The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

Chapter 54/Long elliptic freighters

Amsterdam/Musem of work/Simulation of a Traffic Jam. 

"What do you want me to do?" I said. 

"Short of proving to everyone, including all robots and Io her self, that Io is human... the only other thing is to leave Earth and return to Mars" said Aunt Mallery.

It was weird when I had arrived I wanted to leave, now I had an option of leaving my first thought was of Dante, George and Leo and staying.

"What about Io?" I asked.

"If she fails she could go along as your robot servant" said Aunt Catherine.

That would be good when I got home. I could imagine the conversation when I got back now. 'hi mom, no don't freak, no need to worry I don't have a robot, bud. No I've got this girl who is acting as my robot. Yes she does do everything I ask her to, bud. What was that? Do I pay her ? No, no I don't. Well technically the reason she doesn't get an education or minimum wage is she's not classed as a human. Well I guess if you want to get all bent out of shape about it you could call her a slave, but the people of earth think different. Can I keep her?' That was going to be ...soooo good.

"Hang on the next Mars launch window is 9 months away, are there any ships leaving too Mars sooner? I asked.

Space ships leaving from earth to Mars generally left at specific times dictated by the relative position of the planets. Once every eighteen months a 'launch window' was open ( bet you didn't know that. Oh no you've learnt something real about space travel this is getting as bad as the Martian) ... I had another 9 months before the next best orbit.

"Long elliptic freighters" said Aunt Mallery.

That moment when you realise your family wants you out of the picture so much that they would stick you in a freighter in suspended animation from anything from 9 months to a year, harsh. In the old days it was sending you off to military school, an all girl school or a nunnery. These days it was putting you on ice for a year. These people had no respect for human rights? Or indeed any regard for people who wanted to keep up with weekly instalments of Game of Thrones?

"To your left is a car crash, people would regularly die on the way to work. Not only was going to work was dangerous, once there many many people died from industrial accidents." said the voice coming from the speaker. Struck me that the museum was really obsessed about all the negative sides of working. I guess it was hard to portray a sense of achievement or-purpose.

"Io is genetically human why would anyone think she's not a human" I asked.

The simulation made it into what looked to be a generic office block.

"Bentham is saying that the robots have been taking human DNA and altering it so her brain is a computer. He says Io is part of huge robot conspiracy to get a fleshy android to be declared a human"

"That's about as believable as thinking Bentham was a taxidermist's first attempt at making a sloth in a suit." I said "Who would believe crap like that?"

"Bentham's Voters." began Aunt Mallory "The voters don't like me and will believe anything he says. For some reason they don't like insiders. They don't like career politicians and they hate people who do things like compromise to get things done. Given how astronomical the bidding is going on Io I'm starting to wonder if she would be better off If had hadn't had such a strong stand against sex robots. Perhaps If I did there wouldn't be such a huge demand for the girl."

"that's not the worst part" I said.

"Really what could be worse than selling your friend into slavery?" said and Catherine from the front.