Chapter 1
It is a truth universally acknowledged that what atrocities humankind has wrought on the world may also be undone.
Many considered that the 21st century to have been mankind's worst years yet on the planet. Certainly, Mother Nature had not taken kindly to the way humans had been treating the planet and ornamented a series of world-wide disasters: crop-failures, environmental disasters, antibiotic resistance and even threw in a good old-fashioned plague in the form of a pandemic virus.
And yet, life was not to be denied and people across the globe carried on. Governments published numerous policies on economic and social topics, business continued to run and families carried on almost exactly as they had been doing for centuries.
"Tom, my dearest, did LizE tell you her news?" Fancy Ben stood over her husband, looking down at him with sparkling eyes.
Her husband grunted and looked up over his comm screen with a quizzical brow. She took this to mean no.
"She's been hired at the Institute! She will be working alongside Juno. I am so excited for her."
"But of course, we always knew she would land there. Only place for her." His dark eyes trailed back to his comm screen, though his ears might still attend her.
"Think of all those well-educated men there, my dear! With this population issue, everyone should marry. And a leg-up for both of the them, if they want to continue working they will have a chance to make good contacts there."
"Juno has been there three years and has not dated any one to my knowledge," he answered his eyes darting around his screen.
"You always have your head in that thing," she indicated the comm and then pulled it from his hands putting it on the table, "I swear you never notice what is going on. There is that nice Alex Morris who has mooned after her for over a year now. We keep waiting for him to get his courage up and ask her out, but I think he is intimidated because she is so very beautiful."
Tom Ben looked up at his wife with his blue eyes dancing. "Now he will need to contend with LizE. She is a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps I should send him a note telling him to go on and ask her out, that he has my permission."
"I don't see why you are always favoring LizE. You have six children, Tom! Six! If you were to pick anyone of those you would think it might be your son, Mark!" She crossed her arms in indignation.
"None of them have shown themselves to be brilliant; we have not created any geniuses. None of them are going to make us any money by founding a science institute of their own and gaining backers and becoming rich that way. They are all going to slave away on these same problems that you and I have been tackling these past twenty plus, almost thirty years."
"How can you be so crass when discussing your children Tom? You always vex me so, oh my nerves. Nose stuck to that screen or wherever your research leads; leaving the raising of the six of them to me. I had hoped we would have gotten beyond such sexist roles these days in the middle of the 21st century."
"There, there, Fancy," he reached up and patted her hand awkwardly. "At the time we were begetting children, algae science was caught up in controversy and soil science was hot. So you raised the kids and I went out and earned the dough."
"All those years in school, only to have politics get in the way," she sat down next to him, putting her elbow on the table and her head in her hand.
"You have done a great job with all of them. Two through graduate school, two at Uni and two in high school. I would say we have plenty to be thankful for," he looked thoughtfully at his comm screen on the small table between them.
"But grandkids!" she slapped her hand down next to the screen making him sit up, "we should have grandkids by now. If I cannot do any work work, I can at least work towards ensuring I get some grandkids."