool and calming blue, belying little change in his demeanor toward her with this new information. It made Vivian smile.
"Don't worry, I'm not charging you for this," she said.
"I appreciate your candor!" Del didn't try to avoid the topic, instead diving straight in. "I imagine your clientele must be pretty high-class for you to be able to afford your home, yes?"
"I don't want to toot my own horn, but..." Vivian trailed off, letting the silence answer for her.
