I just love how much thought you have put into this, the details really make it. The fact that checking the future itself changes it ever so slightly, (and am i right in thinking the person only sees the future where they had previously checked, so they never know what it would have been if they didn’t check?) its a wonderful touch. The sedatives that make people more compliant and less prone to emotional unpredictably, and evolutionary elements of using the ODC, and then the fact that a director misuses it for her personal convenience. You have created a fully believable world, right down to the nature of humanity. Damn I really wish you wrote TV series for SyFy. The way you slowly drip out what is actually being predicted, where at first this matter of grave importance to the planet it seems like it would be a war, but then no, it turns out to be business, it feels so realistic. Although equally, the implications in terms of peace from it are there, it just fits together so well. This is so well done, there are just enough facts and details to hold the story up, without it being bogged down by them, I am always so impressed by how you approach things. You build enough that you can drop things in there with no explanation, like “dreamer” and the reader picks it up and finds it makes sense. But your ending. Damn. Gotta love it when something comes together this perfectly. The core having developed it’s own awareness and having manipulated the sedated people of Cretan, lulled into a sense of unthinking trust, to help spread itself. There is so much to love about this but I think what gets me the most is the realism. The human aspect, how very human they feel. The instincts of the core, new life, it’s desire to spread as widely as possible. Masterful as ever master Sarez <3