ANEC had started disassembling Planet 1 for materials, so there was no longer any kind of resource shortage. It had generously offered me whatever I needed for any personal projects. ANEC seemed quite excited about the current prospects. I think maybe it had been getting bored with three hundred years of maintaining the status quo. I wondered if that was an existential issue with AIs in general, being given self-awareness, then told to administer the most boring tasks.