The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

Chapter 6/All about clouds

Earth... Could there be any other name for such a place so strange? Let's ignore, for a second, the presence of its crushing gravity and think about its moon. I mean, no other planet has a moon big enough to cause tidal movements. Okay, for tides you need water; so tides, and a body orbiting the planet, yet it is able to reach out and talk to each individual atom that form the huge body of water saying, "Love me! Come to me!" , and each atom of water does as it's commanded. They all move, almost imperceptibly to the moon, climbing up onto each other. There are so many atoms that such a tiny movement is enough to cause the whole ocean to move several feet, every day. The seas are in this constant tug of war between mother earth and the moon. Like two children constantly squabbling over the affection of their mother or father.

Gravity is such intangible stuff. You can't see it but it is somewhere in everything you do. I guess it's a bit like love. For example, what was I doing on this magnetically levitated train at 10 in the morning, going to great grandmother Eladina Bank's house? Well, she had loved her children, who loved their children, who in turn loved my mom. She loved my dad enough to break the bonds of this world and head off to Mars, where he could do what he loved and make a living doing so. They had, in turn, loved me enough to send me back to Earth while things back home on the Eye calmed down. Now I was traveling to the house of my great grandparents, whom I had never met. It made me just a little nervous, to be honest. "Such thin intangible ties between us but strong enough to move oceans", I found myself thinking. In this case, the small ocean of water called Scarlett Banks and a metal cylinder called Kentro Barika. Naturally one bit of water never had to rush go and had to hide it's grand mothers abandoned bed room hardware but no analogy is perfect.

I looked over to Kentro, who was sitting next to me on the hyper loop train. Beyond me were two men talking to each other.

"Apparently Ronald Bentham has promised to reduce taxes, reduce the deficit and increase the amount of rebate we all get!" said one.

"How's he going to do that?" asked the other.

"Apparently, it's all to do with strangers. Too many of them is what he said," replied the first.

"Well, I can see he's right. There are too many strangers on this planet. I've never met one or seen one personally but clearly they are a problem. Sometimes I get on the hyper loop and I can't get a carriage to my self. While it's full of Earth folk, I feel the strangers are the real cause," said the second.

I began to feel uncomfortable.

"I can see strangers must cost a lot of money, they clog everything up. Obviously by reducing the number of strangers on the planet, the trillion credit deficit will easily be filled. It's common sense," added the first.

"I don't trust the other one," said the second passenger. "She's a shifty insider."

I guessed they were talking about Aunt Mallery. That or a tape worm had applied to be general secretary of UN-Facebook.

"Yeah, the idea that training, experience, and expertise prepares you for the most important job on the planet is ridiculous. I mean Ronald Bentham played a UN-Facebook Secretary on TV, you don't get better training for a difficult job than that. Plus, before they banned work, he ran his dad's business that he inherited. Running a business is just like running a planet" said the other as the train pulled into New York. They promptly exited as soon as the doors opened,. Clearly Aunt Mallery had a bit of a hill to climb.

"Six minutes to Boston," said Kentro.

"Which reminds me," I began, "I tried Googling this but I can't find any where to get a cheap air provider."

You don't have to be from the Eye to know that something you use, even in your sleep, can add up no matter how cheap it is. On Mars you pay for breathing air like you pay for all your essentials like  water, heat,  electricity and  internet . Most places in the solar system let visitors breathe free for some minimum period, like a couple of days. The bad ones let you think you can breathe for free for weeks but set up some really expensive 'air deductions'. You hear all these horrendous stories of people visiting the moon and getting really stung with bills for thousands of credits when they leave. I wasn't going to fall for that like some naive sucker. Also, I wanted to travel while I was on Earth. Generally, on the Eye they really sting you if you want to breathe in every biome. Roaming air can be expensive. I tell anybody visiting the Eye that if you are going to travel if you restrict yourself to two of the nine separate biomes, you can generally get a cheap deal.