The seed was huge, roughly the length and breadth of Manhattan Island, and in it rested the future of the quest for energy. The people living on it, or rather, in it, knew what they were getting into, both literally and figuratively. They could never emerge. They made that choice. Those born after them had no hand in that choice.

If you grew up there, you had no frame of reference, so you didn’t really know how small your world was. You didn’t feel a sense of loss when you harkened back to life on an actual planet’s surface. You never had that privilege, so you “never knew any better.” This is often the lamentation of the first gens who are still alive. “No appreciation” for what was given up.

You were living in a pod skirting the edge of the event horizon of a Class IV black hole. In the time it took you to brush your teeth at cycleStart, majestic civilizations rose and fell elsewhere.

All Alice knew was that she was late for school and didn’t have time to brush.