The third livestream had ended and Lucy had already set a straight course for the heliopause. As planned, there would be no more livestreams for the foreseeable future, meaning the rest of the trip would be uneventful.

After Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter, and Saturn, Liam felt he'd done enough exploration of celestial bodies within the solar system. Now, all that remained was to enjoy the journey until they exited the solar system, where he'd manually pilot toward the Voidling's coordinates.

As for how Liam intended to enjoy the trip—well, there wasn't much to do on a spacecraft millions of kilometers from the nearest civilization. The only option was continuing to train his powers.

Training would be the best way to pass time. Liam wanted to increase his flight speed from its current maximum of 900 km/h and cruising speed of 600 km/h. He knew achieving that depended on his mental capacity. Since flight derived from his telekinesis like his other abilities, it drained him mentally when pushed to extremes.

But Liam was curious how much improvement was possible, especially after gaining the EM field detection ability and seeing significant advancement in his other powers.

With that decision made, Liam's days filled with nothing but training and well-deserved rest.

Meanwhile, Earth was shaking from the third livestream, with no recovery in sight.

***

The third livestream had been the most shocking yet, and the reason had nothing to do with advanced technology shown in the second livestream or post-scarcity economics in the first livestream.

What Nova Technologies' CEO had displayed was something no human should be able to do—something that should only be possible after thousands of computer calculations performed by the most sophisticated systems humanity had ever built.

And he'd done it manually. In three seconds. With a single half-degree adjustment.

The fact that he was able to achieve something like that, made everyone understand something: Nova Technologies might not just be only a company of highly advanced technology, but potentially highly advanced human.

The implications were beyond staggering. They were cataclysmic. Because what it represented struck at something fundamental about humanity itself.

***

The footage had been analyzed frame by frame by every space agency on Earth. NASA, ESA, CNSA, Roscosmos—all of them replayed the micrometeorite deviation and subsequent correction thousands of times, trying to understand what they'd witnessed.

"The meteorite impact occurred at timestamp 09:32:18," a NASA flight dynamics specialist explained during an emergency briefing at Johnson Space Center. "Mass approximately 0.3 grams, velocity 12 kilometers per second relative to the shuttle's reference frame. The impact altered their trajectory by what would have resulted in a 340-kilometer deviation at periapsis."

He pulled up the trajectory overlay, showing the red warning that had appeared.

"Standard protocol would be to abort the maneuver immediately. You can't manually correct something like this—the math is too complex, the variables too numerous. Our systems would need at least thirty seconds to calculate the optimal correction burn, and even then we'd probably scrub the flyby entirely and plan a new approach for the next orbital window."

He paused, his expression somewhere between awe and disbelief.

"He corrected it in three seconds. One micro-burst from the orientation thrusters, half a degree of rotation, and the trajectory snapped back to nominal. Perfect correction. First try."

The room was silent.

"How?" someone finally asked.

"That's what we're trying to figure out. Either he has computational capabilities we don't understand, or he has cognitive processing that exceeds what we thought human brains were capable of."

"Or he got lucky," another voice suggested, but it sounded hollow even as the words left their mouth.

"Nobody gets that lucky. That correction required calculating the exact thrust vector, duration, and timing to compensate for a deviation that was compounding exponentially. The margin for error was measured in milliseconds and millimeters. And he did it on the first attempt, with no computer assistance."

The specialist pulled up comparison data—historical gravity assist maneuvers performed by various space agencies.

"Voyager 2's Saturn flyby in 1981 required 47 trajectory corrections over 30 days of approach. Cassini's initial Saturn orbit insertion involved over 300 corrections during the final approach phase. Those were computer-controlled missions with months of planning."

He gestured at the frozen frame showing Liam's hand on the controls.

"He shut down his guidance systems and performed a perfect flyby with one correction. One."

***

The reaction on social media transcended the previous livestreams' chaos. This wasn't about technology anymore—it was about human capability itself.

"That wasn't skill. That was something else."

"I'm a pilot with 15,000 hours. What he did is IMPOSSIBLE for human reaction time and calculation ability."

"Three seconds. He calculated orbital mechanics, gravitational effects, momentum transfer, and thrust vectors in THREE SECONDS."

"This isn't about having better computers. He turned the computers OFF. That was pure human cognition."

"Human? Are we sure about that?"

The last comment spawned a thousand threads. Conspiracy theories that had been simmering since the first livestream now exploded into mainstream discourse.

"Enhanced human. Has to be. Genetic modification or neural augmentation or something we don't have names for yet."

"Or he's not human at all. This whole thing is first contact and we're too focused on the technology to notice."

"The more I think about it, the less human it seems. No human brain can process that fast."

Reddit's r/NovaGate, now with 28 million members, became ground zero for speculation. The pinned post was titled: "ENHANCED COGNITION EVIDENCE COMPILATION" and ran to over 50,000 words, documenting every instance across all three livestreams where the CEO had demonstrated seemingly superhuman capability.

The micrometeorite correction topped the list, but other examples filled pages:

- The Jupiter descent where he'd maintained perfect control during hull integrity failures.

- His apparent ability to operate complex systems without visible reference to displays or manuals.

- The casual way he'd collected atmospheric samples while managing a descent through conditions that should have required his full attention.

- His calm narration even during moments of extreme danger that would have overwhelmed most trained astronauts.

"None of this is normal human performance," the post concluded. "We're watching something beyond baseline humanity, and Nova Technologies isn't talking about it."

***

In Beijing, the Central Committee's emergency session had taken on a different tone. The technology was still concerning, but now a new question dominated: What if Nova Technologies had solved human enhancement?

"If they can augment cognition to that degree," the Minister of Science and Technology said slowly, "then every advantage we think we have—in education, in training, in expertise—becomes meaningless. One enhanced individual could outperform entire departments."

"We need to know how they did it," someone else added. "This isn't just about space exploration. Enhanced cognition would revolutionize every field. Military strategy, scientific research, economic planning—everything."

"If it's genetic modification, we need to know the techniques. If it's neural implants, we need the specifications. If it's pharmaceutical enhancement, we need the compounds."

The head of the Ministry of State Security cleared his throat. "Our analysis suggests this might not be enhancement at all. It might be selection."

"Selection?"

"What if Nova Technologies didn't create enhanced humans? What if they found them? What if there are individuals with naturally superior cognitive capabilities, and Nova Technologies identified and recruited them?"

The implications hung heavy. If enhanced humans existed naturally, if they could be identified and recruited, then Nova Technologies had access to a resource more valuable than any technology—a fundamentally superior workforce operating at levels regular humans couldn't match.

"Either way," the Minister of Science concluded, "we're facing something unprecedented. And we have no way to acquire it."

***

The scientific community approached the question from a different angle. Neurologists, cognitive scientists, and human performance researchers published emergency papers analyzing the correction maneuver.

"Human reaction time averages 200-300 milliseconds," one paper noted. "Complex calculation requiring working memory, spatial reasoning, and motor planning typically takes 2-4 seconds for trained individuals. This correction occurred in 3 seconds total, including the calculation, decision-making, and motor execution."

Another paper focused on the computational load: "Calculating orbital trajectory corrections manually requires differential equations involving gravitational forces, momentum transfer, and three-dimensional vector calculus. Even with training, humans require calculator assistance and several minutes to arrive at approximate solutions. Exact solutions require computer modeling."

The conclusion was unavoidable: "Either the individual possesses cognitive capabilities multiple standard deviations above known human performance, or they have access to computational augmentation that operates at neural speeds."

Universities scrambled to organize symposiums. "Human Performance Beyond Known Limits" at MIT drew 50,000 attendees, with millions more streaming online. "The Nova Question: Enhancement or Evolution?" at Oxford had similar numbers. Every presentation reached the same conclusion: what they'd witnessed shouldn't be possible for baseline humans.

***

But amid the speculation and analysis, a quieter reaction emerged—one that would have more lasting impact.

Students watching the livestream saw something different. They didn't see impossible performance. They saw aspiration.

"If one human can do that," became a common refrain, "then maybe we're all capable of more than we think."

Applications to STEM programs surged again, but this time with a different energy. The first two livestreams had inspired interest in space and technology. The third inspired something more fundamental—a belief that human capability itself could be pushed beyond current limits.

"I don't care if he's enhanced or naturally gifted," one viral post read. "He proved that humans—in whatever form—can compete with computers on their own turf. That changes everything about what I think I can achieve."

Training programs for pilots, surgeons, and other high-precision professions reported unprecedented interest. Not because people thought they could match what Nova's CEO had demonstrated, but because he'd shown that the ceiling was higher than anyone had believed.

Cognitive enhancement research, long relegated to fringe science, suddenly attracted serious funding. If Nova Technologies had achieved it—through genetics, training, neural augmentation, or some combination—then it was possible. And if it was possible, every nation and institution would pursue it.

***

Two weeks after the Saturn livestream, a strange consensus had emerged across the fractured discourse. Whether through technology, genetics, training, or something else entirely, Nova Technologies had demonstrated human performance beyond known limits.

The company's silence on the subject only deepened the mystery. No explanations, no clarifications, no acknowledgment that anything unusual had occurred.

And the world watched the skies, wondering what would come next from a company that had already redefined possible, and from a CEO who had proven that humans—or whatever he was—could still surprise themselves.

On the Voyager, millions of kilometers from Earth and accelerating toward the edge of the solar system, Liam continued his training, unbothered by the fact that he'd just become humanity's most compelling evidence that their species' potential remained vastly underexplored.

The question wasn't whether humans could do what he did. The question was what else they might achieve if they tried.

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