Liam woke to the soft ambient lighting of his quarters aboard the Voyager, the artificial day-night cycle Lucy had programmed mimicking Earth's circadian rhythms.
He reached for his phone on the bedside table, the screen lighting up to reveal a stack of unread notifications.
Due to the fact that the announcement was made right after he went to sleep, he had a couple of messages waiting for him by the time he woke up.
Actually, the only person that personally sent him a message is Daniel. The message was just a sticker: a cartoon figure buried under an avalanche of paperwork, barely visible except for one desperate hand reaching toward the sky. Daniel had tagged it simply: "my life after the announcement."
Liam laughed out loud, the sound echoing in his empty quarters. He scrolled down and selected a reply sticker: a figure swimming gleefully through a massive pile of money, gold coins cascading around them. He hit send, then noticed Daniel had sent a second message.
