2049 - Quasi-sentient bitek animals employed as servitors.
2055 - Jupiter mission.
2055 - Lunar cities granted independence from founding companies.
2057 - Ceres asteroid settlement founded.
2058 - Affinity symbiont neurons developed by Wing-Tsit Chong, providing control over animals and bitek constructs.
2064 - Jovian Sky Power corporation (JSKP) industrial consortium formed, begins mining Jupiter's atmosphere for He3, using aerostat factories.
2064 - Islamic secular unification.
2067 - Fusion stations begin to use He3 as fuel.
2069 - Affinity bond gene spliced into human DNA.
Earth, 2070
Sonnie's Edge
It was daylight, so Battersea was in gridlock. The M500 motorway above the Thames had taken us right into the heart of London at a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, then after we spiralled down an off ramp onto the Chelsea Bridge our top speed braked to a solid one kph. Our venue was another three kilometres ahead of us.
We joined the queue of chrome-silver vehicles jamming the street, turning up the reflectivity of our own windscreen against the glare. Bikes slithered through the narrow gaps, their riders in slick-skinned kooler suits. Lighthorns flared and blared in fury as they cut through the two-way tailback, chasing after them like some kind of runway strobe effect. As if that wasn't bad enough, every vehicle on the road was humming urgently, hub motors and air-conditioning vibrating the air at a frequency guaranteed to induce a migraine. Three hours of that.
I hate cities.
Midday, and we rolled into the derelict yard like an old-fashioned circus caravan come to town.