Project Utopia Central, Addis Ababa
23/11/2013, 00:01

"And today on N! Discovery—" Click.
"—Today we're very grateful to have on the show Nova entrepreneur—" Click.
"—This is news recording from 6pm this afternoon, showing the devas—" Click.
"—As you can see, the new Utopia Particle Accelerator will provide us with the opportunity we need to finally answer the question—"

Click. Sydney hated scanning the Opnet feeds at night. In the grand tradition of 20th century television broadcasters, there was quite literally nothing on but repeats of old shows they hadn't quite gotten their money's worth out of on the day showing. Sydney finally caved in and went onto the Premium site, to dig out and queue up a few of Orchestra’s recent recordings and began pottering about his apartment. It wasn't like he couldn’t afford it.

While not requiring sleep had many advantages, it's primary disadvantage was that human society tended to slow down during the night-hours, leaving nonsomniacs with very little to do. The first few months of working for Project Utopia meant that Sydney had a massive amount of work to get caught up on, with paperwork, training manuals, getting up to date with Utopia History… There was a lot going on, but it only lasted so long. Sydney's ability to soak up information like a sponge meant that it kept him occupied for maybe a month or two.

Then it was boredom. Sydney lay down on the couch, and soaked up the sweet melodies of Orchestra’s Concerto #4. At least, as much of it as he could listen to, having such a reduced hearing capacity. Six hours to go until work started.

23/11/2013, 02:04

Sydney was half-way through Orchestra’s Epic Monologue when his vidphone suddenly alerted him to a call. Sydney decided not to bother with walking and merely sync'ed over to the terminal. He pressed the "receive" button on his lightpad.

Sydney's supervisor, Leif, appeared on the screen. Sydney was convinced that the baseline didn’t sleep either. "Hello Sydney."
"What seems to be the problem?" Sydney replied back.
Leif got straight to business. "There's been some reports of some strange activity at Mawson Station in the Australian Antarctic Territories. Apparently there's been some strange light patterns occurring around the area."
"Perhaps an Aurora?"
Leif shook his head. "We checked our satellite instruments, even that close to the pole, there’s not enough magnetic radiation hitting the atmosphere to account for the phenomena we're seeing."

Sydney nodded. Sounds like a case for us. "When do you want me in?"
Leif looked at Sydney. "As soon as humanly possible. You’re the last person on the list, the other two should be arriving within ten minutes. Knowing you, you’ll probably be here fairly soon."

Sydney hit the "End" lightpad, and turned off the Opnet set. The lights were already off, it wasn’t like he needed the light to see. He made one last final check to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, and in a sudden flash of light, he was gone.