I was always going to be early for my first day at work. I don’t think it would be very different for almost anybody in the same situation. More than half an hour before Jane wanted me to be there, I’ve already found locations for a couple of plants on the window-sill and moved a couple of pieces of furniture around to suit me more.

I’ve deliberately left the door of the office wide open, just to make it clear that anyone who wishes to say hello is welcome to do so. I know that introductions are going to be made this morning, but I’m sure it pays to be friendly and welcoming.

I look up in response to a tap on my door to see a quite short, at least on Sevrin, dark-haired man in his early forties standing at the threshold. I recognise him from some of the welcome materials I went over on the ship. “Welcome to Eastleigh. You must be Aidan.”

“Thank you. It’s Peter, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Peter Teare.” He steps into the room and offers his hand. “I hope you are settling in without any difficulties.

”

“Yes, thank you. I had a good chance to take a bit of a look around the area yesterday. It’s very nice.”

“Well, as you know, I’m the resident number-cruncher. Don’t let that jumped-up calculator Argus lead you to believe that he does all the work.” He’s smiling as he says it, disarming the slight bite his tone has. There seems to be a little rivalry going on here between Peter and the AI. I suspect the AI is winning.

“That’s not a problem, Peter. My very long family history with AIs in general might make me a little paranoid. Don’t trust any of them.”

“I did wonder if you were a descendant of that Quilliam. You’re not really paranoid about them, are you?”

I have to think about my response for a few moments and it is clear that Peter notices this. “No, I guess not. It is difficult sometimes to reconcile their thinking. They play a much longer game than we ever can.”

“Sorry. You do think about it though?”

“The breadth of the planning that AIs seem to do to help us? Yes, often. I might doubt that they aren’t meddling in our affairs, but I’m just as confident as everybody else that they are working for our benefit. I don’t think I’d be here on my first day of work otherwise.”

“Is Peter dragging you into a philosophical discussion already, Aidan?” Jane asks from the doorway behind him. “Don’t let him lead you astray!”

“Good morning, Boss,” Peter chirps. “Just a little introduction, no philosophy on my part.”

“Morning, Jane. Maybe just a little philosophy from me though. I do try and keep it under control.”

“Well, just for the record, I welcome all the wonderful contributions to society from our AI overlords,” Jane tells us with a smile. “As long as they don’t stop us getting on with our jobs and having a bit of fun.”

“I’m sure that’s a quotation from something, isn’t it?” I ask.

“The first bit? Maybe. It did spring too easily to mind,” Jane agrees. “Come on, the pair of you, we’ve got to get started.”

 There are seven or eight other members of staff on hand for our brief introduction session. I’m presented to them and manage to say a few words about myself. Standing in front of even a small group isn’t something that I enjoy and I’m glad when we disperse and Jane takes me on a tour of the facilities. I can recognise the faces of the people, but it’ll take me a few days to get the names right without my implant to help.

“And these are the three main laboratories. They are all the same, but you’ve been assigned to number two.” She tells me as we walk along a side corridor. We’re still on the same floor of the building, but the undulating ground has now brought the lawns outside up to this level, almost touching the sills of the windows along the corridor.

Jane pushes open a door into a very large room – easily fifteen metres square and more than five metres tall. There are desks with terminals along one wall and various bits and pieces of machinery and what is clearly monitoring equipment.

The room, however, is dominated by a huge and complex piece of apparatus in the centre. Deep within the frames, electronics and wires there’s a bright glow that appears to emanate right from the almost imperceptible point in the centre.

“Jane, is that a Link?”

“Yes. Most of the population will never, ever see one. Indeed, most people assume that we only have the four of them.”

“I must admit, I’d always assumed that was the case as well.” I knew I’d be working on Singularity Link related stuff, but it just hadn’t occurred to me that this would mean having access to an actual singularity. “The power demands must be outrageous.”

“Yes. There’s almost as much generating capacity here in Eastleigh as there is in Sevrin City. Fortunately, we can spare the power. In the grand scheme of moon-wide power usage, it’s not really a big deal. We have one Link in each laboratory, all communicating with similar labs on Earth. There are actually two others in another department. I don’t even know what they are working on, but it’s not related to our research.”

The thought of there being five different singularities inside this building is staggering. I can’t even begin to fathom the complexity of the engineering that makes this much technology possible. Understanding how it works is one thing; understanding how to engineer it to make it work is quite another. It’s enough to make me feel more than a little out of my depth and I’m sure this is clear from my expression.

“Relax, Aidan. It always hits a newcomer hard when they see it for the first time. It gives one a sense of the importance of the project.” She gestures to a seat behind one of the desks and encourages me to sit.

“Honestly, Jane, I’m shocked. I know we need a solution to the implant problem, but I had no idea the research here was on such a scale.”

“Indeed. Just try to not feel too pressured. There’s no rush to get instant results. I don’t really want to spend decades on it, but we can if we need to.”

“Okay. I can see the sense of it and had an idea that there would be a link that we were able to have access to, just not that it would be on this scale.”

“Well, Aidan, this is effectively your personal Singularity Link now. All you have to do is figure out how to send matter through it.”

“Sounds simple enough,” I sigh. “All we need is a completely new physical model of the universe and away we go.”

“I’m glad you know that’s not true,” Jane tells me with a smile. “Only a small part of our model needs to be reconsidered for this to be a possibility.”

“Yes. I need to think about that – quite a lot.”

“Well, I’m going to leave you to it. I have a meeting to get ready for. Jordan should be available by now. How you both work on this is up to the two of you. You’ve your office and the lab. Peter, Argus and the others will help with anything you need. Do bear in mind that most of the others are doing their own thing as well, though.”

“Thanks Jane. I’ll just stay here for a bit for now.”

“Good. Keep me posted through Argus.”