While Aron lay in a coma, the world continued to move forward, not waiting for him at all.
Inside a heavily guarded and lengthy convoy, Alexander could be seen seated in the presidential car dubbed "the dragon." His eyes remained closed while he still wore his glasses. The car maintained its level of stability despite moving at a very fast speed along some rugged roads, thanks to the advanced suspension system in the car. The system reacted immediately to counteract any changes in the road, making sure that the car always maintained the same stability. It was effective to the point where even if a glass filled to the brim with water was placed in the car, it would not spill even a single drop.
"Where is Aron?" Alexander inquired when he entered the universal simulation after logging in.
[He won't be available for a week as he is undergoing treatment] Nova answered. Her tone was devoid of any ridicule or superiority, as was typical of her.
"Even he can get sick?" Alexander muttered in surprise, as Aron was the last person whom he would have expected to be inflicted with such a problem.
[It's not an illness of that nature, but something different] Nova answered, correcting Alexander's assumption without disclosing any specifics about Aron's condition.
"Please convey my well wishes to him," Alexander said, closing the topic. He knew that he was not to ask for any more details because if he was meant to know about it, he would have been informed about it when he had asked initially.
[Consider them delivered. Are you here to spend some time during the journey, or did you have something to talk about?] Nova inquired after assuring him of the delivery of the news.
"A bit of both. Though not serious, I had some questions for either you or Aron, and since I have nothing to do during this long journey, I thought, why not use this leisure time to ask my questions," he explained.
[Sure, go ahead] Nova said, waiting for him to pose his questions as if she knew nothing about it. Despite having the ability to access Alexander's brain data, she deemed this as a matter of privacy and thought that not doing so would be more respectful towards the people she was facing. To facilitate this, she went further as to even create a "son" who was made responsible for monitoring the brain data of all those who logged into the VR and would only alert Nova to take a look at their brain data when he deemed that it was something that she was supposed to know.
"How is the electricity project going on? Our current infrastructure can't provide consistent electricity for our citizens for no longer than a few days before we are forced to cut power for some places, and I need to address this or at least provide the citizens with a period within which this issue would be resolved."
"However, based on the briefing I received from my secretary regarding the infrastructure projects, the electricity project seemed to have made no substantial progress. The reports only say of transformers being installed outside the city, and no construction was taking place other than that, at least from what I know about it so far. Could you shed some light on this?" Alexander inquired directly, not going over a roundway or anything, clearly aware that the one in front of him was an AI whom Aron trusted the most, and she possessed all the information he needed.
[You don't have to be worried about that. With the completion of the transformers in those cities, the project has now reached seventy-seven percent completion and should be fully operational within a month] Nova assured.
"Really? But how do you plan to transmit the power to those transformers? I don't remember any mention of towers being built for high-voltage cables to be connected to the transformers. Are you considering wireless transmission?" Alexander asked.
Although someone else might think that he was joking, he surely wasn't. From the moment he received the glasses and had feasted his eyes with Aron's military tech, he knew that if anything as absurd as that could be made, then he even considered them already having done so, hence his question.
[That technology you mentioned is still in the research phase. And no, we aren't transferring it using high-voltage cables too, rather we are using an underground system] Nova answered.
At the same time, she teleported him to the vicinity of the carbon copy of Eden, highlighting the ongoing underground constructions for power transmission. The spectacle that unfolded before Alexander was magnificent.
They weren't merely digging a hole and settling with that to be used later for the installation of the cables. The machines were creating a twenty-meter radius tunnel, not the usual digging machines but atomic printers, and they were disintegrating the earth in front of them while simultaneously capturing it and compacting it between the atoms of the surrounding tunnel walls, strengthening them to such a higher level that even concrete and rebars would feel jealous.
Concurrently, as the tunnel was being excavated, it was also accommodating the construction of three distinct-looking massive pipes that filled the void. These pipes grew longer with each passing moment, matching the length of the tunnel that was being dug.
"Are you eventually going to pass the cables through the pipes?" Alexander asked after regaining his composure from being stunned by the fact of something of such a magnitude project happening in his country without him having any prior information about it at all.
[No, one pipe is designated for electricity while the other one is for sewage and the last one is for clean water] she replied with assurance. [Also, you don't have to be concerned about any leaks from these pipes and potentially causing a disastrous mixing. That won't happen as these pipes are composed of a new material with remarkable damage-healing properties. Also, with the completion of this project, we will have the same printing machines, but it would be their smaller versions that would pass through the tunnels to make sure no crack happens and since it would detect any cracks starting from their atomic level before they could reach a stage of leaking these smaller printers would immediately patch them] she added after expecting a question about it from him.
"Wow," he exclaimed upon hearing the explanation, once again coming to a realization that they had truly thought about everything that could possibly go wrong and had even prepared a countermeasure for such challenges.
[Do you want to see the progress of other projects too?] Nova asked the dumbfounded president.
"If it's possible, then please. Everything that I know about these projects is solely based on the reports I have read and the presentations from the assistant Aron gave me," Alexander responded, not trying to hide the excitement in his tone.
[Of course, let me guide you through] Nova said before she teleported him through various presentations of the ongoing projects within the universal simulation, using a bit of her power to entertain the president while the rest of her computational abilities were directed at monitoring every bit of incoming data from the pod, ensuring that she was scrutinizing every bit of it, making sure that nothing happened out of her calculations.
