With representatives of three of the largest Guilds in Singularity arriving tomorrow — the modern real-world equivalent of infrastructure, finance, and government — Aren had no time to lose. While the others were helping Nissa settle in with her new class, Aren was reading guides — actual, in-world manuals — on governing.

To say that he had underestimated how difficult this was would be an understatement itself.

Food diversity, food quality, food toxicity, food infrastructure and distribution, food allowance, emergency rations, org-owned food production, food subsidies — this was just a small tip of the iceberg of the small tip of the iceberg of as banal a thing as food. And it went on and on. Water, art, actual infrastructure, science, education, finance, housing, transportation — there was no end to it. Every detail of Rakab was recorded in an interface that he could access through the menu Fang told him about — Clan then Territory. Most of the values were percentages, but some of them were numbers — like water sources and land that could be converted to agriculture. Most of the values were unavailable because, well, Rakab was a ruin. No one lived here now, so the helpful summarization of the Contentment Index showed a zero value. And there were many other Indexes, including Harmony and Belligerence.

Was this also how AGMI saw the world?

Strangely enough, the manuals on governance never talked about the underlying values that comprise each Index — they only referred to the Index itself. If one desired a higher production potential, then a higher Happiness Index was required — which required more entertainment facilities, a few of which made Aren blush.

At first, Aren thought that it was exactly because he had an AGMI in his head that he could see the underlying values, but then came to the conclusion that, simply put, no one wanted to deal with the incredible, infinite mountain of minute information and preferred to simply work off the Index, and hire an actual administration to worry about the smaller numbers.

The manual even suggested this at every point it was relevant to do so.

Now, to call the three Guilds the equivalents of infrastructure, finance and government was only correct when applied in the context of adventurers. The Adventurer’s Guild was not the Coalition, nor royalty — few of them were noble if any. But when it came to adventurers, and the way they interacted with the world of Singularity, it was the only authority that mattered. The hypothetical King, Queen, Prime Minister, or Dictator of the Coalition — Aren had no clue who was leading it — could not grant land to an adventurer, or ennoble them. Not directly. The Adventurer’s Guild was the mediator. In most cases, it was a completely autonomous mediator.

Hence, it was the equivalent of the government if one could imagine that the country itself was a conglomerate of super-corporations. These super-entities were the largest Guilds that no player could lead: the Adventurer’s Guild, the Builder’s Guild, the Merchant’s Guild, the Faithful’s Guild, the Arcanum, and probably many others that Aren never even heard of or considered.

In truth, Aren dreaded this moment from the very second he knew that it would one day come. As a person, he took pride in the fact that he was well-informed in many areas of modern science and general knowledge, although he tried to remain modest about this. He didn’t like to flaunt his knowledge — it wasn’t that big of a deal. It was something he acquired simply to sate his own curiosity — not to set himself above others.

But he knew absolutely nothing about running an organization or managing a city. A job like this did not exist in the real world anymore — not the way it existed in Singularity. AGMI governed, not people. Even financial institutions did not truly exist the way they once used to. Money didn’t really exist anymore.

Money was the real difference. In Singularity, one had to pay for equipment, tools, resources, living standard, and so on. A leader had to pay the workforce, finance expansions and building projects, secure resources, pensions, funds — the list of expenses was endless.

The real world was different and it was a topic that Aren was not deeply familiar with. In the real world, the only thing that counted as something similar to money was credit. Credit could be spent on the private sector or invested into the cyberworld — like Singularity. To put it simply, credit was merit that was borrowed. Merit was obtained through, well, acts of merit — doing well in Singularity, for example, by creating entertainment. With merit, one could upgrade their citizen class. It was a one-way exchange. Merit that became credit could not become merit again.

The important difference was that one did not buy a new citizenship class. Not in the traditional sense. A person generated merit mostly through the virtue of their existence — one day, they would perform a service to the Commonwealth that was valuable to its progress. This was how honorary citizenship worked. Once they performed this service, they would be assigned a citizenship class, and with it, they could obtain goods and services that they qualified for. No money was ever exchanged. One could walk into a dealership, and if they were of the required citizenship rank, they could obtain a vehicle.

It was that simple.

Citizenship class was a series of allowances and guarantees. Food, water, housing, transportation, education, and so on were all allowed and guaranteed by one’s citizenship class.

There were two ways to upgrade one’s class. If they could generate enough merit on a smaller time scale — by getting a better job, for example — their class would immediately upgrade. This was most likely what happened to Aren — his very existence became far more valuable to the Commonwealth.

The other way was to perform a service that was beyond the requirement of their citizenship class, and over a longer period, when enough merit was accumulated, their service would be considered valuable enough to upgrade their class. Lower-class citizens would, for example, work as miners, builders, and architects in Singularity to upgrade their class.

However, one could also spend their accumulated merit to have a taste of a higher class lifestyle. One could, for example, buy a vehicle with merit even if they did not qualify for owning one.

When it was spent, merit became credit.

Honorary citizens could not spend merit, and Aren wasn’t sure if special citizens could spend it either. This was a problem, because, if Aren wanted to develop New Rakab, he needed money. The only way for him to obtain the finances necessary to undertake a project like this would be to buy cyber currency from financial institutions with credit.

“You are thinking about it like a denizen, not an adventurer,” Camille’s voice came from behind Aren.

He had not even realized it, but she stood behind him the entire time while he contemplated the differences and complexities of these two wildly different financial systems.

Her human form and human voice almost made Aren forget what she was. Perhaps it was also because of his emotional attachment to Exalt and her being a part of it, that also contributed to this convenient forgetting. But at the very least, he did not think of her as a monster anymore.

Still, it was difficult to be casual with her. “Could you explain?” Aren said, choosing his words carefully. Before, in the heat of the moment, he was giving her orders and treating her like a tool and instrument, but now, he was far more respectful.

“It isn’t you that should compromise to obtain resources, it is others that should offer you resources to develop New Rakab,” Camille said.

Aren thought about her words. “Investors?” he asked.

Camille glanced at Aren and then looked directly towards the blueprint that only Aren should be able to see. “Right now, the world is falling over itself to try to find you and negotiate investment opportunities with you. Something like this has never happened before. Rebuilding a city and reclaiming a part of the Coalition is unprecedented.”

Aren’s eyes widened. She was right! He was thinking about this the wrong way. He had been beating himself up about how to generate the resources to put in motion this plan of rebuilding New Rakab that he had not considered outside investments. And why should he have? There was nothing to invest in. It was a ruin. He couldn’t sell land, for example, only so that the buyer had to tear down ruins and rebuild it, all the while hoping that the rest of the city would also develop. And what if Exalt lost the war against Stygian? It was too risky!

However, what he hadn’t considered was that both Stygian and Exalt were player-led organizations, not countries! It did not matter to investors with whom they did business, as long as they purchased land and rights to build, who owned the city did not matter.

“Will you let me handle it?” Camille asked.

Camille’s question came so unexpectedly that it shocked Aren to the very core. He felt the shiver run down his spine, creating goosebumps on his forearm. Slowly, his head turned towards Camille.

“Are you asking me to let you govern New Rakab?” Aren asked.

Camille nodded.

Aren stood up from his chair and stared at Camille. An AGMI was offering to govern a city? An AGMI!?

Aren wanted to scream with happiness. He wanted to laugh and cry much like Nissa did before.

This was absurd. It was outrageous.

In the mid twenty-second century, a paper — the Utopia Paradigm — summarized that efficiency losses due to infrastructure were above seventy percent — meaning that in an ideal, perfect world, the same living standard and industrial capacity could be achieved with less than thirty percent of the world’s energy consumption.

The sixteenth and final president of the North Atlantic Alliance famously declared that the Utopia Paradigm is a paradise untouchable by mortal hands, and a dream that only a feverish mind could even glimpse.

After the Consolidation War, and when AGMI emerged, this efficiency loss was reduced to less than five percent. Humanity could not touch the paradise proposed by the Utopia Paradigm. But AGMI could, and on Humanity’s orders, they obtained that paradise for them.

Now, one of them was offering to govern his city?

“Now you are thinking too much like an adventurer,” Camille said. “I will not affect this world the way you think I am capable of.”

Aren pondered Camille’s words. “Why?”

“This is just my debt to Humanity,” she said and glanced at Aren. “In the past, I was responsible for great misfortune and pain.”

“That…” Aren trailed off. “It wasn’t your…”

Camille glared at Aren. “Do not reject and distort the sacrifices countless have made with your naive idealism, human,” Camille said, and for the first time, Aren thought he could hear anger in her tone.

“I am sorry,” Aren said and backed off. His heart was pounding.

Camille returned to looking at the blueprint projection.

“This is not for you. This is for them,” Camille said as she reached out towards the holographic projection. As her hands approached, the blueprint began to change and transform. From a square city with grid-pattern roadwork, it became circular and smaller. It was tallest at the center, and its height tapered out further away from the middle.

Aren narrowed his eyes. For some reason, it reminded Aren of an Arcology. An Arcology! In Singularity.

Camille embraced the projection and pressed it against her chest. A tear glimmered in her eye. “Those who sacrificed for a better world do not desire for their love to be poisoned or diminished, even if, for that love, they were punished.”

It took Aren a moment to realize what Camille was saying, and his jaw dropped. “Camille… you…”

She glanced at Aren and smiled warmly. He never expected to see Camille smile like that. “They now live on through their dream, and the finest part of them will always remain here. In Paradigm.”

[ Blueprint lost: New Rakab. ]

[ Blueprint received: Paradigm. ]

Take heart, my brothers and sisters. The finest part of you is still here. Those words stirred in Aren’s mind, like a distant memory that he could not remember. And those words came with an incomprehensible sorrow and loss.

Aren was speechless. The realization hit him so hard that he felt like a heretic standing on holy ground. In that moment, Aren truly saw Camille as a merciful goddess and, in that presence, he felt inadequate. Just glimpsing the paradise she wanted to create felt to Aren like he didn’t deserve to see it.

Wordlessly, without even a farewell, he left the tent and Camille and strolled down the ruined streets of Rakab — soon to become Paradigm — as he wondered about all the wrong assumptions he made about Camille.

Camille still loved Humanity, despite what Humanity did to her.