[b]Black and Orange:[/b]

Rudy makes a lot of expressions very quickly. Imagine keeping your eyes locked forward while a passenger train passes, and trying to get an impression of the people going by. He rocks forward slightly and adjusts his glasses, like he started laughing but the thought already wasn’t funny anymore by the time his body got the instruction. 

He sits back up and composes himself. He’s wearing an open black suede button-up over a white singlet shirt, and it’s a good look for him. He’s obviously not used to being so casual, though, because he reaches to adjust the knot of a tie he’s not wearing.

“I can’t tell you that. It would be one of the triggers, just to make this more difficult for someone like you.” He shrugs, as if it’s obvious what ‘someone like you’ should mean. “The terms were acceptable because there’s some degree that the chip monitors intentions. I can’t accidentally detonate myself. If I start getting too close to the end of my leash, it starts to feel hot. I can’t tell you when that happens, either. I- No. Never mind.” Whatever he was about to say next, he stops and shrugs instead, and downs the rest of his drink, letting the shot glass slide to the bottom of the empty beer stein with a ‘clink’. 

He frowns. “I should not have done that. I’m not going to be able to order another one, am I? No matter, no matter… Ask what you must, and I’ll say what I can. I [i]can[/i] say that if you’re in a position to help me, then I have a longer leash. My handlers are aware that the risks of delegating are often superseded by the risks of [i]not[/i] delegating.”

[b]Persephone and Pink:[/b]

Three hundred and seventeen have [i]definitely[/i] Fallen. The real answer’s bigger than that, but impossible to know. There are other bugout options, like the other space habitats. Even some of the mining colonies could be a better option. Even when people flee Aevum, they don’t make it obvious where they flee [i]to[/i]. 

Those other places are temporary. Earth is permanent. It’s when you know you can’t come back. People still leave Earth for Aevum, but usually it’s high-value labour taking indentured servitude contracts. Riding all the way up on a chemical rocket is win-the-lottery expensive.

Still, just because it’s the safest option doesn’t make it [i]safe[/i]. There are still plenty of bounty hunters and assassins planetside. That’s probably not something that Marco would have to worry about, but it’s a reason why the kind of people who’d take the option to Fall aren’t making themselves available to census. 

Let’s cover what happened to the Earth in the last sixty years. Current population;  just under a billion. 

It’s not lost on anyone that Aevum is a space station, and how dangerous that is. The mass migration happened even though people knew the risks. Even back then, the moon colony Chiarascuro stood as a warped glass sculptural testament to the hubris of man - or at least, rich white men. So a lot had to happen to make that risk worth it to 85% of humanity.

What drove people up were two things. The first was abundance. The wealth of the solar system was available up there - the asteroid belt had chunks of platinum the size of Texas. Mining it was easy. De-orbiting it without causing an extinction-level impact? Hard. Easier to bring people up to it.

The second? Mass migration had to happen anyway. Earth’s leadership didn’t ‘drop the ball’ on global warming; It was a mugging. The future of the planet was taken by force, and ‘security services’ served as the gun in the alleyway. Cops were critical to preventing protestors from stopping fossil fuel infrastructure in the waning days of empire. 

Now Australia’s a bombed-out flaming wreck. South America’s only just recovering from most of the Amazon burning down, and almost totally uninhabited because of the climate. The less said about Africa the better. 

More than half of people lived somewhere that’s now under sea water. They had to move anyway. The space elevator guaranteed they went [i]up[/i]. Then the ladder got kicked out from underneath, when everyone left on Earth looked pot-committed. 

Here’s what survived: China’s geography far outlasted its government. The state had mobilized early and intensely to prepare the landscape for the new climate. Its arable land is enough to feed everyone left.

Siberia, Scandavia and Canada all did fairly well out of the new climate. Canada’s probably where Marco’s going to end up, if you send him down. 

It’s not a bad life down there, but it’s definitely a lot worse. In the good places, it’s a quality of life comparable to the late 20th century, with perks. Some stuff does make its way back down to the old world. 

Only some, because trade is functionally one-way. It’s possible to send high-value finished goods down to the surface, but no way to send things back, which means no way to pay for it. Thrones has a complete monopoly on information services that Earth can’t compete with. 

The riches of heaven, available only to artists, coders and lawyers. Yeah, that sounds about right. 

It’s something you’re going to need to talk Marco into, when he wakes up. Even when it’s the sane option, the rational option, it’s one anyone would argue against taking. There’s a good reason why;

People have things more important to them than their lives. 


[b]3V:[/b]

“I understand what you’re trying to do,” she says, and as she says it, she finally looks her age. “I just didn’t want this to be a part of the story you wrote, or the reason you wrote it.” She looks to Gavin, and the weight that was bending his knees and sagging his shoulders and bowing his head is taken off of him. No, she failed here, not him. “It doesn’t affect my memory, yet. Not much. You didn’t need to know, to interview me. Why plant that seed of doubt?” 

‘Yet’. 

Gavin gathers up the things he’s taking with him. “I should head back. It’s always nice to see you, Lorry.” He slings his bag back on, and gives a nod. “Come visit me, if you don’t want me checking up on you.” 

And again, Ferris drums her fingertips on the countertop, as Gavin starts off. He pauses as he passes that curio cabinet, filled with the blu-ray disks, and turns to you. 

“You coming?” 

There’s your out. And just behind him, that wall. The one line carved large enough to be readable from the kitchen. 

[i]I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness[/i].