SERIES OVERVIEW

July 11th, 2058 CE - CONTINUED FROM PART 1
Ted Demmings @ Spring Rose Estate, Lake Tahoe, Earth

From across the grandiose porch, Ted could see a well dressed figure squeeze out from one of the groups of people. It was Alexei himself, his boss, one of the most influential people in the solar system, and one of Ted’s better friends. A blocking icon appeared over Alexei’s head, indicating that he did not want to be disturbed and that his Cyg was on mute. He was walking towards Ted and Sal.

A virtual chair appeared next to Ted and Sal was now sitting on that it instead of the unoccupied physical one. She had already applied the mute setting for Ted too, except for any high priority messages from the Forks operating the control of the mission. Alexei reached them and gestured to the empty chair.

“I hope I’m not interrupting, do you mind if I sit down?” Alexei said with all due cordiality.

Ted looked up at him, “do you really have to be so polite?” The two broke into a grin and embraced in a manly hug. Alexei raised his wineglass, Ted raised his whiskey and they clinked together.

“It is nice throwing a party here for engineers and scientists rather than for the typical executive types.” Alexei started.

“Too stuffy and proper?” Ted asked.

“Mostly the opposite, I have had to raise my insurance after the stunts that get pulled here. That plus a couple of large heinous lawsuits that I’d rather not go into.” He rolled his eyes while he said it.

[ Anything juicy to pass on to the Buzzaverse? ] Sal asked.

“Nothing that hasn’t circulated already.” Alexei trailed, “But you would be both appalled and awed by what they put their Primes through.”

[ That’s a scary thought, but enough about the OTHER landed gentry, what’s been new for you? ]

“Nothing terribly exciting.” Alexei joked, “Just building a new breed of Supers on Mercury, sending a hard Fork to go cliff diving on Mimas, dining with cetaceans off the coast of Ecuador...  Launching interstellar spacecraft.” He peered over at Ted and then to Sal, “Thanks to you two of course.”

[ How dreadful. You certainly wouldn’t want to do anything exciting, like sit in partial suspended animation for 60 years. ]

Alexei took a sip of his drink, which looked to be a malbec red. “You might think your life is boring, but living like I do can get tiring after awhile. I spend all my time entertaining other people, so I don’t get a lot of time to sulk and build character like this guy here.” The butt of his joke was Ted.

“Well, you gotta compensate somehow.” Ted snubbed back, Alexei wasn’t very tall and the media let him know it. Sal took a chance and changed the subject.

[ So how does X keep up with you these days? ]

With that, a duplicate of Alexei appeared behind the true Alexei, wearing a cheeky Hawaiian shirt and some revealing swim trunks. X was taller, stronger, and more expressive than Alexei, a perfect persona for his virtual presence.

[ Thanks for asking about me Sal, I’m not doing too bad. How about we let these two meat sacks reminisce about their Stanford days. If you want, there’s a few Bottlenose Primes I could introduce you to. You really would enjoy experiencing some of their memory snippets. ]

Sal was beaming, but she looked to Ted first. Ted motioned with his hand, “get her back before midnight and no funny business or you’re both grounded.” Everybody laughed as the two primes apparated into thin air. 

Ted felt a tinge of human jealousy, but it wasn’t justified. Sal was partially an extension of himself, despite also being something like a spouse with only a feigned gender identity. The web of relationships between people and their primes would be hard to explain to someone from the pre-synet days. During a synaptic sync, Ted would experience some of the memories of Sal’s day, either consciously or later during REM sleep. He might end up dreaming of dolphins.

The two men sat alone at last, eyeing the horizon and seeing a few planets and bright stars peeking through the atmosphere. Alexei shook his glass and then broke the silence. “Ted, what do you think we’re going to find out there?”

“Maybe it will be like classical TV, hot alien babes and giant green hands.” Ted joked, “but if you really want to know, shouldn’t  you be asking Amanda about that?” He was referring to Amanda Wagner, the chief astronomer and planetologist.

Alexei fixed on Ted, “I don’t just mean the planets, we already know a lot about what they should be like. I mean what sorts of challenges are we going to face, how will it change us?” This was a different, deeper question.

“Well, you’re the one who wanted to make the foundation into a refuge for biology. Which is certainly ironic given that you are also perhaps the world’s most successful synet entrepreneur.” Ted stated, meaning that Alexei had founded Cygnia, the single largest neurological interface company.

“Not one of, I am THE most successful synet entrepreneur” Alexei beamed with a feigned self-importance. “Is saving biological life really so ironic though? I’d like to think that Cygnia kept biology relevant. If people hadn’t been able to plug in, we couldn’t keep up with the Cogs. They would be the only ones going to the stars. Probably ever.” 

The warmth of the fire and the buzz of the drinks made the discussion feel like a normal banter between friends. In the truth of it though, the two of them had moved mountains. Alexei had massed a fortune through Cygnia, and he’d dumped a large portion of the profits into Ted’s interstellar ambitions at the Starsteading Foundation.

The two had met as undergraduates in the Stanford physics program. They had mused on very similar topics all the way back then, in the late 2020’s. Success for Alexei had driven them apart, but they never lost contact. They had been students during the largest global recession in history, resource wars and extreme austerity had pushed a lot of the world to the limit of civilized life. 

Fortunately by the time they graduated, a new paradigm of organization and finance had taken root. It was fertile soil for inventive minds to turn a profit, or for stubborn para-academics like Ted to survive on a blockchain issued basic income. This didn’t spell the end of inequality nor injustice though, it simply allowed billions of people to not die. The hereditary elite still ruled, they just couldn’t spend most of their offshore earnings on the public blockchains. So they had established new markets in space instead.

Alexei realized though, that Ted had not answered the question directly. The two had just been sitting, lost in their own thoughts.

“Ted, you sort of dodged that question about what we’ll find. Sure I want to preserve biology, but how does that imply anything about what things will be like in another solar system? We’re going to be able to set things up pretty much however we want.”

Ted turned to Alexei, “you just think we’ll get to set things up however we want. There’s always been somebody trying to spoil our good intentions. And regarding your fixation on biology, well, that sort of sets you up as a neo-pastoralist. We’ll be like the ‘space amish’ or something. You don’t want to go to Zeta to change, you want to go there to stay the same.”

“So the ‘Space Amish,’ huh? I guess I sort of agree with that, at least we’ll get to wear really stylish hats.” Alexei made light of the remark.

“Don’t forget the awesome beards!” Ted said and raised his glass for another toast. The two men laughed and clanked their drinks and downed what was left.

With a more solemn look, Alexei gestured outward to the expanse of wilderness surrounding the lake. Much of the once evergreen hills were now a more muted dark beige, the results of decades of heavy drought and long fire seasons. In the fading twilight everything had washed down to a dull gray, and a sparkle of lights were turning on around the lake rim.  “We’re not going out there to preserve ourselves, we’re going out there to give everything else in nature a second chance.”

Ted smiled, “I know Alexei, I’m just not sure everyone is going to agree with you, or see value in it.”

“Well that’s too bad, because I’m always right.” Alexei quipped back with only half sarcasm. Ted stood up and looked towards the banquet hall, it was nearly time for the dinner speech.

“Well, you’re pretty damn good at convincing people that you’re right, and that’s what really counts. That’s how you got to where you are now.” Ted’s words of affirmation weren’t needed, Alexei had an unshakable inner confidence.

Suddenly, Sal and X popped back into existence. A recursion of memory flashed through Ted as his Cygocortex synced with the experiences that Sal had just been through. She had been through subjectively 20 hours, reliving moments of a virtual existence where Sal had been ghosting a bottlenose dolphin. It was surreal, but fleeting. Only a partial summary of the experience had been logged into deep-memory.

“Wow honey, that really was a rush!” said Ted rubbing his eyes.

[Sure was, thanks to X. Alexei really has been busy lately.] Sal nodded a thank you to X and then to Alexei himself.

“Glad you enjoyed yourself Sal, just trying to make some good memories on Earth before the opportunity is gone. Which, speaking about that, Ted, I’m going to force you to take some time off soon. After the Bayer launch, you’re going on sabbatical.”

Ted shrugged indifferently, “the way I see it buddy, we’re planning on taking the longest road trip in human history. Still, you’re right though, there’s quite a lot of this world I would like to see in person before hitting the road.”

X turned to Ted now, [ If I do recall Ted, you owe your prime some socializing tonight. You had better go take care of that! ] He winked, smiled and then warped out of existence. Alexei prefered not to keep X in public mode to avoid unnecessary confusion.

“See you after your speech,” Ted said, and the two friends split to take care of their own trivialities again. Sal was introduced to a number of notable people, and reacquainted with many familiar faces. The mix of the crowd was half of Ted’s engineers, but also notable space agency dignitaries, politicians, and famous foundation advocates. Sal was happy, and so Ted’s was able to steel his nerves a bit.