|Sci-Fi|: Eras of Cain Ch 4 |Sci-IRL|: Astronaut Destinations 2024-2030
Fic: Cain and Trin flee the murder scene and wrestle cop bots. Science IRL Article: space travel plans in LEO and Lunar
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Previously, Cain ran away from home to see her friend Trin about some good old-fashioned teenaged rebellion. Cain then used ninja moves she didn’t know she had to kill a thug who was choking Trin out in a grimy alleyway. She’s rewatching the video of her experience trying to process what happened, and she just noticed something she missed in the murder moment. A shadowy figure was holding something that looks like a controller and there was a red flash right before her bionic augs seemed to act of their own accord when she snapped the thug’s neck. Trin’s nosy neighbor signaled for the police and now Trin and Cain are fleeing the scene.
If there ever was a part of Cain’s organic emotional programming that was well-adjusted and trusted others, it’s now been deleted and replaced with a paranoid subroutine. Please read on to enjoy the universe-shattering consequences of Cain’s actions.
🎥 (📍Level 21; 🗓️ June 10, 5271 🕒 8:43PM
▶️(There’s a ladder behind an overflowing trash can. Trin points at it. “Up! Go!” He’s trying to scream, but his windpipe is still blooming fresh bruises. I’m climbing for all I’m worth and the ladder is shaking with Trin’s weight right below me.
The top of the building is nearly pitch black and I’m smashing my head on the building right above it. I’m bending nearly double and I barely have time to cue night vision before Trin grabs my hand again, yanking me along.
A notification from my mother is suddenly filling my screen, using emergency settings to get my attention, complete with the ring tone reserved for her.
I’m stumbling and nearly fall, but Trin is pulling me forward.
“Come on!”
I’m overriding the emergency setting and get my vision back only to be bombarded again by a text from Dad.
“We’re picking you up @PIN”
I’m skidding to a stop to engage the map link. “Wait! My parents are picking us up. We have to go to two blocks east and one north.”
Trin’s incredulous expression is emphasized by the starkly contrasting greens of my night vision.
“Your parents? Here?” His eyes, narrow slits at first, go suddenly wide like he’s just seen a ghost. “Shit!” He’s veering east, tugging me along with renewed haste. “When we get to the edge of the building, you have to jump—no hesitation, OK?”
I’m looking behind us for whatever Trin saw in the near-darkness without my augmented night vision that made him redouble our speed. There are 3 bright white circles of blue and red light growing larger behind us. I’m not able to look long enough to get a measure of distance.
“Who’s following us? Cops?”
“Jump!”
The ledge looms just a few strides ahead. Trin is jumping with my hand still in his like we’ve done this a hundred times. My heart seems to stop midair with disbelief about what my legs just did. I’m landing like a sack of potatoes on the next rooftop, my left knee crashing against the ledge.
We’re turning north and I can see it hovering, interrupting the air traffic flow at the edge of this building—the signature curved dome with its crown of purple lights. The cockpit of Mom’s Worldship.
“There! The ring of purple light! That’s them.”
Trin is dashing forward at the same time I’m being snatched backward. A knee-height white-out bright blob of light blinds my aug’s night vision but my organic eye is taking in an anthropomorphic bot with the seal of the city on its head. It’s short, as if designed to run in this small space between the city’s levels, and it’s wrapped around my leg like an adoring toddler. I’d like to admire the craftsmanship, but suddenly there are three of them. The other two are grappling with Trin, who writhes like an oiled piglet. He kicks their legs out from under them.
I’m trying to peel the bot’s metal hands off me, but it clings harder.
Trin kicks my captor back a few paces at the same time an ultra bright light engulfs us.
We’re both suddenly weightless and floating toward the Worldship.
Trin’s yelping as he turns upside down, reaching for something on the roof to hold onto. He’s gripping one of the structural posts and his body flags out parallel. He’s no longer floating along with me.
“It’s the tractor beam from our ship!” I’m yelling.
“What!?”
“Just let go! Trust me, it’s my Mom’s ship pulling us.”
Also pulling along one of the cop bots, but I don’t say that.
“They’re picking YOU up. Not me!” Trin is shouting. He’s already ten feet behind me, still clinging to that post. The other two cop bots are running toward him.
“Let go, you idiot—the bots are almost on you!”
Trin is grunting in what I take to be frustration, but he lets go of the post and begins floating again.
I’m being yanked backward by my shoulders and shoved against the curved metal interior wall of the Worldship’s cargo bay.
The metal bot is clanging against the wall beside me.
“The fuck are you?” Dad’s lunging for the bot, but it scrambles away from him toward me.
“Citizen, you are under arrest,” the bot is saying, its little head lamp strobing blue and red.
Dad’s grabbing the bot by its neck, but he can’t get its cuff-hands to unlock from an anchor point in the hatch.
Trin is slamming into the wall and barely peels himself off it before the two other bots are denting the spot where his head just was.
I’m on my feet and helping Dad. He holds the bot’s legs while I bend its arm joint the wrong way against the metal side of the hatch until it snaps.
We just manage to dispose of it when we see a whole sea of red and blue lights in the distance.
“Honey, we better take off!” Dad shouts.
“Those police bots have trackers—we can’t jump with government eyes watching. Get them off my ship!”
“Not enough time, dearest!” Dad says, gritting his teeth.
Trin and I are wrestling another of the bots toward the door. Dad’s kicking his leg out the hatch, keeping the one we just evicted out, blocking the door.
“Duck left, Mr. Planck!” Trin shouts.
Dad is ducking to the left and Trin and I are shoving the squirming bot out.
Dad falls to his knees—the last bot is crawling over his back. The bot’s cuff-shaped grippers have locked arond Dad’s wrists before Trin and I can blink.
“You’re under arrest,” the bot says, triumphantly.
The statement is echoing outside, repeated by a huge line of advancing bots. Hundreds of them running toward the ship.
“Mom! T-minus thirty seconds until we have a hundred bots on this ship. You want one or a hundred?”
The ship’s engines are roaring.
“Get in your harnesses. You have ten seconds.” Mom’s voice is more intimidating than the threat of a rocket launch.
Trin and I are dragging Dad and the bot that won’t let go of him to the bank of jump seats along the back of the cargo bay.
We’re strapping Dad and his new friend into one seat—the bot squirming and kicking fruitlessly against the launch harness.
Trin is fumbling with the harness so I’m buckling him in, trying to ignore the absolute terror on his face. As soon as I hear my own buckle click, I’m screaming, “Go for launch!”
The cargo bay door slams shut, severing a few of the oncoming bots’ cuff-shaped grippers. They’re writhing on the floor, wires sparking. The sound of dozens of other bots banging against the door sounds like a rock concert.
The Worldship rockets upward, leaving my stomach behind. ⏸️)
How did my parents know where I was—to show up a block away in the Worldship? Checking the logs for my firewall I used when I turned off Find-Me. Maybe Dad got through? Hmm. If so, he must have gotten through the first time. The firewall didn’t note any failed attempts. But if there’s some undetectable way to control me, there’s probably a way to track me as well.
Guess I should start a suspect list?
There’s a long list of doctors and researchers I’ve met over my life who were unable to control or edit my augs, so we can assume such tech is beyond this universe’s cutting edge medical science. Unless my parents paid them off to feign ignorance?
Why would anyone want to be able to control me, and why start now?
The suspects I’m searching for would have to care whether I live or die, but never have needed to control me before. They’d have to have physically been in that building on Level 21. Or paid someone to be there with that fucking remote controller built for me.
Hmm who’s high tech and weird enough to build a controller and hire someone to tail me in the event I shut off my Find-Me function?
Expensive, secret care plan, out-of-this-world tech, but not a lot of personal involvement?
Hah.
Suspect 1: Mom.
To be continued…
|Sci-IRL|: Astronaut Destinations 2024-2030
Suborbital:
As outlined here in the Sci-IRL article from Cain Ch1, commercial options are emerging for a fairly expensive ride, offering thrill seekers a chance to pop out of the atmosphere into space. Blue Origin’s New Shepard and Virgin Galactic’s White Knight are already operational, and watch out for space-rated hot-air balloons!
Low Earth Orbit (LEO):
Right now, circling the Earth and about 250 miles above us, there are two crew-rated spacecrafts that have hosted astronauts for years: China’s Tiangong Station and the International Space Station (ISS)—a partnership of five sovereign space agencies including Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, and the US.
By 2030, two big events are planned in LEO:
1) The ISS will retire after nearly 30 years of hosting crew.
2) The ISS will be replaced by one or two privately-owned and operated US stations called ‘Commercial LEO Destinations’ (CLD).
This transition marks a significant evolution in the space economy featuring NASA handing over the reins of developing and industrializing LEO for the benefit (and profit) of private US companies, while NASA focuses its energies on deep space exploration.
The value of a LEO space economy is hard to predict, but the goal of the CLD program is to have a permanent US presence in LEO that creates literal market value. Short term, the initial habitable space stations will continue scientific experimentation pioneered on ISS, and potentially move into manufacturing of high-end pharmaceuticals or glass—products with structures that are improved by fabrication in micro gravity. One of the long-term hopes around developing permanent stations off-planet is to move some of the highly-polluting processes we depend on into space where they’re no longer volatile to our environment and climate. Broadly, the hope for the Low Earth Orbit economy is to create whole new markets in many sectors long term, but this is dangerously close to my day job for me to flippantly predict, so that’s all for now!
Deep Space & Other Planets:
Last but not least, NASA’s Artemis program will send astronauts on missions to first orbit (2025?) then land on the moon (2028-30?).
The goal of the Artemis program is to return humankind to the surface of the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions, this time to create permanently habitable stations. The astronaut crew will feature two superlatives: the first woman and first person of color to orbit and land on the moon. Their mission is the first of many planned in the Artemis Manifest—take a look.
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These cop bots are great! I love how the first one grabs Cain like an adoring toddler. Also, compliments on being very funny. (I wish I could be funny when I write.) The cop bot arresting Dad. The image of them strapped into the seat together. Let l. Mom as number one suspect! Great stuff again.