[ IP ] Age 24

When we knew it was coming, people panicked like the predictable, faithless lot we are. Decades of alarmism had rendered most people complacent to the realities of living in a vast vaccuum with nothing but a thinly veiled hodgepodge of vapors separating us from oblivion. The pattern began and proceeded as it usually does: alarm, fear, helplessness, hope, strength, ingenuity, triumph. And so we triumphed. 
 
 We had a second atmosphere the whole time, a perfect Step 1 to our grand solution. The satellites. All we had to do was connect them with a framework, then fill in the gaps. Allow areas of transparency -windows- so we could still get energy from our God and Destroyer, and -*voila! *- we were smarter than the dinosaurs. 
 
 We finished the Shell in 5 years, with a full 2 years left before it came. This was important because there are kinks to be worked out in even the grandest and most meticulously constructed of plans. And this was probably the grandest and most meticulously constructed of plans. Turns out the Shell started screwing with our poles, started bringing other things nearby. Asteroids, comets, that kind of stuff, not to mention the minor chaos we were forced to adapt to on good ol' Terra Mater. But that really was n't a big deal. 
 
 So it came and went. The Shell did its job. And it kept doing its job when there was no longer a job to be done. It showed up for work, day in, day out. We could n't fire it. We could n't make it quit. We did n't know how to take it back down. At that point we also realized that it was keeping certain things out that were vital for the normal workings of things down there, things that we never noticed before. So, naturally, we had to go and *get* that stuff. And that's why I'm here. 
 
 Certified asteroid miner. Lord knows we've got enough of them floating around now that we can go and take what we please. Some say that we'll even have our own ring system in a decade or so. Maybe even a second Shell. I do n't know about any of that, but I will tell you this, when you're out there taking a break from mindlessly waiting to cross over *just* the right spot to hear the machine make *just* the right beep, and you look back to see the robot that your turned your home into, you begin to feel strange, like the island-sized hunk of rock you're currently sailing through the void on is more home than home is now. And sometimes when I feel that way, I think about just riding it out. Not going back. Just riding it out. Maybe that's what I should have done from the beginning. 
 
 Maybe that's how I find myself.
