On the morning of the tenth, Nick woke up early. After breakfast, he changed into the trousers and button-down shirt that Calloway had ironed for him, and they set off for the logistics center.
Because of the ribbon-cutting ceremony today, the entire facility had been meticulously detailed; it looked like the whole place had been pressure-washed. Key areas were adorned with fresh flowers, water droplets still clinging to the petals, a clear sign they had been arranged overnight.
After a short wait in the green room, a staff member announced that Jeff and the visiting dignitaries had arrived. Nick and the other VIP guests rose and headed out to meet them.
As soon as they reached the staging area, a long motorcade of black SUVs pulled up. Jeff and a group of officials in crisp white shirts stepped out, surrounded by a small army of aides. Ahead of them was an even larger swarm of reporters armed with DSLRs and boom mics.
The officials and Jeff approached with practiced smiles, shaking hands down the line. When the lead official reached Nick, he grasped his hand and gave a hearty laugh. "Nicholas, you came in person. I didn't expect to see you again so soon."
"Good to see you again, sir," Nick said with a smile.
"Hmm, you're really starting to carry yourself like a seasoned entrepreneur," an official said, patting his arm.
Jeff, standing nearby, chimed in with an introduction. "Nicholas is our primary partner on this project. He was instrumental in the R&D. The success of this Intelligent Unmanned Warehousing system is built directly on the Swarm-Array Control Technology he developed."
"Is that the tech we saw at the expo last year?" the official asked, sounding genuinely interested.
Jeff nodded. "Exactly. We inked the partnership with Nicholas and his team right after the show."
"Fantastic! It's great to see advanced tech transition so quickly from a prototype to a commercial success. The country needs this kind of high-caliber innovation. Nicholas, you've done a hell of a job," the official praised.
"Thank you, sir. We're just getting started," Nick replied modestly.
"Good, keep pushing!" With a final pat on the shoulder, the official moved down the line. Jeff caught Nick's eye, gave a quick, firm handshake, and followed suit.
Nick spent the next few minutes shaking hands with seven or eight other bureaucrats—an experience that, frankly, wasn't great. Between the firm-but-sweaty palms and the forced small talk, it was exhausting. But in this environment, he had to keep the "happy CEO" mask on. If he looked bored for even a second, a camera would catch it, and some blogger would spin it into a hit piece.
Being a public figure was a grind; you had to be "on" 24/7 or risk a PR disaster. He wondered if the celebrities who lived for the red carpet actually enjoyed this, or if they were just better at faking it than he was.
Once the greetings wrapped up, the music started. Led by the emcee, the guests took their places behind a line of models holding a long red ribbon and silk flowers.
As a key guest, Nick was right there in the lineup. Being the youngest person there by at least twenty years, he proactively took a spot at the very end of the line out of professional courtesy.
Of course, that didn't stop him from being the center of attention. In a line of middle-aged suits, a handsome guy in his twenties stood out like a sore thumb. The media's lenses were glued to him, especially once word spread that he was the brain behind the H1 assistant everyone was talking about. Since his exclusive TV interview, he'd been a ghost to the press, so the reporters weren't about to let this rare sighting go to waste.
Under a blizzard of camera flashes, the group picked up their golden scissors and snipped the ribbon.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Confetti cannons showered the stage in color, and everyone leaned in for the obligatory "unity" photo for the morning news.
After the ceremony, Jeff took the stage. Knowing Jeff's personality, there was no way he was going to pass up a podium.
In his speech, he dropped a bombshell: a $100 billion investment over the next five years to build a "Super Intelligent Logistics Network" across the country. His goal of reaching 95% of the population within forty-eight hours immediately set the room buzzing.
Next up was the lead official, whose speech was more about "Industrial Evolution" and "National Modernization"—the kind of big-picture topics currently trending in the capital.
With the speeches done, the ceremony was officially a success. But the real show was just starting. Jeff led the officials and the media into the "Mysterious Warehouse."
Even though the VIPs had seen the brochures, the reality of the interior left them stunned. This wasn't a dusty warehouse; it looked like a cleanroom for high-end electronics. The floors were spotless, and the high-output LED arrays made the entire 430,000-square-foot space glow.
The machines were the real stars. While the system wasn't in full commercial "live" mode yet, they had thousands of test packages moving through the sorters to demonstrate the speed.
Jeff stood before the crowd, looking like a man who had just won the lottery. "What you see here is the complete Intelligent Unmanned system. In a normal dark-run scenario, we don't even need the lights on. That saves us a fortune in energy, making this the greenest facility in the world."
"This single hub can process over 500,000 packages a day. And the best part? It only takes four people to run it: two engineers and two maintenance techs. That's it."
"It is fully autonomous. From the moment a pallet arrives to the moment a package is loaded onto a delivery truck, no human hands touch it. It's not just fast; it's perfect. Our design standard is less than one sorting error per ten million packages."
"Furthermore," Jeff continued, "the system is designed for a 700-hour continuous load. It only needs one day of downtime a month for preventative maintenance. It literally never sleeps."
"This tech is the answer to rising labor costs and the current workforce shortage. It accelerates delivery speeds and serves the public better. Theoretically, one facility like this replaces eight traditional warehouses. It can handle the entire logistics load for a city of ten million people."