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More than that, he had undergone a few changes after realizing how much he had hurt Eva. In the process, he had re-awakened his sense of empathy, which now tugged at his heart. He felt a desire to help. Especially after having experienced Eva’s unyielding declaration earlier.

She was inspiring. Both of the girls were.

He had been useless most of his life, and ruined a great many things because of that.

In the past, he found reasons to blame others for the failures he had in life. It didn’t matter how ridiculous his accusations were – what was important was that he shrugged off all accountability, and ignored the consequences.

If he was being lazy, he blamed his parents for raising him that way. If a pet got sick, he blamed the pet for eating what it shouldn’t have. If he lost something, it was because someone else took and misplaced it. Not once did he think to get up and take responsibility for his own life.

He had lost so very much because of that. And it was something he was tired of.

Mack had ruined his own life for long enough.

.....

It was time that he took responsibility, not just for himself, but for other people.

Eva had always told him that change didn’t come later – it always came now. She said that waiting for change to happen was foolishness. Change happened the moment he wanted it to happen.

He finally understood what she meant.

His heart wrenched in his chest while everyone was talking, and it threatened to burst. He didn’t stop the oncoming tide, and suddenly blurted out and interrupted everyone. He wasn’t trying to be rude; he just didn’t know how to go about it the right way.

“How about we make some videos?” he said. “You two send us your streams, and we’ll put together something for people to watch. Could you imagine it? People would be shocked!”

Mack looked at all of them as he spoke, but they just looked at him with surprised faces.

“I mean, you’re both gone, right? Everyone thinks you’re dead or whatever. But you’re not! And you can show everyone that you’re alive! You could simply stream what you’re doing way out there, we’d upload it on our end, and millions of people would watch it. It would be insane! Your families will be rich from the ad revenue alone.”

Eva’s jaw fell off when he said that.

He actually has a good idea, she thought. Well, half-baked, but still good. More than that, he put all this together. My family, Miko’s family. Maybe... maybe he’s actually growing.

She silently took note of the change.

Everyone else was also a little bit stunned at the outburst, but also saw some wisdom in what he had said. They all agreed it was a good idea, however things weren’t going to be that easy.

Nothing was ever that easy.

The media had been rife with mistrust, and what was true and what was not had been put into contention all over the world. And people had become naturally distrustful over the past few years.

If highly influential people from all walks of life found it difficult to expound the truth, it would be impossible for two supposedly dead people to do the same.

“Nobody will believe we are among the disappeared millions,” said Miko. “They will simply assume we are incredible liars with access to million-dollar budgets and cutting-edge special effects.”

“But perhaps they can connect with their loved ones who are also in your universe,” said okaasan. “Like we have connected with you. This will help, ne?”

“I agree,” said grandma, “the more families and friends who reconnect, the more it validates your truth. More people will talk about it, more people will understand.”

“But it still wouldn’t be enough,” countered granddad. “Even if there were millions who believed, they’d be overrun by the tens of millions who don’t.”

“All make shows,” piped in otousan. “Show breathing universe.”

He made motions with his arms, and exaggerated his breathing.

“I agree,” said Mack. “It’d be great if they made shows too. Gives people less reasons to doubt us. Buuut it also means more competition for us. Less money, less cred, too.”

Eva’s grin went wide as she saw everyone getting along and talking. More importantly, they were all building something together. It made her feel incredibly warm deep down to her core. This was something she wanted to keep forever.

She wondered if this was something she could have achieved in her old life, and mulled over the limitations she had put on herself back then. But it was pointless to continue that line of thought.

Her old life vanished and her current one rose anew. Perhaps her ‘death’ was necessary for her continued evolution.

“That’s okay,” she said. “Because all of it will help. It doesn’t matter if they don’t believe. It doesn’t matter if there ends up being millions of other shows like ours. Hell, it doesn’t even matter if people will fake it and make their own shows.”

She looked over at everyone – Miko’s parents, her own grandparents, and Mack. They stared back with hopeful eyes as they absorbed what she was saying.

“What matters,” she continued, “is that we make something fun to watch, earn some extra on the side, and make sure that none of you have to worry about finances ever again.”

“Yes, exactly!” said Miko. ” And can you imagine what it will be like to show the world what it is like to fight pirates in space? Does that not sound amazing?”

Eva nodded.

She imagined perforating criminals, smashing in their faces, turning in their bounties, seeing their ledgers swell, and watching viewer counts rise... Miko’s parents would be financially secure, and her grandparents could live their twilight years exactly how they had always wanted.

Of course, it was only a dream right now; it was a seed. She didn’t know if their idea was viable, or if they’d all get humiliated by it all. But it was a start, and it gave them a little hope for their futures.

~

Over the next few weeks, Eva and Miko streamed a good portion of their contracts over to Mack. Although they had streamed their work from contract acceptance to ledger payout, they mostly used the relatively scant action-packed moments in between.

Most contracts were spent doing research, doing recon, tapping comms, and other rather mundane things. Despite the fact that these were violent jobs, they were still rather standard. It was a living, and although they weren’t often lucrative, they were certainly plentiful.

Many pilots and soldiers made careers out of firing bullets at various miscreants. To them, it was the same as hauling garbage.

Eva and Miko quickly took to the task. They earned a living while cleaning up the galaxy bit by bit.

Not that they were squeaky clean themselves, but they didn’t exactly stream those activities.

They happily discovered that what they did stream was rather robust. Not only did their POV stream over, but so did their drones’ footage. This allowed all of them to have a great many angles of every engagement.

Although Eva and Miko could transfer the footage from their drones, it was only while they were in player streamer mode. This meant that they sent Mack five separate video files – this was way too much!

Eva’s old computer had a lot of drive space, but it simply couldn’t keep up. The files being saved were gigantic!

In their new universe, visual technology had met human physiology. Human eyes were the equivalent of nearly 600 megapixel cameras, and in terms of resolution, could ‘see’ in 8k.

Past that, the naked human eye wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

But it was still necessary to go a bit higher, so that any downsampled visuals would still look crisp and clean. So everyone pretty much settled on 16k.

This meant that raw 16k video files were positively enormous, and Mack had to empty out his wallet just to buy enough drive space to hold a few. The needs were so great that even Miko’s parents had chipped in a little.

Ultimately, he brought in the raw video, but downsampled them all to a more manageable 4k size. He was saddened to toss away the huge video files, but honestly there was no way he could store them.

Not even if he rented servers at a server farm. He would have ended up paying hundreds of thousands just for backups.

Once he had more reasonable file sizes, he got to work cutting the video together.

Since he literally didn’t have anything else to do in life, he spent nearly every waking hour on it. For the first time in his life, he toiled away and worked himself to the bone.

He often worked late into the night, and woke up before dawn, just because he felt the need to make things perfect. That took practice.

By the end, he was well and truly exhausted in both mind and body.

And it felt great.

~

Eva and Miko had also done their share of the work. Since they could only transmit raw video, and only in one direction, it meant that they had to double up the work.

Even if they could take Mack’s videos and republish them on their end, the resolution was simply too low. Their old Earth didn’t have the technology to keep up with the advancements in their current lives.

So, they had to make everything from scratch. While Mack made videos on his side, the two of them made ‘casts for theirs.

They too spent long hours crafting the new ‘cast. They had realized that their first try was simply too slap-dash and poorly thought out.

Not only that, but it wasn’t anywhere close to unique. If they couldn’t stand out from the crowd, then they were going to languish at the bottom.

So the two of them rethought their approach, and decided to change things up a bit.

It wasn’t enough for them to capture people’s attention. They realized that in order to hold them, they needed to contribute something. They had to do more than simply entertain.

Although many omnicasts were popular despite their uninspiring nature, plenty others imparted lessons and sought to educate. Some showed how to build or create things, others explained the inner workings of life, and many proffered up unbiased truth.

The problem was that too many of those ones weren’t very entertaining.

There was a ‘cast of a brilliant young man who discerned the ashes that differing tobacco leaves could produce when burnt. It was thoroughly insightful, but terribly bland.

“These are so dry,” said Eva.

Miko was in awe of those who sought to help change the lives of others. Eva too was moved, but not nearly as much as her sister.

They realized that they needed to do both – entertain and contribute.

After all, if their ‘casts only showed destruction, their contribution was minimal. It didn’t matter how beautifully they displayed those acts – it was still as unfulfilling as the rest. Eating junk food was always fun, but ultimately empty.

And if their ‘casts only sought to educate, and paid no attention to their entertainment value, then it didn’t matter how mindblowing the information was. No-one would watch something so dull. Unless perhaps they wanted to fall asleep.

The two of them decided that whatever they created needed to be both entertaining and useful. They definitely planned to keep the more exciting action-oriented scenes, but also added something that was far more important.

Heart.