By October, major corporations were fully aware of the new situation and were finding ways to take advantage. Large contract bonuses were offered to individuals with good starting Gateworld environments based on the # of Gates they were willing to open on the company's behalf. Once it was established that major infrastructure like oil and gas pipelines, water mains, and electrical transmission lines could be put across Gateworld, thousands of miles of gridwork could be compressed to about 11.5 miles. In the case of aqueducts, it was even sometimes possible to have "downhill both ways" flows.
After a few small disasters, in which Gates vanished from lack of use (it seemed that fluid pipelines didn't reset Gate expiration), companies realized the need to leave enough space in the utility Gates for human transit.
Airlines were quickly going bankrupt as cross-Gate travel took over nearly all long-distance travel. Railroads and trucking were ok, for now, but they could see the writing on the wall and were quickly designing their own Gate delivery grids.
Anti-Gate fanatics were getting desperate, as global civilization was gravitating towards full Gateworld exploration and leaving them behind - fanatical and jihadist attacks were common.
Overall, global industry was rebooting, and fortunes were being made and lost every day in thousands of industries.
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At NASA HQ, a VERY classified report was being given to the Defense department. YES, a Gate could be opened on the Moon. The problem was that it opened into vacuum, on a lunar-like surface, with lunar day/night cycles. And NO, the Gate attempts on craft and space stations failed entirely.
What the report DIDN'T mention was a 2nd lunar Gate, created by a man who had already created a Gate from Earth.....
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The first Gate harvests were in (the 2nd in many cases) and food shortages were quickly becoming a thing of the past. Life was infiltrating its way into many areas far from any Gate.
People who stayed on Earth were slowly getting left behind - training and learning rates were double in Gateworld. Already, world and Olympic records were being broken on a daily basis. Fertility rates were also growing rapidly, as women were finding a 5 month pregnancy much easier to deal with than 9.
Cavers reported that Gateworld had extensive caverns, but that access was very rare and difficult.
Several reports were coming in of "faintly glowing mist" at night in Gateworld, that seemed drawn towards humans and appeared to enter them. Test instruments didn't register anything.
A totally blind man, after living months in Gateworld, reported being able to navigate an obstacle course by "pure instinct", and claimed he could "see with chi", even though he admitted it only worked within a foot or two. Shane was doing much better at it, but was in no position to report his findings.
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Marc was very busy, as always, trying to keep a lid on a dozen boiling pots. Reports on China had finally come in - they were building a "slow drone" fleet on Gateworld, staying at low altitudes, and seemed more intent on watching their own populations than in causing trouble for others - for now, at least.
North Korea had finished transiting its population base to Gateworld. The only remaining Earthside presence were military and industrial factions. The big worry was that it would no longer hesitate to use nuclear weapons, as it had little left to lose that was vulnerable to such attack.
Russia was simply getting rich. They had huge reserves of what Gateworld could not provide - fossil fuels. They were quickly setting up direct Gate-pipelines from their oil and gas sectors to their best allies and customers. They were importing talent from around the world just by paying better wages and benefits than anyone else.
The middle east was total turmoil, with anti-Gate fanatics constantly attacking Gate-makers and Gate-users, while also attacking their traditional enemies. Most of the general population had embraced Gates as a means to escape the conflict, and refugees were popping up all over the world.
Latin America was just colonizing Gateworld - ignoring the condemnation of the practice by the Catholic Church, and their cartels now had global access for drug distribution.
Marc was now getting fairly good daily flyover reports, as his pilots slowly learned to take full advantage of the winds. One daring pilot claimed he could even shut down his engine and maintain altitude via updraft.
But right now, Marc was having to personally go to NASA to find out what the big deal was with Lunar Gate #2. This led him to a secure Gate shuttle that took him to an underground base. There he was led to an airlock-sealed room with a Gate. Passing through THAT Gate, he was then put in a dune buggy for the 11.2 miles to see the Lunar Gate.
There it was: He could see directly through the Gate to the Lunar surface, the Moonscape, the unwinking stars. His guide casually blew up a toy balloon and batted it through the Gate - where it immediately exploded in the hard vacuum. Yet there was no wind. His guide then brought out a small extension pole and a small pot, filled the pot with water from his canteen, and extended it into the Gate - where it immediately started boiling away rapidly. After a minute or so, the boiling died down and he pulled the pot back across the Gate, revealing a small block of ice.
This was huge, Marc knew. Interplanetary travel was on their doorstep - all they had to do was land one person on a planet long enough to establish a Gate.
But even worse, it forecast what the results would be when the opener of Lunar Gate #1 returned home and opened a Gate from Earth...
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Gina Sinclair had bad luck creating her Gate - getting an area that consisted mostly of a cross between the Sahara and the Badlands, with no fresh water in sight. While reading up on possible solutions, she came across Mr Vogt's posting - he might be the answer to her troubles, and a companion as well, if things worked out. If nothing else, maybe she could care for one of his secondary Gates for him.
She sent Dan details about her troubles with her desert Gate, asking for advise, and included a slightly flirty picture of herself having a picnic on a dune near her Gate in Gateworld. Dan answered with assorted information about making "flood-Gates" in wetland areas and offered to show her one such Gate he had made next to a forest stream - designed to divert much of the stream to Gateworld in the rainy season.
Gina didn't mention she had inherited a fairly large estate a couple years back, and that she planned to put 90% of it into Gateworld ventures. She (at 57) had never had children due to medical issues, but her latest readings had suggested that living in Gateworld for a decade or so might give her a second chance at life.
Dan's other suggestion had been to open one (or more) of her own secondary Gates from the wettest possible places and seasons she could find on Earth - with the aim of greening her desert.
She was already on her way to the first such location - she wanted to meet Dan with a "win" already under her belt.