Norman was waiting to meet a magister for his thesis submission. The curved glass wall in the waiting area looked outwards, away from the planet. He had overestimated the time it would take to find her office. It was the early hours in the morning, and the magister had yet to arrive. Her office was still locked, and the waiting room was completely deserted at this hour.
Instead of sitting down in one of the minimal cushioned chairs that lined the wall, Norman just stood in a corner, contemplating the view outside, as well as all that had happened in the span of a single academic year. This year had been a turning point for him in so many ways, and he was sure he would be dealing with the repercussions of these events all his life.
The dark convex glass dimmed the bright light of the rising sun. The early morning light reflecting off the icy asteroids that circled the planet further beyond offered a mesmerizing view.
Norman had not slept at all the night before. Late into the night, after he had confirmed the results of the final round of his simulations and was planning to sleep for a few hours before submitting his entry to the magistrate, another notification had caught his attention - an alert from one of the news subscriptions he had set up.
A major Kaiyaathian prison had been completely eviscerated. It was not common for Irvanian news outlets to cover regular developments in the Kaiyaathian empire. For one, Kaiyaath was extremely secretive about its administration. Because of their strange and restrictive faith on the one hand, and the many liberties with genetic modifications they had taken over the centuries on the other, Kaiyaathians were largely considered an outsider race. They may have been human once, but their culture had evolved almost entirely outside any Irvanian influence.
Norman found this news alarming for a different reason. Kaiyaathian culture had historically been closely associated with Yaskh. Most of the well-preserved Yaskh ruins were currently in Kaiyaathian territories, and they were the last of the people who were known to be in touch with the Yaskh race. Many elements of their present day culture and tradition could be traced back to Yaskh influences.
So the warning bells in Norman's mind eliminated all possibility of sleep the moment he heard about a famed prison getting completely destroyed by a sudden volcanic eruption that nobody had predicted. He had spent the last few hours of the night exploring any cues about the Nightwyrm's involvement, but all he could gather from the myriad news clips was that apparently one man - a single individual - had claimed responsibility for this event. A widely condemned terrorist known only as Joriah, who was involved in at least five hundred open cases in Irvania alone. Could the Wyrm really have survived? Could this man be its next host? An accomplishment like this was certainly unprecedented - the Yae Tal’hefier was known for its stellar security, and nobody had ever escaped the prison in the past.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by Magister Stallworth arriving, "Hello Norman, I have been looking forward to meeting you. All set with your project submission?" She asked with a smile.
The magister looked a bit different from how Norman remembered her from the profile image. The wrinkles on her face were slightly more prominent, as were the shadows under her eyes. She had been a part of the evaluation panel for five years now, and the task of assessing and grading the diverse range of projects that the students of the Academy worked on could only be incredibly daunting.
"Yes, Magister. My submission is ready for your eyes. I am happy to answer any questions you might have." Norman answered politely. While there were four other designated magisters who could assess and approve the projects that would eventually be sent to the Scholarch for final evaluation, Rhea Stallworth had been Norman's first choice for many reasons - the primary among them being the vast array of her accomplishments in the field of nuclear rehabilitation and terraforming.
"Oh, I am happy to review. I am just surprised that you didn’t wait for Leptimus to arrive."
"Councilor Leptimus is coming here?" That surprised Norman. His mentor had not sent him any information regarding this.
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"Oh, you haven’t been notified. How surprising." Rhea said, opening the door to her cabin. Norman followed behind and, with a swipe on his handheld device, made the contents of his dissertation available to the Magister over the internal network.
Her cabin was a clean minimal setup, with not much to see besides a large white desk on which parts of an incomplete spherical construct lay in a semi-assembled state. Beyond the desk was the beautiful view of the asteroid belt sprawling out into the space beyond. The sun had risen further, and now the belt looked more like a yellow Fraskav field from Norman's home world, Micrea.
"Do you go home between the cycles?" Rhea asked, settling on a chair that had materialized behind the desk the moment she had arrived. Norman recollected that she too was originally from the same system.
"Only once." Norman lied, "It has been a while, though." The day he had left that cursed world, he had decided that he wasn't going back ever again. Not that there was anyone waiting for him back there - only the bullies from the orphanage.
Rhea nodded, and putting down her tablet on the desk, activated its projector with a gesture. Her eyes lit up the moment she saw the topic of the dissertation, "Your project is not related to your project with Zenith Fidaeus at all?"
Norman typically kept his face neutral - every emotion was a choice. But Rhea was anything if not observant. She noticed the slight flicker of surprise in his eyes. "Rothfurd is an old friend of mine. He has been raving about your work. That was one of the reasons why I was…" The rest of her words trailed off as she read through the abstract of the submission, "A completely self-contained evolutionary architecture for biome rehabilitation of worlds devastated by nuclear wars."
She looked towards Norman with an expression that was part surprise and part admiration, "This is something you have independently accomplished?"
"My friend Kiri had been helping me, but after her disappearance, I have taken her work to a closure." Norman added, hoping that she would not notice the trace of guilt in his voice.
But Rhea was just too engrossed in the details of the submission at this point. "Oh… yes, students disappearing from the academy - such a tragic occurrence." She didn't even look up.
Over the next hour, she quizzed him on the various specifics, how the results were simulated, the cost factors involved and the practicality of deploying the solution. Norman had been certain that his solution would be accepted, but still, as Rhea complimented him on the novelty of every unconventional choice he had made, he felt his heartbeat quicken. Rhea was the foremost expert in this domain, and an endorsement from her could go a long way in ensuring a bright future for Norman. He may not be able to get into the Protectorate, but he still could be a part of something that benefited Irvanian people at scale.
"I assume you intend to patent this in collaboration with one of the organizations in the planetary terraforming sector?" Rhea asked after completing her inspection of the simulation results. "Have you spoken with any of them already?"
That brought Norman to the final reason for approaching Rhea. "No, actually, I want to open source this project so that any affected world in the Irvanian empire can freely take advantage of this work. That was also why I kept this work separate from my contract with ZF."
Rhea gaped at Norman for a second, before a wide smile completely transformed her face. "You aren't just here to apply for the thesis submission, are you?"
"No, I am also seeking the Academy's approval to release the schematics under a permissible license."
Historically, the students who worked on practical applications had always preferred to establish relationships with industrial guilds before they graduated. But Rhea was spearheading a small group of advocates who championed that all research with the potential to improve human lives at scale should be made freely available, unencumbered by patents and licenses.
The Academy, which directly benefited from patronage of powerful guilds with commercial ambitions, had not received her proposals with open arms. But over the years, the group of Rhea's supporters had grown and her mission - the Free Schematics Movement, had received accolades from prominent academic and industrial groups across the empire.
"I will not just be happy to submit your research for approval," Rhea said after another couple of moments of sifting through the design document, "Once my team validates these results independently, I will personally champion your work to make sure it reaches as many people as possible."
"Boy, if you have actually accomplished what these results indicate you have accomplished - you are going to become a very famous person very soon." She clasped her hands, concluding as the projection dissipated away.