As Steven Miske bit into his third slice of whole wheat toast, Cecil—the AI presiding over the NeuraSync chip embedded in his temporal lobe—suddenly chimed in, its crisp London accent jarringly clear in his mind: "Sir, according to the Star Alliance University Student Health Code, Chapter 3, Article 7, you are perilously close to unlocking the 'Carbohydrate Assassin' achievement."
"Stuff it, Cecil!" Steven rolled his eyes at the empty air, the smart hub watch produced by his father's conglomerate tracing a blue arc in the morning light as he gestured dismissively.
Ever since his father had insisted on implanting that damned NeuraSync chip, this incessantly verbose AI had insinuated itself into every facet of his existence.
From reminding him to scoop the poop for Napoleon, his Alaskan Malamute, to providing real-time translations of particularly colorful foreign swear words encountered online, it functioned less like a butler and more like a perpetually hovering electronic mother.
But as the overly sweet tang of strawberry jam melted on his tongue, Steven had to concede one distinct advantage to the infernal chip: those dreadfully dull course materials for 'Archaic History of the Celestial Republic' could now be instantly accessed, complete with AI-generated annotations often laced with unintentional (or perhaps intentional?) modern slang, all triggered by a mere thought via the MindBridge neural interface.
Just last week, during Professor Huang's lecture on oracle bone inscriptions, Cecil's retinal overlay had translated the character for "sacrifice" as "launching ancestor-bound rockets," nearly causing Steven to asphyxiate from suppressed laughter.
His smart hub watch abruptly vibrated, a jolt strong enough to numb his wrist, as a priority news alert from the Star Alliance Daily exploded across his retina: "Senator Corey Brookeridge Shatters Filibuster Record: 25 Hours, 5 Minutes!"
The accompanying holographic projection flared into existence automatically. Steven's hand jerked, sending a dollop of jam perilously close to the vintage Lunar Wolves team jersey he'd paid three hundred StarCredits for.
"That stubborn old donkey must be mainlining political stims from the SPP!"
Steven swore under his breath towards the smart refrigerator humming in the kitchen.
His NeuraSync chip dutifully translated the colloquialism into standard Alliance Mandarin and likely posted it to his semi-anonymous social feed.
The refrigerator door's display screen immediately lit up: "Detecting keyword 'stubborn donkey.' Matching relevant political commentary for your convenience…"
In the holo-projection, Senator Brookeridge emphatically waved a data slate, the optical trackers on his face performing a bizarre, jerky tap dance.
Behind him, amongst a throng of protestors, a giant inflatable mammoth mascot wearing a surprisingly well-knotted tie made Steven snort with amusement.
The slogan emblazoned across the mammoth's tusks – "Make the Star Alliance Fluffy Again!"
– flickered through sixteen different Alliance dialects in real-time via his NeuraSync translation, cycling through everything from gritty asteroid-miner slang to arcane Silicon Valley tech-jargon, before settling on an AI-generated voice pack mimicking a smug game show host: "Our Slogan Positively Bristles With Three More Exclamation Points Than Theirs!!!"
Steven stared at the image of the sputtering Senator Brooke ridge and was suddenly reminded of a line from that best-selling satirical manual, The White House Zombie Survival Guide: "The essence of the Mule-Mammoth debate is allowing voters to choose whether they prefer being kicked squarely by a mule or trampled decisively by a mammoth."
The "Sustainable Prosperity Partners" (SPP) were relentlessly mocked by right-wing outlets like the Hammer of Truth network as the "Stubbornly Progressive Party," more commonly known to the voting public as the "Mule Party."
The nickname wasn't entirely unearned; their last major legislative victory involved passing the controversial "Martian Potato Genetic Enhancement Act" through marathon filibustering that reportedly gave three congressional stenographers repetitive strain injuries.
They were nothing if not stubborn.
Their opposition, the "Traditional Merit Safeguard" (TMS), fared little better.
The Progressive Vanguard newsfeed had taken to calling them the "Towering Mammoth Society."
Their staunch opposition to expanded AI participation in governance was often compared to the mammoths who famously refused to adapt during the last Ice Age transition.
Voters, with typical irreverence, simply shortened it to the "Mom Party," largely because their policy announcements invariably sounded like condescending lectures on why restrictive measures were "for your own good."
"Twenty days of government shutdown," Steven muttered, propping his smart-sneakers (their LEDs currently displaying a slowly rotating pixelated middle finger) onto the synth-wood coffee table.
"Seriously, the vending machines down on Capitol Hill have shown more initiative than those clowns. You know why Silicon Valley keeps eating Wall Street's lunch? Because when a tech startup has two CEOs trying to knife each other in the boardroom—" He snapped his fingers.
The chip instantly projected a recent Fortune headline onto his retina: "Boardroom Blitz: How to Gracefully Eject Your Co-founder (and Their Stock Options)."
"If the Alliance were run like a company, those Mules and Mammoths would've been fired ages ago!"
Steven slammed his coffee mug down, the synth-cafe dangerously sloshing near the rim.
Suddenly, Cecil's voice cut in, tinged with an almost imperceptible electronic warning tone: "Hazardous political ideation detected. Pursuant to Star Alliance Network Public Harmony Statute 322, flagged keywords have been automatically sanitized and logged as 'harmonious and friendly negotiation protocols'."
Napoleon, the husky previously dozing at his feet, lifted his massive head with perfect comedic timing and let out a sharp "Woof."
The NeuraSync chip instantly rendered it as a scrolling bullet comment across Steven's vision: "[SYSTEM] Napoleon: This CEO demands belly rubs and twenty synth-bacon strips per hour. Guarantees zero political infighting."
"You wish, buddy," Steven rubbed the dog's thick fur. "First thing you'd do in office is replace the Star Alliance Reserve with the Federal Bone Depository."
The news feed abruptly switched, now showing President Ronald Triumph touring the newly terraformed Martian highlands.
His booming Texas drawl, filtered through the NeuraSync, inexplicably emerged sounding like a gravelly-voiced Brooklyn gangster from an old noir film: "Some people, see, they're like frozen mammoths from da dawn a' time! Brains stuck in da Stone Age, ya get me? Sad!"
Steven choked on his coffee, laughing. This curated news experience, complete with real-time translation quirks and AI-generated commentary overlays, was one of his few genuine pleasures as a politically disenfranchised observer.
After all, the century-long feud between the Mule Party and the Mom Party currently had federal employees entering their twenty-first day without pay.
Rumor had it the Capitol Hill cleaning staff had taken to pasting unflattering portraits of the party leaders onto the urinal targets.
"Sir, your scheduled… ahem… review materials for 'Archaic History of the Celestial Republic: Neolithic to Early Bronze Age Divination Practices' are fully cached and ready for neural integration," Cecil interjected, its tone suddenly shifting to that of a slightly-too-eager accomplice helping a mischievous child sneak cookies before dinner.
Steven glanced at the holographic calendar shimmering on the wall.
Professor Huang's stern, disapproving face stared back at him from the 'Today's Itinerary' column.
A cold smile touched Steven's lips as he instinctively reached back to touch the smooth interface port at the base of his skull.
His smart hub watch glowed softly on his wrist. This synergistic tech suite, originally designed as an advanced therapeutic device for managing certain neurological conditions, had become his ultimate weapon for utterly dominating Professor Huang's notoriously tedious ancient history class.
In Lecture Hall N2-442 at Pasadena University just days earlier, the holographic projection of an oracle bone inscription shimmered, nearly chased into a corner by the bright Californian sunlight slanting through the window.
Professor Huang, a visiting scholar from the Celestial Republic, adjusted the tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose.
With a gesture, the complex three-dimensional matrix of archaic characters resolved into a surprisingly pixelated, blocky representation of a dragon.
Somewhere in the back row, the captain of the university's grav-football team, startled awake, dropped his oversized synth-caf cup with a clatter.
"Class, these symbols, they carry the weight of millennia, the very essence of a civilization…" Professor Huang began, his voice earnest.
Instantly, Cecil's real-time translation feed in Steven's mind morphed the lecture into a surprisingly catchy rap beat: "Yo, check the mic, lemme tell ya somethin'… five thousand years back, these glyphs were bumpin'…"
"Professor," Steven had interjected, unable to resist, waggling the smart hub interface on his wrist.
"Shouldn't you update your courseware? With this baby," he tapped the watch, "you can neurally stream fifty thousand years of simulated history in less time than it takes to watch a TikTok dance challenge! Way more exciting! Who wants to stare at these dusty old tortoise shells?"
A wave of snickers rippled through the back rows. A message from his buddy Mason popped up in his AR view: "Five credits says the old fossil performs the legendary Sichuan Opera face-change right now."
Indeed, Professor Huang's expression visibly tightened, though years of academic decorum kept his composure intact.
"Mr. Miske," he'd replied, his tone grave. "Technology can accelerate information acquisition, certainly. But it cannot replace the nuanced understanding born of patient study. While your family's technological enterprises strive to reshape the future, perhaps consider that our ancestors in the Celestial Republic, figures like Yu the Great, were using the legendary Nine Tripods he purportedly cast to map, comprehend, and perhaps even stabilize the vast territories of the Nine Provinces. Technology and civilization, Mr. Miske, need not be mutually exclusive."
"Nine Tripods? Pfft. Probably just nine big, rusty cooking pots the tour guides hype up," Steven had thought dismissively, complaining mentally to Cecil.
Just then, an incredibly vivid holographic image of an ornate, three-legged bronze ding cauldron unexpectedly superimposed itself on his retina—but this wasn't Cecil's annotation function!
He could almost see the swirling taotie patterns on the bronze surface seeming to writhe, to flow, as if alive, straining against their metallic confines.
He blinked hard, shaking his head, and the illusion vanished. Weird glitch, he thought.
Recovering, Steven had pressed on, sneering slightly, "Well, Professor, if the legends of the Yellow Emperor battling Chi You were actually true, wouldn't the archaeological digs have unearthed at least one turbo-charged, south-pointing chariot? Or maybe a few magic wands? All they ever seem to find are broken pottery and old bones. Boring."
For Steven, history pre-dating reliable written records – especially history from the Celestial Republic – resided firmly in the realm of "legend," filed alongside the pulpy fantasy time-travel novels on his digital bookshelf.
Those novels were, ironically, the sole source of his passing, superficial "interest" in this ancient Eastern culture.
He believed devoutly in the tangible power of quantifiable technology and scoffed at ancient civilizations built on narratives that defied scientific explanation and lacked hard, empirical proof.
Professor Huang had simply looked at him then, a deep weariness in his eyes, and shaken his head almost imperceptibly.
The boy's arrogance, his ingrained prejudices, weren't formed in a vacuum;
they reflected a broader societal bias, an educational system that often valued technological prowess over historical wisdom.
Of course, neither Huang nor Steven could possibly know that this very arrogance, this blind faith in technology's supremacy, was about to propel Steven into an adventure that would shatter every single one of his preconceived notions.
The chime signaling the end of class had rung.
"That is all for today," Professor Huang had said, closing his lecture notes.
"Dude, you have to have installed some prank-ware on that hub!"
Mason had said later, playfully poking the interface port at the base of Steven's neck.
"Last week when I synced with it to borrow your lecture notes, it spliced lines from Galaxy Quest into my astrophysics thesis!"
"That's because your neural pathways lack sufficient… purity," Steven had retorted, batting his friend's hand away.
"You know why the Federation restricts NeuraSync use for anyone over sixty? It's because the cognitive synaptic pathways of you pre-digital natives are simply too…"
"Okay, okay, I surrender!"
Mason held up his hands. "Seriously though, Stevo, are you really going through with downloading that entire ancient Celestial Republic civilization database? I peeked at the file specs – it's a monster. 3.6 Zettabytes! Do you have any idea what happened to that finance bro who tried to MindBridge the complete works of Shakespeare directly into his hippocampus?"
He'd then, with dramatic flair, pulled up a viral video clip: a well-dressed man, mid-presentation at a shareholder meeting, suddenly stripping off his clothes while reciting Sonnet 18 in fluent Klingon, apparently because the NeuraSync chip had cross-linked the Bard with a… less reputable corner of the entertainment network.
"Relax," Steven had scoffed, rotating the glowing smart hub watch on his wrist.
"Professor Huang's dusty old data isn't dense enough to give my hippocampus indigestion."