Chapter 358: First Livestream Begins

Liam woke to the soft ambient lighting of his quarters aboard the Voyager, the artificial day-night cycle Lucy had programmed mimicking Earth’s circadian rhythms.

He reached for his phone on the bedside table, the screen lighting up to reveal a stack of unread notifications.

Due to the fact that the announcement was made right after he went to sleep, he had a couple of messages waiting for him by the time he woke up.

Actually, the only person that personally sent him a message is Daniel. The message was just a sticker: a cartoon figure buried under an avalanche of paperwork, barely visible except for one desperate hand reaching toward the sky. Daniel had tagged it simply: "my life after the announcement."

Liam laughed out loud, the sound echoing in his empty quarters. He scrolled down and selected a reply sticker: a figure swimming gleefully through a massive pile of money, gold coins cascading around them. He hit send, then noticed Daniel had sent a second message.

"Whitlock called. Three times. He’s asking if you’re really doing the livestream from actual space and how that’s even possible. I told him he’d learn everything naturally in its own time. Also, he wants a Lucid device. Says he needs ’full experiential access’ for the stream. His words, not mine."

Liam smiled at the screen. Of course Whitlock wanted in. The man had positioned himself as Liam’s primary ally, but he was still human. The thought of being excluded from the full experience while hundreds of millions watched a lesser version would drive someone like Whitlock crazy.

And honestly, giving Whitlock a Lucid made perfect sense. They were allies now, bound by mutual benefit and strategic necessity. Whitlock had protected Liam’s privacy, defended Nova Technologies against institutional pressure, and leveraged JP Morgan’s considerable influence to create breathing room. A Lucid device was a small price for that kind of loyalty.

Liam typed out his response: "Tell him it’ll be delivered within the hour. He’ll have it before the stream starts."

He looked up from his phone. "Lucy, arrange delivery of a Lucid device to Whitlock’s residence."

"Okay, master," Lucy’s voice came through the room’s speakers.

Somewhere on Earth, a delivery drone was already descending from the sky, invisible to radar and human eyes alike, carrying a device that would give one of the world’s most powerful bankers access to an experience unlike anything he’d ever known.

Liam returned to his messages. The group chat with his friends had exploded overnight. He scrolled through the conversation, reading their increasingly frantic reactions to the announcement.

"This is insane. INSANE. Nova Tech is streaming from SPACE?"

"The company is just casually doing space broadcasts now. No big deal."

Liam smiled at their messages. He knew that his friends wanted to call his name, instead of Nova Technologies, but they were worried about their conversations being under surveillance.

They weren’t wrong to be cautious—their phones were almost certainly being monitored by multiple agencies at this point. Anyone connected to him, Liam, the wunderkind and suspected owner of Nova Technologies, would be under surveillance.

But they didn’t need to worry. Lucy had implemented quantum encryption on all their devices more than a month ago, creating a communication channel that was functionally impossible to intercept or decode. Even the NSA’s most advanced systems would see nothing but random noise.

He decided to jump into the conversation, typing quickly: "Still here. Still reading your messages. And yes, I can chat normally because of new communication tech we developed. Also, stop worrying about surveillance. Nobody can read these messages. Talk freely."

There was still more two hours till when the livestream will start. Which means he has to find something to do with the free time he has.

His friends had actually stopped chatting but when Liam sent a message, everyone came back online.

The chat went silent for exactly four seconds. Then it exploded.

"WAIT YOU’RE IN SPACE RIGHT NOW???"

"You’re texting us. From space. On your phone."

"How is that even possible? The signal delay from Mars alone is like twenty minutes!"

"No, he said NEW TECH. They solved faster-than-light communication. THEY SOLVED FTL COMMUNICATION."

"Okay but can we talk about how he just casually told us we’re not being monitored? Like that’s NORMAL?"

Liam laughed as the messages poured in. His friends rapid-fired questions about potential successful of quantum entanglement by Nova Technologies, relay systems, and if this was what he meant by he won’t be available.

Liam answered what he could without revealing too much, enjoying the normal human interaction in the middle of his extraordinary circumstances.

The conversation flowed naturally for over an hour, his friends grilling him about everything from propulsion systems to life support to whether he’d seen any aliens yet. Liam deflected, joked, and occasionally gave them just enough real information to fuel further speculation.

Then Lucy’s voice cut through his laughter. "Master, we’re approaching the asteroid belt."

Liam typed a quick farewell to his friends. "Got to go. Stream starts soon. Talk later."

The responses came instantly:

"WE’RE WATCHING WITH OUR LUCIDS"

"Thank you for giving us these. Seriously. THANK YOU."

"Don’t die in space please"

"Go show the world what you’ve built"

Liam smiled and pocketed his phone. He stood and walked to the private in his quarters, making his way up to the flight deck.

Standing on the flight deck, he looked through the viewport, at the approaching asteroid field.

The belt wasn’t what most people imagined. There was no dense field of rocks requiring fancy flying to navigate. The asteroids were separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers, each one a lonely island in the vast ocean of space. But there were thousands of them visible, glinting in the distant sunlight, and the view was breathtaking.

"Start a ten-seconds countdown," Liam said.

He moved toward the private elevator, and as he walked, he activated his exosuit. The nanites flowed from his wrist like liquid silver, spreading across his body in seconds.

The elevator doors opened and he stepped inside, with the exosuit already formed.

***

On Earth, 785 million people following the page, were staring at their screens.

Yes, the followers had increased by so much in such short amount of time.

Nova Technologies’ LucidNet page showed a simple black screen with white text: LIVESTREAM BEGINNING IN 10 SECONDS.

News networks immediately interrupted regular programming. Times Square had long gone silent, with thousands of people staring up at the massive displays. In Tokyo, Shibuya Crossing’s usual advertisements was replaced with the countdown. London’s Piccadilly Circus showed the same. Every major city with public screens had turned them over to this moment.

The countdown hit zero and the screen changed.

For the hundreds of millions of people watching through standard devices—phones, computers, tablets—the view showed a figure in a sleek black exosuit standing inside what appeared to be an elevator.

The suit was unlike anything they’d seen before, more advanced than current space suit technology by decades. The figure’s face was completely obscured by the helmet, which displayed no features, just a smooth black surface.

But for the thousand Lucid users, the experience was entirely different.

They found themselves standing—actually standing, in full immersion—inside a massive space. The docking bay of a starship. The scale was staggering. They could see spacecraft docked in berths extending in every direction. The walls curved away overhead.

They weren’t watching through a screen. They were there, in digital form, their avatars exact replicas of themselves but with blurred faces for privacy. They could turn their heads and look around.

Daniel stood in his home office in Los Angeles, but his consciousness was aboard the Voyager. He turned in a slow circle, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. This wasn’t virtual reality. This was something else entirely—a perfect digital reconstruction of a physical space that existed somewhere in the solar system.

Whitlock stood in his Manhattan penthouse, the Lucid device Lucy had delivered sitting beside him, and found himself aboard a starship. His hands were shaking. He’d known Liam had advanced technology and he knew how insane Lucid is. But this? This redefined everything.

Kristopher, Alex, Matt, Harper, Stacy, Kristy, Elise, Lana—all of Liam’s friends stood digitally aboard the Voyager, scattered among the other Lucid users, their expressions hidden behind blurred faces but their body language screaming shock and awe.

The figure in the exosuit moved forward as the elevator doors opened. A small screen appeared in the upper right of every Lucid user’s vision, showing what the standard viewers were seeing: the camera’s perspective of the suited figure.

"Welcome," the voice said. It was male, but modulated, digitally altered to prevent identification. "Thank you for joining us today."

The figure walked toward the gathered holograms of Lucid users, moving with easy confidence in the low gravity environment.

"I’m the CEO of Nova Technologies," he continued. "It’s been an unexpected but incredible first month. Thank you to everyone who made this possible—our users, our supporters, and those who believed in what we’re building."

He paused, seeming to look directly at the camera, though his face remained hidden.

"We stated from the beginning that Nova Technologies is dedicated to giving users full rights to their data and information. I want to reaffirm that commitment now, from space, where there can be no ambiguity. We do not record, store, or profile user data. Transparency doesn’t require surveillance. Every Lucid user can audit their own data locally. We never see it. We never access it. It’s yours, completely and permanently."

The standard viewers erupted in comments. The chat scrolled so fast it was unreadable, millions of people asking questions, demanding proof, expressing skepticism or support.

But the Lucid users weren’t commenting. They were too busy experiencing something impossible.

Liam didn’t bother replying, because he knew that Lucid users will confirm his words soon. Replying would only earn more never-ending questions.

"I’ve said enough by way of introduction," the figure said. "You’re digitally aboard the Voyager, an Emperor Class-I Heavy Cruiser Flagship. You’re standing in the main docking bay. And we’re currently positioned at the edge of the asteroid belt."

He gestured, and the massive bay doors behind him began to open.

The universe revealed itself.

Space stretched endlessly beyond the opening doors. Stars blazed against the absolute black. And there, glinting in the distant sunlight, were the asteroids—hundreds of them visible, ranging from building-sized rocks to objects larger than mountains, all drifting in the vast emptiness.

"Our goal at Nova Technologies," the figure said, his voice calm despite the magnificence of the view, "is to remove all limitations and help humanity advance to the final frontier. Today is the first step in sharing that vision with all of you."

He turned toward the open bay doors, toward the asteroid field beyond.

"Let’s begin."