Read Novel Full Chapter 684: Time Moving Forward
Chapter 684: Time Moving Forward
For the 1,240 individuals who received the notification at 12:05 AM, the concept of a seventy-two-hour confirmation window was entirely unnecessary.
Across six continents, the acceptance buttons were clicked within seconds. Nobody took time to sleep on the decision. Nobody consulted financial advisors or debated the logistical nuances of moving to orbit.
Driven by the sheer, paralyzing fear that every wasted second was an opportunity for a server glitch or a revoked offer, the selected candidates confirmed their employment before their heart rates had even begun to settle.
In the hours and days that followed, a distinct, unshakable physical trait united humanity’s first orbital workforce: an expression of profound, quiet euphoria. It was a smile that simply could not be hidden. They wore it while formally acknowledging their digital paperwork, while reading through their comprehensive onboarding packets, and while receiving their highly classified departure logistics.
Naturally, the pride was too immense to keep entirely secret. Within hours of the notifications going out, screenshots of the crisp, white Selection Confirmed emails began flooding LucidNet.
However, unlike the clinical trial staff—who had occasionally leaked their own transport coordinates and found themselves swarmed by media mobs—this new cohort operated with a fierce, absolute paranoia. They posted the acceptance headers, but every single detail regarding their departure dates, their designated airports was heavily redacted.
This was not merely a job offer; it was a permanent exit from the economic anxieties of the old world. It was a lottery ticket to a post-scarcity future, and not a single one of the 1,240 selected staff was willing to give the media, their governments, or jealous terrestrial employers the slightest opportunity to sabotage their flight.
Meanwhile, the ongoing clinical trial staff working at the Lunar Base Sanctuary checked their own dashboards. None of them had been selected for the Lagrange 5 postings.
Rather than feeling disheartened, the medical staff took the rejection in stride. They understood the logistical reality: Nova Technologies needed them exactly where they were to monitor the remaining trial volunteers.
Furthermore, the sheer scale of the space station construction had sparked a new theory among the lunar medical team. If Nova was capable of fabricating a fifty-five-kilometer megastructure in thirty days, the eventual global rollout of the Medical Nanites would undoubtedly require terrestrial infrastructure.
The clinical trial staff quietly held out hope that their current lunar service would place them at the front of the line to manage the planetary medical centers Nova Technologies would inevitably need to build on Earth.
Back on the ground, the terrestrial labor market was experiencing the immediate shockwaves of the selection.
For the candidates hired under the Full-Time Rotation category, the resignation letters were drafted and submitted by sunrise. They did not hesitate to sever ties with terrestrial employers who had spent years underpaying them.
But for the Relief Rotation staff, the immediate future required a different kind of patience.
According to their departure briefings, both Full-Time and Relief staff would travel to the space station together for their initial orientation and training. However, once orientation concluded, the Relief staff would return to Earth. They would remain on standby for the next six to twelve months, waiting for their Full-Time counterparts to conclude their active rotations and return for mandatory rest.
Because Nova Technologies explicitly structured the Relief roles to only receive compensation during their active orbital coverage periods, these individuals had to maintain their terrestrial jobs in the interim.
Yet, the prospect of returning to their old shifts did absolutely nothing to diminish their joy. Walking into a grueling twelve-hour hospital shift or a chaotic restaurant kitchen felt entirely different when an employee knew they were simply killing time before flying to space. The structural anxiety of terrestrial survival was gone; their old jobs were no longer lifelines, just temporary waiting rooms.
For all 1,240 accepted staff, time immediately dilated. Every hour felt like a week. They wanted nothing more than to pack their bags and step onto a space shuttle immediately, but the cosmic reality held them in place: the titanium megastructure at Lagrange 5 would not be fully habitable for another two weeks.
***
While the orbital workforce packed their bags and counted the hours, the off-world medical program continued to yield its own miracles.
Fifteen more clinical trial volunteers were officially cleared from the Lunar Base Sanctuary. Having completed their exhaustive nanite treatments and entered the twelve-month monitoring phase, they were loaded onto Vanguard-class shuttles and returned to Earth.
Their departure brought the total number of perfectly healed volunteers back in human society to fifty-five, leaving just forty-five remaining in the lunar trial.
Once again, their atmospheric descent triggered massive public spectacles. Massive crowds, international media crews, and weeping families gathered outside the designated regional airports, desperate to catch a glimpse of the people who were actively participating in the greatest medical monument in human history.
As the terminal cancer patients and formerly paralyzed individuals walked out onto the tarmac in flawless, glowing health, Nova Technologies released the exact same brief, authoritative transparency statement they had issued prior.
And once again, the sovereign governments of the world found their hands completely tied. Faced with rolling cameras and an ecstatic global public, state intelligence and health ministries were forced to quietly process the returning citizens, completely powerless to intervene, detain, or audit them.
For the rest of the world watching from the sidelines, time seemed to move with a strange, contradictory momentum—blisteringly fast, yet agonizingly slow.
The global population was entirely consumed by the dual countdowns ticking away on their dashboards. They watched the live construction feed of the fifty-five-kilometer space city nearing its final weeks of assembly, while simultaneously bracing for the looming sixty-day deadline that would unleash LucidNet Finance upon the global economy.
Humanity was holding its collective breath, waiting for the two timers to hit zero.
But while the world was busy waiting, Nova Technologies dropped yet another announcement.
And this time, it was an announcement for the thousands of Lucid users. An announcement of the biggest update Nova Technologies has made to the device so far.