The Golden Age – Part One (Patreon)

Carina hung motionless above Jupiter’s clouds. Actually, it was just an illusion of motionless. She was in a Jove-stationary orbit, 25,000km above the cloud tops, travelling at almost 20,000kmh. Below her a gas barge rose from the giant planet’s atmosphere, its bulbous tanks now laden with chemicals, hyper-compressed by WF physics, essential to the industries of the Jovian moons and beyond. The tanker was huge, almost 45km long, and bright yellow. It looked, from this distance, like the carapace of a giant beetle, most of its length a single, gently undulating, field of yellow. Here and there striped sections indicated access hatches and airlocks. Down one side of the spaceship a series of giant letters spelled out a name - Husqvarna. Nearly 700 years after it was founded as Swedish rifle factory, Huqvarna was now was one of the leading industrial corporations in the Solar System.

Carina wasn’t in a spaceship, at least not a typical one. Her pressure suit (built by Matuse)  glimmered with lilac light, an artefact of the fields that keep her safe from the vacuum of space, and the harsh radioactive environment of Jupiter’s environment. On her back, an array of pods and fins provided the mechanism for the WF Drive - Carina’s portable propulsion unit and the means of keeping her O2/N mix at such pressures that the single tank, less than a metre long could keep her alive for ten days at a time. Control of the suit was directly via a brain/machine interface. A HUD inside her helmet displayed as much information as Carina required, but for the most part she piloted her suit as if it was simply an extension of her body.

Carina worked for the Thebian Republic as junior diplomat. At the moment, at the age of 29, most of Carina’s duties were to mirror her boss, the Thebian Ambassador to Jupiter Orbit Authority. The space around Jupiter was complex, but largely friendly and cooperative. The JOA managed space traffic around Jupiter and its moons, and regulated trade and taxes. Individual settlements, stations, and moons, had their own rules, but they largely sat under the umbrella of the JOA. This was acceptable to most because the JOA was governed by one of the few, True AIs and was liberal and even handed in its decision making. As diplomat Carina presented any grievances or issues to the AI, which strangely insisted on face-to-face meetings, despite: a) not having a face, and b) fully immersive holographic telepresence being readily available. The AI, who everyone referred to simply as Jay, was one of the more eccentric AIs. They maintained a physical office, on the Juno station that orbited Jupiter, and had a small human staff who would greet guests and serve drinks and food for meetings. Jay never manifested in anyway, simply existing as an omni-directional voice on the station. Speaking standard English, with a very slight southern European accent, Jay sounded like a middle-aged, well educated, man - although any definition of sex or gender remained unspoken.

Jay’s offices and state apartments were modelled on the sets of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The office itself, where Jay generally met with diplomate for private meetings, looked just like the rooms where Dave Bowman meets his other, older self. The state dining room looked like the meeting room in Clavius Base where Dr Heywood Floyd briefs US officials. Oddly, the bathrooms on the station were all modelled on those featured in Kubrick’s The Shining.

Jay had never explained his fascination with 350 year old movies.