Angry Jasper-Twelve

Jazz took the sky tram to the wealthy estates on the far side of the ring. Above him fields, reflecting ponds, rainforests and small towns raced by in an iridescent blur of blues and browns and greens. Patchwork corporate farms appeared idyllic and eternal, like their long extinct earth ancestors. The trip took the better part of an hour, offering ample time to ponder the paths might have gone. Didn’t take him very long to realize it had gone exactly where he allowed it to go, either on purpose or by neglect.

The platform was packed with working class folks, the sullen and humbled servants to the rich. They were in a hurry to get home. Jazz had to fight against the crush of bodies when the tram doors opened. He winced when someone inadvertently jammed his wounded side. Jazz stumbled onto the platform, barely clearing the door before it slammed shut. In the blink of an eye and a fading electric whine the tram was gone.

The ride down to the wheel was the hardest part of the trip. The little gravity pod dropped the better part of two thousand feet in a matter of seconds. On the ground Jazz waited for his stomach to rejoin him. He watched the pod disappear into the sky just as quickly. He had done it a thousand times, but never quite got use to it.

He found the estate without a great deal of difficulty. It was bounded by a high vine covered wall. The placed appeared ancient, like some French country manor. The vines were thick and deep. Fat green leaves grew in broad patches, exposing the pitted stone beneath here and there. The entrance was protected by a huge iron gate. A shiny black security ’bot sailed over the wall and hovered before him so close he almost swatted it away. Jazz had already been cleared. The eye scan confirmed that well enough. A brain wave scan proved his intentions were peaceful enough. Jazz swiped at the’ bot when it got too close. It buzzed angrily, swinging wildly to one side to miss the swipe where it banged fence loudly. The gate opened slowly, revealing a long drive of crushed red stone bordered by spindly Cypress trees.

It was a mansion, like an old French villa, complete with turrets and tall colonnades. Gravel crunch softly beneath his feet. To either side were lusciously manicured gardens. A pair of white doves fluttered away across the yard. A tram streaked by high overhead, nearly lost to wispy white clouds brushed across the cerulean sky.

The Pie family was old money. They had made their fortunes during the alien invasion scare of the Twenty-Third Century by securing contracts to build security bases beyond the orbit of Pluto. The bases were all but deserted now. There never had been any aliens, and many believed the patriarch of the Pie family had merely manufactured the whole thing. There were even calls for an investigation, but just as it had throughout human history, money has its dirty little privileges. The family was big into politics now, though no one in the family was actually a politician. They remained behind the scenes as one of those powerful families in the Solar System. It was Mister Pie who advocated forced resettlement of the earth, claiming it had to be dismantled to extinguish the rebellion and sever mankind’s irrational and infantile connection to this sun as the species made the eventual push towards interstellar space.