[Dick's voice ramped up on air like he plugged his mic straight into a reactor]“Prime Inc…
my birth planet.Still officially listed as a resident there,
even though the last time I was there…
was about twenty-five years SST ago.And I stay away from it the same way people stay away from dried shit
not dangerous anymore,
but still better not to touch.”
[He let out a loud breath]“Alright, let me tell you where the hell our two dumbasses are flying.
Jackie, you mind?
I’ll take this part.
You can do yours later.”
[Jackie nodded softly]“Of course, Dick. You did grow up there… sort of.
I’ll put on something fitting.
I think ‘Butt Pimple™’ fits perfectly.”
[She taps the panel][Dick grinned like a predator]“‘Sort of’ is like saying
a black hole pulls just a little.Anyway, it all started a long time ago,
when back on Terra they found this planet124 light-years away, in the constellation Leo
king of beasts, by the way
and gave it a name so fucked up
it sounds like an engine serial numberEPIC 201912552 b
You notice that? EPIC.
And everything went EPICALLY to shit.
The planet also had a short name
K2-18 b
You know, like a nickname:
‘Miky,’ ‘Maggie,’ ‘fucking water ball.’
Anyway.
Our ancestors show up
all proud, all explorers
and what do they see?
a red dwarf star,
a planet that’s nothing but ocean,
not a single place to even put a damn chair,and the water’s crawling with some primitive proto-amoeba crap
just barely learning how to be multicellular.Humans took one look
and said the historic phrase:‘Fuck this. Just one big watery pile of shit.’
And they left.Marked it in the registry as:
‘USELESS.’
And that’s how it stayed for a couple of centuries…
until the OECD showed upGalactic Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
An organization that can take any idea
and turn it into an expensive failure.They decided:
‘Let’s build… Manhattan. But on a planet.’
Downtown
becomes DownPlanet.And off they went…”
[He sucked in a breath—and came back twice as loud, twice as pissed]“First thing they did
was nuke the surface to hell
so the crust would rise naturally:volcanoes,
magma,
all that classic bullshit.Killed about 90% of the local freaks and fauna,
but nobody gave a shit.In the reports they wrote:
‘Environmental restructuring.’But there was… kinda a problem…”
[Dick leaned toward Jackie and whispered]“Baby… what the fuck does that mean?”
[Jackie smiled—she clearly enjoyed moments like this]“Tidal locking, Dick.
More precisely, tidal synchronization.
It’s when a celestial body’s rotational speed
matches its orbital rotation
due to long-term gravitational interaction with a larger object…”
[She noticed Dick's eyes starting to shut down mid-sentence]“Okay, okay! Simple version.
The planet always faces one side toward its star.
So:
here—eternal day,
there—eternal night,and no sunrise, no sunset.”
[Dick rolled his eyes so hard it looked like he was trying to eject them]“Why didn’t you just say that?!
All that blah-blah gravitational interaction, blah-blah rotation crap.
Bottom line—on Prime Inc, it’s never night.
Just hell under a spotlight.”
[He took a short breath—his artificial lungs buzzing as they recalibrated]“After they boiled the ocean
like one giant pot of soup
and wiped out most of the local monsters,
they decided to build a seven-level city.Like Coruscant.
But without a brain.
And physics said:
‘Fuck you.’
Temperatures down below got so high
you could just…
toss an egg in the air
and get an omelet mid-flight.And the seismic activity kept folding the levels
like a house of cards.One level drops
then the next
then the next
like dominoes
except continent-sized.You can still see the ruins out on the edges
of those projects
where annoying competitors
tend to disappear.”
[Another breath]“In the end, the corporate geniuses gave up
and built a massive energy dome.A thousand stations keep it running
evaporating the ocean
and maintaining an artificial atmosphere
of constant, comfortable…
68 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.Workday?
Twenty-four Prime-standard hours, baby.
No sunrise, no sunset—so they run everything off atomic clocks.
Quantum-precise, corporate-perfect bullshit timing.Never gets dark
means the shift never ends.Beautiful, right?
Modern Prime Inc looks like this:
surface crust—glass and metal,
continents—campuses,
cities—office clusters,
atmosphere—branded clouds,
the sun blocked out by a corporate logo.No nature.
No green.
No silence.Everything looks like the planet
was designed by marketing.Official terminology:
Cathedral-sized lobby.
Founder statue.
Slogan above the entrance:
‘Innovate. Monetize. Dominate.’
And here’s what makes Prime Inc special:
people live in offices,
kids go to pre-startup schools,
instead of religion—corporate mission,
instead of an anthem—
a quarterly earnings report
that starts with:‘We increased performance by 0.2% and we are proud of it.'”
[Jackie noticed the veins pulsing on Dick's temples
and gently placed her hand on his arm, stealing the broadcast]“Alright, Dick… breathe.
So! After that very… vivid and detailed explanation,
we now understand where Zeros and Blindy are heading.And honestly…
I’ve got a feeling
this is not going to end well. But we’re used to that, right?”