Chapter 539.1: Every Possibility... Leads to Today.

In the projection room, Spielberg saw countless possibilities for the future.

As Eberts had said, in most of the outcomes simulated by the computer, he was neither at the center of the stage nor even on it at all.

The settlement was not composed solely of workers, though in his current timeline, they were the first to awaken.

For instance, in Outcome No.217, the camera focused most frequently on the youngest daughter of Malvern’s family.

From the moment that little girl first read the banned newspaper, she had been trying to persuade her father.

Though her ideas were naive, the problems she pointed out were real. Influenced by her, the old man Malvern eventually recognized some issues himself and tried to push for a top-down reform.

However... The result was a tragic one. His entire family ended up dead.

All those irrelevant or untimely scenes were replaced with lines of cold, emotionless text.

Spielberg let out a breath of relief. He didn’t mind seeing Stephens die, but he couldn’t bear watching an innocent young girl perish with them, especially one so kind.

In another example, Outcome No.269, the focus was on a green-haired girl. There was also a red-haired one. One lost an arm and an eye in Boulder Town, the other lost a leg during an external mission. Their shared trauma brought them together.

This time, it was the mercenaries who united, sparked by the Tide that came after the bitter winter the previous year.

Though those mercenaries lacked exoframes, they fought fiercely when confronted by the suppressive militia. Their urban warfare experience was especially rich, and they even pushed the forces from the inner city back. In the end, Boulder Town became a mercenary city-state.

Everything had changed, and yet somehow, it felt like nothing had.

Incidentally, there was no New Alliance in that simulation, since it hadn’t yet come into being.

Clearly, the machine wasn’t truly predicting the future. It was helping them mine the past to extract possibilities for the future.

And yet... Not a single outcome resembled the good ending Spielberg had hoped for.

It was as though the fate of the settlement had been doomed from the start, and that was the part that left Spielberg in despair. He felt that no matter what he did, it would be meaningless.

He tried dragging the timeline further back... One and a half centuries, even two, hoping to find answers in futures that hadn’t yet collapsed into fact.

And indeed, he saw many things that shook him to the core...

As he had once written in the story of the Bore the Awakener, Boulder Town had not been built in a day.

Now he had to add one more sentence.

Every settlement started out with a beautiful idea, and all of them once longed for a bright future...

...

War broke out, and then, somehow, began again. With the establishment of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, the curtain finally fell on the Prosperity Era.

The first 70 years were difficult, but also full of hope.

The committee did not abandon the survivors who remained on the surface. More importantly, those survivors never abandoned themselves.

The Defense Department taught locals how to use weapons and form militias to resist the threat of the Tide. The Technological Department organized scavenger teams, rallying young people to search the ruins for usable materials and salvageable technology. The Production Department took charge of organizing manufacturing, helping local survivors build basic but functional factories, while also occasionally delivering resources from elsewhere.

It was also then that the giant walls were established.

It hadn’t appeared out of thin air like the produce of some Black Box, nor descended from the heavens as in rumor. It was built by the first administrators, one truckload of cement and steel at a time, in the bitter cold.

That was all. There was nothing fancy, just extraordinary persistence.

At that point, the giant walls weren’t that high. After all, there weren’t many jumping, flying sub-entities, and Slime Mold wasn’t yet the primary threat to survival.

The residents of Boulder Town were among the most helpless survivors. In the end, the young people entrusted power to those administrators, giving birth to the golden rule of the inner city.

Black cards and the giant wall was the same. It didn’t exist initially.

In 2174, the 45th year of the Wasteland Era, the Post-War Reconstruction Committee fractured due to internal conflict, and a large number of capable individuals withdrew from Boulder Town.

Some headed north to the Wandering Swamp. Others went to the far west, and some even reached the East Coast. But many chose to stay.

Those who stayed were the true warriors.

Like their parents before them, they did not cower. In moments of crisis, they stood by those who needed help, whether against an unseen winter or unknown mutants.

They melted snow with their ideals, lit furnaces with resolve, and forged steel with determination.

They despised those who betrayed their ideals. They gave up all impractical fantasies. The only people they trusted were the comrades who stayed behind with them.

They vowed to be their own saviors.

Although aid from the Post-War Reconstruction Committee had ended, the future of Boulder Town appeared ever brighter.

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

They opened the walls to wandering survivors. When the Tide came, they were the first to stand at the front lines. If there was no safety beyond, then they would become the great wall for the rest of the wasteland. They didn’t just act alone, they rallied others, organized scavenger teams to search the ruins, built outposts to gather resources, and turned those into sturdy little villages.

They no longer needed handouts from the Production Department, nor expected selfish elites to ever reunite. Instead, they took initiative, heading south in search of hope in the barren land.

Perhaps it was their courage that moved others, or perhaps, the time had simply come.

Five years later, the endless winter ended. Life began to stir again. Many shelters were finally unlocked.

They welcomed a few clueless blue coats, telling these wide-eyed fools that the Post-War Reconstruction Committee was no more. They could go back to sleep, or stay and join the fight.

Regardless of their choice, they had only themselves to rely on.

It was well known that most blue coats were warm blooded individuals. Moreover, many of those old popsicles felt some guilt to their comrades who were suffering on the surface while they lived a safe life in their shelters. As such, when those tormented souls reached out their hands, they couldn’t be more ready to hand over all their Black Boxes and technology from their shelters. They also started to bring their ideology that they wanted to use to light up the land.

The arrival of the blue coats injected new blood into Boulder Town. Using prewar technology, they helped survivors improve the leftover tools from the Production Department. They even repaired batches of exoframes the Defense Department didn’t know how to fix, and, following the researchers from the Technological Department, began research on degenerated mutant bodies.

From then on, Boulder Town practically became a beacon for the south of River Valley Province...

But what puzzled Spielberg was that, in their long history, the city lord had never appeared.

Even the inner-city residents only mentioned in passing a so-called AI assistant to the lord of Boulder Town, which controlled the tower’s security system, but little else.

Before the Post-War Reconstruction Committee dissolved, the Great Rift Valley gave them a tool for self-preservation. Everyone, for some reason, agreed to place that tool under the AI’s control.

Apart from maintaining limited communication with the militia, the AI rarely got involved in Boulder Town’s affairs.

And even that limited communication only occurred when the Tide approached, or when factions linked to the Post-War Reconstruction Committee tried to gain entry.

That was part of an ancient pact. There was no interference and everyone was to mind their own business.

It was no grand conspiracy.

Although the AI called Fang Ming had little presence, it hardly mattered.

Boulder Town hadn’t been built by that AI, after all. Survivors had done well enough on their own, and were only getting better.

Until one day, Spielberg noticed something strange. The tone of their wonderful fairytale started to change.

In the hologram, a narrow, dimly lit conference hall was filled with tension as a major issue was discussed.

A stern-looking man placed both hands on the table, scanning the room before speaking. "There are fewer and fewer people in the settlement. The old resource allocation system is no longer working. Workers are getting better at their jobs, and machines are becoming more advanced. These are natural patterns of advancement."

"People aren’t satisfied with just soap anymore. Some want body wash. Some want shampoo. Everyone wants to look and feel a little better. I think that’s a reasonable desire."

"Food’s the same. You can’t expect people to eat bread with sausage every single meal. We need to start diversifying."

"However, we can’t rely on preset spreadsheets to decide how much of each type of good gets produced daily, nor expect everyone to consume only what they need. At this rate, we won’t just run out of soap and sausage, even concrete blocks will become scarce!"

"So I propose we let society decide what it needs. Let surplus production and resources flow freely. Therefore, we must invent a tool, something that lets supply and demand become visible. It will be a tool that has appeared in history before!"

As he spoke, he pulled out a white chip.