THE MOMENT
“I didn't do anything wrong!” Lawrence sounded more defensive than he meant to, but it was a stressful situation. He stood, upright and annoyed, in the center of his glass and chrome throne room. The polished metal chair reflected the Venusian clouds outside the spherical chamber as they floated by. It'd taken a lot of work to get right, and now this pink-haired teenager in a white suit was threatening to take it away. He was only 6’ 5” and still towered over his petite guest.
“Technically, that's not true,” Justice gave him a friendly smile and encouraging nod that seemed at odds with her statement. “But, Sharp Development is aware that not everyone reads every rule, and I'm only here to give you a nudge. If you're still breaking the rules after I leave, that's a different, escalated situation.”
“What?” Lawrence sighed as his mind relaxed. He started worrying as soon as he spotted her. Sharp Development wasn't going to visit Venus on a whim, so she must've been there on business. After she introduced herself, she mentioned broken rules and he panicked. But, maybe he'd worked himself up over nothing. “Okay, thank you,” he nodded. “What rules am I breaking?”
“Venus isn't allowed,” she gestured at the floating clouds.
“What?” Lawrence shook his head. “You guys don't own Venus too, do you?” he asked. The company owned billions of Earths across the multiverse, and according to a few conspiracy message boards, just as many versions of Mars.
“No,” Justice giggled. “Venus doesn't exist. Not in any universe.”
“That's what I thought,” Lawrence nodded. He was active on those message boards, and Sharp Development's multiversal model was fascinating. Their official stance was that Earth was the only planet in the universe, across the infinite multiverse. Yet, insiders knew about their operations on Mars. In a roundabout way, Justice's visit was his goal. He just hadn't realized it would come so suddenly without notice. Using Venus was a deliberate decision on his part, just to see what the company might do. “So, if Venus doesn't actually exist, why can't I use that for my Server name?”
“Because our policy prohibits using it like this,” she replied.
”It's one thing to survive on a Post-Apocalyptic Earth, but surviving in what remains of the floating cities of Venus is another matter entirely,” Justice continued.
“Post-Apocalyptic Venus is perfectly fine, it won't bring the planet itself to anyone's mind while they're trying to survive the wasteland. But add in elegant floating cities, and you're treading on real mindscape. Maybe this Server Earth isn't actually Venus, but from a multiversal perspective, there now exists one planet named Venus, that meets people's fantastical expectations of the planet; we can't allow that.”
“Wait. So I just have to change the Server name, and I can keep everything else the same?” Lawrence asked.
“Just a small nudge,” Justice smiled at him with a nod. Then, she dropped a black card on the glass floor to leave. It opened a manhole-sized black portal. She stepped on it, and it began descending like an elevator. “That's my job done. Good luck!”