Abandoned World: The Awakening

And every day had to be for a reason. Because in front of the mirror he only practiced. First in front of the mirror, then he walked around his spacious room, sometimes stopping at some place, and continued. He would continue to argue and certainly win with the arguments of his imaginary interlocutors. Along the way he would find counterarguments, starting them with the words "you can say that it is so-and-so, but", where under "so-and-so" there could be a separate monologue for several minutes, and then after "but" followed a series of unambiguous formidable arguments in his favor. Surprisingly, most of the arguments came literally on the fly. He didn't sit and make them up, somehow separately configuring or calibrating something in them. They appeared by themselves in the process of this dispute. And each time they became more and more precise.

This he knew for sure — the best things only come with quantity. You can measure something all you want to do once, but if you do it all the time, the best results will inevitably come. Words are air. And air needs to be light and free. It needs movement. And then it will be in the right condition, the right proportion, then it will be perfect. And that meant practicing it day in and day out.

And beyond that. He understood why he was doing this. To keep the greatest secret of all, that they were on the Moon and not on Earth. After all, if everyone had this information, they would go crazy. Only experienced, seasoned people can possess this secret. Only they are able to keep themselves sane, keep their cool, and move on to the goal. The rest of us would be killed by this secret. The rest of us can't control ourselves. And that's why we need someone who can explain everything necessary, picking out from the general mass of information only what the general mass of people should know.

He liked the last configuration very much at all. The general mass of information should be properly prepared for the general mass of people. He had already thought of that for himself. After all, one should praise oneself too. No one else is able to do it correctly: if there is full agreement, no one will thank you once again, and when there are many dissatisfied people, all victories in disputes end only with the silence of the losers.

It's his lot in life to be the eternal conduit of truth. And being unappreciated by society in the process. Of course he thought he was. Yes, he's an elder. Yes, he was eventually agreed upon. Yes, he had everything he wanted, and no one even dared to cross him. But still. It wasn't like people gathered just to thank him. To thank him for how much he had done for them. For their good. For their peace of mind. For their future.

No, still no, no one more underestimated on Apollo 24 than he was. And that's despite the fact that he gave them the answers to absolutely every question. Every question they had. And he even gave them the answer to why the station was called that. Why Apollo, and what the number 24 means. And he even gave them an answer to that. As I recall, it was instantaneous.

The letter "A" is the first letter in our alphabet. And it is the most beautiful god that has a name that begins with that letter. And it is this god that represents the beauty that was once on Earth, and that we must always remember if we want to bring it back. Because by bringing back that beauty, we will be able to live on Earth as we once did. The first letter is one goal — the goal is beauty.

And everybody agreed with that. No one argued. They just silently agreed. And if they agreed, it was not difficult to explain that the number "24" means twenty-four verified steps to achieve this goal, which only the Council of Elders knows.

Of course, there were no 24 steps back then. And nobody thought about them until Peyton started telling everybody what it meant. And how important it is to realize that it is not accidental… In the end they all had to get together, all the elders, and determine, at first for themselves, what exactly these steps were. The first meeting was enough for 7 steps: the first — to wake up, the second

— to realize themselves, the third — to unite, the fourth — to divide into sections, the fifth — to choose the Council of Elders, the sixth — to realize themselves in this reality of society, the seventh — to outline plans of action.

Even at the seventh step, the elders' brains were definitely beginning to creak, because they had to use not so much memory as imagination, which was not much. It remained to invent 17 steps, so that Cross's theory at least somehow converged with the case, but given that there were no concrete ideas, and something in any case had to be left in reserve. After all, it is impossible to think of all the steps that can still be performed. From their fulfillment the Moon will not grow grass, and oceans with water will not appear on it. So, the steps should be well thought out and put up on the fly when they are needed.