Chapter 161: Chapter 160: How Long?

After reading over the more comprehensive report that Jason submitted, I told Enrico Perez that we were moving his labs to DTI and told him to get in touch with Jason once he had. I’m ordering them to work together since, in a way, their work overlaps. I have high hopes that it will hasten the pace of research and development for both of them.

We have since activated a much larger cold fusion reactor on the campus, and it’s a full fifty terawatts now. Tokyo Electric went ahead and expanded the connection to it and then shut down their own power generation for the prefecture. Even with the drop in energy prices for the prefecture, we’re generating, at minimum, sixty million yen per day.

The expanded power capabilities should also help Jason, and his team, with research and development. He also got a building to himself.

At the same time, I had Mirai create new nanite labs at TGR. Helium-3 levels are soon going to be critical. So, the new labs are programming and building nanites to collect it on the moon. That also means that we'll be building another ship to deploy them. This one should be faster to build and much less costly since it doesn’t need to be quite so robust. It merely needs to reach the moon and return for the moment. I’ve got other labs looking at how we can return the H-3 to Earth. Look, setting the new craft down on the moon isn’t going to be the problem, it’s getting to the collection points, getting it into the ship, and returning with tons of H-3 in a timely manner.

After our last conversation, Jenny had a discussion with Prime Minister Koya. So, next week we will be receiving the very first privately owned level 1 AI, Metis. If you aren’t up on Greek Goddesses, Metis is the Goddess of wisdom and mother of Athena. Having her is going to make coordinating everything that much easier.

[Monday, Sept 1]

School began again this morning. We attended the opening ceremony, and I spent some of the morning saying hello and chatting with our friends.

They did come over a few times during summer vacation to go swimming and hang out, but with my busy schedule, I wasn’t able to join them. I barely have time to spend with my family and Ryu.

Honestly, at this point, I can’t see myself having time to attend school other than to take my tests, and what’s even the point with that being the case? The whole point of me attending was socialization, and truthfully, I get far more of that at work already. Therefore, after a family discussion, I will be testing out of the remainder of middle school. Of course, Chinatsu and Sofi said that they were going to do the same so that we could remain together. Ryu isn't so worried about it. He mostly just said that his grades are decent and while they are still improving, he doubted that he would be able to test out. Mama and Dad did refuse to allow me to test out of high school for the moment. Personally, I believe it had more to do with Chinatsu than me. They might want to see how she performs before allowing further skipping of grades. We all know that Chinatsu would want to skip it too if I did. I don’t believe that Honoka or Sofi will have a problem either way.

One further benefit is that it will place us in the same grade as Honoka. With all that in mind, after the opening ceremony, we went to the office for a talk with Mr. Fujita about taking the advancement tests. He clearly wasn’t too happy about it. In my opinion, that’s mostly due to the loss of funding for me. He finally agreed though, and said that he would make the arrangements.

[Monday, Sept 15]

In my opinion, Mr. Fujita took his sweet time getting things set up, but finally, we’re taking the tests today. There really isn’t much to say about it. After all, they’re merely a large batch of assessment tests.

[Tuesday, Sept 16]

Mama had Eir wake us up at nine this morning. Yes, we were sleeping in since it is one of my mandated ‘no work’ days. She further tells us to dress comfortably because Mama's taking us shopping.

If you’re wondering why, think about what time of year it is. That’s right, starting at the end of the month we have a whole series of birthdays coming up. Mine is September 30th. In Oct, we have Chinatsu’s on the 17th and Honoka’s on the 22nd. November brings about Mama’s birthday on the 19th. Kaede’s and Eri’s first birthday is December 15th. Sofi’s is January 24th. As you can see, there is a lot of planning and activity for the family packed into that short timeframe.

I’ve already been informed by Mama and Dad that my birthday is going to be a gala event, so it has to be held at a convention center since so many people want to attend. Of course, there will always be the usual people, family, friends, business acquaintances and the like, but now I’m told that a lot of the coalition nations want to send either national leaders or representatives. One of them that made me laugh so hard that I almost wet myself is when China requested that they be allowed to send someone as well. You can rest assured that their request was turned down flat in two words by Dad, “Not happening.” Needless to say, he had my complete agreement on the matter.

I have no idea why, but sending people to attack me, my family and my friends isn’t a good way to endear yourself to me. Me, and my family, aren’t politicians. That means that I don’t have to play the uber polite young lady with people who piss me off. I’m more than likely to smile as I tell you to jump into an active volcano, and if you happen to be able to walk away unscathed, then maybe we can talk.

The thing that makes me saddest is that all of the incidents in the last two years have really colored my world view in a negative way. I’ve always looked for the best in people, even as I knew that a lot of them would do the opposite. Hiroaki Abe for example.

What’s even worse than that is how every single incident has gotten me pushed deeper into a corner with more and more people blocking away the very people that I’m trying my hardest to save. I’d really love it if someone could explain that to me.

I had a conversation with Airi about this in one of our sessions when I told her that I thought it would be great if people had an on/off switch for their baser instincts.

You are reading story Upside Down at novel35.com

She merely shook her head and smiled as she explained, “Sora, that would make for a world full of zombies. Is that what you want to save? People argue, fuss and fight their way through a life, that for most of them, makes little sense. They’re born, grow, work and maybe a few of them will accomplish something of real importance, retire and then die. Most of them only feel like a cog in a machine that they have very little control over.”

I leaned forward and asked, “Do you think I have much control over my life? I feel like my life's direction was co-opted from the moment they found out that I was a genius. Look, I realize that I have more control over mine than probably most of them do, but there are times when I feel as if I’m merely a doll being posed this way and that. In the last two years, I have exactly two instances where I had actual control of what was going on. Do you know what they are?”

She tilts her head to the side and looks at me for a moment before saying, “I have an idea, but why don’t you tell me.”

I hold up my hand, then raise my thumb, “Chinatsu,” followed by my index finger, “and Ryu.” I smile and then continue, “Chinatsu was decided for me from the moment we met, the only thing I decided was when I would take the next step for her and I’ve never regretted it for a moment. Ryu, I decided he was going to be mine from the moment I met him as a girl. The two of them are mine, and in return, I’m theirs. There is literally nothing that I wouldn’t do for either of them. They are the reason for everything I do. Does that make sense?”

She nods. “Sora… Everyone is the same way. They don’t do altruistic things for humanity as a whole. They do it as a benefit for themselves or for a select group of people they love, if that somehow translates into helping humanity, then great. In your case, that’s Chinatsu and Ryu, and to a larger extent, your family and friends, but you also see the bigger picture that humans need each other, and therefore, you are willing to include them in your plans and save humanity, even if it is a side effect of saving those you love.

“Back to the other point you made. I don’t care who you are, what position you hold, or where you are in life, no one has total control of their own life. There’s too many little interactions amongst all of us that influence each of us. You own a lot of businesses and are the director of the coalition research and development efforts. Yet, you still need farmers, ranchers, fisherman, scientists, engineers and general workers to aid you in all of your efforts. Each of them, in some way, be it small or large, control what you can and can’t do. That is why and how humanity is connected.”

As you can see, most of our conversations these days are to help me vent and cope with my stress. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without Jenny and Airi.

I really went off on a tangent there, didn’t I?

Anyway, Mama takes us girls shopping to get a number of new party dresses for each of us and we eat out for lunch. The best part for me was it was only us girls and we had a lot of fun.

[Monday, September 29]

I received a really early call from Erica today. Saying she was rather excited would be like saying that Mt. Vesuvius destroying Pompei was a minor incident. I realize that breakthroughs happen all hours of the day or night, especially with as single minded as scientists can be, but I dearly wish they would keep to a more normal schedule from time to time.

Mama and Dad know my schedule down to the smallest detail, so when unscheduled call-ins happen, they are to be informed immediately. So, I have Eir wake them up and let them know that I have to go into DTI as soon as possible. Then, I kiss Chinatu and Ryu and head into the bathroom to bathe. When I come out, I find that Mama has done her usual. This time laying out a grey, cowl neck, cable knit, long sleeve, fitted sweater mini dress; sheer stockings; and yellow thigh boots.

An hour later, Honoka and I enter Erica’s office with Jason sitting there looking as if he hadn’t slept in a couple of days. “Morning. What’s up? Nothing went wrong, did it?”

They both laugh and then Erica says, “Far from it. Jason merely thought you’d like to hear this first hand.”

Grinning, he says, “We were able to enter the zeta band this morning. You remember that we’ve been sending test objects to MIT?” I nod. “Good. As I said before, it was taking about a microsecond for it to arrive via the beta band or 11 gigameters per second. The zeta band took exactly a nanosecond. So in other words, the relative speed was 11 petameters per second and the power requirements for us to enter the band were almost astronomical. My team and I just shortened the life of the reactor on site by quite a bit because it went into overload to keep up with the requirements. Without a massive increase in power generation capabilities, we’ll never be able to enter the eta or theta bands, and that is only with using a small test object. The bigger it is, the higher the power requirements to enter the bands become. Athena did some calculations, and for a 500 meter ship to enter the beta band, we’re going to need a reactor capable of producing at least 100 terawatts for a couple of microseconds while it slips into the band.

“Regardless, the most we’d ever need within our solar system would be to enter the beta band since we could cross our solar system, which is 288 terameters in diameter, in less than 30 seconds.

“Ms. Kobayashi, I’d say that once we have a full scale engine built and the reactor we need to power the ship, the solar system is ours.” He stands up, bows dramatically, and grins like an idiot as he states, “You're welcome.”

All I can do is sit there, eyes wide, with my mouth slightly hanging open because of how dumbfounded I am with the numbers that he’s throwing at me. Of course, his announcement might have a tiny bit to do with it as well. It takes me a minute, and Honoka chuckling as she closes my mouth, for me to gather my wits enough to ask, “How long to build it?”

He shrugs. “That’s a question best asked of the engineering team.”

You can find story with these keywords: Upside Down, Read Upside Down, Upside Down novel, Upside Down book, Upside Down story, Upside Down full, Upside Down Latest Chapter