My Ultimate Sign-in System Made Me Invincible

Back on Earth, everyone waited in anticipation for the space station to open. High above them, the orientation for the civilian staff had already started.

The process moved quickly. The Station Director AGI extension stood before the gathered workers and explained exactly what was needed of each of them. She walked them through their schedules and their designated sectors.

The workers learned the layout of the residential district and the transit hub. They practiced operating the localized systems and understood the daily flow of the fifty-five-kilometer structure.

The culinary staff toured the massive kitchens. They inspected the automated synthesis units and the fresh produce deliveries from the agricultural sector.

The logistics operator learned how to manage the automated inventory feeds. They watched holographic displays track cargo movements across the entire station.

The medical personnel walked through the recovery pod halls and familiarized themselves with the interfaces. They saw the rows of pristine pods waiting for the first patients. The AGI extension answered every question instantly, providing clear instructions and guided them through their new environment.

Seconds bled into weeks. Down on Earth, the logistics network roared to life. Large freight space shuttles began landing on the tarmacs of major international airports across the world.

They came to pick up the retail section products from the manufacturing companies that had accepted the partnership. These sleek, silent ships were landing in some countries for the very first time.

The reactions were immediate. People stopped in the terminals and stared out the glass windows. Baggage handlers dropped their equipment and watched the massive vessels descend. The ships made no sound.

The governments of the countries where the airports were located received a twenty-four-hour notice from Nova Technologies. The airport authorities got the same brief message.

The political leaders held emergency meetings, but their hands were tied. They couldn’t restrict the space shuttles from landing. They couldn’t stop them from leaving. They possessed zero capability that could help them achieve such a block.

Their radar systems couldn’t track the descent until the ships were already hovering over the runways. Their military jets couldn’t intercept a vessel that manipulated gravity.

Defense ministers watched video feeds in total silence and they realized they no longer controlled their own airspace. They also couldn’t order the companies to ignore the pickup drones flying out from the space shuttles. The companies wanted their products on the station. They opened their warehouse doors and let the drones in.

Some freight shuttles bypassed the airports entirely. They descended over major harbors and hovered solidly over the open water. Hundreds of matte-black delivery drones swarmed out from the open cargo bays.

They flew toward the docks and took the packaged products straight from the waiting delivery trucks. The drones moved in perfect synchronization. They grabbed crates of electronics, cosmetics, and books, lifting them effortlessly into the air, while scanning them. The harbor workers stood on the concrete docks and recorded the entire operation.

Surprisingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, some companies chose to use Nova Express freight to deliver their items directly to these drop-off points. They routed their entire inventory to the closest international airport or port just to meet the shuttles.

It had only been a few weeks since the companies signed their agreements. So, they hadn’t been able to create the specialized space station editions yet, especially after Nova Technologies informed them that the space station would open to the public in two months.

The executives held quick meetings and decided to send their regular editions first. That way, they could stock the shelves immediately. They would have enough time to design and manufacture the exclusive space station editions without the pressure of a time constraint.

The companies packed their standard inventory and pushed it out the door. They wanted their brand logos visible on the station shelves the moment the first civilian tourists walked through the commercial district.

Across the world, huge crowds gathered around the perimeter fences of airports and ports. Traffic jammed the highways leading to the drop-off zones. People stood on the roofs of cars and climbed chain-link fences.

They watched as the drones got to work. The machines offloaded boxes from the terrestrial trucks and carried them opened underbelly of the space shuttle freights.

Drones flew across the sky every minute of their daily lives now, but the public still hadn’t gotten used to it. The sight of an interstellar spacecraft coming down to take ordinary products bound for a space station was a sight to see.

People recorded everything on their phones and uploaded the clips to LucidNet. They filmed the smooth, matte-black drones carrying pallets of consumer goods into the sky. Children pointed at the massive ships hovering above the water and adults stared in silence.

For regular people, the view of the space station ended when the construction was completed. The official livestream cut to black the moment the exterior finished.

But for Lucid users, the view remained wide open. They used their devices to look up. They deployed the 64K autonomous flying cameras that Nova Technologies had released.

They pointed them at the sky and zoomed in as much as they could. The cameras pushed past the atmosphere and captured stunning images of the fifty-five-kilometer station. The lenses were so advanced they could see as far as Jupiter before quality degradation set in.

The images they posted were breathtaking for the rest of the world. High-resolution shots of the station flooded the internet. Pictures of the azure transit lines glowing against the dark void went viral in seconds.

Users captured the sunlight reflecting off the surface. They photographed the docking bays where the freight shuttles entered the station. The cameras didn’t stop at the station.

They took detailed photographs of the gas giant and the asteroid belt. The clarity surpassed anything taken by terrestrial observatories. They photographed the swirling storms on Jupiter and the jagged, mineral-rich surfaces of massive asteroids. They captured the rings of Saturn with good enough clarity.

Space agencies around the world noticed the uploads. Directors and lead astronomers started communicating with everyday Lucid users in their countries. They sent official requests in a bid to get them to take specific images of certain celestial bodies.

The agencies wanted high-quality data on the gas giant and the asteroid belt. This created a massive shift in the scientific community. Multi-billion-dollar government telescopes were suddenly outclassed by a consumer device.

The implications settled over the global institutions. A teenager in a backyard could capture a better image of a distant moon than a national space program.

Astronomers asked the users to hold their cameras steady on specific coordinates. They requested raw data files instead of compressed images. The users complied and sent the files to the agencies. The scientists analyzed the images and found details they had never seen before. They mapped atmospheric patterns on Jupiter and identified new mineral deposits on asteroids.

The balance of space exploration shifted from the government to the individual. The agencies had to rely on the goodwill of the public to do their jobs. It humbled the directors and frustrated the politicians.

Decades of government funding and research were rendered completely obsolete by a single consumer product.

Time passed. The logistics network continued to move goods from the Earth to the sky. The shuttles made their silent trips up and down the gravity well. The staff settled into their new homes and the retail designated staff prepared the retail stores. They placed them on the shelves after taking them out of the general cartons and not individual cartons. They set up the display windows.

Finally, a full month had gone by since the space station construction was completed. The world watched the clock and waited for the doors to open.