Bab 45: Reality and the microdrones

Tom didn't say a word through the entire trip back home. Noticing the thoughtful state of their boss, neither of Tom's brothers bothered him. They just silently got into the car and drove off, bringing him away from the place that stressed him out so much.

'Did he buy it?' Tom thought, analyzing the meeting that just concluded.

'He was acting pretty strange,' Tom noticed while rubbing his chin. 'It's like... As if he knew something isn't right but could pinpoint it.' Tom stared into the scenery passing by the car's window.

Even though the city had to be quite populous to warrant the presence of an Online Hub, it took them only two minutes to get out of the urbanized area.

Because rather than being an Online Hub dedicated to the city itself, the local gaming spot serviced all the villages and settlements around as well. Yet, even with all that territory, it was still nearly abandoned when compared to how bustling the Online Hub could be.

'Still, they don't have any trouble to live in luxury out there,' Tom continued to analyze the situation, now moving on to the logistical discrepancies he noticed.

'For a big hub, it would be natural for resources to be plentiful. The game itself doesn't make much money either...' Tom continued his deduction when a tough reality suddenly dawned upon him. 'The money involved...' Tom shook his head before looking through the window again. 'It has to be enormous enough for the costs of maintaining this place to be negligible.

"Huh?" Tom almost jumped in surprise when the extension of this thought suddenly appeared in his mind.

'Wait, how come no one questioned it earlier?' He suddenly noticed, startled to the limits. 'Just where did all the money comes from? While cryptocurrencies can be valuable, this deal happens on a scale even beyond that!' Tom lowered his head and glued his eyes to the tips of his shoes.

'For every pro earnings millions and billions, there are millions of randos earning thousands. I was so focused on the earnings of the top players before that I ignored everyone else!' Tom sat back in his chair, powerless to stop those thoughts.

"Boss," the brother in the driver's seat said as he glanced over at Tom. "We will be arriving shortly," he reported before moving his eyes back on the road.

'There has to be something behind it. And that means there is a whole load of money involved in the entire thing,' Tom thought, slowly realizing just what was the scale of what he was attempting to topple.

The information was always out there. Everyone knew just how massive the Online Hub Company became. There was a reason why they were called the pioneers of the new age.

OHC dabbled in all sorts of stuff. While they had their roots in the gaming industry, within the short lifespan of Dungeons Online, they managed to spread their influence over nearly the entire economy.

On a random vegetable field, they would be present in the AI supplied to the farming machines. They had their assets and nano-mining-bots in the vast unearthing areas. They pioneered the miniaturization of the bots, something that brought back the hopes of unmanned space exploration.

From the tiniest and least important business, all the way to massive energetical plants in the outskirts of the world, they dabbled in every last bit of it.

'And here I am, trying to go against this kind of monster?' Tom asked himself, suddenly amused at his own arrogance.

For a moment, this sense of powerlessness spread throughout Tom's body and soul. For a moment, he couldn't even think of what should be the next thing he would do.

"Boss, we are here. Do you want us to drop you off, or maybe come in and stay for a while?" The younger of the brothers asked while taking the privilege of being in the passenger's seat to fit his gun with a silencer.

Just this sight alone was menacing enough to throw Tom off his momentary depression.

"It's okay," he said, shaking his head to the sides. "It would do us no good if someone were to start paying too much attention to me. Thanks for the ride," Tom bade his farewells before moving out of the car.

And it was right there, right at the doorstep to his farm.

There was no one around to guard the package. With how silly the wooden fence around the place was, anyone could just waltz in and take possession of Tom's parcel.

But there was no one in the near areas that would be stupid enough to infringe on Tom's possession. For some reason, all kinds of thieves, burglars, and other troublemakers marked the entire area as a no-go zone.

"She works fast," Tom muttered to himself as he unpacked the box. For something the size of a sofa, the content inside was ridiculously small. Just a small box fitting for a wedding ring and a pluggable add-on clearly designed to be attached to one's phone.

"Well, whether I'm fighting the richest company in the world or some kind of secret government that took over the entire world, it doesn't matter," Tom muttered as he tightened his hand over the steering console of the drone.

'While I didn't expect Cleo to get it so quickly, it doesn't mean there is any reason to waste time now,' he thought as he sat right on the bench in front of his doors. He then pulled his phone out, plugged the additional part in, and started up the system.

Soon the small box he noticed earlier opened itself up, with its sides suddenly caving in. Then, a slightly greyish mist escaped from the confinements of the box, only for it to return to its previous state.

"I'm still amazed by this technology," Tom said out loud, not bothered to hide that fact. The micro-drone swarm that he was toying around with was something that some armies around the world would struggle to get their hands on. Yet, with just a single phone, Cleo managed to somehow procure it for him.

For a moment, Tom continued to play around the console before finally getting the hang of it. 'Let's move on to the main task at hand,' he thought, sending the orders to the swarm.

The swarm consisted of tens of thousands of microscopic bots. Due to their insanely small size, the laws of physics that they could use were starkly different from what humans were used to interacting with.

Just like a human couldn't fly like that, those micro-drones could. Because they were so small and light, the air appeared like this dense, viscous fluid to them, making the spatial maneuvering relatively simple to implement despite the obvious problem, the lack of space.

And soon enough, Tom stared into the screen on his phone, with the live video feed from the drones confirming everything that he could only believe in so far. But now, that the swarm of drones continued to pass the image of the insides of the dome, Tom's assumptions and guesses were no longer just that.

Right now, they were facts.

Tom took a deep breath before releasing the air back to the atmosphere. He then pressed a few buttons on his phone before unplugging the add-on for the bots.

'Now they should return to the box,' he thought before glancing over at the screen of his phone. Even though he knew what he had to do, Tom still had to take some time to mentally prepare for that.

Then, he dialed out a number.

"Hey!" Marvin's voice soon sounded through the speaker.

"Hey, brother, we need to talk," Tom greeted with a cheerful smile yet dead-serious voice. "It would be for the best if you took the uncles you are sure about with you,"

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