Abandoned World: The Awakening

— Your coffee turns your brain on properly. — Natalie replied, really already thinking that the drink was exceptional. Whether from Morgan's ability to elicit specifics or from the fact that the questions added fuel to the fire of Natalie's already regular musings.

She was now sitting on the black leather sofa, a red mug clutched neatly in both hands. For all Morgan's obvious wealth, the interior was modestly furnished, and it was obvious that most of the things he'd made himself rather than ordering them from someone else. It created not only a certain coziness, but also a sense of self that wasn't present in other places, because it was obvious that someone had done it with a heart, not just for the sake of beauty.

The room was a guest room, with four doors leading to other rooms. There was a large black leather sofa in the middle, a low glass table in front of it, and a large armchair farther away, right in front of a panoramic window that was two meters long and one meter high — the most important indicator of wealth on the station. Such windows began to be put already after awakening, having developed alloys stronger than the cladding itself. And it turned out that the more vulnerable section appeared to be stronger, so it was put on the outside, which at the same time allowed to get a magnificent view of the surrounding area.

And these surroundings from his position turned out to be amazingly gorgeous, because from his side began the now dried up, and formerly existed Atlantic Ocean, going down to the bottom, allowing to observe a wider space. And although everything was covered with the same gray regolith, the sheer volume of the view was literally breathtaking.

— You wanted to talk about how logical everything was. — Morgan began, sitting not quite close but at arm's length from her. — Now, the first thing I'm going to show you is the view from my window. You see this expanse… We all know that this is the Atlantic Ocean, which dried up years ago… Isn't that what they tell us?

— Uh-huh. — Natalie carefully took another sip of coffee, remembering again her thoughts about people's different attitudes toward the same process. Truly today's discovery.

— So it's not the Atlantic Ocean… You've been candid with me today, and I'm just responding in the same way… This is all red-hot talk, of course, but it's not the Atlantic Ocean, and I don't just think that, I've proven it.

— Prove it how?

— I found maps of the seabed in quite a bit of detail. Accuracy up to 10, in some cases up to 50 meters. Then I took pictures of my view from different angles. Nobody's stopping me from doing that. Then I digitized it all into one technical unit, and compared my datum with what was stored as data on the Atlantic seabed, trying to find my location… And there was nothing. Just nothing…

Where we are now is not the Atlantic seabed.

— Maybe it just wasn't preserved the same way? Didn't you do some kind of comparison?

— Exactly. Parameters. I was sure I wouldn't find a 100 % probability, that much is clear. But the results I got were less than one percent similar. 0.00002 percent. A 0.00002 percent location match means that the system just hit some points in the sky.

— And what versions do you have on all this? Are the maps wrong? Or what?

— I would have thought, of course, that they were wrong, outdated or something, but on this scale… It's only been millions of years. But if that were the case, there'd be nothing left of our station… But that's not all. I'm not just talking about the view from the window… When you observe everything so volumetrically every time, you start to compare many things.

— Like what else?

— For example, sunrise and sunset…..

He looked out at the horizon, and she thought at that moment that it looked like a somewhat romantic scene was about to begin. And the view was good for it-after all, the vastness of the view from his apartment was impressive. Something similar could be observed only in the dining room, but there the view was of the starry sky, not of the earthly expanse. And slowly doubts began to creep in that it was not only because of the high cost of production of such glass….

— You've probably noticed how many of the movies we're allowed to watch have the main characters get up at the crack of dawn, right?

— Of course you do. It was the main topic for romantic delights among girls. " Natalie smiled.