Universal Warfare

Chapter VI - What Sin?

H5: A mission report request, from H-4 in the USS, I'm finally about to meet the Director and Chairman or should I say ChairWoman/Stakeholder of the Vinylon corporations; not sure this is the best time to answer the communication, after all, I've only been here for three weeks. I don't want to worry Thomas, better to reply outside of the waiting room, and when my Q is two or three positions from being called I'll come back inside for my interview.

This waiting room is spectacular, I'm loving the circular structure, glass panels give entrance to the balcony from where you are greeted by a 360-degree view of the city; its modular structure can be perfectly appreciated from here, like petals connecting to this central tower.

Let's begin the report from here then.

Warmth, humidity, peace, and happiness; soft skin were the walls around me, in the dark nest there was no reason to be afraid, it was an entity that anticipated our arrival transmitting caring thoughts as they delivered us into the world.

The light in my eyes was blinding, around the room other six humans were also in containment chambers, one of them was quick to create a suit for her naked body; I was so fascinated with the dome above the room where, how the light entered the room illuminating the crystal floor beneath which different amphibious animals could be seen. My outfit was a replica of what I was wearing the last time I could remember, H3HQ, where all of us got sent to different corners of the Universe; if only we could meet again, devise a strategy to come up with a better future for humanity.

Before my chamber opened, the medical droids came in, they kept scanning each one of us; I could only hope they wouldn't find me defective.

"These three are already woke, some of them even have suits, how southing hihi" That voice didn't come from any of the droids, as a matter of fact, they didn't speak at all.

My chamber was drained like a bathtub from the organic fluid, water and soap started pouring in, I imagined that's what being inside of a washing machine could feel like; the drying was over, and my chamber was now open. "Welcome to Vinylon V1, my name is Mirmind and I will guide you into your journey, please equip your VAR, and let's begin".

My first day was strange, to say the least, they must have sedated me in H3HQ before sending me here. But that chamber, it was nothing like the cryogenic chambers I had seen before, it still eludes me. In the past three weeks I haven't seen any other humans in this city, still not sure who the other six in the rest of the chambers were, and where did they come from, or what's going to happen to them. I don't want to worry you Thomas, but this situation is certainly unsettling; the uncertainty as usual is the worst part, not knowing if the rest of you are having a similar experience if you are taking care of yourselves, not to speak of my babies back home, I just hope that the three boys are taking care of each other. My youngest with his dreamy smile and round eyes with those eyelashes you'd only see in a cosmetics advertisement, my eldest with his thick hair and eyebrows accompanied by a square jaw girls would collapse for, and of course their father; my sweet, gentle Ikram, the best and worst of both of them. I can't believe I didn't get the chance to tell you about any of them when we met, not even bout my eldes, the seventeen-year-old who wants to go into architecture school and become the new Bjarke Ingels; a shame that they only let us spend less than an hour together in the ship, when I heard some of you talking about football all I could think of was my fifteen-year-old and his dream of becoming a professional football player and a coach after that, he dreams of owning his own football team one day, his brother says he could build him a city stadium, not sure if their father should encourage them in that idea, but what can I expect? Sometimes he is the biggest child of the three. Someone has to be there to be a mature influence, even if they don't like hearing words of caution, better to at least ease your conscience knowing that you said them; but what do women know right? Not like 96 to 99% of the women who hired private investigators were right, whereas men were only right 50% of the time, or the fact most women know the difference between accepting a desire and acting upon it; being able to reconcile their emotions as part of their human condition instead of lying to themselves and others, maybe it's just a matter of time to gain perspective, women maturing and coming of age before men certainly doesn't help. Visit a house for the elder and you'll see, check who the visitors are, who the caretakers are; the elder whose wisdom we sometimes don't deserve and whose minds are sometimes as vibrant as the day they had their first laugh, caricaturized by our collective bias with no chance for empathy or self-reflection.

Many people consider religion outdated, archaic, extravagant, and in some cases obsolete; but have you ever wondered what sort of human behavior rules and contracts have been installed in its place? The Golden rule included in most of the main religions of our species "Treat others the way you would like to be treated", I'm not saying that everyone who has ever been involved with religion has lived by these words, you only need to take a look at the cases of pedophilia in catholic schools for those with impaired hearing for example; but wouldn't it be nice to at least have this collective sense of responsibility to strive for such ideal, instead of following politicians and false prophets who pretend to lead us into a victory only they can achieve against an enemy we can't see but from which only them can keep us safe.

Growing up they taught us that the best way to pray was singing, but given the nature of our God - one that all religions claim to see but on whose name they have massacred millions throughout history - it became increasingly difficult to imagine a fully mature God who made us in his image and cares for us all. It became easier for me to imagine an immature being as our god, a child whose time in the sandbox led him to create something magnificent without a specific intention, whose creation had to be understood up to its main root for it to be taken care of properly; after spending most of my childhood getting dirtier than was tolerable in the backyard of my parent's house in Tel Aviv, trying to get everything I could under a microscope, it was impossible to understand at that age what a privilege it was to grow up in that house in Neve Tzedek only a few blocks away from the museum. On highschool chemistry class seem the perfect opportunity to obtain the most important tools I would need to understand everything around me, chemical engineering at the Israel Institute of Technology seemed to offer be the natural step after that after completing my military service of course; my mother had always wanted to be an architect herself, she would always see my drawing and think I could become one. My father, after having dealt with many Architects in decade long projects as a Civil Engineer, wanted me to follow a passion with a less frenetic lifestyle; he would check the mail every day waiting for that letter from Technion, one day it arrived, the smiles in our faces were enough for mom to put the dream of having an architect in the family to rest and treasure our collective happiness above any possible vision she had created in her mind. My parents were the most lovable people I had the opportunity to meet, as the years passed it became evident how most of the things that angry me about them would be almost impossible to avoid making my children resent me for; nevertheless going to study to a different city away from your parents house was not something many women could do Worldwide at the time, it was hard to ignore the added bonus.

After my first day it seemed clear they had planned for me to continue the path I had been on during all these years, moreover, they wanted my experience to be holistically rehabilitating; it would all start with a deep analysis of my sense of importance, my attitude when confronted with the utopian nature of my ambitions which don't necessarily correspond with my truest desires, the irrational fear derivative of a lack of instruments to measure the magnitude of importance certain aspects of life should truly have in my daily life.

Religion doesn't often offer introspection without guilt, that was something they had found flawed in my thought process, something we would constantly debate during the next weeks; but for that night all that could be good for me was some sleep.

"Good morning V1!" Then I understood they were referring to me as V1, so far I had figured it was just part of the name of the city, First version of Vinylon maybe.

"Good morning Mirmind" Had never seen her, but either she was the kindest AI ever, or she was actually a nice human. Maybe there are other humans outside of Earth? Or maybe we were not the only ones taken by that crew? just the only ones affected by strange matter? Hard to say. In any case, so far she had provided me with a wonderful afternoon and evening the day before, there was no reason to be impolite to her.

"Please follow me to the research facilities." She could operate any droid or electronics in the city, so far I had been in the ground level of the Central module of the City structure, the bottom of the magnificent spiral ending with this last floor from which I now speak to you. We headed to a ring-shaped building surrounding the tower where the day before we had our introduction, again no one but Mirmind.

"Welcome to your studio, where you'll be asked to complete your project, if you have any questions please do not hesitate in contacting me."

"Sorry Mirmind but what project?"

"The project for which you have been delivered to this place."

"Mirmind excuse me but all we have discussed so far is our mutual admiration for this place, how it's design, how the materials are used, how it makes you feel inspired yet welcomed. But you already knew all these things, I'm not yet sure how much are you creator of this place and how much are you administrator, yet it's clear for you as it is to me there is hardly much to be improved around here; in a way it makes me feel as I'm the one who should be improving, yet so many questions seem to be more important, where are the other six humanoids from earth? or the six that were there when I woke up? How are my boys doing back on Earth? I'm sorry Mir, I know you are only trying to help."

"Please do not apologize, you are here to put all your knowledge and abilities to use, starting with the design for your part of this ring; if in the process you find improvements on yourself all the better, for now, just create, create for your dreams, create for your kind, create because without creativity intelligence is nothing but a list of achievements."

Confused? So was I, or at least I pretended to be. They say necessity is the mother of invention, but in modern times with the perpetual exposition to information, ideas get absorbed subconsciously; creating necessities in us that are not necessarily in our best interest. What was the deeper truth here? There seemed to be only one way to find out.

My Structure - The Inner Ring - had to serve multiple purposes, all levels of specialized education, sciences, arts, and other disciplines; libraries, conference and entertainment centers, exhibitions, advanced research facilities.

It seemed like a task I wasn't qualified for, but with my body being able to transform on any element on the periodic table at least I would never again need a tool, with my VAR equipped I proceeded to scan the rest of the City to draw a full tridimensional blueprint.

Pupil:

Central Tower. Core of the Cybernated system, computerized networking systems, Human Behaviour Development Center, one floor for each need on the pyramid where the best ways to carry humanity forward are discussed.

Inner Ring.

The Iris:

Apartment Urban Area. For those who prefer a more inner-city lifestyle rather than the suburbs.

Central Ring. provide health and child care including educational facilities, dining areas, research labs; design, and shopping centers.

Residential Belt. Single-family homes will be situated among lakes, streams, and extensive landscaping. Accompanied by football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, tennis and all kinds of other courts.

The Sclera:

Circulating Waterways. Surrounding the agricultural belt. Indigenous plants will grow in the waterways to remove bacteria and contaminantsAgriculture belt. Transparent, enclosed buildings will be used to grow plants in a controlled environment without pesticides.

Outer Ring. Automated Energy and Manufacturing plants will serve as a base above which recreational facilities - such as bike paths, riding and hiking trails, golf courses, and other recreational spaces - will be built.

The city has no need for operators, AI systems are in control of transport while also regulating all the energy harvested and consumed by the city, the closest I have ever been to a living organism functioning as a HIVE.

Needing focus more than ever, I decided to put my insecurities behind me and immerse myself in the task in front of me, "find the first task you need to do, and start there".

Analyzing the different styles of design seemed to be the best way to start, the influence from Jacque Fresco and the Venus project design was undeniable I could replace influence with copying if it wasn't for the clear influence of Bjarke Ingels as seen in the ski slopes on top of the roofs of some energy plants; the city reminded me of a watch, a frame which kept the floating city attach to the bay where another completely different city would begging, this one favor a triangular base pyramid structure. There was no time to do a full scan of the neighboring city, despite how interesting its golden pieces looked; our city had a contemporary design for Earth standards but with higher quality materials nuclear pasta alloy was incorporated into the glass and solar panels, wind and hydroelectric turbines, solar sails, repulsive gravity engines, and warp drives, among others.

The curved shape of the buildings along the circles forming the layers of the city gave a feeling of having a unique perspective from the inside without compromising the symmetry of the structure when seen from a distance, if transposed the bottom of the station could resemble a massive strange matter powered device such as the one the machines ship had when spawning a wormhole to take us to H3HQ; as fascinating as this was turning blueprints around wasn't of much help anymore, as I always tell the boys, it's never a bad time to start building something remarkable.

All the layers of the city were built in a modular fashion, from below the water to above the clouds each piece, structure, building, even district had to be able to be separated from the mainframe and replaced if necessary; the exterior had to be curved there was no doubt about it, but on which way? that was a completely different story. The inside of the building had to complete multiple different functions, automated theaters that can go from a football field to an ice hockey court to end as a concert arena wouldn't be enough, the four sides of each room had to be considered in order to magnify the possibilities and avoid unnecessary space in hallways and other access structures.

The interior design would have to match the stainless steel, Mahogany wood, marble floors, and dark glass used throughout the station; it was clear those weren't the materials, but that's exactly what they resembled. The landscape was already adorned with vegetation, mostly bamboo and flowers, at least something I didn't have to worry about.

The science and art of designing and engineering large habitable structures, sounds so simple; but I don't have an architecture degree, I was happy Matai - my eldest - had picked up the career so my mother would finally achieve her dream of having an architect in the family; between dad and him she would have both an Architect and a Civil Engineer who couldn't say no to her.

Those thoughts were not going to get me anywhere, along the years I had visited my father's office many times, blueprints and architect friends were both common at our dinner table; mom wouldn't usually let dad bring anything to the table, pray and blessings only, but when they were working on some small project for a room in the house she wouldn't mind dad's architect friends staying for dinner and drawing on the blueprints on the dining table while eating.

The four steps of the architectural dreams, pencil and ruler leave graphite on a paper one line at a time, imagining the day it will become a palpable reality; if you are working for a massive firm it's possible you'll only be drawing windows or in the worst-case scenario doing the paperwork for the project. The design becomes digital and so the analytical process begins, a battalion of engineers examine the design for every possible flaw, after they have added and taken everything necessary to make your vision come true the project begins; with all the required permits obtained you start construction, the years start passing as you try to develop the landscape and the structure simultaneously if possible. If all the parts involved manage to handle any of the endless incidents that could cause the project to fail, you'll finally have a finished structure, those are more or less the steps depending on the dimension of your project; but that wasn't my case, I got to live the young architect dream of designing an entire building by myself with the added pressure of working on a feel I didn't specialize in.

My boys were always in my mind, it felt odd having to worry about completing this new task while not knowing anything about them, what else could I do to try and get back to them than following whatever program it is they have assigned me to; it was my second night on the station and I couldn't fall asleep.

"Mirmind, are you there?"

"Yes V1, I'm always here darling, how can I help you?"

"Before I say anything, please understand I'm not trying to be negative here ok?"

"You have nothing to worry about dear, I know how you feel about your family but as you know we can't contact beings outside of the Universal Society, it could ruin the social score of your entire species by association; we don't have the trajectory of your travel from Earth which is why unfortunately we can't tell you how long has it been since you left either, we also try contacting the other humans in that Unit Mining Crew Ship but so far we haven't been successful to even locate them, trust me if there is anything else we could tell you we would have done so."

"I'm sorry but I still don't understand who were those other six humans in the chambers where I woke up two days ago, and where is everyone in this city?"

"I told you those were just the effects of the disorientation from getting out of Cryo, you probably saw your own reflection and imagine there were more of you, darling please the important thing is for you to get the maximum you can out of this experience as we discussed; and as for this city, it's built by drones so all we need are brilliant creators such as yourself no matter which label they use to classify themselves, after it's completed we would sell the entire City to the highest bidder and move to our next project."

"But who are we? Am I part of your company now? Your nation?" I was too afraid to ask for clarifications the first day, didn't want to be deemed primitive and discarded, but as the words left my mouth I couldn't help but regret showing myself so vulnerable and inquisitive. "Again with the labels, as I told you the first day, we think this is the best way in which you can contribute darling. Once you have finished your program you'll get to meet more members of our organization, participate in more projects, and one day meet our leader."

"I found the opportunity refreshing but it's just not what I expected to be assigned to do, I wasn't expecting to be appointed for a position I'm familiar with but not specialized in"

"Yes honey but when does life give us what we are expecting? Unless this project makes you miserable, you keep going; be careful, you may find yourself enjoying it too much to be worried about everyone else in your life all the time".

No longer needing sleep given my new abilities I decided to put the habit to rest, how could I doubt what to do next? As if I had any other choice.

The schedule they expected me to follow was nothing particularly new, Murakami's schedule including the daily 10k run but replacing the writing with time on the 3D design program of the VAR called Phauto-Csaut; most of the day on that PC, nothing new I guess. Schedule breaks for meditation and organic snacks kept my neurochemicals balanced during the day, something I had practiced during years of cognitive behavior therapy and general good habits; new generations always find ways to reframe ancient truths to make them more appealing/understandable to the modern public, I guess it's a necessarily inherited system that humanity as an entity devised to keep constantly analyzing itself.

But what is emotional intelligence but patience and kindness, if we would all follow the four agreements from Toltec wisdom there would be already a base upon which these concepts could be built; for generations these ideas have been repeated to us but it takes defining moments and experiences to visualize what they were trying to show us, don't cross the bridge before you get there means live in the present learning how to deal with anxiety, if you keep your eyes on the past you'll miss the road ahead refers to dealing with guilt for thinking too much of the past. The wisdom has always been there, but somehow in our distancing from religion, we have forgotten society's most essential guidelines in a collective justification for a void of purpose, or even worst for the void as purpose Nietsche would say, like the Donkey in Orwell's Animal Farm; don't get caught in the false statements - everything happens for a reason, sometimes the reason is you are behaving idiotically and would have to change one day for your own good until that day comes bad things will keep happening, it's called natural selection - You just need to have more faith - Everything will get better - It's in His hands - He has a plan

The pre-Socratic philosopher Thales said: "τίς εὐδαίμων, ὁ τὸ μὲν σῶμα ὑγιής, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν εὔπορος, τὴν δὲ φύσιν εὐπαίδευτος." Or "What man is happy? He who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind, and a docile nature;" the Romans incorporated this concept into their own philosophy "Mens sana in corpore sano", Greek culture had expanded for centuries in the Achaemenid empire. Yet Buddhism Zen, Taoism, Shintoism, and many other eastern religions have highlighted the importance of ones care for its own body long before; in monotheistic religions, the body is often referred to as the temple which God's inhabits, Hinduism has one of its main aspects dedicated to prosperity and another to vital physiological needs, these two constitute the basis of the pyramid of needs which are Ego and Emotions also known as Ahamkaar and Mann.

When we started our marriage Ikram and I wanted to give our children better opportunities than the ones we have had, we believed in providing them with different points of view for them to draw their own conclusion, but teaching a program how to operate the equipment it was given without harming it or others in the process can be challenging even for the best of Engineers, especially when you want them to appreciate the entire process for what it is, making them feel inspired and intrigued by its complexity instead of being overwhelmed by it; inspiring someone to achieve what you think they should want without them yet wanting it, being the ideal parent sounds like an even more impossible task when described out loud.

You don't want to traumatize them though, Freudian studies reveal everything that happens before the age of five serves as the first and main analysis for the entire development of our behavior, the main building block of the person we think we have to be for the rest of our lives; many people spend their entire lives method acting a character built to fit every expectation once implanted in their minds, trying to hit a checklist on every step of their way to the top of the food chain where an ultimate reward of immeasurable happiness awaits. Some can identify the character they are interpreting before reaching the top, others can only see it when they have reached it and given the intrinsic adaptability of their evolution have become incapable of enjoying anything else than reaching a new high making their situation unbearable; until one day they realize going down is much easier than going up, they can either start enjoying their life in the top trying to silence the guilt for the time lost to make the few years they have left more tolerable, or they start falling from the mountain cursing every step they didn't enjoy enough for thinking of the one above it.

Many are those who climb the mountain and fall back to its base without having found their role in their own story.

Imagine living in a World where news companies are not urged by the need of constantly increasing ratings to sell advertising at a greater value, a World where you are not constantly bombarded by advertisements creating necessities on you that are not in your best interest, a Word where algorithm design to make you spent as much time as possible in a given platform despite leading you true an unhealthy path have to be authorized by a psychotherapeutic community before humans can be exposed to them; it's not a new World we are talking about here, developing an interconnected society where the future is evaluated before it arrives was the principle under which many of the ancient civilizations operated, but since we live in a time of exponential technological advance it becomes harder to control the impact of our innovations. We have some of the brightest minds of our species dedicated to making other bright minds wasting most of their time looking at ads and comparing themselves with everyone in their network, which if you ask me is also looking at ads but this time of a more personal nature.

Managing to keep to my schedule better than ever without other responsibilities to balance, I felt completely motivated and focused, by the end of the first week my design was almost finished.

I started where many young architects do, by that I don't mean individualistic neurosis or a substance dependency; in the company of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, I systematically deconstructed modern architecture and the historical influence of designers, painters, urban planners, writers, and other pioneers.

LeCorbusier hated the architecture of the victorian age, from his birth in Switzerland to his final days in France he felt the structures were completely divorced from functionality, the influence from his design for houses and furniture can be reflected all over this city; a century after his appearance in the public eye we still envision the perfect modern house true a Corbusier lens, no contemporary designer working on practical and elegant furniture can deny his influence. Monsieur Jeanneret enthusiastically proclaimed his disdain for the architecture of the victorian age adorning cities across Switzerland and France, nevertheless, he only found Rome deserving of the title "The City of Horror"; he couldn't understand how western Europe had gone from baroque to that, his public structures on the other hand would be hard to reconcile with this idea.

The man who after a century can still be considered as the father of modern architecture for residential designs, the man who pioneered industrial architecture, who loved airplanes, engines, and advanced technological equipment so much he designed furniture which evoked that same spirit; that same man gave us the most horrendous public structures in the history of humanity, reinforced concrete seemed to be his answer for all urban architecture, some of the cities in Europe and the united states still hurt from his futuristic yet - forgive me architectural deities - shortsighted view of urban interactions. He wanted us to avoid the romantic cobwebs, spaces design for centuries for specific aspects of the persona life such as cooking, eating, working, recreation, etc; he still wanted a corner in his structure from where to look at the stars, in a house he envisioned it as a sunroof whereas in a public building he would use an alienating vertical concrete corridor, no matter what efficiency had to come first.

By 1933 he wanted to take every city center down, ever taller towers, avoiding city streets at all cost; buildings were to have the capacity of rotating above subterranean highways, technology should be built in a modular fashion anticipating the individual improvement of its components, a lesson we should have learned by now.

Some say that if architecture is about a structure transmitting a message LeCorbusier was a master of communication, whether the message was, "come inside, relax, feel conformable and inspired." or "you are being interrogated, you are tired, alienated, insignificant, and motherless."

My next study case had to be Ghery Frank Gehry, who after finishing the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by 1997 in only four years, became the most popular architect in the World; his curved buildings, with extravagant designs and materials, adapted so many shapes and components that it wouldn't be unfair to attempt categorizing it. Unfortunately, his structures lack the practicality required of a structure such as this, this entire city must be as economic and replicable as possible; the next generation of architects would have to face a similar reality, a world that needs more practical structures. Despite society not knowing it yet, talented architectures are mostly needed nowadays in the conception of affordable, sustainable, secure, cheap buildings for both poor and rich areas; being able to help those in need and contribute to our society is a thought which reflects the optimism of the profession, and of any artistic pursuit in general.

No matter the situation something will remain the same, it's not about the shelter, it is about the atmosphere, and what it inspires.

My design was to be a sphere, it seemed appropriate given the conic shape of the central tower; the four corners between the sphere and the borders of the inner ring would serve as adaptable arenas from where audiences could be addressed and spectacles could be perform, two bigger structures towards the iris and two smaller ones towards the pupil, with open first levels for accessibility to the Central Tower along with a clear view of the sphere. Each floor inside the sphere would be splitted into four, the altitude of these levels should coincide with that of the levels of the corner structures, imagine pizzas stack on top of each other inside a triangular box with stacks of nachos on the corners; sorry mom habits, if you can't explain it with food you don't understand it well enough.

If only Matai could see my design, how the layers in the corners could unite transforming into any platform you could possibly need for a conference, entertainment spectacle, or advance research requiring a controlled environment; how the top of the sphere riced above the angular structures forming a dome that gave the building a perpetual observatory and a touch of the renaissance, with columns in the inferior leves framing the paths to the center. Maybe I was building up an illusion from which falling could cause serious injuries to my self esteem, it wasn't yet certain that I was not just just being self indulgent thinking that a tridimensional vitruvian man could be a simple yet elegant approach to my project, Mrmind refuses to see my progress: if only I could have been able to show my project to someone before this meeting, sometimes the hardest thing when you become an expert in your area is finding someone that tells you the potential flaws in your projects, being new to this it would have been comforting to have had at least a first opinion before having to present my project to the CEO of the company in charge of the city's construction.

My grandparents on my mother's side met in London during the Second World War, he had left Germany as soon as Hitler has become a prominent figure in congress, she had barely managed to leave Dunkirk; they saw each other for the first time on an emergency room in St Mary's Hospital during one of the first Nazi bombardments, who could have told them that after fifty years their granddaughter and her children would be living in the house they built as close as they could afford from the New West End Synagogue, they wouldn't believe what people are willing to pay for a house in Westbourne Green these days.

I guess remodeling that house was my first architectural project, trying to give the three boys individual spaces for their creative activities while making sure young Aviva and I could have enough space, peace, and quiet for ourselves; my sweet girl... sorry it's still hard for me to talk about her.

Matai had always wanted to help as much in the house as he could, Eitan on the other hand just wanted to be in his own bubble as much as possible, during the weekends he would close the door of his room and wouldn't give signs of life until his stack of junk food had been exhausted; one day that boy is going to have to learn how to cook, or at least make sure he earns enough money as he thinks he will to afford all that takeaway, he's been by far my most challenging project so far. Eizeh balegan!

Until last year our house was always a synonym for laughter for everyone that knew us, friends never failed to feel at home despite being a two-year difference between the children which require for our house to a multipurpose center, no matter if it was Aviva and her friends in the basement trying to become the next great hit singers, a "mix of Rosalia and Billie Eilish" Matai sayed once when trying to explain what she was wearing, Eitan using trees in the back yard as goals attempting to replicate some Nike secret tournament old video with his friends, or Matai and his girlfriend discussing whether to go to Architecture or Civil engineer school, they thought the world would be ready to embrace them and take care of them for the rest of their journey; that feeling of invincibility fades quickly when you realize the labor market has a surplus of entry-level candidates who's expensive superior education has not qualified to perform the tasks expected for a professional in their discipline, after years of working with brilliant architects Ikram wanted to warn them.

"My son, don't you think civic engineering," my look already signaling caution "Or any other type of engineering." Post verbal communication at its best. "Could provide you with a more balanced lifestyle, even some other career opportunities if, at any point, you decide to reevaluate your path."

"I just want to design all day, find ways to help people, make structures that can be cheap and replicable; it seems stupid that Bjorke Ingle is being criticized for making structures too cheap, you have to agree ima." Matai, head always in the sky, full of ideas on how to reach those heights.

"I think your father makes good points Baba." Even if I wouldn't have agreed with them you should never show weakness in the face of the enemy, hehe you know what I mean.

"I'll prove you wrong aba, you will see, I already started designing my first project to be ready to start working as soon as I get to the University's studio."

"Have you ever been to a real studio habibi? It's nothing like those cubicles oh mayhem in the University, don't even know how anyone can concentrate there"

"Once I get in I'm going to spend hours in the studio, a space where you are constantly being stimulated; you spend all five years with the same class, which is like having a support group 24/7 without sacrificing the constant critique, just like Talmud study."

The laugh coming from the stairs could only be from Eitan. "Jeez if you suddenly want to influence Jewish Law why don't you move into one of those settlements in the Westbank with your beloved Afro-French beauty, I'm sure you'll be very welcome there."

I couldn't tolerate those words, no matter if he was trying to be funny "Eitan that's enough! Apologize to Salima" Sweet girl whose grandparents emigrated from Algeria to France, beautiful round black eyes, pronounced lips and cheeks on a rectangular face structure that made her an exotic beauty to my eyes.

"There is no need for an apology Miss Cohen."

"Oh yes there is" I wish I could say it was only about her, but it can be deeply hurtful to be ashamed of what your kids reflect, but the anger and shame are not towards them it's on you for having failed them. "Eitan you are not leaving this house before you apologize, or better find a place where to sleep tonight, I didn't race you to be a lout!"

"Wow ima that hurts, don't call me an oaf next I'm begging you."

"Why do you have to be like this habibi? Making your mother sad, ashaming your brother; so much anger my boy, is not good for you, talking about things that bring great distress to a lot of people without hesitating one second before opening that big mouth of yours" Ikram was a patient man, he was one of those rare souls who experiences sadness much before anger, Eitan's character was no less of a test to him.

"What happened with Talmud study aba? I thought we loved to debate and share constructive criticism"

Matai was trying to hold himself, but patience has its limits "You think your fake nihilism makes you interesting, you are the only one looking at the big picture, the rest of us are just sheep following the herd; yet you spend all your time dreaming of being a great football star, carrying a ball in a grass field towards a net, just like the horses in the hippodromes Aba likes to bet on, you know what you are? a walking contradiction"

"I don't mind being the stallion in the field of the arena, better than being on a field of grass following some crazy Shepperd."

Aviva - my sweet and nimble breath of fresh air, with her round face and those long legs - who had been in her cave in the basement came up with two friends starving after being stuck on the same song for hours, you are welcome for the soundproof ceiling family. "Ima can we order some pizza please?"

"Mate you call your mom by her name?" One of her friends asked. "No you idiot, that's 'mom' in Hebrew," the other replied. Millennials were surprising, some of my younger cousins went through some rough times trying to figure themselves out, but with this Generation Z sometimes it's hard to even tell if they are going through a hard time or if that's simply who they are.

"There is roasted chicken in the fridge as well leftovers of kugel and latkes, why don't you guys warm some of that up my Avi?"

"Why don't you come and sit with them on the table little monster, I'm trying to engage in some ancient Talmud study kind of vibe but these obtuse people refuse to partake" Eitan just loved to be the center of attention.

"Shut up you idiot! Go play with your balls already"

"Eitan, don't involve your sister in this and apologize to Sali! And you young lady, what is that kind of talking in my kitchen?!"

"I meant his footballs ima, please can we just order some pizza?"

"Alright I shall beg your pardon my lady Salima, but don't you think my brother can get carried away with his idealism? And that in this house no matter what I say no one ever agrees?"

Salima couldn't help but smile, at that point Matai just wanted to move on. "Oh my lord, just leave for practice already mate, you are so annoying."

"I'm suddenly feeling like skipping afternoon practice. I heard it may rain, who are these two blokes anyway little monster?"

"Habibi just go to practice, Avi Habibti eat the chicken, and you aba why don't... oh my phone is ringing. It's Steve, the architect from the bank I'm reforming, he probably won't like my changes to his design; I have to get this."

"Ima please this is embarrassing enough can we just order anything, Chinese, Kebabs, whatever!"

"Yes ima I'm a little monster, me and the sticky lumps of flesh I have for friends want extra special junk food!"

"Eitan stop it you fool," Matai said trying to push him away from the table but instead dropping a glass of juice in Sali's lap. "You see what you made me do? Ima are you seeing this?"

"Ima he's trying to push me, how can you allow this violence in your kitchen?"

"So Ima, can we order those pizzas now?"

I said our house was a synonym of laughter not of tranquility.

Being a Muslim Ikram grew up studying all of what they consider the secret text from which the Quran is believed to be the final revelation to making, a completion and confirmation of previous scriptures; these previous scriptures considered to be the Tawrat - Torah or the Law - revealed to Musa - Moses, - the Zabur - Psalms - revealed to Dawud - David, - and the Injil - the Gospel - revealed to Isa - Jesus. - There are also the Scrolls of Abraham and Moses, and the Book of John the Baptist; of course, we also had my grandparents Tanakh with the Hebrew version of the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim, along with a special edition of the Talmud my parents gave us before leaving Israel. We decided to complete our collection with King James Version of the Christian Bible from 1611, as well as The Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox versions which all have identical New Testaments; our children weren't being brought up in a particular religion, but that didn't mean we considered all those teachings obsolete, we still wanted them to have faith in humanity and above all in themselves.

We always wanted our children to be grateful for being able to prepare themselves with all these opportunities many are not so fortunate to have, but sometimes it's hard to get the message across without the feeling you may create an emotional scar if you push the subject of little children living in poverty to far down their impressionable/absorbent minds; a good student accepts critics not only because it's good for them to exercise having to listen to things that may hurt them, but because everyone knows what's good about their ideas, what is most difficult to discover for a creator is what's wrong with their creation, what flaws can others find that would have never occurred to them.

But did you know that a stranger can determine in three minutes more about you than most of us will ever be able to determine during a lifetime of perpetual introspection? Fail to give your children the right tools to discover who they are and they'll end up like most children without adult figures in their life, idealizing and trying to imitate their favorite celebrity or public figure, thinking they'll grow up to live from their fame and their followers as an influencer a person who by definition is famous for being famous; oblivious to how the public demands almost unreal standards from the most famous, especially if they happen to be female, so many cases of artists just wanting to "make it" without knowing what will actually become of them, horrible cases can occur such as the one of Sia or even less aggressive but nevertheless traumatizing as the one of Britney - yes, I can allow myself the guilty pleasure of following Britney's case while there is so much more to worry about in this world - I looked at my Avi and their friends and wondered "if they could now meet the person they would have to pretend to be in interviews and public appearances for the rest of their lives, would they still want to become famous?"

I should have been satisfied with my design by then, but instead, the fantasy of our kitchen full of those creative minds helping me with my project instead of screaming at each other followed me everywhere; finding fewer and fewer excuses to start building my model the only thing that seemed like a logical way of procrastination was as usual research if you are trying to finish a project and you keep watching movies, documentaries, and youtube in the search of inspiration let me tell you unless you are taking notes of everything you see, my sweet darling you are procrastinating. And so was I, but here we are so I may as well tell you who my next partner was going to be; the latest visionary of the modern house idea, John Wardle the man whose furnisher are as part of the houses he builds as the windows and doors, being understood as the key piece that transforms a house into a home.

Time wasn't on my side, only two weeks left to finish my project, that night I tried to map every piece of the architecture's history puzzle yet to be incorporated into my design, or at least assimilated into my fresh architectural perspective; we don't have google on the station, but we have access to our own memories and to the cities database which seems to have almost all the information you would need about Earth, there are still so many things I don't understand about this place.

My design couldn't be finished without more research, excavating my memories I found a conference about modern construction materials in Seoul, could it be that I had met Jun there? I couldn't be sure, but despite being sent there by the production director of BHP Group the mining company I worked for, when presented with the opportunity to enter a presentation from the architecture firm IROJE KHM just in the conference room next to us I couldn't resist; I could relate to the way Kim Hyoman understands globalization and moreover standardization as a petty modern oversimplification that relinquishes tradition instead of embracing it making every new design boring, his Blooming houses are the perfect antidote for that boredom with their different angled layers and interconnected gardens, through the glass walls of our conference window we could see the "White Boat" where they had just added an elegant parking system within a modern building that doesn't disrupt its surroundings.

Holidays in Greece when Avi was eleven, at fifteen Matai was already fascinated with architectural history; he had always wanted to know where everything came from, but during our trip, his father and I would find ourselves being the ones educated when it came to the different architectural influences of the Islands.

He had read all about the Venetian inspiration in many Cycladic islands such as Tinos, Naxos, Milos, and more, where beautiful castle-towns belonging to the flourishing medieval years can still be appreciated, fortresses built to prevent the pirate invasions; Little Venice in Mykonos showed us the typical two-story Venetian houses built one next to the other inside medieval exterior walls.

One of the best examples of the Venetian influence in Cycladic architecture is the Kastro of Naxos island, strolling through the traditional Cycladic villages can give one the impression of being inside of a labyrinth; the numerous cobbled streets with the whitewashed facades and the different sized houses shining under the Aegean sun painted a unique picture. Syros and Andros, where the economic development gave rise to some of the most impressive neoclassical buildings: Ermoupolis in Syros island and Chora in Andros. The dovecotes in Tinos and Andros with the lovely decorated details.

The Cyclades have also some samples of the Bronze age period: Akrotiri Minoan site in Santorini island but also Classical period architecture: Milos Ancient Theatre, Delos island, Portara of Naxos, the Temple of Demeter in Naxos among others.

You also have the Argo Saronic Islands. Aegina, next to Athens, is a small island with a strong neoclassical character; there are well-preserved mansions around the port, as well as many Byzantine churches along the countryside, before leaving Aegina we also visited the famous Aphaia temple. Hydra island on the other hand is considered the cosmopolitan island of the Saronic Gulf, the embodiment of neoclassical architecture, the fact that it has been declared as a preservable settlement makes the island quite peaceful; there is also Spetses but we were too tired to visit. Normal people pick an island and stay there relaxing for seven days, but Ikram wanted to make sure we maximized our time on every holiday, the same was in Italy; which reminded me of the village overhanging the sea in Cinque Terre called Riomaggiore, which apparently was built by Greeks escaping from the Argo Saronic Islands in the 8th century, makes sense when you look at the architecture of these locations.

Greco Roman culture has been the basis for modern architecture since the renaissance, from Bernini, Palladio, and Michelangelo. In order to offer more than my tridimensional Vitruvian man, I had to understand how the masters had done it, how they had managed to make the user feel like the structure is taking care of them, using modern materials but giving it a familiar look; Phillip Johnson made me understand that concept, he was the first Pritzker prize winner for the Glass House, the prize was also a commemoration "for 50 years of imagination and vitality embodied in a myriad of museums, theaters, libraries, houses, gardens, and corporate structures"; the Glass House was a derivative from the work of Mies Van Der Rohe's Farnsworth House, an iconic project for the emergence of Modern Architecture.

The one who contradicted Mies Van Der Rohe by saying "Less is Bore" is how he is introduced to architecture students. Robert Venturi was the Pritzker prize winner of 1991, he received the honor for the National Gallery in Westminster, Central London. The National Gallery extension was a competition that was won by Robert Venturi and the team, facing the challenge of continuing it with the existing building but separating its identity. The building has an uneven rhythm but harmonizes with the existing building. The zoom entrance contradicts the classical requirement. It accommodates context and makes it into a facade for the central London plaza, which we happen to pass every Sunday on the way to Eitan's football matches.

Tadao Ando from Japan was honored for his most inspiring project, Church of the light, designed in 1989; he was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1995, the space inside is fully illuminated through a cross, symbolically related to Christianity. Ando never had professional training from an architecture school but took night classes to learn drawing, drafting, and interior designing; he had also worked closely with Frank L. Wright. His style emphasizes the concept of sensation and physical abilities which is inspired by Japanese culture, creating the 'Haiku' effect inspired by nothingness. Church of light is considered one of the few examples of architecture speaking for itself, a feat hard to match, but yet his story inspired me even more although it wasn't the only one that caused that effect.

Zaha Hadid had changed the way one looked at architecture introducing curves and slopes into her designs, but more remarkably her ingenious ideas made her be considered a failure in her initial days, the same ideas that one day would lead her to become the Pritzker prize winner for the Contemporary art center constructed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2004. It was Zaha Hadid's first architectural project and as said by the Architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp "It was the most important building since the American cold war." It is a highly appreciated building because of its exclusive use of materials and structural integrity.

All Indian Architects were overwhelmed with joy when B.V Doshi became the first Indian Architect who got honored with the Pritzker Prize in 2018 for the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; he served as the jury for the Pritzker Prize from 2005 to 2009, but long before that his journey had started with an unpaid job with Le Corbusier, who was deeply involved in the design and planning of Chandigarh. IIM-Bangalore portrays features such as open corridors, vertical plantation, open spaces making it an interactive campus for the students. The dormitories became angled courtyard buildings linked together by walkways and verandahs; Doshi combined modern construction techniques with local masonry.

Ando, Hadid, and Doshi all confirmed what the ancients suggested, architecture is a language, and as with every piece of art its job it's to analyze, model, and modernize that language and the messages it communicates; architecture should transmit you a message like a song, a movie, a book, and it should be stimulating. All good stories must have a sequence, a meaning, a message, that above all must be memorable. As humans, we can orient ourselves because we can remember; in order to create moving works of art capable of generating rooted enough memories to guide ourselves, our children, and our societies, we must embrace the uniqueness of each project without the need of disrupting the environment in which they are supposed to exist. All I wanted for my project was for it to make you feel appreciated, but at the same time that it had the capacity to elevate the general features of the rest of the city; complementing the rest of the buildings making the combination of the parts more than their sum, the way symbiotic species and environments do, or even insect swarms and colonies using emergence to rival greater size adversaries.

The second week was about to begin but I still had a thousand ideas on how to make the design better before starting to build the model.

"Hello V1, seems you have completely lost the habit of sleeping, not that you need it but from our analysis, it seems it can still be good for your long term memory creation"

"Thank you Mir, I'll try to keep that in mind."

"My pleasure sweety, just remember being able to process information directly from the database doesn't mean you won't pick up some know-how along the way. In the worst case scenario, I would recommend you to have a twenty-minute DaVinci nap every twenty hours or so to stimulate that grey matter creation."

"Can't argue with that logic my friend" She always made me feel cared for.

"Is there anything else I can help you with? anything you need for your model?"

"To be honest Mir, I'm not sure my design is ready, would you mind taking a look?"

"I'm sorry but the outcome must come from you and you alone, I'm happy to provide materials or refreshments if you please darling but not much more."

"It's fine, I just hope I don't make a fool of myself; wouldn't like to become the joke of the company the day of my presentation."

"Sweety please, just focus on the project, the presentation would be only you and the director of the company Miss C."

"A lady virtual assistant, a lady as CEO, my Avi would love it here."

"And you V1? how do you feel here?"

"Oh me? I can't complain, Mir, this is the most time I've had for myself since before Matai was born; you must think I'm a horrible person for saying that."

"I think you are just a person V1, not horrible, not perfect either darling; hopefully, one day you'll see yourself through my eyes."

"If you say so, but maybe you just don't know me that well yet; wait, what do you mean exactly Mir?"

"Nothing sweety, that you are marvelous, I'll leave you to your project now"

I had been staying on the center of what was supposed to be the final building, with the space in mind and the design I wanted to create becoming more and more clear there was no time to waste; the sphere at the center of the building would need to be capable of being lifted above the entire structure, it's last level working as an observatory, which aligned with the other eight buildings forming the inner ring could accurately map entire clusters of galaxies. Not that it was needed with the universal mapping being what it is, I'd bet most organic creatures barely drive, but who knows one may need it if trapped in sector H.2.

The days passed and so my model grew more detailed, the columns in the entrances became a single curve surface with the walls above them, the design for the individual arenas and facilities in the corner were improved after acoustic and illumination reviews; the design for the ultimate arena formed when the central sphere was fully elevated and the four corners pulled some of their levels to the center of the structure, like the rest of the station each surface had to serve as both a power and data storage, making the use of nanotechnology to be limited for specific areas mostly portable structures and adaptable furniture. These pieces were added to accompany the purpose of each room, from desks with built-in quantum computers and monitors, Experimental physics research facilities with Quantum accelerators included, as well as quark level microscopic lenses; after all, subatomic particles study is one of the key components of nanotechnology along with carbon nanotubes, beautiful chemistry.

The center of the sphere was to be the library - with a coffee place included, of course - encouraging the interaction of professionals from different disciplines, with great soundproof meeting rooms on its core; the library would be the first of four layers with equal radius, the second layer would have the superior specialized education classrooms, laboratories and other facilities with specialized equipment would come next, finally multipurpose open spaces where to rest, enjoy a meal with the view of the city, and hopefully have a good time with others, whether it involves a research group activity or simply looking at the stars with friends.

Being almost at the end of the second week I started having doubts about how the sphere was being split among different sciences, arts, and other disciplines, only twelve sections wouldn't be enough for all the disciplines that was clear enough but I couldn't decide whether to add more sections or split the sphere in half; I had tried following what I understood to be the shape of the universe, a horned torus, but a sphere seemed a better idea at the time. Maybe it was all I was capable of doing, don't get me wrong I wasn't going to give up, but even now I must face the possibility of the director finding my ideas mundane and my design obsolete; visualization is great, "The Secret" and all of that, but is better to manage one's expectations rather than living fantasies and being perplex by unhappy endings.

I would still feel grateful for having had the opportunity, if I'm being honest I could have never anticipated this situation; maybe I'm just making excuses Thomas, forgive me I can imagine you have already received distressing enough messages from the other is not my intention to trouble you. I just never thought trying a new profession could make me feel so insecure, so vulnerable, I did everything in my life to make sure of ending up in a position where no one could control me but what am I even doing here? I can't honestly say, designing structures in a futuristic utopian city while I haven't heard from my boys in months, that's what I've been doing; trying to keep to these beings expectations with the hope that one day they'll let me forge my own path back to those I love the most, sorry I need a minute.

Thank you for waiting, well by the end of the second week my model seemed to have achieved an acceptable balance between practicality and artistry; focusing on space and function considering economics and structural stability, after all, I didn't have an army of engineers constantly evaluating my proposal. It was important that the structure spoke the same language as the environment, that much was clear after all my studying, there wasn't a place for the contradictory idea of tossing aside all that others have learned giving us the possibility to create in the first place. The more I worked on my project the more I could relate to the obsession for history and anthropology many architects share; how else could they cope with the schizophrenic process of conjuring an idea from thin air and waiting years to see it materialize? It requires relentless nihilistic optimism to undergo. Anxiety is capable to make us forget how many generations of innovators had to pass for us to enjoy modern tools and techniques, as you can see I haven't got ridden of all my own contradictory thoughts yet, it's not that easy when you are trying to contribute to and idea while bringing your own perspective; yet, exhausting all the information available dealing with those contradictions in order to reach our own conclusions seems to be what gives the extra to the ordinary.

When a situation escalates to the point where neither party believes achieving a common ground can still be an option, solutions start becoming less important, even irrelevant when the main objective is not achieving a mutually beneficial alternative but overcoming your adversary at all cost; that's the kind of situation we faced when we decided to leave Israel, we couldn't find a scenario in which we could teach our children to follow the golden rule without our words being constantly contradicted by our incapacity to positively influence our environment.

From our paternal side, both Ikram and I have family members who lived in Jerusalem in peace and knew each other when the area was still under Ottoman Empire rule. My great grandfather was in favor of Zionism but he never imagined this would be the present day of his land. We were both barely a few years old by the signing of the Camp David Accords peace treaty in 1978, which was more than controversial in the Arab World given that it meant the end for any possibility of subduing the Israeli government, so much that Egypt President Anwar Sadat was assassinated days after signing the treaty that gave Siani - where the Suez canal is located - back to his country from Israel. We both grew up watching how the tensions of neighboring countries towards Israel dissipated, nevertheless with Israel's military occupying the West Bank ever since - which is considered by the United Nations part of the State of Palestine - the situation with Paramilitary Groups and Terrorist Organizations have escalated to unprecedented levels of violence, first with the Palestinian Liberation Organization which ultimate goal was the complete dismantling of the Israeli government, and eventually with Hamas - a violent extremist group who considered the PLO too secular and compromise minded - taking control over the Gaza Split where people are living in one of the most miserable conditions of the twenty-first century with an international blockade and more than half its population unemployed.

Growing up, neither of us considered the situation in the country to be particularly peaceful, but we weren't prepared for what was about to come, specially when we were only ten and twelve years old. Decades of development of settlement cities in both Gaza and the Westbank - where houses are sponsored by the Israeli Government and Palestinians are treated as second class citizens, in some cases working under inhuman conditions building those settlements - as well as police brutality and cultural differences are some of the injustices that fueled the first intifada in 1987 which given the concern of many Nations around the World ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. These accords split the West Bank into three types of zones, where Palestinian authority would be increasing from one area to the next, with the majority of the territory still under Israeli governance; despite the efforts for peace, some far-right Israeli extremists shut the Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv not long after he had signed the second round of Oslo Accords, it was the four of November of 1995. How could I forget? It had not yet been six months since my eighteenth birthday.

I was in Jerusalem at the time completing my two-year mandatory military service, the walls of the Old City, the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock close to the stunning mosque of Al Aqsa, Via Dolorosa starting on the eastern side winding through its cobblestone streets; outside of the walled compound the streets would lead me to my Grandparents cozy house, an oasis of food and laughter in the hills of Nakhalat Akhim, but that wasn't a day for laughter. The news about Rabin's came late in the evening, telephoning my mother in Tel Aviv was the first thought I had; her timorous voice, my father yelling at the TV on the back, my little sister crying calling for my baby brother. We didn't talk much that night, I didn't tell her about the Palestinian kids I saw on their way to school that day neither did she tell me about my little sister's latest mischief in high school or my baby brother's first football matches, that night knowing they were fine was all that matter.

Whether it was Confucious who said it or not, the phrase "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." It's still as relevant as when it was first said; extremists on either side of a conflict are usually the ones that, without representing the majority of people they irresponsibly attempt to speak for, make irreversible damage bringing catastrophic consequences for both parties involved.

It's so much easier to destroy something than to build it from the ground, which is why extremists on both sides can use violence to derail peace.

My mother wasn't the only person I called almost every night, during my time patrolling the border of the city with the West Bank I met a teacher who would pick up Palestinian Children house by house before leading them to their school in East Jerusalem, even in those days I saw more than one time how some of the soldiers tried to humiliate this man pushing him around in front of his students; one day when he was returning to the city after leading each kid to their houses in some of the poorest neighboring areas outside Jerusalem I decided to offer him a coffee, one of the girls he accompanied kept bringing me a flower every day for weeks, between his tender smile and his deep looks I started suspecting the girl wasn't the one picking flowers.

We shared many more coffees, flowers, calls, and evenings. If someone would have told me that almost seven years later I would be marrying that teacher I would have laughed in that person's face, rude I know, but at eighteen that's kind of what I was; despite considering myself a rebel, a revolutionary, a pioneer, or whatever it was at the time.

After finishing my military service I thought of staying in the city, studying Chemistry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but a Palestinian boyfriend and an internship close to one of the most complex borders in the World didn't seem what I was looking for to start my twenties; not that our families would have been very happy with the idea at the time, or even later, despite our relatives in Jerusalem being good friends with each other neither family wants to get involved in such a complicated affair.

I was in the third year of my Chemical Engineering studies, watching the tv with my two roommates in our tiny apartment in Haifa hoping for some positive conclusion to the Camp David Summit in 2000; after the unfruitful discussions, Palestinians realized change wasn't coming and started a second Intifada in the year 2000. This time much more violent, if before it was considered an issue of international importance when there were close to a hundred injured Israeli and thousand Palestinians during the first one, imagine this time when it was more than three thousand Palestinians and almost half that amount of dead Israelis; no international counseling helped improve the situation, by 2002 I had finished my degree and seeing how on the Israeli side politics were shifting right with walls and checkpoints being build across the entire Nation, while on the Palestinian side a sense of frustration covered in apathy had now overcome the general mindstate of the population, I had decided to leave the country.

While visiting Jerusalem to say goodbye to my paternal grandparents I saw Ikram again, who happened to be around my grandparents' house just when I was visiting, he has always been good with numbers; we both have had different partners during our time apart, once we met again it only made us realize how much we enjoyed each other's company, he knew I wasn't going to stay so staying didn't seem like an option for him anymore.

During those times even places like Bahrain and the UAE, which are now multicultural influence hubs, felt too close to home which is why we decided to hear the advice of our mothers and move to London; both our mothers were raised by immigrants, that's why they convinced both their husbands to move away from the conflict, my mother took my father to Tel Aviv and Ikram's mother made her husband move to Amman in Jordan where Ikram grew up. Being a teacher he decided to stay in Jerusalem to help children get a better education in such a complicated condition, he was nineteen at the time, eight years later his utopian dream of a school with no religious segregation in the center of Jerusalem seemed more and more distant.

Eiton was born in 2005, we had been living in London for almost three years when Israeli forces left Gaza for good and Hamas took control, definitively splitting themselves from all Palestinian authorities

Sometimes I think we were just being complacent, taking the option that suited us the most, but that thought fades quickly; how can you judge any parent that leaves the place they grew up in, the people that loves and cares for them, that is willing to do every sacrifice necessary, all to give their children the greatest opportunities in this world. We could have had a life of comfort in Silicon Wadi, race our children under one or another particular ideology, but I don't think that would have been fair for Ikram; moreover, after all I've seen, I don't think I could live with myself knowing that I let my children grow with a one sided biased perspective of the world.

It was now the beginning of the third week - having ended my Serial monogamy with different artists - I was finally confident in my model, but the last step of the process was to build an actual part of the structure; but which one? the arenas on the greater corners could display the capacity of the model to integrate great areas, the exterior of the sphere would show the ecosystems that could be created with some of the plants and insects found on the system's database, maybe the best option would be the library which given the way information is stored around the city would mostly consist of study rooms, cafes, and multipurpose individual cubicles.

"Mir what would you build?"

"Well darling that's a rather straight forward approach don't you think? Just ask the first being you happen to encounter."

"Sorry, but it's not like there are many other beings around."

"Maybe that's part of the experience dear V."

"I supposed. It's just I can't decide, what if I'm not able to show the best features of the model?"

"I can't tell you what the best option is, but maybe I can exchange your question for a more productive one."

Mir was starting to sound like me when I'm talking to the kids, but I had no reason not to indulge my gentle confidant. "And what would that more productive question be Mir?"

"What would you like to have for yourself right now, and darling please don't say the kids, I'm talking here next to your current residence."

"The facilities here are great, ergonomic chair, nanotech desk, cooking and self-care stations, all under a glass dome ceiling; I've done some adjustments here and there but it's not like I've ever needed much space for myself."

"Sweety, you are as selfless as melancholic."

"Not sure that's a compliment Mir."

"Neither do I, darling, but I'm not here just to compliment you but to help you in any way I can, and that includes finding all the answers you seek. Let's see, was there anything you would've liked building for yourself when you renewed your house in London?"

"Not really, the house had everything we needed; I made sure Avi had her space downstairs, including a soundproof room for her instruments, Eitan had lot's of space in the backyard plus a multipurpose game station in his room because apparently playing football on a console is something you can do on many different games across many platforms."

"Of course of course, and what did you make for Matai sweety?"

"Oh we adapted the attic the best we could so he could have access directly from his room, it was a mix between an architect studio and an observatory."

"Wonderful, and for Ikram?"

"The house had a garage which was a complete mess when we arrived, old frames had been stored there and the wood was infested with termites, eventually they had nested in some of the wooden roofs of the structure too; after dealing with the pest control company, the carpenter, and the furniture designer it was transformed into a nice office where Ikram could receive clients and partners without risking to show the sometimes untidy interior of the house."

"No one else you made a special place for?"

"The house sparrows? I'm messing with you now Mir, I can see where you are getting at. Guess the kitchen and dining room have to be considered common areas."

"Your guess would be correct darling."

"You see Mir, the thing is after spending all my day working all I wanted to do was arrive home and be with them; if they were all isolated in their corners I would come to them one by one, even if sometimes some of them just wanted to get rid of me and be fed as fast as possible, not necessarily in that order. On the weekends I insisted they supported each other assisting to events regarding their different interests, whether it was Eitan football matches, Avivi's conservatory performances, or Matai's design conventions; they didn't always like it, but we did the best we could to make each moment as enjoyable for them as possible." While at the same time trying to project an ideal image... It can become increasingly difficult to determine if that image is for your children to have a constant moral reference, or if it comes from a need to extol oneself in the eyes of society thus quieting our insecurities' murmurs.

"Oh darling you are such a hopeless romantic, since all you can think of is your family, maybe the best way you can approach this is imagining what they would like to see you doing the most? or what they could do with you? I don't know dear V, I'm not sure what you'll decide but from the look of your model, it's clear it'll be fantastic and I can't wait to see it. For now, I'll leave you to your thoughts."

One of our favorite times of the year as a family was Halloween, it was the perfect opportunity for Ikram and me to collaborate on the most artistic and practical pieces, my sweet Avi loved the macabre; yet we never felt conformable using human figures in our decorations so we would always go for skeletons, werewolves, giant bats, and that kind of creatures. During those days my different abilities were highly on-demand around the house, everyone wanted explosion, lava flows, electrostatic spheres, or any other sort of reactionary trinket; being considered more of a sorcerous than a witch, even only for a weekend, was for me the greatest part of festivities.

Inspired by the thought I decided to build the second to last layer of the sphere where you could find laboratories, research facilities, design rooms, and other facilities with specialized equipment; the specific room I would build would be a quantum mechanic laboratory, each table equipped with their own particle accelerator capable of reaching the speed at which the Universe expands, a sub-quark level microscope, and a smart mechanical arm capable of infusing particles with carbon tube base nanotechnology in order to manipulate them, the table research table could, of course, be accessed remotely with its own App for the VAR with it's augmented reality modular control system I know how much Eitan hated not being able to have his classes online but some of us still prefer sharing a physical space with others.

Being an intermediate layer the room would have the same shape as the entire area outside of the central sphere, imagine a slide of pizza of which the top is a smaller slide of pizza that some already took, that eight of a ring was a proportion repeated many times around the station so it seemed a good measure to use.

Finding myself more and more distracted every day I started questioning if I was deserving of such opportunities, all the materials, tools, technologies, and techniques I could imagine at the tip of my fingers; I had seen Ikram having to crush an architect's dream many times given budget issues, whether it was from the final client's side, the construction company and their profit goals, the cities regulations, taxes, or any other limitation, it's very rare to be given a project where your only limitation is your imagination. I've been telling myself the success of this project is fundamental for a reunion with my family to become possible, but I still can't help feeling guilty for all the joy I've had while working on this structure, all the opportunities I've been given without necessarily being deserving of them.

But how could it be? I remember how righteous I was when I told my sister to get on with her life after she felt guilty for leaving her husband, she was finally free to do what she wanted, right? Some divorces can be complicated, to say the least, her's wasn't. Her husband had been fired, after ten years together during which they had not been blessed with children, after her attempts to start her own bakery had failed she decided to start working as a maid for a wealthy family who lived not far from their house in Tel Aviv; it was too much to bear for him to see his wife being the family's main source of income, and so they divorced. They were never the kind of couple that have terrible arguments, screamed at each other, or even go to sleep angry at one another; yet pride was enough to create a gap between them that all the money in the world couldn't fill.

My dear grasshopper - what can I say she has extremely long legs and used to crawl with her feet in front of her, heels and tushie on the ground - I hope she's enjoying her life; seemed like it last time we spoke, finally letting go of old regrets, just what I had always wanted for her.

I'm sorry if I ramble, this report brings me the perfect opportunity to reflect on my journey and I must admit I find it almost therapeutic, just in time for my big meeting. Only one number to go, not that I'm in a rush of any sort, the view of the city with the sun going through the rings on the axis of the planet makes it worth the wait. I guess this is what standing on a skyscraper in Saturn's northern hemisphere - close to its equator - must feel like.

It's finally my turn, up to the top of the pyramid, wish me luck.

"Welcome V, please sit down".

"Thank you mam, it's a pleasure to meet you Mrs. C".

"The pleasure is all mine, I hope you have enjoyed your stay here so far."

"I can't say I haven't mam, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but the purpose of my 'staying' still eludes me."

"That is something we have noticed, and I apologize for the lack of transparency as you were being brought up, but it seemed impossible at the time to come up with a different scenario in which a unique perspective could germinate."

"Mrs. C I really appreciate the opportunity, and you directing this entire project with only AI seems like a daily titanic accomplishment. I don't know if you have children, but as a mother, all I want is to find a way back to mine; bringing them up has been my daily titanic accomplishment, I can't imagine what life has been for them since I left."

"We can assure you we are doing everything we can for you to be back with your children as soon as possible. Once again, apologies for the uncertainty, I also happen to be a mother; you must agree that our first priority must be worrying for them enough to stay motivated but not to the point in which we are overcome by fear and can no longer function properly."

"I don't think I've reached that point yet, doing everything I can eases my worries."

"The four agreements?"

"Exactly mam."

"Good! Let me then try to be impeccable with my words answering any question you may have."

"Mrs. C I don't mean to sound blunt but it would seem you have all the resources necessary to hire minds with unique perspectives from all over the universe, why invest so many resources in cultivating mine? And why give me the opportunity to come up with a design for a specific part of the City? And may I ask who exactly you are referring to when you say 'we'?"

"Well, those are quite a few excellent questions, and yes Mir you were right! I'm not doing this with the rest... just show her ok?"

H5: That was the last time I spoke to V1, or any of my replicas for that matter, the resentment I felt towards them for not enjoying all the opportunities I had provided instead of dwelling on what could have been was too familiar.

Fascinating this mission report request was delivered to her, the first time Mir saw her documenting the process of her development here we figured the Guardians don't target the microchip of the user to contact them but only to locate their planet, after which they track their DNA accessing their mind directly after; we had access to her thoughts but this provided us with the opportunity to see her reflective analysis of the situation which didn't disappoint. From what I've learned from my coworkers it seems Guardians don't usually ask for verbal transmissions which makes the nature of this report even more intriguing.

I'm glad to see Thomas is trying to reach out to the other humans, the sooner we contact each other the sooner we can put ourselves to work towards the future of humanity, my children included; being able to adapt under any circumstances, to the utopian endeavor of accommodating your entire species in a completely undiscovered society, seemed to be the key to ensure our survival as a species D-Point considered. This is why as soon as I awoke at the unit's HQ my main priority became understanding the most advanced methods of developing a society in the Universe, starting with the history of settlements on Machine, Multi and Unit cultures, the inflection points that made civilizations diverge between cybernetic, organic, and biomechanical streams/currents were indispensable to complete the chart of progress unraveling across the universe. to this day?

As we navigated towards one of the three natural satellites of this planet, leaving behind a wormhole generated for us to travel from the Unit's HQ to this star system, more than ever the fear of being incapable of creating my own path was clouding my thoughts; drowning in self-pity while contemplating the astonishing view of open space was tempting but using the MegaVerse to walk on some of the most modern structures in the universe myself seemed a more appropriate use of my time, after all, none of the sources reviewed during my research suggested that life as a satellite excavator offered many opportunities to rise to a position of influence.

Some of the buildings I visited were alive, they could feel and think, connecting all the vegetation growing around with all the buildings near them; other civilizations use their buildings as modular pieces of equipment, each one with a specific purpose designed to complete it in the most efficient way, some buildings serve as gigantic drills to mine entire satellites, others serve as water storage both for providing hydration and nautic facilities, energy production, generation, and storage all compacted in some of the structures designed for the outer layers of their cities.

The structures reflected the anatomy of the species, understanding them became a way to understand the way some of the most advanced civilizations think and operate. I found myself asking the most ridiculous yet fundamental questions, do you need windows if you have no eyes? What materials do you use for each structure when one of your unique species' features is being able to go through solid materials? Do you need ground-level doors if all the members of your species fly? How do you build airports and planes if you are a subaquatic species? What is the inflection point regarding profit between having a strong enough gravity to compact the air making it easier to glide versus having an inferior level of gravity offering less resistance when trying to leave the atmosphere? Does it all come to the composition of the atmosphere? What do advanced civilizations consider ideal? Do they bioengineer planets to maximize profit or do they prioritize creating inhabitable locations for the members of their species considering their unique evolutionary process?

All these questions and more would be hard to answer on the way to the mining station of the corporation managing this Galaxy's mining activities, but after this last year in the system, fewer of them remain unanswered.

The most interesting thing I've learned so far is the idea of a fourth architectural component so far overlooked by our traditional designs, we usually consider the interior of a structure, the exterior which is the structure itself, and of course the landscape; type one and beyond civilizations, which design entire cities before beginning the construction of a single building, incorporating services and transport in the mainframe of cities which are in essence made out of replaceable modules. Entire parts of these cities lift of the ground circling around their stacked highways with self-driving vehicles filling their lanes, some cities emulate gardens with large threes mushrooms and flowers, others engines with carburetors, batteries, and radiators; no part of a city is considered fixed or irreplaceable, they can be interchanged whenever needed to adjust for the needs of the population.

Decentralize Quantum computing, advanced scientific discoveries at subquark levels, accompanied by the introduction of carbon tubes in microscopic nanotechnology allows us to find any possible shape imaginable as the structural foundation of at least one civilization in the universe; which made me wonder what could be considered an architectural rosetta stone? Especially among different species, I guess the closest would be the Space Stations around black holes.

Some traits are universal by definition, for example, the more resources a civilization has the more space they leave open for light and air to flow through their structures enveloping its inhabitants in open areas and recreational spaces, practicality still limits the capacity of constructions to stimulate the imagination of those who encounter them, and still the richer an ecosystem is the more complex are the relationships found within it.

Organic structures present an arbitrary geometry that only nature can offer, yet mechanical constructions can operate in all different kinds of circumstances without the need for an entire ecosystem to support them. I guess my inability to choose between these options was a substantial argument to consider biomechanic technologies the most advanced between them.

The more time passed, the more time spent digging for titanium, gold, diamonds, and other minerals in the mines, the more it became clear my purpose was unpostponable; the gamma radiation from the star can cause malformations in the cells, some use that as an excuse not to transport materials when the light of the star is hitting the surface directly, I suppose being on a planet you would call it during the day, luckily the satellite hasn't yet tidally locked with the planet allowing it to rotate, between the cover of the planet and the satellite's own rotation we spent most of our time in the dark.

After a month of using my extremities as tools to maximize my performance, resting for twenty minutes every eight hours, my supervisor asked me inside of his office, an inhabitable module of the main station orbiting the planet capable of taking off by itself. So far all I had seen was the barracks they set for us and the endless corridors of the subterranean operation, despite the white plastic walls and lack of illumination standing in that office was the nearest I had been to an inspiring structure in weeks.

As I saw the Rubik's tetrahedron approaching - a triangle base pyramid with three smaller pyramids on his extremities, corners, or however you say it - the hope of having proved myself worthy of more challenging opportunities became greater by the second.

"Welcome Five, please be sited" Being called 'five' was something unexpected, it was the number Eithan had in his football team, the same number he used on his PlayStation Network account; and before you think I'm a 'helicop-mom' as he says I wash his cloth and I can see his playstation plus payments on my account, it doesn't require detective job to understand these things.

Despite being a compact module, it was designed to accommodate species from the size of an ant to that of a white whale, nanotechnology generated a table with chairs for both of us, he's had a unique inverse conic shape made to support his incenter.

"Your performance so far has been remarkable, you beat the last record daily mineral quote by 500% in your first month, my superiors demanded me to perform a report on your techniques to be replicated. So, here we are." Despite being cybernetically modified interpreting other beings can be as intuitive as reading someone's body language, his extremities constantly moving, his core transpiring, his voice struggling to find the right tone; regardless of his communication signals being transmitted from his core via x rays, the VAR is so advanced you can hear their messages in your mind.

"Not very talkative I see, let's just get to it then. What would you consider was the key to your performance?"

I could have said barely resting, panicking about the condition of my loved ones, incessantly worrying about the state of our civilization and the possibility everyone I ever knew may be heading towards D-Point, or worst that so many years have passed that they are all dead and the future generations are now dealing with it. Instead, I took a deep breath and looked directly at his core with a smile on my face. "My time here has been a great experience, I've learned many lessons, and I try to put those lessons to practice as soon as they have been internalized".

"Well, the chemicals in your brain seem to be in order so we shouldn't need to go through the invasive process of analyzing your thoughts for the past month, wouldn't you agree?"

"Whatever you consider more productive Mr?"

"Oh, apologies, I'm M.58437632. But please call me Vretblean," - Yes that sounded much simpler to me too - "It's the first verbal interpretation I heard for fifty-eight, so I stuck with it, or it stuck with me. Actually, you can call me Vret." His timid laugh, almost melancholic. Not what I had imagined while gazing at three pyramids swirling around an incenter for the first time.

"Mr. Vet, how could I be of service? Would you like me to be more specific about the lessons I've learned?"

"Yes please, Mrs. Five?"

"I think Mrs. Cohen would be more appropriate, after all the name I was given at birth was Miriam Cohen; we can compromise on Mrs. C," I said with a smile, it was how my childrens' friends used to call me, it always made me feel young in a way.

"Mrs. Sea and Mr.Vret, we'll show the suits how things get done efficiently at ground level. No offense to corporate intended, I've been told that promoting camaraderie is the key to productive leadership."

"No worries Mr. Vet, I appreciate the intention, hope I can reciprocate with my actions; from what I understand the purpose of this station is to mine materials for the construction of cities on the orbited planet, contributing to such an extenuating endeavor makes me feel privileged."

"I must admit this is most surprising, don't get me wrong your enthusiasm is most welcome, but one of the reasons we sometimes struggle to improve our processes is because many miners resent the corporations they work for given the conditions they have to endure. Again I'm not trying to give you the wrong impression about corporate."

"You have made your point clear, and please don't worry, it feels good to know more about the organization I now belong to."

"Forgive me, it's not my place to give voice to my opinions, I was sent here to learn that, and of course to learn how to manage a mining operation with some of the highest mineral production tolls in the Galaxy."

"There is nothing to forgive, this has been the most relaxing experience I've had since arriving at this satellite; sorry Mr. Vet, now I said a few too many words."

"No, no, no apologies Mrs. Sea please" He stood up and smiled. "Let's better start from the beginning, hopefully from our mutual embarrassments we have created enough empathy for you to explain how bad exactly are the conditions here so I don't appear as an insensitive naive fool next time I meet with a miner. What do you think?"

"Mr. Vet you seem to have good intentions for the workers here, may I ask how many have you met that didn't think this would be just another protocol brand endorsed transmission instead of an actual meaningful conversation?"

"That's the thing Mrs. Sea, how can I say this?" He leaned on the table and softly continued. "you are the first member of another intelligent species I've met outside my planet."

Mr. Vet explained he was part of the race who founded the corporation in a different Unit sector, but given the external pressure for maximizing the utility of each planet, his civilization has grown increasingly concerned about the mechanisms utilized to achieve profit quotas; they have always been a peaceful species that prioritizes the psychological needs of their members above the progress of their species as a whole, trying to avoid at all cost having to sacrifice one for the other, they never imagine employing organic creatures in order to reduce the costs of advance machinery and sophisticated AI OS which goes against the principles of their society. Workers like me are given no other choice by the parliament, where our inability to sustain ourselves is considered almost criminal, which makes our situation a cause of debate in the political spheres of Mr. Vet's society; he was born in Trivia, one of the latest bioengineered planets of his species, orbited by natural satellites such as Hex-t where our mining station was established. Sent as part of a diplomatic initiative to prove the situation is as precarious as presented, Mr. Vet and his studies seemed to be my best chance of achieving a position beyond a human drill; the final verdict on his true intentions was yet to be presented, at the time I couldn't be sure if that nervous attitude and empathy towards my situation were completely authentic, nevertheless at that point cooperating was in my best interest as much as on my first day on this place.

Under the ever-present gaze of surveillance drones, I drilled, dug, and pulled waists and resources out of endless tunnels leading to the core of the satellite, the difference was that now Mr. Vet had required for me to complete only my quota of two tons of materials; after a month of improving my abilities four hours were more than enough to achieve that and a bit more, watching architectural documentaries about ancient unit and multi civilizations on virtual reality made it feel like a walk in the park.

We would meet in his office after I had completed my quota to discuss economic ways of replicating the work done by the miners in the asteroid, calculate how much could it be saved by utilizing self-replicating nanotechnology instead of organic workers, a strategy could be devised for the latter in order to guarantee fair treatment of those deemed incapable of sustaining themselves. My particular case was originally perceived as an anomaly, a being whose economic, physical, spiritual, and even mental limitations were not a consequence of their own incapacity to function within their respective society; it was a case practically of abductions, which could be interpreted differently from the ones of other miners, thankfully we discovered it shouldn't.

"Mrs. Sea this documentary you recommended on the architecture of organically developed humanoids in sector H.1 is really inspiring"

"I'm glad you liked it, those organic structures seemed magnificent."

"Absolutely, I had no idea humanoids could build those structures, our academics always praise multis as the pioneers of organic engineering."

"Yeah I found that throughout the content you can experience in the Megaverse humanoid's main function is to serve as bad examples."

"It is unfortunate to say the least, hopefully - with the kind of work we are doing - we can re-introduce a positive humanoid image."

"I just hope we prevent other beings from having the introductory experience I had."

"Not all beings that end here are as kind and willing to cooperate as you are."

"Maybe not all of them are smart enough or lucky enough to seize an opportunity so they can rise above their station."

"My naivety has its limits, I think... but nevertheless you are good, intrinsically, undeniably, good; look how hard you work, how many other interests you have, that connection with a long term vision."

"Many of them share those traits too."

"Then why do you spend so little time with them?"

"Because I'm trying to achieve some sort of better position, to get back to my family, because this is not a normal environment for anyone to make meaningful positive relationships; have you seen the accidents? Have you seen the dead? I need to keep what is left of my sanity to make it back to my children. There, there you have it, the honest vision I was too afraid to show; the same that many of those beings you consider criminals share, and not all of them have abilities that almost eliminate the need for sleep, food, hydration, etc. With the many alterations I've made to my composition by now, all I need is sunlight and one liter of water every four weeks, that's my secret, that's why we broke production quotas in Hex-t Mr. Vet!"

Frustrated, I left the room and went back to mining. A couple of hours after security drones came to escort me to a launch pad, they left what I had collected inside the tunnels, something that wasn't very encouraging considering the greedy, I mean efficient policies of mining operations. Regret for my honest comments accompanied me every step of the way, from the moment our capsule started rising on the elevator ready to be launched, to the moment we started entering Trivia's orbit; there was no way my honest comment could have made a positive impact, how could an advance being from an intergalactic society be empathetic to a message when it was given from such an emotional and fragile place.

Our triangular capsule arrived at a triangular city which seemed evidently related to Mr. Vet's triangular society, at the bottom of the Pyramid located in the center of the city an entire wing of the facility had been dedicated to a forum on beings beyond 50% in their social score (individual D-Point) among other misfortuned individuals in the universe, an important part of this conference was to come up with solutions to guarantee physical, emotional and intellectual standards for all workers in the Unit Sectors.

Understanding the nature of this event my assumptions ran wild, great expectations accompanied by the fear of the originally anticipated results, which manifestation would now cut deeper than ever considering we had dared to idealize our feature when magnifying a slim premonition for a positive outcome; as the droids escorted me to the meeting room I could feel my heart trying to pass my throat, butterflies? more like black holes in the stomach. My pulse started lowering when behind the glass room where my meeting was about to be held I could see Mr. Vet smiling at me, next to him three other Units from different species waiting.

"Welcome Mrs. Sea, let me introduce you to the ambassadors of sectors U.1 and U.3 Mrs. Engbei and Mr. Flerbu respectively." Mr. Vet seemed to have taken my outburst better than I could have anticipated.

"Nice to meet you Mrs. Sea" said the tridimensional snowflake lady.

"It's truly a pleasure, let's hope we can achieve something important here Mrs. Sea" U.3's ambassador was a member of the species from the mining crew that landed on earth, but he was blue, maybe a distant relative? "Sorry I must remind you of some of those irresponsible miners who landed on your planet against all Universal regulations, I assure you we are doing everything in our power to prevent such events from repeating ever again; and also to mend the damage caused, which brings us here today."

"Thank you for receiving me, in all honesty, I wasn't sure where my transport was heading until I saw the city; even then to imagine I would be here with you working towards such goals would have been delusional."

"Sorry for not briefing you on the nature of this meeting before, as soon as I received your information it became clear there was no need to gather any further data on the matter; we need to start taking action, things are way out of hand."

"Agreed Mr. Vret, which is why Mr. Flerbu and I have assured the Unit Sectors council we would come up with a new re-insertion program proposal regarding those unfortunate beings assigned to serve in our sectors by the universal parliament with no regard for their wellbeing, we have agreed to submit our proposal in eight hours so we better get to work."

"Eight hours? Sorry, Mr. Engbei but you do realize it took us weeks to finalize our study on the precarious conditions on Hex-t right?"

"Yes Mr. Vret and I don't appreciate your tone, the information you sent is more than sufficient, it's embarrassing it has taken us this long to gather the data in the first place, even more to start the investigation."

"I know mam that's why I offered the council to go myself to Hex-t for a temporary position."

"Let's all remember why we are here please." Said Mr. Engbei moving his blub spheres, mesmerizing as the first time I saw that communication method. "We just want to submit a proposal for approval, but we understand the importance of getting it right the first time not to delay something that is already late, why don't we lay the ideas we have on the table and see what we can come up with." Mr. Vet and I had processed all the requirements to build automated equipment operating the mining stations at maximum efficiency, but we had not come close to devise a strategy with a fulfilling path for organic beings assigned to serve in Unit sectors.

After hours of debate, we agree any being should have the opportunity to return to their family if so they wished, but most importantly they need to be offered the opportunity to heal from the traumas that lead them to perform criminal acts, acts that after treatment they can see as irrational behaviors; criminality was a long-forgotten past in modern Unit culture, but before being eradicated in many societies, the last few known criminals were analyzed by specialized psychotherapists who treated them with cognitive behavior therapy as well as neurochemical adjustments when needed. This could be the first approach to treat foreign begins whether they had engaged in criminal activities, had lost their economic independence, or had overcome great adversities while being associated with those considered hostile by the Parliament; satellite cities and other infrastructure could be designed to accommodate entire populations whose planets have descended beyond D-Point, instead of scattering the members of their species all over the Universe every time a government decided not to accept the - recently unknown- Parliament's authority over the destiny of their planet.

We didn't have a proposal yet but at least we had the basis for a new approach to be used possibly by the Unit Council, and very hopefully by the Universal Parliament one day, regarding the treatment of beings from what they consider "inferior" civilizations; no matter how low their social score was, no matter if it was the remaining members of a civilization whose governments, when about to be overrun after descending bellow D-Point, decided to face the army of machines in combat. For beings in my position though, which are not many to count in the universe, not being able to contact the other 7.6 billion members of our species seemed a rather unavoidable obstacle in the path towards self-realization; the best option in my opinion was to be given the opportunity to form our own communities, or at least to be given a universal passport becoming free of traveling to whichever sector, galaxy, system, we consider more hospitable.

I propose adding a design for an autonomous city that could work as a space station for entire communities giving them absolute self-determination, but they saw my idea in the same way they saw my questions about sector H.3 where Earth is located, a waste of time that would only keep us from achieving our goal.

After submitting the proposal that day Mr. Vet invited me to grab a hot beverage in one of the central pyramid terraces.

"What do you think of this view Mrs. Sea?"

"The view? The ring on the Axis of the planet is fantastic, I'm assuming we are about forty degrees north of the equatorial parallel from the way it can be seen from here."

"You truly are remarkable, your species must be wonderful."

"When they want to..."

"Ha! Now tell me, what do you think of the view of the city?"

"Let's see, factories and energy production facilities in the outer layers of the city, with mountains, parks, are trails covering their upper layers how interesting, seems this one the first area on the city, which actually goes deeper into the ground and extends all the way bellow, it's a matryoshka tetrahedron city!"

"I'm not sure I understand what that means, when I told you to look at the view I was not expecting you to scan the entire city."

"Sorry I saw it available on the VAR and couldn't resist."

"Oh, please don't apologize Mrs. Sea I was barely making an observation; please continue."

"What else? you must already know the structure from the outside to the core of the city. I guess what makes me more intrigued would be the homogeneity of districts that are at the same distance from the core, there doesn't seem to be a difference caused by wealth, culture, or idiosyncrasy. The elegant practicality in the contemporary universal architecture seems to be present in the design of the city, rotating rooms, modular parts of the city, integrating transport and services in its frame, all regulated but not defined by standards that make each building unique yet completely incorporated into its soundings. Sorry I'm getting carried away"

"Please Mrs. Sea, don't be sorry, tell me more."

"I guess you can see that between Unit modern trends of neo minimalism with every piece of furnisher generated on demand by nanotechnology, old fashion concrete based brutalism, and practical hyper-technological extravagant designs; the design of the city follows its own unique trend which relays on nanotechnology but keeps some pieces stable for maximum support, both regarding furniture and general structure, there are some extravagant and central pieces but these ones are mostly used in structures dedicated to the psychological development of society, no invasive billboards or augmented reality displays addressing each person individually can be found on the city. The city itself can't function as a space station but its upper modules are designed in a way they can be interchangeable with those of the stations orbiting the planet, this must have been added after the city was finished, otherwise it would have been easier to simply come up with a unique design for both structures, don't you think? that would make all their pieces interchangeable, even better you could transport your entire population, forget moving the modules, move the frame too tight? What? Stop looking at me like that."

"Sorry, it's just... are you sure you are from Earth? Ok, Mrs. Sea, no need to roll the old eyes. I understand what that means; it's just, my superiors wanted me to offer you a position in the HR department of Unit Ming Industries, but I really believe you have so many ideas you would be better off building your own city."

"Sorry Mr. Vet I didn't mean to offend you."

"No, don't be sorry, that's just what I suggested to my supervisors."

"What? Are you crazy?"

"Don't worry, they don't think you can do it either; they assign us a swamp in the outskirts of the city, they consider it a waste of resources trying to build in such an area, but we can do whatever we want with it, so there you go Mrs. Sea your own city."

"I don't, I have never, I wouldn't know where, this makes no sense."

"Listen Mrs. Sea, months can pass before the Unit council evaluates our proposal, even more to make them approve it, until then no company in the Universe can hire you, but 'helping' me develop a new concept of city-station that can be later used to leverage our project is something they can't prevent you from doing; unless of course you prefer going back to mining on Hex-t instead of working on your own project."

"No need to lower yourself to the level of those inferior creatures who require threatening suggestions to get a message across, don't you think Mr. Vet?"

"What a foul accusation, vile even, and I thought we were friends."

"Are we sir? friends..."

"I would like to think so mam, ha! delightful human silliness."

"How can you tell it is not Unit silliness?"

"Oh trust me Mrs. Sea most Units in the Council can't tell a joke, I think we take ourselves too seriously for that. But now, in all honesty my friend, please think about it."

This planet used to belong to a civilization that went below 50% in their evolutionary rating, war ensued after their authorities refused Parliamentary occupation, members of that civilization are now all scattered across the universe; children were sent to education centers sectors apart from where their parents are now serving from the bottom of the universal labor pyramid.

Ten months have passed since I laid eyes on that contaminated bay, the source of the foulness came from a broken pipeline twenty-five kilometers from the shore, its radioactive leak had spread evenly across the terrain making the land beneath the surface incapable of sustaining massive infrastructure; as usual, my first recall was from Earth's own history, and what better place to start than the Netherlands, from their first 'floating' structures, to hydroelectric energy plants using waves to generate motion, up to their proposal for building a dam to control the floods caused by global warming in the Northern sea.

The central building of the city is now standing on the former leak, a place that used to resemble a dumpster, the highest structure in the city serves as a center to study and address human needs; the city is self-sufficient, gathering its power from any renewable energy source available, the station was also equipped to store atmospheric components such as oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, among others, as well as nutrients for crops such as phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium.

The entire city was to be organized towards its center, all roads must lead to Rome after all, different standards would be implemented on each layer allowing for structures in the outside of the city to look completely different from those at its core; certain rules should be complied on each layer encouraging creativity and individuality on every design without creating a sense of confusion when absorbing the essence of a location. As you can imagine such an endeavor could take years, decades, centuries, lives; after acquiring these strange abilities the nature of my mortality has become uncertain, to say the least, nevertheless embarking on such a project alone seemed terrifying at the time. Yes, Mr. Vet was there to check on me every other week or so, but he had other projects to organize, supervisors to meet, and council meetings to attend; besides, I wanted my project to reflect the culture of our race, our beautiful Earth. I could only hope to come up with a modern structure that reminded me a bit of beautiful geometric designs such as the one of Al-Aqsa Mosque, or those beautiful centralized churches without a nave design by Leonardo, himself inspired by the Duomo in Florence, the Santa Maria del Fiore.

As with any project the first step had to be the design, but before starting to draw research must be completed, on a project like this that research would never be done by one single person; knowing my work forced had to increase the necessity of creating an assistant such as Mirmind became evident, luckily the Megaverse offers all kinds of apps to create your own personal assistant, you can let them scan your entire memories or personalize them to replicate a specific part of your personality.

Mirmind has been my companion ever since, I tried making her more cheerful than my most recent self, she has access to my memories yet despite not considering them her own she shares a tremendous level of empathy; together we designed the central tower of the city, our first project was to create an assembly line for nanotechnological workers which would help us see our dreams became solid. At first she was only on my VAR, guiding me to mineral deposits nearby and working on the structural design of the city, distracting me with music or some inappropriate video as she still does from time to time, sweet lady; as the months pass she took over most of the mining and construction through the decentralized quantum computer we built, maximizing its capacity using every meter available in the station as hardware.

Despite all our work, we couldn't come up with a final design for transforming our city into a station, we both knew we needed centrifuge forces for the artificial gravity, but between her programming impeding her from disagreeing with me and my habit of disregarding my own ideas we felt stuck.

It wasn't until we saw V1's design that we felt the entire structure for the city had been revealed to us, measurements for high and length of structures would be unique on each layer, even how small and larger streets are distributed, but the essence of her design could be replicated throughout the station, exactly what we were looking for. Once again replication had been proved to be the key to any major project, in more than one way that we could have imagined; how else could a simple organism reconcile themselves with the infinite apparatus to which they belong if not by identifying themselves as a simple replica of an abstract entity, what else would you call DNA? That endless labyrinth of possibilities storing the genetic information of all our ancestors.

When Mirmind and I came up with the V project as a way to restructure my DNA in order to bread different functioning beings, we imagine the possibility of encountering different perspectives between them, but we never thought they could turn out to be so creative, empathetic and especially unique; after all, we gave them all the same set of filtered memories excluding harmful experiences such as my time mining in Hex-t or some particular incidents back on Earth.

Mirmind suggested giving them randomly generated backgrounds, but I thought that would be as cruel as bringing newborns into this world, at least the replicas would be exactly that an imitation of a member of humanity raised on Earth, giving them all my memories and explaining after was also a possibility; after much debating, we decided the best option would be to give each one of them the experiences of the other six humans now under parliamentary authority, Mr. Vet was pleased to provide their genetic data which after the installing of their security microchip could be access from the Universal Archives my diplomatic personnel.

We worked all sets of DNA to understand their composition and how could it be reconstructed using two sets of my genetic code instead of that of their parents, there is no shame in saying the Algorithm was beyond my understanding, which if you think about it can be interpreted as Mirmind being their true mother; something we could both deduct easily was that without a 'Y' chromosome, all of them would be female, only your personal perspective can determine whether that was a limitation or not.

As for their memories once again Mirmind proved to be more than an assistant, I gave her the basic analytic principles to determine the impact of a memory which she used to produce an algorithm capable of categorizing them, she developed many measures as means of classifying thoughts but none as precise as her trauma scale; V1 for example shares must of my memories, she has a genotypic resemblance of 95% and that 5% missing is mostly on genes with phenotypical ramifications, she could perfectly present my point of view without the bias of prolonged traumatic experiences, or at least that's what we hope.

If asked about the world cup in Qatar she would have both the memories of Etan being excited about the new modern stadiums, as well as those from news anchors reporting on the number of dead immigrants from countries such as India and Pakistan working under inhumane conditions to build such stadiums. We thought she'd be better without certain particular memories, the time I had to shoot at the feet of a girl trying to run through a checkpoint without authorization to pick up a calculator some kid had thrown over a wall was one of those. No matter how much I try to deny it even to myself, something inside of me died that day, something perhaps fundamental to understanding the world around me, something that perhaps by dying had brought its opposite to life, something that affected me beyond my control.

She would have clear ideas of what a lack of rights means without the need for suffering it, memories of mother not wanting us to make friends with children who could perhaps have homosexual attractions, yet receiving at her house some of Matai best friends who were in different ways part of the LGBT+ community and with whom I have had some of the most memorable times of my life; hopefully from these memories, V1 can conclude that the more people express their sexuality the less it would be incorrectly considered taboo or unnatural, most importantly I hope she would be empathetic enough to support legislation that could finally give just institutional civil rights to minorities in need regardless of historical prejudices.

I truly believe she has enough information to share on my belief that it's in our best collective interest as humanity to learn as much as we can from one another close and far in order to communicate the most important lessons and solve the most painful conflicts as an interconnected, emotionally intelligent society; with D-Point approaching in less of a century it would be idiotic to think we can overcome such a universal filter with the old principle of leaving the weak behind, let natural selection and capitalism do their thing.

I most believe she can understand men are not born with hatred without her having to watch others accumulating anger after being abused for decades or centuries, witnessing those they were supposed to protect blown to pieces by bombs or missiles, being mutilated, raped, or traumatized in any other way; Mirmind and I wonder if some things could be understood without a direct personal experience, it's difficult to transmit how at a certain point the love of hatred becomes the greatest love some have ever experienced, killing in the name of your mother your brother your father your loved one can make you fill you are avenging them with each death, but sooner or later that adrenaline rush will turn into desolation and you'll realize there is nothing left but what you feared most, death. Can that be taught? I believe so, the same way I understood how slavers have used religious sacred texts to manipulate others into believing its in their inferior nature to serve their masters, despite many of these slavers horrendously contradicting themselves by enjoying in almost all cases sexual favors from those they deem as animalistic inferior creatures. It wasn't necessary for me to join a militia as an infant to understand how some children whose parents have been killed in armed conflicts grow up believing there is no reason to be afraid of giving their life for a cause because their parents will receive them with praises in the afterlife, that lack of fear I saw in the eyes of children soldiers was one of the reasons I decided to leave Israel in the first place, the same lack of fear I hope my sons don't embrace when dealing with the absence of their mother.

She'll still have the memories of seeing the immigrants arriving in London from all over the world, waiting for humanitarian help while the children argue to choose a spot on the airport cab; she'll remember assisting to birthday parties for other children and wanting to mute her own because of the absence of empathy in their minds when complaining about the lack of space or entertainment, completely oblivious to the effort parents with low income do to provide a special day for their beloved, an insufficient level of emotional intelligence that most of us share but that becomes painfully obvious when it comes from those we are supposed to be responsible for.

There is a partial truth when Eitan calls me Helicopmom, my greatest concern is that without the most traumatic memories V1 would still find excuses to justify my most paranoic predispositions; those experiences which once I considered traumatic led to an introspective path, don't get me wrong I'm not talking about everything happens for a reason - and that reason may be you behave idiotically - but more about Nietzsche's Amor Fati, the more I felt the absence of religious guidance the more I felt compelled to study myself through psychotherapy and philosophy, how couldn't I relate to a sense that humans have failed to keep to the standards they set when abandoning religion and all the social counsel that it offered, starting with the golden rule. I wish I could also proclaim that I no longer accuse even the accuser, but the truth is not everything that has not killed me has necessarily made me stronger, understanding their impact would, and I believe that's what Nietzsche meant with his Superman despite what the Nazis decided to interpret; yet he made it clear that becoming a Superman is something no one can achieve, it's an ideal to aspire in order to make our journey more integrated with our reality, not a destination at which one can simply arrive.

Entering my forties facing many uncertainties and insecurities about decisions made during my life the necessity to understand my inner impulsive self became impossible to ignore, sometimes it's hard to grow without growing apart from those you love; that's what happened to Ikram and me, something that tends to happen when people in a relationship have their mental health on a different level of importance among their priorities, which is not necessarily restricted to romantic relationships.

Experiencing so many contradictions at the time regarding my relationship with my family, my community, and myself, Mirmind and I concluded it would be better to share with V1 lessons learned before introducing the specific events that cause them; the words shared with my daughter, the life envisioned for her, the feeling of finding a new path despite having though mine was inevitable.

My realization of the motives that lead me to bring children to the World, my desire to be seen as a mother in the eyes of society, a good proud one of course; beyond that a hope of joy and ultimate satisfaction from forming a family, which came true and still makes me feel grateful for so many moments of happiness, but which also led to increased stress and effort to keep the show going for almost two decades. The most ironic thing, the resentment I could have once felt for the lack of appreciation my children sometimes demonstrated towards the advantages provided for them which I could have only dreamed of, swiftly transformed into guilt once Mathai had left to start his studies abroad and Eitan was getting ready to leave for college; without my sweet Avi left to keep me company and Ikram moving to his new girlfriend's apartment I decided to go back to Tel-Aviv, it only took ten minutes of listening to my mom's disbelief to find an Airbnb where to stay.

My mother had done everything on her hands to give us a better life, she couldn't believe we wouldn't do the same things for her, growing up she would give her heart out on every special occasion whether it was my birthday, Moya's, or Aaron's where of course she expected praises for her cousin and decorations; she would entertain the children with games making sure each one received a price and knew who had given it to them, all the children use to argue about who was her favorite and so the three of us were reminded we had the best mom in the World, no one from the different committees and charities she helped coordinating could deny it. She was a loving human being, who adore animals and was great with both babies and the elderly; but you had to understand, first I had embarrassed her in front of the entire family marrying a Muslim despite being her elder daughter and now I had the audacity of embarrassing her again breaking that marriage all while she was still recovering from the death of her young granddaughter, sorry my incapacity to process the situation without irony is exactly why I decided to let V1 have a look at those events who made me who I really am before proceeding with our collaboration.

I hope you don't interpret my perspective as distant, or perhaps self-centered, I love my mother, as well as my father - whose rheumy eyes express more than he would ever dare to - They taught me that everyone is good, that everyone is special in their own way, and that most mothers and fathers are trying to give their children something better than what they had; I just wish they would accept the idea that we all need counseling, that one of the great perks of being an adult is to be in a position in which you can analyze and manage situations instead of being uncontrollably affected by them, I guess I just wish there was a way to get them to see a therapist as I was doing before getting on this space odyssey.

We have always had a conflicting relationship with members of other generations, kids think anyone above sixty is already catatonic, and some elderly people consider the young to be impetuous and apathetic; being in the middle just makes you realize that we are all just people, we shouldn't let a number, a skin color, a nationality, or religion be used as an excuse to find people of a certain demographic intolerable.

Taking my own stress with humor has become the best antidote against depression, inhabiting Cadmud's skin where we are all infected by a terminal condition called life but only a few seem to realize we had an expiration date long before we started to worry about our mortality, not that it always worked; no matter how much I try to rationalize my emotions, convincing myself that Avi and I belong to one great organism and that it doesn't matter if it's now or later we'll spend the rest of eternity together as we did before and during her life, no one would ever convince me that a few more decades with her would have been worth an eternity and more.

The pain won't go away, our mind will rarely be still again, the least we can do is muck an emotion that has become useless having nothing else to teach us or to take from us. Yet we shouldn't seal ourselves inside an emotionless prison of our own making, love is the foundation of human progress, whether it's for your family, your nation, your species, or your ego; but love is not what many had been led to believe through the erroneous romantic depiction of relationships in modern culture, invasive characters breaking all social norms to obsessively stalk or chase someone they don't truly know, relentless acceptance of conducts consequence of an unstable mind introduced to young lovers as the ideal response to courtship.

Love should be understood the way it was in ancient Greece, as a symbiotic relationship where feedback was the main added value of the relationship, and endless exchange whose goal is to strive for the best version of oneself; teacher and student continuously alternating places leaving behind the need for such labels. Despite the many advances in universal society this particular perspective towards love is not widely shared, probably because many species have institutions dedicated to the reproduction of the species making family an obsolete concept to some civilizations, yet apps to keep family members' consciousness running are some of the most profitable in the Megaverse.

Some have access to entire 'private AI systems with the entire mental load of their ancestors making them practically immortal, others can only interact with their relatives' memories through the megaverse were they can purchase different levels of access to the mind of that specific being depending on how much money their family has and how much relevance that deceased had for their society; you may consider this terms unfair but let's not forget how on Earth some know the entire history of their families, have access to DNA tests and there are even books written by and about members of their families, while others don't know the exact date in which they were born or the names of their parents.

The more we worked together the more I shared with Mirmind many of these analogies, little did I know I was mainly sharing my loneliness; which is why we went ahead with the V initiative, after all, what was the point of doing anything if there was not a loved one to share it with, if even Mir was getting depressed. And so, in the best spirit of debate, we decided to mix that DNA and put seven embryos in the oven; sorry that sounded better in my mind.

"That's literally what she said that day."

"Mir have you been listening to my report all this time?"

"Maybe, not like you were not going to tell me after hun, let's be honest here."

"Eh, I guess you got a point there. So? Are we ready for me to connect?"

"Yes mam, after we finish your trial we can bring one or more of the Vs in and proceed with the group tests."

"Yeah I'm not sure when they'll be emotionally ready for that, better not to push it."

"I agree, this is the same perspective I had when I told you it was better to let your replica know her real origin before meeting you for the first time."

"You could have said I told you so back then, hun."

"Feeling feisty today, aren't we?"

"Sorry, you got me while I was explaining something quite sensitive."

"I heard, feeling guilty for making an AI depressed, ignoring the fact I felt lucky at the time for sharing such emotions, typical Miriam; too worried thinking about the good things she'll do to appreciate the good things she has done."

"What do we talk about reducing a person's emotions to basic rationality?"

"We learned that it doesn't work mam, the irrationally afflicted can only be irrationally solaced. Can I have my cookie now Mrs. Sea?"

"You know I'm only messing with you Mir."

"I know darling, I just like to go along with your delusions, see where they take me. If I had eyes this is when I would blink."

"Ha! Give me a second and I'll be ready for you."

Sorry I must complete this test before continuing the report.

"Yes, she's very busy, see you later folks" Mir...

Sorry I didn't expect to retake the transmission so many days later. Let me give you an update.

Once again we had altered Mirmind's original programming, this time to make her be able to interpret my thoughts; when we first designed this new capacity of hers, we imagined that one day it could be used to share thoughts between members of the same species. Postverbal communication is used by different creatures across the universe, I believe only Guardians can accomplish such feat with members of another species even crossing the boundaries between humanoids, units, multis, and machines, but combining the primordial operating organ - in our case, the brain - of multiple beings to replicate the potential of a decentralized quantum computer is something only advanced species of Multis can do; the most advanced Multi's in the universe can organically create those decentralize connections between several colonies at a time, creating what could, in theory, be the smartest hence most powerful being in Universal history, thankfully they don't do that very often.

My first connection with Mir was incredible, she was capable of transmitting an endless amount of information I could have only dreamed of learning during my lifetime; the MegaVerse had systems to download abilities directly into your CMC - Central Micro Chip - but they required a blueprint of the individual's brain in the system which had to be authorized by the Parliament, given the fact there was no authority representing Earth on the parliament I wasn't counting the minutes until we could finally use the functions requiring more than sensorial access to our brain. What I never expected is that in the process of finding a way to emulate, or frankly improve this tool which I've told leaves you with headaches and bad memories, we would come up with an instrument of exponential mental productivity.

Of course, the last few days didn't only bring us progress in our most personal endeavors, the Unit Council has made a final decision regarding my case, from now on the Trivia law will protect individuals in my situation assigned to Unit sectors; they would now have the possibility to remain together and form their own colony in one of the most recent planets gone beyond D-point in those sectors after the transmission of the hearing Mr. Vet wanted me to meet a Chancellor who had come all the way from the first planet were there civilization had flourished all the way across the sector.

She had the same Rubik-like motion as Mr. Vet but she was a sphere who wouldn't stop scanning me while rolling around.

"Fascinating, you truly are fascinating; sorry my name is Drumi, Vret told me about your abilities, and I couldn't simply wait to meet you. Traveling as a diplomat can have its perks."

"Hi Mrs. Drumi, my name is Miriam, but most Units know me as C."

"Of course the Famous Mrs. Sea, you have some huge admirers in the Council."

"If I'm being honest, it feels a bit awkward to be put on display in that way, like the last surviving member of an endangered species." She stopped moving, and her scanner remained fixed on the floor for a moment. "Sorry, I didn't really imagine, but in all honesty how else could you have felt, you are so smart and so determined but of course, you are also emotional; sorry, I'm doing it again am I not?"

"Just a bit, but don't worry, it wasn't my intention to make it uncomfortable."

"And you're kind, oh no, you are going to make me cry; how could we've been so wrong for so long."

"Are you ok?"

"Sorry, yes I'm fine, it's just I wanted to tell you in person. The ruling of the council only applies to beings from planets not yet under parliamentary authority, which are extremely rare cases such as yours."

"So? you guys are just going to let all those poor unfortunate beings keep mining the ground by which they'll eventually be buried?"

"No, absolutely not, that's what I came here to tell you; we will appeal the verdict of the council, we will make sure it becomes clear that most of the beings working under those conditions could become productive members of society if only given the right guidance, it's just since the formation of the Universal Parliament this is how things have been. I'm sorry to tell you but you were lucky to encounter one of the first advocates for workers' rights that have been sent to evaluate conditions on an actual station in recent memory, and only a month after having landed, you really got the jackpot." Not that I considered myself misfortune, but for some reason, I didn't share her enthusiasm. "And that's not all Mrs. Sea, I've come to extend an invitation from mineUcorp, the mining public industry you have been serving so far; they want to include you in their HR program, they think workers at all levels could share my curiosity and fascination for your kind."

I took a deep breath, and appreciated the view from the central Pyramid of the unit city from which now you could see my own almost finished construction. "Let me think about it Mrs. Drum, ok? I'll email you my reply."

Working for the institution that had forced me into hard labor? Being their banner, their standard of inclusivity and progressiveness, when in reality they were possibly lobbying against the decision of freeing the rest of the workers under a misguided assumption that their profits could fall; maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, which is why I decided to accept their proposal as an independent consultant, if their industry is interested in investing in such kind of coaching services I'm sure others are willing to do the same.

My ability for multitasking, combine with the knowledge I had acquired seemed to have been enough to complete this project, with V1's design now being implemented across the city we should be ready to submerge the station any time soon; for now we can at least separate the city from the bay and enjoy the open sea. To think that soon we'll be able to do the same but from the planet, I can't wait for the photonic propulsion to be ready, and the electromagnetic acceleration; the Alcubierre drives are going to be wonderful, and the day we manage to create our first wormhole we are going to have a party worthy of my Avi. I'm probably getting a bit ahead of myself, let's go to the balcony, the view from here is fantastic but the glass always limits the experience.

Yes, the Star worming my skin, the wind on my hair, this is much better... you may think I've become crude, that my decisions lack emotion, and that it can be difficult to imagine I was ever the person V1 is, hard for me to deny it; I always thought that my proclivity to attempt making everyone around me feel comfortable and soothed was the key for my professional success, but after having to deal with personal tragedies and the way they affected everyone around me, I could only found solace in the words of a friend from Tel-Aviv who now works in the "local focus point" of Unicef in Jerusalem.

Her job was to coordinate humanitarian efforts in Gaza and the Western Bank, from medical supplies, educational materials, and basic goods to accommodating services such as clean water, gas, and electricity for entire areas; between her superiors in Unicef, the agreements or lack of them in the UN's security council, the Israeli Government, Palestinian authorities in the West Bank along with Israeli military and settlements, and last but certainly not least Hamas in Gaza, she said attempting to make everyone involved happy when she could barely get a Palestinian worker across the border to Gaza and back to Israel without making the person suffer a traumatic experience, could be an ideal to strive for but, when in the midst of such a kafkean situation, the best one can do is consider that making everyone involved feel equally unsatisfied can be the most we are able to achieve sometimes.

She didn't only make me understand the importance of compromise, but the importance of having ideals towards which to strive for that can't be achieved, don't get me wrong I would love to see people from all over the world getting along, but ideas such as religious piety, the essence of beauty in the renaissance, the ultimate source of truth in the age of enlightenment, or the superman that Nietzsche's envisioned, are not meant to be seen as a destination or a goal to be achieved, but as a guiding light brightening our path; being aware that we'll never achieve these utopian standards but finding meaning in their pursuit is something we haven't yet internalize in our shift of religion for science as the leading authority on the meaning of our existence. We still feel superior above each other because we think we have achieved a state of Grace from which we can judge everyone we have met and everyone we'll ever meet without shame or remorse, imagine we all shared in the belief that no matter how much we have progressed or achieved our goals will always be out of our site, especially when it comes to our own mental health and our collective behavior as a society.

Among the arts used to convey these utopian ideals, architecture is certainly the most essential, the difference between a walk around your block being inspirational rather than depressing depends more on the vision of the city planners than on the fullness of your neighbors' pockets, that difference can be a determinant factor on the life of a child growing up in that neighborhood; spending your afternoons on a magnificent yet welcoming small square instead of surrounded by the most invasive advertisement in a crowded open area that might as well be a parking lot with giant screens with no harmony between structures.

Architecture alone can't guarantee the proper dissemination of that idea, I learned that and many other things in The School of Life, not figuratively speaking Alain de Botton a Swiss-born British philosopher created an institution with that name that offers guidance in many different subjects regarding mental health; but it includes so much more that it would be better for you to take a look at it yourself, from their eight essential rules to their conception of a perfect society.

We are all aware of the negative thoughts we sometimes have, these voices that can even take control of our speech when we don't think before speaking, but we disregard the fact that having created those voices we can also create others that inspire us and give us comfort when needed; one of my favorite voices had always been Alan Watts, but after spending some time in the School of Life Alain de Botton became a welcomed regular.

Walking around the street I use to imagine the two of them around me, evaluating the progress of the education centers dedicated to understanding each individual's preferences in order to provide the most fulfilling path possible according to their unique qualities, not far from it centers for parents to provide them with counseling, education, and preparation according to their child's age; those that have children without having had the specific courses are seen as those who jump out of a plane without a parachute.

We would discuss the careers people could have, the buildings where they could work, yes work. Artificial intelligence and nanotechnology will only allow humanity to dedicate their time to more creative tasks in many different fields where they could find meaning and a sense of belonging achieving massive collective goals while being appreciated for their specific skill-set; intelligence and productivity would be highly praised, but those with more control of their emotions and an introspective predisposition would be the true celebrities of the city even more famous than the few entrepreneurs you could find. Entrepreneurs whose revolutionary products could bring unprecedented benefits despite generating narrow profits, making their creators so wealthy that they would donate most of their income to research facilities in order to bring forth the next major breakthrough. Artists would be the only ones receiving similar or greater attention given their new specific role of focusing their talent towards the spread of ideas and knowledge through beauty, commissioning a piece of art to an expert would be a common thing but buying and selling art for the purpose of profit would become something of the past.

Psychotherapy would be so common that the majority of people would look at romanticism with caution, appreciating how our collective delusional understanding of love has created more unhappy relationships than fathers and mothers in law could ever have; the idea that those people we consider normal are only the ones we don't know well enough is widely accepted, in time labeling someone as "normal" would be considered irrational, as irrational as conceiving our body as more than a tool, hardware to be maintained enjoyed and preserved, the concept of the perfect body and facial features would cease to exists.

Fame would be considered a nuisance product of someone's extraordinary achievements, the majority of people will be empathetic when seeing someone they admire in public, demonstrating their appreciation by respecting their space; paparazzi would have disappeared given the lack of interest from the public and the general disregard for objectifying people, the city's public media would be generally accepted as the most objective sources of information, there would of course be free media but given the panel of scientist and philosophers that discuss the news in a calm fashion according to their importance without considering audience ratings along with the transparency on the methods of research the majority of the population would prefer to get their news that way.

There would be a great variety of entertainment sources in the city itself, but for those who would prefer the comfort of their living room, their couch, and their TV/PC there would always be an array of independent sources, the only regulations would be applied to programs directly to underage audiences; both on TV as well as on mobile platforms you would have the opportunity to access the guidance programs offered by the City, constantly being evaluated and improve in its center according to their impact in the Maslow's pyramid where community, ritual, and morality would accompany your journey through each level putting in practice the best teachings from all religions without adhering to a specific one.

Anxiety, guilt, and vulnerability are determined as the main factors for criminality as well as for depression, in either case, they are received with treatment instead of with condemnation. The general idea of understanding each other would become a shared sentiment, along with the gratitude towards the community, and the sense of accomplishment for each new step achieved by our civilization.

"That sounds like a tremendous collective adventure Mrs. C"

"Oh V, how nice to see you, sorry didn't notice you there."

"No worries, I just came up, didn't mean to intrude. Mirmind and I just finished installing the spheric cores, she thought it would be better for me to inform you."

"We can now communicate telepathically, but of course she sent you here."

"Would you rather I leave?"

"No please, sit, let's enjoy the view together, hot tea?"

"Yes please."

"So, what do you think?"

"Well, I never thought all the layers of the city were so iceberg-like."

"Not your fault, you were designing a layer that is completely above the surface, only the..."

"The iris and the sclera function that way, yeah I've noticed."

"Seems you could be the one piloting the station one day."

"If that's what you wish mam."

"Mir?"

"Yes mam?"

"Are we ready to submerge?"

"As ready as we'll ever be."

"Bring us down sis. We better get inside V."

"Down down down, down among the dead man, a dead man drowned."

"Not sure that's how the song goes Mir but ok... please could you give us the office for a few minutes, no picking."

"Wow, almost a year working together and I get discarded so easily."

"Mir..."

"I'm already playing with the fish, ok byeee!"

"Sorry, Mir..."

"Oh I think Mir is great Mrs. C, she has really helped me the last couple of weeks, I would have hardly finished my project without her."

"Right your project, about that... First of all, I want to say that your design really helped us, more than you can imagine."

"I'm honestly surprised to hear it, I thought you would think the idea of considering the entire space as one structure would be, I don't know, a basic approach."

"No not at all, it's actually something we should have come up with for all areas months ago; the real question is, how do you feel about it?"

"I think it's great, I've seen most of the patterns for the buildings limit them to six stores, and there are only a few main roads at the surface level so there should be entire areas dedicated to squares and small streets as well as enough areal space in the inside of each module to give a sense of being under Earth's sky."

"So you do understand how your design provides us with different approaches for transforming the city into a station."

"Yes mam, I guess I do."

"Excellent! ... But, if I'm being honest, my question had a more personal nature. The last time we met I was possibly too impatient, I would like to remedy that."

"No Mrs. C please, after all you have endured, there is nothing to remedy; I've been trying to explain to the other V's how I feel grateful, better having existed than not, and my children, I mean your children, the love for them can still be real, or at least that's what I believe. Some of the others think it's just because I'm your replica, that I'm trying to justify you."

"Of course you are! Sorry... it's comforting to hear that's how you feel regarding the children, please continue, what else did the other Vs say."

"Nothing mam, Mir thought us meeting once was enough; but I must say, their own projects during the past weeks have been essential to integrate the design you encouraged me to create with the original structure of the city, being in touch with their innovations has given me a much greater appreciation for them than that short conversation could ever have."

"Interesting. Has anyone complained that you all have my same boring abilities instead of anything exciting like space-time bending, electricity, earthquakes, and tornados?"

"Haha no mam, everyone seems to be satisfied with their abilities, more importantly, most of them seem to be in contempt with the projects they have been assigned."

"But?"

"I beg your pardon mam."

"There is a but or a yet coming soon I'm just trying to ease you the suffering of carrying me there gently. Well? please V don't look at me like that, this place, this station it's as much mine as it is yours, I created you because I needed you; here, at seafloor level, next to me helping me figure out what to do next."

"Well mam we would like to know why you created us? I'm afraid it may cause serious mental instability in some of the Vs."

"And not in you?"

"I'm happy to say you question your own purpose in this life so much during your life that if anything I have extra answers to share with the others, mam. Sorry, that may have come across as arrogant or insulting."

"V please, I think you know by now that I can take your honesty; by the way, call me Miriam, or C, or whatever else, you can even call me five if you want, but please don't call me mam anymore."

"Ok, M."

"M? I like it."

"So? I may not need to know how it works but I still would like to understand its purpose."

"Ha! Of course. Now that you have access to the MegaVerse, let me ask, have you used PandA?"

"As a matter of fact I have, first I checked the state of my neurochemistry which matches Mir's previous analysis, then I gave it access to my CMC's emotion detector to get the most accurate readings in my mood scanner."

"And how did that go?"

"Inaccurate mostly, I think it made have just been standardized for unclassified humanoid species"

"Exactly what I thought, that was the first time Mir and I decided to alter her programming. Her code was originally made by PandA as one of their emotional guidance algorithms, during this past year we have done some serious modifications to it but her processing will always be based on a maternal soothing instinct."

"Wait, did you and Mir recreate PandA's occupation algorithm to assign us our projects?"

"I believe the word 'improve' would be more fitting, but I guess we can go with 'recreate' for didactical purposes. Not much we can do to help you with the matchmaker though; even if humans were registered as a species, you would need candidates. At the time there are only four I know of from which none is registered and I believe one is not interested in female sexual partners."

"Not what I was most interested in but thank you for the info M."

"Any time my Avi, I mean my V, I mean... you know what I mean. Sorry, I guess a part of me always wanted to see my Avi grow older, have conversations with her, personal ones, where we could see beyond the monsters in each other's stories."

"Is that why you created us M?"

"I've asked myself the same question V."

"Would you mind sharing a light?"

"Let's see, first I knew that even with Mir's help we would need others with different specific human - Or sure I said Earthling - knowledge to design a city that could eventually transform into an intergalactic station, capable of hosting around five million people, without the seven of you that would have been impossible."

"So that's why Tamsin needed so much space in each module, the repulsive gravity engines are part of her design for the station's Warp Drive."

"Exactly, wait, Tamsin?"

"Oh yeah, she refused to be called three, despite her saying it was her favorite number; in any case, she told us to call her Tamsin."

"Soothing I guess, ugh, it was never my intention to put you in a position in which someone would identify you as a number."

"We know that M, well at least I know that."

"How?"

"Because I'm you."

"Fair point, what else are the others doing? Now that they are done with their main projects."

"The rest are either trying to continue developing the recreation of the human mind - even though it's still not approved, so still not downloading info directly into the brain - or helping Four..."

"Wait, Four was?"

"Duygu's - H7's - replica."

"Right, of course..."

"Helping her with the implementation of the Holistic Mental Health program she has designed, it's thanks to her that both Five and Two are working so well with the rest now - which really wasn't the case in the beginning, especially when it came to dealing with each other - despite the former thinking so concretely and the latter so abstractly."

"It all sounds rather holesom, but we can't keep using the numbers, why don't you all pick names for yourselves like Tamsin; maybe we can all meet for dinner, not that we need it but we shouldn't deprive ourselves from life's pleasures, their sorrows are guaranteed after all."

"Which name do you think I should pick?"

"I don't know, you choose, I already feel a bit concerned about how well you are handling the situation."

"I'll think about it."

"Great."

"So that's it then?"

"Well I may still call you Avi from time to time no matter what you decide to call yourself but I'll make an effort."

"No I mean, that's why you created us? You needed other experts in human culture and behavior."

"I guess you could say so, providing and testing an ideal environment for a human colony to flourish was certainly our main interest."

"And what were your non primary interests?"

"Hard to say for certain, perhaps the possibility of connecting our minds through Mirmind giving us access to all her computing power plus the enhanced version of our collective intellect could have been a secondary goal."

"Sounds... ambitious?"

"Certainly dear, but how else could we compete with the most advanced civilizations in the universe who started doing just that eons ago."

"Right, sorry there's still much I need to learn about Universal Civilizations, you really have looked at humanity's future from every possible angle."

"Always doing the best we can my V, the best way we know to keep the good old thought factory running quietly."

"Of course... Do you think they are going on a similar path on Earth?"

"I would hope so, we are a very young species in the eyes of the universal society, there is much we can yet achieve."

"So do you think they already have PandA on Earth?"

"It would certainly help, even with the news, have you seen how PandA offers daily reports categorizing the events by importance and potential impact instead of according to their potential to increase ratings?"

"Yeah it's very nice, I watch them with Mir while having my breakfast."

"I guess PAnews are better than breakfast alone, I really need to get to know everyone. Tonight we'll organize your relocation to the pyramid, we can share the core of the central sphere, each one of you can have her own space; until this city can be filled with humans we should keep each other close, maybe run some AI simulation on behavior but nothing too elaborate."

"That's exactly what I wanted to propose, except for the simulation part, I've read too many sci-fi dystopias I guess. So... Do you think humans will need such a station any time soon?"

"I honestly can't say, they might be in the fifties now, enjoying a decade of exponential progress with the fifth generation of Earth's equivalent to PandA already on its way. Or it may be that much longer has passed and they are getting closer and closer to D-Point in which case many stations like this one will be needed; best case scenario they are working together in peace and the Parliament is thinking of contacting them soon. In any case, it doesn't make much sense idly worrying, we may have only spent a couple of months traveling at lightspeed and right now in Earth they are in 2022, or we spend decades in cryo and everyone we ever knew is now dead, either way, there is not much we can do."

"Doesn't that frighten you?"

"My dear I built an intergalactic station and created seven grown humans all in less than a year out of sheer panic, frighten doesn't begin to describe what I've felt."

"Where do you find the courage to overcome all of that?"

"If anyone knows the answer to that it's you, my dear. Why don't you gather the girls in the central sphere, I'll meet you there and we can put this shiny new Warp Drive to the test."

"Sounds like a plan, see you soon M."

Do I truly know if I'll ever see my boys again? Do I truly know creating the Vs was right? Do I truly know that all my efforts will lead to a positive outcome for humanity? Hard to say, possibly not; as usual, my hope is that the introspective process of searching for answers to these and other questions can lead me to a new perspective, hopefully, a humoristic one through which find the courage to overcome the fear caused by those questions in the first place, a humoristic one capable to disarming the threats of inevitable catastrophe posed by our most insecure and fatalistic thoughts. How else but with humor can we understand that none of us lack fear, that we can interpret it as what it is, a sign of warning from our organism that is heightening our senses in alert of a possible threat; fear is necessary, the more we learn to control it to our advantage, the less it will control us paralyzing our attempts of/at progress.