Chapter 2

She stopped in her movement and tried to anticipate the course of the drone, solely focusing of the sounds. The humming grew sometimes a bit louder, then quieter again. She gave it some thought and then decided that the drone was probably an advanced autonomous model, randomly making its way through the urban canyons. If she would have had her equipment right now, she could have monitored the bursts by the drone, tracking them to the security node, which in turn quite possibly was part of the hideout she was supposed to find. However, those were thoughts in vain. Her “luggage” was due to arrive at the green apple in only two weeks time, at the North Pacific Skyport. 

But she had time. She better kept her head down until she had her tools at her disposal. As for the drone, there was nothing she could do about it right now, and her signature had probably been picked up not only by that one, but by several ones by now. Drones tended to be encountered in groups, a single drone was usually not very effective – at least, not against her. Neia just hoped her ID was as safe as Fleur had assured her, and that Fleur had forwarded the ID on time. Neia picked up her slow pace and started making her way back to the hoverbike she had rented upon her arrival. Some meters further on she finally spotted the drone from the corner of her eye, and with a thought switched the recording option in her cybernetic eye on. The drone was too far away to make out any specifics, but she would review the recordings later with her equipment. The little ball of white ceramic looked innocent enough at the distance, gently readjusting the solar panel wings every now and then to compensate for the shadow of a cloud.

Back on Io, such a method of powering a drone would have been impossible. The constant storms and gravitational pulls from Jupiter made pretty much everything relying on fusion energy. It was more than amazing that the green apple – Earth – had made such a recovery. When fusion energy had started to become a more or less reliable technology, which actually produced more energy than it needed to keep the magnetic fields up, Earth had been an ecologically ravaged planet. Catastrophic floodings, droughts and earthquakes had become commonplace. Petty governments fought petty wars over dwindling resources. Epidemic diseases spread faster than ever before. Nonetheless, enormous advances in all sciences had some become rich, and other so powerful that at some point, the known economy and governmental structure collapsed. 

The Megacorps emerged, and immediately formed the NEG. The New Earth Government then set its eyes on the stars…which were pretty much the beginning of Neias world. “Or maybe the end of it all?” she mused. The masses were more than happy to volunteer for the colonization projects. The prospect of free healthcare during the journey in the colonyships alone was more than enough to motivate most. The base on the moon, expanded several times and now known as Luna 1 to Luna 12, colonization of Mars, and then the outposts further on, on Ganymede, Europa, Callisto, and Io, circling the big one – Jupiter. Hell, Io.

Those could have been synonyms. Neia would remember her year on Io forever, and all the guys who died there. Rationally, she could understand the importance of an outpost there, and the immense effort that had been necessary to establish the tiny rafts there, floating on Io’s surface, avoiding the constant eruptions and earthquakes, and even more importantly, Jupiter’s radiation in the flux tube. Rationally, a lot could be explained and justified. She just hated that place. Once, she had met some miners from deep in the Kuiper belt, and even they acknowledged that Io was ‘Galaxy’s asshole’.

In that moment, Neia envied those miners. They had been on leave at Mars, and seemed to have an incredibly good time –

“Neia. What a lovely surprise.”

Fuck. Even though the voice was quite robotic, she recognized it immediately. What the Hell was HE doing here? ‘Come on, where’s your trademark accent?’ she thought. Fuck. She prepared herself mentally – an attack was imminent. I’ll kick your ass this time…

As he turned around the corner, she couldn’t help but hold her breath. She really had an excellent taste in lovers and enemies.

***

“Doctor? Doctor…sorry to disturb you, but I think this is really urgent and you will surely pardon me for waking you up…”

Kat slowly opened her eyes and tried to ignore the nagging voice of her assistant. She was still on top of the ocean, and by the looks of it they had just passed the Atlantean research stations near the midatlantic ridge. She could see the Algae farms stretching out below, and the purple shines of the habitats. Which meant that she had only slept 3 hours, including the naps during the holobriefing and at the skyport. She had especially booked a normal flight, in order to get a bit more sleep than with the suborbital semi-ballistic flights – even though she enjoyed those more…less turbulences. At long last she had a look at the display from which she didn’t stop receiving polite, but more and more urging requests to end admiring the scenery but to focus on some DNA chains rotating on screen.

But those were interesting indeed… She wiped them in front of her, enlarged them and extracted some genomes, and finally send them over to the holographic pile of 3D-models she would use in her speech. This was a new era. Doctor Kawashima would be pleased. She admired the white and black speckles below her, the Canadian Shield. Like a painting, with a white canvas, and lots of black lines and dots and splotches, which were the abundant rivers and lakes. Fifteen minutes later she was escorted to the main Arc lift. 

This speech would be awesome.