I didn’t return everything to the New York apartment, instead I returned it all to how it was when Xa had left. The seemingly never-ending library stretching off into the distance, the walls of my apartment behind me, and the computer waiting for me to look things up on.

“Ok Tutor, I am ready to get a job and to start making myself useful,” I said as I put away my sad memories with the understanding that it was who I was and I could only go forward and try to be a better man.

“I have what… 380 cr to my name at present?” I asked aloud as I willed my cr count to come up in front of me. Yup, it was still at 380. “Are there any jobs out there for me to do? Like manual labor kinds of things until I figure things out around here?”

“Yes, there are many jobs available and listed in this Core. Let me bring up a few to get you started and to see if you would be interested.” She said as the monitor came alive and began to populate at an incredible rate with suggestions.

“Whoa whoa whoa…. yikes, let's just break them down into types of work and limit it to five for starters ok?”

“As you wish.” She said as the screen changed to five different job types available.

Harvester

Surveyor

Courier

Educator

Butler

I read over the list several times before I glanced at Tutor and spoke my thoughts aloud “For real? I am in an advanced alien society and they still have normal jobs?”

“To some extent, yes. Not everything can be automated or should be automated without intelligent input. Take Harvester for instance. In the past, we have found comets or even moons with other alien proof of existence, and our automated systems have destroyed them entirely as they collected the parts and resources. This travesty can never happen again. There are priceless history and pieces of knowledge out there to be found still. That is why the Surveyor job is also an intelligent mind only job. Yes, we have machines that scan space objects for ore and anything useful. An intelligent mind would be able to make the decision about the flags that the system throws up and to choose what should be done in various matters.

Couriers are needed because many items shipped are alive and need to be cared for in transit.

Educators are always highly valued because they let citizens learn from other intelligent beings. Studies have shown that alive and intelligent educators are much better at stimulating interest and creativity than artificial constructs. We lack your…. crazy.” She said with a smile.

“And lastly is the Butler on this list, because people will pay for real interactions.”

“This list was based on things that you would understand, I didn’t include sapulion spore mothering or tonal hormonal cooing to the Geb younglings. There are some things your body has never done, senses that you have never had or used, and organs never developed on your planet that automatically make you unsuitable for the job. It doesn’t mean that you can’t learn them… but I would advise you to study them on your own time if you wanted to learn them and to not try it with a real host or creature. The results might be disastrous.”

“Huh…” I said as a thought came to my mind. “But wait… won't all of this take time? Like, real-time? I don’t want to get back and my brothers are grandparents.” I said as worry started to bloom in my mind. Tutor laughed at this. “Ha ha ha, that is silly, all of the jobs I listed are done here in fast time. Well, besides Courier in some parts. Courier tends to pay more because of that reason and it also can cost you money if the animal in transit dies in your care.” She said with a thoughtful expression. “So we might want to save that one until later after you have taken courier simulations to practice.” She said after a moment.

“Sounds good to me,” I said as I looked over the list once more. “Let me start with a Surveyor job please. That sounds like it would be the easiest for me to get into.”

A new list appeared in the air with a jumble of coordinates and words that I didn’t understand fully. “Spatial coordinates? Can you simplify it for me and just highlight the ones that I have been to before? I just want to get started so I will pick the first one.” I said as I touched the screen to select it. A low circle platform appeared on the floor a couple of feet away from me with the same writing on it as the selection that I had made.

“What is that?” I asked as I looked at it.

“That is your link to the job site. You will still be in fast time like you are here so don’t worry about that part. I won’t be able to come with you, Tutors are stationary to your home. You can however talk to me over what you would call a phone if you need to ask questions that the AI on-site can’t answer for you. Trust me though, they have trained countless workers so I think it will do ok for you. Just step on it and will it to activate and it will transport you to the location of the job you selected.” She said with a smile.

“Alright.” I beamed back, excited to finally get out and to see a new place. I walked over to the platform and stepped on. I willed it to activate and instantly my surroundings changed and I was standing out in deep space.

“Holy cow…” Was all I got out as I looked around. Everything was dark around me except for slight harsh edges where the light from the super distant sun cast its rays across the surface of whatever the circle I was standing on was attached to. It appeared to be a massive mass, maybe an asteroid. Off in the distance, I could just make out reflections of light that appeared to be at least 4 other asteroids hanging in space as well. Distance in space was just mind-boggling.

A block of text appeared in front of me as the local AI adjusted my settings for my safety.

Welcome Guest named Kevin my name is ZV-1

Due to job safety and security your need to breathe, sense of temperature, and other bodily restrictions have been disabled.

Please familiarize yourself with how you would like to exist, move, and function in this environment before stepping off of the platform.

I stood there and tested everything I could think up to make working in this space doable. I raised the brightness on my vision, which just washed out the lit-up places and didn’t work. Next, I changed my vision to thermal vision and that was just like seeing with light, only the places that had the limited light of the sun were a slight temperature than the surfaces around. Next, I made a flashlight and lit up a spot in front of me, that was progress and it gave me an idea. I imagined invisible lights all around the place that I was standing on and made it light up the surface all around me. I chose invisible lights so that I wouldn’t have them blinding me every time I looked up at the darkness of space around me. It was oddly more colorful than I expected.

All the NASA photographs I had ever seen had shown me gray cast photos of space rocks. The surface of this rock was pitted and colored with browns, reds, and other colors. Mostly gray though. Before I stepped off of the platform I thought about how I wanted to move over this thing, walking was something that I had done my whole life and it seemed that leaving footprints, if that were possible, on the surface of an asteroid being surveyed would not be a good idea. So I imagined myself able to hover in place above the ground at a fixed location until I needed to move. It worked, it was so much like a ufo video game that I used to play that it just came naturally. With the ability to see and move out of the way I decided to address the AI to see what it wanted me to do here first. “Hello ZV-1. What is my job here and how do I do it?” I asked the space around me.

“Voice interaction enabled. Hello Kevin. CORE surveyor pod ^3^10-901 was distributed to this location countless years ago and it discovered an anomaly. These 5 bodies of rock do not revolve around the sun, on the contrary, they do not move at all in space and remain stationary. This anomaly has been reported and monitored by pod ^3^10-901 in real-time until someone can discover why this is the case.”

“How many years ago was this anomaly discovered?”

“27,508 years.”

“Dang… so there has been plenty of time for someone to figure this out who is way smarter than me. Oh well, at least I can explore these asteroids… or stationary rocks in space and learn a little how-to survey.” I said to myself as I moved off of the platform and directed my body to hover upwards and away from the surface of the massive rock.

“So you are telling me that pod ^3^10-901 has been in this solar system continually recording and monitoring the location of everything and these five objects have not moved at all?” I asked aloud as I moved away from the surface. I had a moment of vertigo wash over me when I looked down at the surface of the asteroid and imagined falling from this height. I quickly banished the thought and reminded myself that in space you can float with whatever speed you push off with or are propelled by. Also, this hovering in place thing was insanely cool.

“Correct.”

“So can we rewind time to the first scan and observations by pod ^3^10-901? Also, where is pod ^3^10-901 anyways?”

“Surveyor pod ^3^10-901 is halfway between these objects and the sun at present. It is remaining stationary as well as it monitors these objects and the 3 planets in orbit around the sun.”

“Ok, let's shine lights on these 5 objects and turn back time to when pod ^3^10-901 was entering the solar system.”

“That is outside of pod ^3^10-901’s accurate scanning range and observations may be a little grainy,” ZV-1 stated as nothing seemed to change.

“Ok, now I want all observations of any movement by these objects displayed in numbers in front of me with each object labeled 1-5. 1 being closest to the sun and 5 being the farthest.”

Numbers 1-5 appeared before me along with steady zeros for their movement. “Any movement or perceived movement will be flagged with red and the simulation will stop moving forward in time. Let us begin. Start moving time forward at slowly incrementing speeds as pod ^3^10-901 gets closer to the solar system.” I said as I sat back to watch if anything changed.

Nothing seemed to. I watched as time passed and pod ^3^10-901 entered the edges of the solar system. It made its way diligently towards the sun, scanning as it went and beginning to record and track the planets revolving around the sun. It wasn’t until it passed by the sun that something happened. Pod ^3^10-901 had long since detected and scanned the stationary rocks and was about to reach the halfway point between the sun and 1 when 1 started to vibrate to the naked eye.

“What was that?” I asked as I saw rock 1 start to shimmer with reflected light from the sun at slightly different angles than it had a moment before. Pod ^3^10-901 got closer and rocks 2 and 3 started to vibrate as well.

“Unknown. They haven’t moved in space and yet they seem to be vibrating in place.” ZV-1 said as it observed the irregularity with me as well.

Guest Kevin credited 1000 cr for IO.

Guest Kevin Cr account balance: 1400 cr

Wow, that was nice.

The moment pod ^3^10-901 stopped moving however so did the three rocks stop vibrating. “Oh, that's not good,” I said as I started to get a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was currently standing on rock 5 at the very farthest distance from the sun so I took off and headed towards rock 1. “ZV-1, back up time to before the pod entered the solar system and before rock 1 started to vibrate please.” I said as I flew the distance between the massive and distantly spaced rocks. I knew I was in frozen time because this was a recorded simulation but it was still amazing to me that these rocks in space were just sitting here and not being drawn in by the gravity well of the sun. Or even revolving or rotating in place.

Surely something had to have set them here or have affected their position in space to make them spin or anything. I sped up, making the surface of rock 1 rapidly approach my horizon and slammed to a stop before running into its moon-like surface. There was dust all over the surface of the rock and even boulders and pebbles dotting the surface at random points. “ZV-1 please playback what we just watched,” I said as I watched the stones and surface around me to see if I could find the reason why it had started to vibrate. I watched and watched and then just as the pod got to within a certain distance the whole rock started to vibrate like crazy.

A stone that I had been watching out of the corner of my eye bounced away from the surface and simply stopped and hung out in space a couple of feet away from the surface. It too was vibrating but there was nothing that I could see that should have made it stop moving away from the surface of the asteroid it was just sitting on. In fact all over there were pebbles and stones and dust that had floated upwards and then just stopped at various points in space. “Something isn’t right about this,” I said as I got closer and looked at the dust from an angle. Sure enough, it looked like the dust, stones, and rocks were stuck to something invisible, like rope strands that were attached to rock 1 all over the place. It was the fine dusting that made them visible. “It is like a giant spider web,” I said aloud which made ZV-1 pipe up to interrupt my thoughts. “Guest Kevin, please explain your findings! No one else has noticed this or recorded this odd behavior. What is a “Giant spider web” that you refer to?”

“Oh, back on my planet we have insects called spiders that spread webs of sticky silk across large spaces to capture prey. The dust that was vibrating off of the surface of the rock coated the webbing here and made it visible. The strange thing is… I still can’t see it.” I said as I tried to adjust my vision through the different spectrums.

“ZV-1 will request data from the System about your planets “Spider” immediately,” ZV-1 said before going silent. I wandered over the surface of rock 1 and studied the dust and stones trapped and suspended in mid vacuum. I moved around the whole surface of the rock until I was on the other side facing the sun. This side was more dust-free and barren of pebbles and rocks for the most part. There still were some that I could just make out that I found were being jettisoned away from rock 1 the moment it started to vibrate. “Yup, so there it is. The webs are only on that side.” I said as I went to check out rocks 2 and 3 as well. They each supported my thought that whatever this was, each surface was held in place by webs leading invisibly off towards the center point of where the 5 rocks were being held in space at. I checked 4 and 5 but was unable to find any disturbance of the dust to confirm my theory.

“ZV-1 I have an update to my findings for you.”

“Please continue, Guest Kevin.”

“It looks like something has bound these rocks in place by using an invisible web. The dust from 1 thru 3 supports this theory and when I checked 4 and 5 I was unable to see anything. I think that if we bring the pod closer that it will set off the vibrations again and prove my theory correct.” I said as a notification of cr being added to my account popped up. I willed it to go away so I wouldn't have to keep being bothered by it while I worked.

“As the discoverer of this solution, ZV-1 would like to ask you if you would like to enter real-time to observe the results of the surveyor pod approaching? I calculate that it will take approximately 23 minutes real time for it to get within 20% distance away from the 5 rocks and 45 minutes to reach the center point between the 5 rocks. Is this acceptable?”

“What? Are you crazy? If it is a giant space spider I don’t think that you want to go straight to the center of the web.” I said as I thought of all the bugs that I had seen caught in webs as a child growing up. “At least stop at the 20% mark so we can observe everything from a safe distance.”

I said as I saw a selection block appear in front of me to agree to enter real-time for a limited duration. “Before I click this… is there a way for the pod to spray something visible into space to reveal and coat what is hidden once it gets close enough?”

“The pod does contain a spraying agent for marking prospect’s claims,” ZV-1 answered. “It uses a wave frequency paint that can send signals to other pods to let them log and verify claims. This method deterred claim stealing in the past.” My guide answered.

“Well, have the pod start to spray that in a wide arc once it reaches the 30% mark and continue to spray until it reaches the 20% mark ok?”

“It will be done as you suggest,” ZV-1 replied as I tapped the accept key and entered real-time in space. It was a strange thing to feel and know that only moments had passed ago in real-time. Just a few moments ago I had crashed my bike and got sucked up into a giant computer society that lived and harvested a sun's energy or perhaps many many suns throughout the galaxies for all I knew. I hovered there and watched as the seconds started to tick upwards. Almost immediately when the pod began to move rocks 1 thru 3 started to vibrate again. After a short few moments, even rock 4 joined in and then finally rock 5 began to vibrate in earnest as well.

“Reaching the 30% mark and starting to spray paint in a wide area,” ZV-1 said and I hit the button to take me back into fast time. I wanted to see what was happening up close so I had ZV-1 mark the pod for me so I could fly out to it. What I found was a craft that looked kind of like a black gem or prism. It was all sharp angles and edges and seemed to be solid with no lights, windows, or ports.

“ZV-1 how does this thing propel itself?”

“It uses advanced cr spacial propulsion technology.”

“Can you explain that to me in dummy terms?” I asked as I moved around the craft. I could start to make out a fine spray billowing out from an entire surface facing the center of the webbing. It must make tiny holes to spray out of or something I surmised.

“CR, while it may be currency to Core systems it is also an advanced nanotechnology that uses two parts of a whole to exist. We harvest cr through a process only known by a few from the center of stars with tiny durable nano cell robots. It is like grabbing onto something intangible through the wall of our realities. Then we have the cr twist and reverse itself so that our robots exist beyond the wall of our universe while still holding onto the cr now present in this universe. The legs and tools of the robots are now impervious to damage while still able to manipulate things in our universe at a micro-scale. This is why cr is used as a currency, it is an indestructible tool for science and discovery.”

I couldn’t fully grasp the implications yet for what ZV-1 had just said but it sounded beyond incredible.

“So let me get this straight. This whole time the pod has been sitting there and not moving. These things haven’t vibrated or moved a peep even though the most distant planet passes the point regularly where our pod was parked. That only leaves the pod and its use of… cr spacial propulsion.” I said as I had to think back to what it had said.

“I acknowledge you have demonstrated a link between the two actions yet this result is highly improbable,” ZV-1 stated.

“Why?” I asked “Look, can you manifest an avatar or something please so I can stop talking out loud to myself? It is getting a bit old.” I asked as I got ready to enter real-time again to see what the spray would catch. A yellow glowing cube appeared in my vision and became a little bit transparent with dotted edges. It rotated in place and asked me “Will this do?”

“Sure but what is with the see-through effect?” I asked as I pressed the button to enter real-time. I kept my finger close and kept stutter-stepping time forward, letting ten seconds pass in real-time before entering fast time again. Call me overly cautious but this was my first surveying mission and something just seemed off about it. Besides, I didn’t want to age too much and miss out on my life with my family if I couldn’t help it.

“My transparency is to remind surveyors that I am part of the surveyed simulation and not physically existing in this place. Some new surveyors forget that and try to account for me in mass calculations or other such nonsense.” ZV-1 replied with what I was detecting was a surly tone.

“As to why it is highly improbable, it is because we are dealing with high transdimensional technology…” It faded off as the first bits of spray impacted something.

I quickly hit the button and made double sure that we were in fast time before moving myself in the direction of the center location of the 5 rocks. The spray impact points which appeared like red splatters in my vision were not at that location yet however, they were rather far from that point… in fact, they had splattered something rather near to the pod. Well, near in space terms. I adjusted my movement to stop and stare at the splatters of paint that had begun to coat and reveal something truly monstrous.

What was revealed was something that looked like a venus fly trap with a hole to swallow in the middle. I could see that because several paint impact points were trying to go down into the hole, making a clear outline of where it was… if a hole was covered in one-way teeth. “Huh… that is an ugly maw,” I said as I looked at the distance between where we were hovering in space and the center of the point between the 5 rocks. “Either this thing is huge or it is extended far into space.” I mused as I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was another spot of paint shining off in the distance. I hovered over to it, using speed to get there quickly. What I found was not another maw but the paint coating the tip of something that looked like a pointy leg of a crab. “Huh… I would swear that the paint is still streaking down this thing while I am watching it.” I looked around and notice that I had missed other lone red marks like this as well, there were many. I flew to each and found them all to be a pointy dagger-like crab claw.

“ZV-1… why is the paint streaking? I thought we were in fast time.”

“We are in fast time, Guest Kevin. And to answer your question… the objects are moving at an incredible rate of speed. An improbable rate of speed…. And they are all heading directly for pod ^3^10-901.” ZV-1 said as lines of trajectories started to be drawn between each of the objects that we managed to tag with paint and how the paint was streaking over the surface to dictate what direction they were traveling in.

“I am presuming that pod ^3^10-901 is worth a lot of cr?”

“Indeed Guest Kevin. But it is highly improbable that it can sustain damage like you are implying.” ZV-1 stated.

“Yes, well… just go with this ok? We are dealing with a lot of unknowns and I feel that if we don’t try to jerk pod ^3^10-901 to the side or jam backwards in a hurry that we are going to let it become whatever this thing is its dinner. From what I can gather this attacking thing detects and reacts to cr spacial propulsion. Is there a way to detach a panel with propulsion capabilities and to spin the pod, flicking it backwards while sacrificing the panel to the maw? Then just don’t let the pod propel itself until it is well out of range.”

“Yes, that is possible Guest Kevin though I don’t believe it will be necessary. Our cr technology is impervious to damage.” ZV-1 said.

“ZV-1 just trust me on this one ok?” I asked as it started to fill in probable lines of trajectories for the pod to follow once we entered real-time again. “If I am wrong then this thing will just hit the panel and it will be able to return to the pod in a matter of moments. Better to be safe than lose the entire pod.” I said as the next actions were laid out and ready to happen.

“Acknowledged Guest Kevin. Shall I slowly return time to real-time so we may watch this all play out? At the rate the incoming objects are moving you wouldn’t be able to see anything happen until it is over.” ZV-1 said as it revolved in place next to me.

“Yes, please. Let's see what happens.” I said as I let it take control.

I moved close to pod ^3^10-901 and watched in fascination as perforations appeared across the leading edge of the pod and the area around the panel started to pulse as it began to change directions. It was trying to rapidly arrest the momentum of the main body of the pod and to start to spin itself in place, using a flicking motion to push the main body of the pod backwards and away. I smiled as I saw that it was going to work nicely and turned to look at the distant streaks of paint.

“Aaaaah!!!!” I yelled as I was startled at the sharp objects that were almost right on us. “What the heck ZV-1? I thought we were going to slowly increase the speed of time.”

“That was slowly Guest Kevin,” ZV-1 replied ominously.

I looked at the paint and sure enough, there was one long streak down the length of each of the crab-like daggers. The paint was coloring a super long tentacle or rope-looking appendage attached to each of the tips. “That is crazy! How big is this thing?” I said as I watched the maw and the daggers creep towards the pod. It had barely managed to separate from the panel and flick its main body away when the sharp tentacles hit the panel and…. pierced through it like it was made of paper.

I noticed cr IO kept popping up in the corner of my vision but I kept it minimized until this whole thing was done. I didn’t want to get distracted.

“ZV-1 have the escaping pod continue to spray this entire area with paint as it floats away. I want to see this entire thing from rock 1 thru rock 5.” I said as I noticed the sides of the pod begin to spray copious amounts of paint towards the rocks and center.

“Can the panel fight this thing?” I asked as I turned and noticed that the maw was almost about to reach it. “Like have it split up and hang onto the pointy crab bits so that the maw can’t get it into its mouth?”

“Brilliant idea Guest Kevin!” ZV-1 said as the panel, which was just interlinked cr, started to perforate and split up, wrapping around the ends that had so easily pierced it just moments ago. The maw reached where the panel was supposed to be and snapped shut. I could see its insides as it swallowed and pulled the paint that it had gotten sprayed with down its throat. All the way down and back towards the center point between all of the asteroids. The maw opened and clamped shut a couple more times like it was disappointed to have not gotten anything significant out of the deal. The parts of the panel that were now coating the crab daggers were rapidly being pulled away back to wherever they originated from. The scary thing that I noticed was that we were still in fast time while this was happening. That meant that this thing could eat you in a fraction of a blink of an eye.