“Wake up.” “I’m up.  When does work start?” Trevail woke from stasis on the approach to Orycheio as instantly as he fell into stasis on Livadi in preparation for Schrodinger compression to the Shudra 3 system.  Stasis embalming slowed his physiological decay to the equivalent of aging just under four Terra Standard years while traveling the 108 light year distance on a cargo network.  Anyone he knew on Livadi, save those promoted elsewhere, were long dead, as were their children.  The Ploutokratia travelled on harmonized entangled networks and in this way experienced virtually zero physiological change while ever pushing the boundaries of the known realm beyond the knowable frontier by abstracting away observable constraints and exploiting imperceptible arbitrage.  But they had not come within 1,000 light years of the Shudra systems since Kyvernitis productionized them in 450.  They had long since stopped considering the origin of the power supply that gave breath to their decision models and were only dutifully aware of ergasia but spoke of them only in school yard taunts and ghost stories.  AI predicted contentment where exposure to extreme social division is minimized and applied the strategy judiciously to all kastes.  With over 100 suns and orders of magnitude more social parameters between Trevail and the nearest Ploutokratia, the two would construe nothing constructive of self under such austere juxtaposition.  So, AI mandated them disjointed.  As there are computational costs to manipulate high dimensional geometry, there are opportunity costs to emotionally regulate a distraught populace. “Stand when you are ready to learn.”

Cargo networks impacted humans primarily as an outcome of residual error in the projection mapping scaled by the differences in mass of the suns on either end of the entanglement.  Inanimate objects paid no such price during compression travel, finished goods arrived anywhere as fresh as the moment they were packaged and shipped. Schrödinger Dilation so rarely killed ergasia and most almost fully recovered physically and mentally within days, weeks, or months such that solving for the lost productivity did not warrant the expense to solve dilation on the cargo network.  Superposition set jumps affected everyone differently, but Trevail fell to his knees the moment he tried to stand, vomiting as his mind placed him back home in the chest-high grass of this youth.  His perception was intermittently out of phase with his body like watching your shadow round a corner before you.  “What the fuck?” 

Under empirical observation, compression travel appears to occur instantaneously as an isomorphic mapping maximizes a facilitation function subject to the observable constraints imposed on the entangled sets.  Corpor 1 filed the first compression mapping intellectual property that exploited Eigen arbitrage to circumvent the physical constraint of distance between any two points in dimensionally oriented space and launched a trade empire once valued higher than the cumulative sum of every mercantile venture, registered or otherwise, to date.  Corpor 1 built a transportation lattice of infinite scalability where lead time is functionally non-existent.  “You are experiencing dilation symptoms.  Dress and enter the adjoining room after the symptoms begin to subside.”  The central overhead light brightened enough for him to see the bed he had just fallen from, the desk and chair, a rack of clothes, and one wash and waste stall.  The light echoed and the grass froze.  He crawled to the shower.

The steam filled the stall like an early morning fog enveloping the Livadi wetlands.  His vision began to focus.  His skin felt the warm water cascading around him.  His mind and body were orienting to the stall, to the room, and to whatever was beyond the door of his room.  He knew he worked on Livadi but could no longer see his co-workers’ faces or remember anything about his day-to-day life.  He had only a sense of the place. The place existed and he had once lived there, but the details were flowing down the drain, as he had been chemically cleansed of his past to hasten his cognitive calibration to the present.  “Dress and join the others in the central room.”  The clothes were suited to a man 25 pounds heavier than him and from among the shoe choices he picked the most utilitarian looking pair.  While his mind felt attuned to his situation, his body and countenance were still in limbo somewhere between where he was, where he is, and where he will be.  He willed himself through the door.

A dozen people occupied the central room, and all were in various states of disarray.  A naked man lay in a fetal position in the corner of the room.  Another managed to clothe himself but walked barefoot from door to door unable to find his room.  He heard quiet sobbing coming from more than one person and there was ample evidence of more than one vomitous person in the room.  A few people were seated at communal tables in a feeble attempt to anchor themselves to this new reality but did not project stability in the least.  At the center of the room, casually ensconced in two of the most inviting four seats in the room, he saw a pair that were clearly the most recognizably stable people in the room.  “Morning.”  “Morning,” they replied in unison.  He sat down.

“Do you know when we start work today”,” he asked to neither directly.  The man on the left spoke first.

“We have not worked since we got here.” 

“We have not worked in five days,” echoed the woman. 

“Then what are we doing here?” 

They both shrugged.  The man looked considerably taller than Trevail, which was starkly evident even while seated.  The woman’s eyes were by far the most alert in the room, she vigilantly scanned each person in the room and her attention came back to Trevail. 

“You got in last night.” 

“Yeah, I guess so.  You’ve been here a few days?” 

“Yeah.” 

“As far as I can see,” the man said, “we get out of here as soon as we’re not sick anymore.” 

“A few of the people I first saw aren’t here anymore, and they got better after a few days,” affirmed the woman, “but a few of them are worse than ever.”  

“Well, I guess I’m feeling better already then,” he said. 

“Yeah,” they said in harmony. 

“Everyone to the galley, breakfast is ready. Find a seat at the communal table.”

More than half the people were able to follow more than half the instructions, but many did not.  The morning schedule continued regardless.  Everyone able to serve themselves food, sit down at the table, and eat, did so quietly.  A couple of people stared at empty plates, thoroughly astonished at the shape and sheen of the white discs.  Many people were still prostrate on the floor having been rendered docile for the meal break.  “Has anyone ever had food like this?” came bounding down the table like a bounced ball from one end to the other.  “I don’t know what this is, and I don’t think its so good either.”  She stood up, put the tray, plate, fork, and cup onto the conveyor into the scullery, and with all the aplomb of a pensive adolescent, plopped into one of the central four upholstered chairs.  The three other most aware people in the room shortly followed suit.  “How long have you been here?” Trevail asked.  “Too long.  I was a puking crying mess yesterday and today I am ready to clock in,” she asserted.  Her hands told a different story.  She was gripping the chair arms as though she would float away otherwise and a film of sweat across her forehead suggested she had a fever.  Her vital metrics indicated a slight temperature, her physiological covariance was rapidly approaching 0, and her demeanor only recently cohered, as well.  She was likely ready to begin training as were the other three given their respective fitness for duty panels. 

“Hello. I’m Trevail.” 

“Hi.  I’m Plaindre.” 

“Vue,” said the man. 

“Conscient,” said the woman. 

“Nice to meet you,” they all resounded.

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