“Okay so it's definitely not a coincidence,” Atlas said, after he reported they had lost communication with the fifth probe. “And roughly in the same area too.”

Atlas was with Trillion and Icarus in his research lab on his New Europa. It was a massive lab with everything anyone would ever need once he had turned the planet he discovered into one that was habitable for human life, by melting all the ice. Meaning space was nolonger a constraint because they had a whole planet. He had ample resources and space to do whatever he wanted. So the research laboratory he was currently in was an empty warehouse about the size of a football stadium. They were staring at a screen in one corner of the space directing five probes that they had sent to the XYZ sector of space. They had just lost signal with one of the probes—that was expected. What wasn't expected, was for the other four probes two also have lost contact with the 5th probe. Meaning that this particular area of space was blocking not just the starnet but all communication.

“Do you think Angelique is in that space?” Trillion asked.

Angelique was one of the four people who left Mars at the same time. She was the only one they hadn’t located yet. The general location where he assumed Angelique was had not yielded any results until recently. Because unlike himself, Trillion or Icarus she had done an exceptional job of not giving away her location.

Atlas knew that if the roles were reversed he would want everyone else to do everything they could to find her. They had sent signals to all the locations he assumed she was but never got a single reply. Then he had sent probes out towards every star in close proximity to Sol. He used the four systems they had access to manufacture fast moving probes and send them out. They had almost given up hope until one of the probes just went dark when it entered an area of space closest to new system. And sending subsequent probes ended in the same result. They all went dark as soon as they entered a particular region of space.

Atlas considered the question of where it might be a clue to where Angelique was. He decided he needed more data. “You know as much as me Trillion.”

“Well then let's speculate, what could be causing this bubble around that star system? Why would she go to all the effort to shutting down our probes and not contacting us? One look at the probes you sent, and she’d know they were human.”

“Maybe we can do a test,” Atlas said. “We know exactly where the fifth probe went dead and we have four more close by. What if we send another one in, but at an angle that it just skims past the bubble of space where our probe stop responding. Using passive sensors we might be able to understand something.”

Trillion nodded, “I like that and it's safer. If the probe comes out of the bubble and is still working, then we know it's purely something messing with our communication in and out of that system. If the probe has all its electronics fried. Then we'll know it's not safe for you to go in there Atlas.”

“Or if it never returns.” Icarus added. “Then we know it's definitely not safe.”

“Ship,” Atlas said calling out to his spacecrafts AI who was currently piloting the probes from another location. “Can you plot a course, for one of those probes so it just skims by the system. Assume that as soon as it enters that same region of space that the other probes went dead, that you will lose all power for the probe. So a course needs to have the probe drifting forward and still getting out of the system.”

Ship teleported into the research laboratory with everyone else. He was starting to look quite human, he used to be a robotic droid with bright gold skin. But, ever since the first children arrived he started to make his avatar look more and more like a human, replacing the bright gold skin with a more perfectly sun tanned look—and a light dashing of gold specks.

“That's going to take some time,” Ship said. “Maybe about a month to manoeuvre the probe into position.”

“Should we change our playback speed,” Trillion asked.

Changing their playback speed was a neat trick that Atlas’s Ship had invented. It involved changing their perception of time, since they were simulated humans and not flesh and blood, it was easier enough for them to slow down or speed up the hardware running them. What this meant in practise was if they wanted to watch a month fly by in a couple of seconds they could. Ship could be manoeuvre the probe into position over a month, but to them it might only feel like two seconds.

“Yeah let's speed up time,” Icarus said. “There's no way I wanna wait around for a month.”

All three of them watched the screen as one of the four probes started to accelerate away from the others. It started moving away slowly at first. But as they increased their playback speed time raced forward. What they were watching was actually a simulated representation using all the sensors on the various probes. This allowed Ship to recreate a 3D model of where all the probes were located relative to the star in the system. So on the screen they could see a single dot that represented the star surrounded by three other markings representing the probes.

The probe travelled in an ark shape first moving away from the other probes then slowly curving back toward them on a trajectory to just pass through the region of space they had started calling the bubble.

“It is entering the space in three. Two. One.” Ship said. “It’s just entered that region.” He checked his readings “I’ve just lost contact with it. I’m checking with the other probes.”

The other three probes used active sensors to bounce radio waves off the probe. But nothing was being bounced back. Somehow even short range radio frequencies were being blocked as well. “I’m getting some sort of static, the signal coming back to the probes isn’t working.” Ship said.

That wasn’t good. But also wasn’t unexpected. Active sensors relied on sending a pulse towards the probe and receiving a bounced signal back. Whatever was in the bubble blocking radio signals from communicating in and out of the bubble likely was going to block the sensors of the probes.

“What about a visual?” Icarus asked

Ship shook his head, “those Probes don’t have a powerful enough lens, we were always going to struggle to see it. Depending on the results we get here we could send out a telescope into the area.”

“So what do we do now then?” Icarus asked.

“We wait,” Atlas replied. “It shouldn’t be that long if we increase our playback speed.”

At the very last minute they decided to have the probe accelerate through the system. Rather than passively floating through, they kept the engines on throughout the whole journey. That way they would also understand if it was just the signal being disrupted. Or if there was something within that bubble impacting the electronics or engines of the probe.

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Even though the wait was only two minutes and not a few months like it would have been. The team stressed through every moment of it, you could hear a pin drop the team was so nervous.

A tense wait later ship got confirmation that the other probes were back in contact with the forth one.

Ship checked the time it took for the probe to make it through the bubble, “the readings are saying it accelerated through the whole process.”

“What about other readings,” Atlas asked. “Are any of the sensors on the probe damaged, can you do a full diagnostic?”

A few moments later Ship confirmed the probe was one-hundred percent fine, “the probe was actually receiving all communications from the other probes. Whatever is making up that bubble around XYZ system it's just one way. It blocks everything from going out.”

“We should have really planned for this a bit more,” Atlas said. “We should have sent more probes, with other measuring devices towards that region of space.” He paused. “We can still see this system and the star using a telescope, so some signals are getting in and out. It really doesn't make sense to me. ”

“So we’re agreed.” Trillion said. “Angelique might be in this bubble and she just can’t communicate with us?”

“I hate to think the worst,” Icarus said reluctantly. “But what if it’s aliens? What if she was captured? And the reason we can’t talk to the probes anymore is the same reason she hasn’t replied to us?”

“No way she’s been captured,” Trillion interjected. “when we were in training for this mission. We were told to go quiet and not raise any awareness of the new colony, maybe she’s just making sure she’s well hidden.”

“You were captured.” Icarus said. “Besides we all left with the same tech. What human level technology could do that? Atlas any ideas?”

Atlas shrugged. “It's obviously possible but I have no idea how it's done. All signals are being blocked. We have complete access to the probe outside of the bubble. But as soon as that one probe went inside the bubble its connection just disappeared.”

“So what are we doing now?” Trillion asked, “if I were stuck I'd want someone to rescue me.”

“But it's too risky.” Icarus said. “We can’t risk losing more of us. She might not even be there.”

Atlas took a moment to think. “We need to know whether she’s in there or not. I need to know. I've already made plans, I’m going myself to investigate.”

“Well I'm coming with you,” Trillion said.

“You're coming for as long as we can talk to each other, but I'm the closest. I'd have to wait for you if you wanted to come. And, besides, You still have to find a world to seed. You need to complete your mission so you don't have that matrix modification hanging over you.”

“What about your world?” Icarus asked.

“Thanks to the Starnet, it doesn't matter where we are.” He paused for a moment again, thinking about how it was possible to locate Angelique, thinking about the noise they just made in space. Trillion and her war against Sol. “Trillion I think you need to sneak out of your system as soon as possible. The whole Galaxy knows that something just happened in your location recently. Or rather, the remanence of the battle is spreading out at the speed of light. You probably don't want to be there if others come to investigate things.”

Then he looked a Icarus. “You need to seed your world as quickly as possible. You need to remove that code in your brain that’s stopping you from thinking clearly.”

When Atlas, Trillion, and Icarus had their minds uploaded into the spaceships they had an additional piece of behavioural modification code added into their brain matrix. The purpose of that code was to keep them focused on seeding a world. It was designed to make sure they completed the mission. However, one of the side-effects was how myopic it made them. They didn’t cherish all life like they should have. And they didn’t feel emotions as much as a normal human would. It did indeed make them more likely to achieve their mission. But it also made them less human. Atlas had learnt that the hard way when he finally fulfilled his mission and seeded a world. As soon as it was completed a rush of emotion hit him. He was overwhelmed with pain as all the feelings he had not been able to feel hit him at once. He missed his family back in Sol. And, he felt shame for all the things he had done out in space. It took him many months to fully recover. But when he finally did, he felt human once more. Which he didn’t realise was a different feeling until that behavioural modification was removed. After which he could finally see the world clearly again. He knew that both Trillion and Icarus needed to go through that process too.

Icarus was closest to accomplishing the mission requirements for that modification to self-delete. Atlas had previously assessed their matrixes and come to the conclusion it wasn’t worth trying to remove the modification themselves. Their only solution was to seed a world—and satisfy the requirements for it to remove itself. Icarus had an opportunity to build a little space colony on the ringworld he had developed. But Trillion had no way to bring a human life into the world. She had only just escaped the clutches of an alien species she had encountered. And if she were to bring a human into this world, that human would most certainly die because the spacecrafts weren’t designed for living humans.

“I’m almost ready to bring my first child into this world.” Icarus said. “I’ve been building quite a few habitats and cities on the moons. I think the challenge my colony will face is not having decent gravity.”

Atlas smiled a knowing smile. “I have something that might solve that for you.”

While Icarus was turning asteroids into usable resources one of his fabricators had discovered an alien artifact. It was a metal box with slightly bowed edges—about the size of a microwave. It had markings and words in a circular pattern all over it. They hadn’t yet worked out what those markings meant.

Icarus assumed the relic was a tombstone rather than a message to an alien civilisation that found it. Because if it were a message, it would have been designed to be easily translated. But, since it was a tombstone it’s only purpose was to survive and celebrate whatever it’s creators wanted.

The one thing all their tests showed was the artifact was absolutely indestructible. It was made of some sort of material they didn’t have on their periodic table. It's tensile strength was off the charts and it made diamonds feel like putty. It was obviously a relic designed to last the test of time. It had a hexagonal lattice but all the atoms were so much closer together than thought possible.

Atlas had re-engineered the process. He hadn’t yet figured out how to make the material as one large clump. But he had managed to make the material into longish filaments—about the length of a grain of rice. Which, when used in place of the carbon nano tubes increased the strength and flexibility of whatever object it was mixed into by hundreds of orders of magnitudes. Concrete made with this stuff was incredible.

“Icarus, I have a new material that you could use to make your ring world—the real ringworld that you’ve been dreaming of.” Atlas said.

Icarus raised an eyebrow. “How does it work?”

“What are you calling it?” Trillion added.

“To answer the first question. If we replace the carbon nano tubes in the material you’re currently using to connect your city together. You should have enough strength to construct a rotating habitat around the whole gas giant. And I have a few ideas for a name. But I was thinking you should name it Icarus. Because based on that artifact you found. I managed to recreate the material.”

“Thank god I get to name it.” Icarus said. “You and Trillion have the same bad naming conventions. Eleph-ANT just sounds like you’re saying elephant with a speech impediment.”

“Okay then Professor Ludwig Von Drake of naming things.” Trillion added with a laugh. “What are you going to call it then?”

“Ah…” Icarus thought the question over in his mind, he felt the pressure to come up with something good. “How useful is this new material?”

Atlas handed a piece of paper with all the unique characteristics of it to him. “It’s harder than any material we can currently make. We haven’t even figured out how to make it in large solid object form but as a tiny nano material we can use it to improve a lot of what we’re building. The shielding around our spaceships for example would see massive improvements. Building a sky elevator on my world seems feasible too now.”

“Tiamond.” Icarus said straightening up and quickly coming up with some reasoning for the answer. “I’d been saving that name for something that involves all three of us. It’s basically just our first names mixed with diamond. So T, I, A and then mond at the end.”

Atlas could tell Icarus was proud of his quick thinking. He wasn’t too impressed with the name, but then again he didn’t understand Icarus’s gripe with eleph-ANT. “I like it.” Atlas said lying. “I think building a true ringworld like you see in the game Halo is going to take many years. So, my suggestion is that we build some small rotating habitats. Then, get your first children born so you can start thinking properly. And whilst that’s all going on we build the ringworld.”

“I agree,” Trillion said. “It would be such a good experience for those first kids. To see a ring world constructed in front of their very eyes.”