It had been hours since the Nova Technologies Space Station recruitment announcement dropped across LucidNet, and the initial wave of euphoric disbelief was already crystallizing into something far more dangerous for the old world: absolute, unyielding economic reality.
While the global public spent the afternoon in a collective daydream, downloading application forms and envisioning a life suspended among the stars, terrestrial institutions spent the evening doing the math.
And the math terrified them.
The panic started in the exact places that employed the people Nova wanted. In the American Midwest, a massive regional hospital network convened an unscheduled, emergency encrypted video call at nine o'clock at night.
Twelve senior executives sat frozen on their screens because, over the past three hours, no fewer than forty-two of their senior nurses and department heads had forwarded the Nova employment portal link to human resources with a single line attached: Is this real?
