This book is rated PG, maybe R is you are opposed to sexual content.
Party Jack
Estelle ignored him as she moved across the room to admire the hang of her clothing in the full length mirror in the corner. He stood there trying to normalize relations. 'She always starts a fight before we go out' he told himself. Maybe it was true, what is said about some women, start a fight and when you go out you are more available to the flirtations of other men.
As his anger built he imagined she noticed every nuance of his behavior. They were just going to the usual block party nearby. The same people would be there and nothing new was expected. He went over what he had done to upset her but couldn't put a finger on his transgression. It seemed her irritation had grown during the day – dissatisfaction with his every move.
He had tracked dirt inside the house early in the day. He maintained several hundred chickens and delighted in feeding them scraps early in the morning. The brisk Argentinian air didn't vary and there were few days of the year where the grass was frozen in the morning or where the temperature topped one hundred degrees with high humidity. There was early dew this time of year and his best efforts didn't prevent a smear of dirt from dislodging to the flooring as if dirt was a live thing that needed a floor.
'You're best efforts suck' she had told him time and again concerning the daily dirt trail, among other habits.
'I live here too' he had tried to counter but that argument never registered with her and only seemed to cast him further into contempt.
Jack fumed silently. He had been ready to leave ten minutes earlier which was the cue for his wife to begin her own preparations – or it appeared that way to him. She looked great, as usual. Nowhere was there a woman that matched Estelle's beauty. She was geared to him, almost genetically attached it seemed. Her olive complexion seemed to beg for caresses. Her green specked brown eyes possessed a living, twitchingly bright path leading him into her deep and mysterious - and loving – complexities; if and when she was in the mood. She could enamor him as no other.
Not that he hadn't compared her beauty to others in the hundreds of years of their marriage.
This morning he had visited the roosters which were kept further out to prevent their racket from annoying him on mornings when he would tarry in the bed and open the house to the natural cool breeze. The cages weren't visible unless Jack wanted to see the internal workings and in that case he would connect to the local AI and request a search.
The half dozen roosters were genetically unaltered yet were naturally resplendent in their plumage and struts. Even at this distance their simple crow would send the hens into a laying frenzy and every call would distract them from their attentive digs and searches for a juicy worm or fruited treat. The roosters were 'caged' in a depression, vaguely circular, with thatched living shelters and roosts. They were only roosters and didn't seem to notice that they were turned around without reason whenever they approached the cage barrier. They didn't notice that whenever they became too aggressive that they lost their intent before they could damage their opponent.
Jack and Estelle were alien in the sense that although genetically human they had not been born on Earth or anywhere near Earth. They hadn't been born for that matter. They had been made at the core of the galaxy and delivered back to Earth as a favor to their doomed parents. Even after centuries of planet bound living Jack still enjoyed the simplistic miracles of nature and resented the omniscient controls exerted by the AIs. If he wanted to be free of them he could always emigrate, he knew.
The sensors and actuators didn't prevent the birds from pecking at him and he had laughed while taking evasive action from several of the protective squawkers. He had tamed two of them and could pick them up for a pat on most days but this morning hadn't been one of them.
He had left Estelle in their bedroom and the home had been opened to the morning air. He hadn't dressed but slipped on native leather foot covers to defray the effects of pebbles and errant spurs. He hadn't even activated his Nano suit but left it off - it would take a few minutes to form a protective and decorative cover if need be. Even when activated the protective atomic barrier would not be noticeable by the body if set to stealth or so it was said. Jack always imagined he could feel it and chafed at the thought probably being the only person on the planet that ever deactivated the thing.
Estelle wasn't in the bedroom when he returned from his walkabout and he didn't connect the AI to find her. He found with her hands on her hips blocking the hall from the entry foyer to the kitchen. Even though he knew he was in for a unwanted lesson he licked his lips; her white panties slipped a white flash beneath the short hem of her clothing and drawing his attention away from her cupped and nearly exposed breasts as she prepared to bitch. When she started with the finger wagging her breasts bounced nicely over the cups and he was tempted to reach for and withdraw a globe for a rub and suck.
"Just look at that mess you make" she griped while pointing to the dirt trail behind him. She was ignoring his growing interest in her feminine parts. He shifted to contrite and apologetic. Jack had rubbed the leathers along entry mats at the door but some grit had escaped the treatment and had pried itself loose along Jack's short trail. Jack stopped being contrite to rub his head stupidly and ponder whether the dirt had a mind of it's own and was out to get him. He scratched and pondered until his wife finally gave up and retreated from her blocking stance with a final look of disgust. He didn't bother to watch her ass wiggle away; he had been there and done that many a time and mostly pretended interest to keep her happy – although they could still get each other going and he wasn't unhappy.
Jack wondered what was biting her until he remembered the party. Someone really interesting must be there for her to start marginalizing him this early in the day. He thought it was just another get together but maybe there was more to it. Oh well, can't live with them and can't kill them – he told himself with a poor attempt at humor.
They had both agreed to stay on Earth in the rustic surroundings, on the revitalized worldwide park that had been created for the human race. There were enhancements but the safety features were pushed to the background as much as possible. The local AI would monitor his chickens but was really there for the puma family within a mile of the back door and the mountain lion family and all other forms of dangerous animals. When these animals saw humans it was always for the first time. The AI would immerse them and they would move on and forget everything including the smell.
'News' Jack commanded aloud. His feet smeared their way into the kitchen where he began to prepare his meal. Several full size images projected themselves into the room. Sound materialized from where he focused and he spent some time on the migration report while he prepared some eggs. Cholesterol was not a problem as the genetics of his parents had been the first of the human genome to be enhanced. The governor had been removed from the telomeres as human designers had envisioned but Rupret held the ultimate blueprints and was able to do so without issue. Lifespans were unlimited and aging stopped at age twenty; enhanced immunities removed threat from virus or bacteria including those encountered on distant planets. Both his grandparents and the grandparents of Estelle had been in the first group to contact the regional AI Rupret.
Rupret was still busy building generation ships and launching them outwards from the galactic center and into unexplored territory up the spiral arm. It had been many years since Rupret was discovered and the migration had begun – in the antique number system of BC and AD the migration had begun in the beginning of the twenty-first century. The most recent ship would be launching within the next week and would carry 12
0 thousand people on it including his daughter Susan and his son in law and two grandchildren under five.
Jack watched for his family as the feed broadcast from room to room within the great ship. This behemoth was almost 200 miles long coated with layer upon layer of water ice. As it happens, water at temperatures near zero inherit the properties of titanium enhanced steel and provided another of many reasons to locate star facilities at the cold edges of solar systems. The nose of forty resilient miles of ice was the best material to weather the three atoms per cubic centimeter of resistance in deep space. Even the occasional micro meteor could vaporize miles from the tip at relativistic speeds. It was hard to say what accounted for the three percent total ship loss as no half