January 7, 2018.
With a strict curfew maintained over the past week, people had found themselves with little to do. Thus, orders had been pouring in for AR glasses and VR gear nonstop and deliveries had proceeded apace. By the end of the week, the number of people connected to VR had reached two billion, twice Aron’s initial goal, and the number was still steadily increasing.
The first batch of retrained individuals also returned home and began implementing their orders. As they got to work, the empire truly began taking shape as the imperial agencies came online. While the AIs were capable of managing the empire perfectly fine, and it could even run completely without human intervention, there was still some ephemeral difference between having real people at the helm and AIs running things.