Chapter 463 By Hook or by Crook

Chapter 463 By Hook or by Crook

February 1, 1 AE

The lockdown had officially ended after the empire had completed the majority of the transitional work. Currencies had been exchanged, workers had been retrained, agencies had been built and fully staffed, and all seven billion citizens had registered for their IDs. The only ongoing work was the initial medical treatment in the imperial hospitals inside each of the cubes scattered across the world and the retrial of prisoners who had requested one. No matter how efficient the empire was—and it was VERY efficient—they simply didn’t have enough medical pods or legal staff to handle that many jobs in a short period of time.

That said, imperial clinics had been built outside of the cubes, filled with row after row of shiny, brand new medical pods, and subordinate AIs had quietly taken on quite a few of the cases in the justice system. The two tasks would be completed over the next few months and had been downgraded to low priority jobs in the background.

Currently, the only thing the empire lacked was capable individuals to helm the imperial agencies and the three ministries.nOVElbIn

But lacking the warm asses to fill those particular seats wouldn’t prevent the agencies from operating, as the AIs responsible for general oversight of each agency could still issue orders even without official heads of the agencies. Filling those spots would also take time, as potential candidates were identified, recruited, and tested to see if they were the best person for the job. Sure, the Akashic Library had their constantly updated brain data, but that didn’t give the whole picture of what a person was or how they would actually act when the metal hit the meat.

Free will was a bitch, and the brownian motion of sentient life was something that no amount of processing power would ever be able to account for.

Among the first agency to finish their transitional tasks was the imperial scholastica. They had one of the easiest tasks: unifying school curriculums. Though each country had had their own curriculum in the past, they all taught mostly the same things. STEM subjects were naturally combined, as math was math and science was science no matter what country was teaching it, while the more liberal arts–oriented subjects were either combined or eliminated entirely. Early childhood, late childhood, and adult education were strictly delineated, and with twice the length of time to teach, STEM and liberal arts would be given equal treatment under the new curriculums. At least in early childhood education, anyway, where children would be given a broad foundation before being sorted into a single path once their personalities had developed and their interests discovered and verified.

“But mooooom...” Henry whined. “That’s two whole weeks away! Can’t I just study next week and go outside this week?” His small face wore an exaggerated expression of aggrieved misery.

“Why don’t you just play in the simulation? You’ll even have more time there,” Rose suggested.

“But that’s not real! And since it isn’t real, I don’t have fun there,” Henry complained. He was one of the minority of people who didn’t enjoy the simulation, since they couldn’t bring themselves to forget that it wasn’t real.

Rose sighed. “Okay. But you have to promise you’ll study really hard next week, and no more excuses, okay mister?”

“Yay! Will Aron come with us?” Henry cheered, then grew sober when he remembered that his big brother only went out when it was required by his new duties.

Saddened by the disappointment evident in Henry’s expression, Rose said, “Why don’t you go ask him if he’ll have time to come out and play with us?” She felt that perhaps Henry would have a better chance of dragging her older son away from his heavy responsibilities, even for a few hours, than she would if she were to ask him.

“Okay!” Henry exclaimed, then leapt off of the sofa and sprinted at full child speed to the elevator, on his way to the secure pod vault determined to drag his big brother out by hook or by crook.