novelb1n
Chapter 467 Enrichment
467 Enrichment
“Did sister Rina already wake up?”
When Aron opened his eyes, his little brother’s question was the first thing he heard. It would still be a little bit before Rina completed the logout procedure, but Aron, due to his intimate connection to the simulation, had completed his logout almost instantaneously.
“She did, yeah. What’re you doing here?” Aron said, ruffling Henry’s hair and eliciting an annoyed groan from the young boy.
“Mom told me to come ask if you would go out and play with us now that we can leave the Cube,” Henry wheedled. He was just shy of grabbing his big brother’s hand and dragging him to the elevator.
Two weeks later.
Things had finally gotten on track. Once the empire was functioning at peak capacity, the economy began picking up. The events of the past few months had devastated everything, but most of the actual damage had been to the fragile economy. The space bubble bursting, followed by a shooting war, followed by mass protests, followed by a lockdown, then worldwide riots, then another lockdown, a wave of terrorist attacks.... People had been petrified, and when the emotion that economies are the most sensitive to is fear. So it wasn’t surprising that it had taken so long to wrench it back on track.
The empire had been fighting a losing battle against the crashing economy at first, but the past few weeks had seen it stabilize, and finally, begin climbing again. Stopgap measure after stopgap measure was rescinded, and the new flat tax stimulated spending to the point where the rapid fall was followed by a just-as-rapid climb.
The biggest contributor to the newly burgeoning economy, however, was the empire’s compensation to its citizens. The past few weeks of relative peace had allowed the super-efficient imperial treasury to calculate and disburse payments to those affected by the recent riots and attacks, as well as those who were included in the imperial scholastica’s debt forgiveness program. Combined with an initiative by the Bank of the Universe to offer low- or zero-interest loans to people and the imperial housing agency’s buyback of unused and unwanted real estate together with people’s house who have finished the mortgages of their houses to incentivize their movements to the fortress cities but also to use the lands for the reconstructions of the fortress cities within the former cities, the atmosphere among imperial citizens could be described by three short words: buy, buy, buy!
And it wasn’t as though they had nowhere to spend that windfall of cash, either; Aron’s companies had been releasing product after product and partnering with small, medium, and large businesses to sell, sell, sell!
Thus, trillions of Earth New Dollars had been changing hands, not only helping the economy climb, but also enriching the lives of imperial citizens all over the world. But much to the dismay of those who had waived their rights and privileges and chosen not to register for imperial citizenship, the purchase of the shiny new gadgets was restricted to those with imperial IDs. Unbeknownst to them, it was just another method devised by Nyx to narrow the field she and her nyxians would have to investigate to find the remaining cultists, who were still a threat despite cell after cell being identified and taken down.
Although the economy news was heartening, at least to those who were paying attention to it—like Herschel Rothschild and other members of the former “elite” class—most people simply took their increased quality of life in stride. The vast majority of humanity had no interest in the economy, nor did they know about the secret war between the empire and the cult. But they definitely cared about the “Three Percenters”, those who were still lying unconscious in medical pods around the world, receiving their blessings.