Chapter 432 - 432. Bullet Train
Chapter 432 – 432. Bullet Train
A/N(Here cuz some of y'all too lazy to read at the end: I and my family have Covid, I'm feeling a bit lightheaded today. That's why I will do one chapter a day when I'm not feeling well. If I'm good, I'll post two. Hopefully, it all goes away soon.]
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Being so busy, four days went by they didn't even realise. Before they knew it, they had climbed their rocket once again. This time, their vehicle would be smaller as only the tip of the large rocket was being used, it was called the command module.
When the time was right, at the press of the button it was detached from the rest of the rocket and flew straight up. It didn't require too much fuel as the gravity was much lower. Once they were beyond Moon's main gravitational pull, they set the trajectory right and rested back. In three days time, they will arrive at Earth.
"How will you be masking the arrival of people from Portekey? After all, no matter what you do, a lot of videos will be shot, photos will be taken." Bobby asked. They had to start planning for the future.
"Simple, we are going to be launching a mission to the moon every single week for the coming few months. Our focus is to make everything seem so common that the news agencies lose their focus from it. Once that happens, we will only be sending unmanned missions to the moon with some payload, for the world, they will be manned though. The real astronauts who will arrive with Portkey will be announced like any other astronaut." Magnus revealed his plan.
It was the truth, the only reason the world goes crazy about humans going to space is that it's very rare. Once it becomes common, it won't create enough buzz for the general population, hence the news won't be much profitable.
*Yawn* "I'm going to sleep. Gonna have to start working once at home, who knows how I can use the moon sand for potions," Ragnar reclined his seat a little, put an eyepatch on and dozed off.
…
The landing happened with no complications, they fell down in the Indian Ocean, where the UK had a military base in the British Overseas Territory. From there they were taken to Greater Britain(Zimbabwe) where they did a press conference, then flew to London for another press conference, this time in Buckingham Palace.
Magnus was the first to speak to a completely silent crowd of reporters from all across the globe, "It was an overwhelming experience. Honestly, if it was possible, I'd tell each human to at least go to the space for once. Because when you look back at Earth from out there, especially from the Moon, you start to realise that all the crimes, wars and misery that exists is just on that small planet. From space, you don't see America, Australia and Japan, you just see one single shiny planet with water and some land. It evokes a feeling in your mind, the feeling of seeing humanity as a whole, from which national borders appear petty."
Bobby agreed and added a few words, "He's right. Isn't there a saying, that one should look at the bigger picture? This is it, this is the bigger picture. We humans think the world is very big, but just a few decades ago travelling from one continent to another was considered something special, but now with better aircraft, we can reach any place within a day.
"The world became smaller with that. This is the same experience, once you look at Earth from space, it starts to look small. Maybe in the future when space travel becomes economical, all major world leaders should take a trip to space to get some humanity and humility."
Ragnar said nothing of the sort, but he just revealed their discovery and their plans to continue sending missions to the moon every week from now on. Pictures of the first moonbase in man's history were also revealed.
No questions were allowed in the current session, and after giving their personal experiences, the press conference was over. It was time to take a good nap on Earth. Sleep just didn't feel good in space or the moon because of a change in gravity.
…
It was December, Magnus had already missed the birthday of his siblings on the 25th, he could only make up to them by being there on the New Year. They had turned 5 years old by now but remained the cute bundle of happiness as always.
"So, what do my most beloved siblings want?" He asked them while sitting in front of the fireplace. Aurelia and Clementia sat on his lap while Maximus hugged his shoulder.
"Big brother, I want to go to space too and watch the moon," Maximus requested.
"Sorry, Max, but only adults can go there. You will have to wait some more and study hard to be able to be eligible. But I did bring you a nice moon rock, you want it?" He took out a small box from his pocket.
Maximus' eyes shined, "Really? I want I want…"
He was quick to run away after taking it. He sat down near Chad and opened the box as if it was a treasure. Aurelia scoffed, "What a baby, how can he be happy with that? Big Brother, I want dance lessons, I will become the greatest actress when I grow up,"
He kissed her forehead, "Okay, I will hire the best dance instructor in the world."
Clementia, who was silent all this time also wished, "Big brother Mag, I-I want another set of crayons, I finished the last ones."
~God, she's so cute. And why is her wish so simple?~ Magnus fawned over her.
"Okay, I will buy you a lot of different crayons. Do you want a painting set? It's a different kind of colour," he asked her.
Clementia thought for a second, "Umm… I don't know how to use that, will you teach me?"
"Of course, I will, sweetie. You know what, let's try it right now. I'm gonna make my beautiful Clementia so good at a painting that even Leonardo da Vinci will kowtow to you." He lifted her in arms and went to the study room.
"Who is Vinci?" She inquired.
"Some mental guy in history, forget him."
…
It was the Year 1979. He had shifted his office to Buckingham Palace and worked from there. The new General elections were going to be held in a few months, the new Prime Minister will be decided.
But he had no worries as no matter who becomes the new PM, he had them under his thumb. His plot was simple, instead of trying to control the PM, he controlled all the political parties.
Under his strict orders, a new bill was passed in the Parliament, it was called Land Acquisition Bill. This basically made it easier for the government to buy land from the private property owners for national projects. He did this because during the construction of the Bullet Train project, he received complaints from the acquisition office that some greedy landowners were asking for extremely high prices as they knew how important the project is.
Under this new bill, such landowners will be dragged to a special court meant for this particular reason and then be fined heavily. He was not going to let human greed stop nation-building. After removing the corruption and red-tapism, he won't tolerate all this crap.
As soon as the bill was passed, all these landowners corrected themselves, and in a single month, the land acquisition went from 40% to 90% completion. But still, there was one train line that had already been fully built and awaited to be opened by Magnus.
It was the London to Manchester train line, with major stations in between Birmingham and Oxford. It was a route of a total of 300 kilometres in length, currently, it takes around 4 hours to complete this journey, with the Bullet Train running at a top speed of 300 kilometres per shower, this journey can be done in slightly more than an hour.
Of course, it would hurt the airline industry, but Magnus cared not for that. Aircraft spew more carbon into the air per passenger than a train. Flights were fine for international travel, but for an area as small as the mainland UK, trains were enough.
He dressed up on the 10th of January and got into the car that was escorted by four more, two at the front and two at the back. They were also followed by 6 policemen on motorcycles. These were mainly for security but they had a mixed team of muggles and wizard guards.
The official car of the crown was a Bentley State Limousine, but Magnus found it to be looking too damn ugly, so he replaced it with his dad's modified Rolls Royce.
The opening ceremony was to take place right inside the King's Station. A new underground level was created to act as a station for the Bullet Train. He cut the ribbon in front of the locomotive and then stepped inside the carriage to take a ride to Manchester City.
A few photographs were taken before he returned home in 3 hours, he desired to waste not a single second of his time. His schedule was always jampacked, according to it, all the time after 5 PM in the evening was reserved for the family. Though he did sneak around sometimes with Emma to have fun. They would go to a random spot in the world and spend some time.
His days went by normally until the day Lily Evans and James Potter married.
"What are you going to give them, Mag?" Emma asked him. Both were in a mall, shopping for the wedding day. He used magic spells to stay unbothered by people.
"Umm, I don't know. James is rich enough to not need anything. Maybe I can get him some magic-proof technology that's not yet in the market." He thought about the present.
[A/N: The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from outer space. It is the experience of seeing first-hand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, "hanging in the void", shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere.]
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