The New Vision

Jenny

"Could you hurry up?" Oswin called impatiently from underneath the hovering, invisible spaceship. Jenny ignored her and continued searching through her stacks of boxes, all of her worldly possessions haphazardly thrown together during her move. Truthfully, the things that were actually hers numbered much fewer than the things that she'd stolen from the TARIDS (mainly clothes and exercise equipment), but there was still some stuff she'd collected during her two centuries of life. And then she triumphed.

"A-ha!" she exclaimed, pulling out an object from the bottom of a box. Broken, but she thought she could fix that. She took them and left the ship, descending the fold-out staircase – which always felt a bit bootleg compared to the advancement of the rest of the ship, she thought – joining Oswin at the edge of the harbour overlooking the crystal-clear, artificially scrubbed bay. It looked clean enough to be out in the Mediterranean somewhere, vividly turquoise and swimming pool-like. Maybe the metal base keeping it separated from the polluted silt was painted to make it look cleaner – it wouldn't surprise her.

"Check it out," she showed her rediscovered object to Oswin, whose eyes lit up.

"Wow, glasses. Are they all for my benefit?"

"They're not glasses, it's an OCF. And what do you mean, your benefit?" Jenny asked. Oswin got even more excited hearing what it actually was.

"An OCF? I've heard about those, I always wanted one," she said wistfully. 'OCF' stood for 'Optical Communication Frame' and was a bit like the 52nd Century equivalent of Google Glass, only much better. "Don't know what I'd use it for, though… and that's what Flek always said, too, because I asked if the Spores had any. And she was like, 'why do you care about glasses so much?'"

"…Right," said Jenny unsurely.

Oswin paused, then glanced at the glasses again, "Are they broken?"

"Yeah," Jenny said. They were almost snapped in two right down the nose-bridge, barely hanging together, "Got punched in the face and they took the brunt of the damage. But I think I can fix them and they might help us out… in the meantime, I fancy something to eat. Spacewalks always make me hungry."

"Literally everything makes you hungry. I bet you can't remember a single point in your life where you haven't been hungry," Oswin said, Jenny beginning to lead them away while Oswin hobbled along behind her, Sprite attached to her shoulder for company. Jenny scowled at her for a second.

"I have a very high metabolism and an energetic lifestyle."

"Energetic? Is that Jenny-speak for 'Clara can't get enough'?" Oswin remarked, but Jenny ignored her; she was trying to take in the city.

It was a true manifestation of the utopic metropolis ideal set out by the best thinkers of millennia-gone-by; unimaginably tall skyscrapers only limited by the fact they threatened to leave the atmosphere. It made Manhattan look like it belonged in the Stone Age, millions of times vaster and more advanced, glittering in the sunlight like an array of diamonds. Various crafts, some capable of going into space and others trapped in the confines of the atmosphere, whooshed about hundreds of feet above the ground. It was completely incongruous with everything she knew about Planet Earth in the 52nd Century – were these really the same polluted oceans the giant, mutant squid had been pulled from months ago?

It took them all of ten minutes to find a sushi restaurant, one in a prime location overlooking the bay and the space port and crystalline water.

"Really?" Oswin questioned, "Sushi? You're such a tourist."

"Be quiet, I love sushi," Jenny said.

"You couldn't pay me enough to eat something that's been swimming around in the sea. Not that the fish they use to make sushi here has ever been in an actual sea, they breed them away from the pollutants," Oswin explained, "Flek used to talk about it." Jenny was very surprised to hear that it was real fish and not something synthesised, since everything the Homeworld Alliance fed its citizens seemed to be synthesised.

Jenny left Oswin and Sprite to find a seat by the window while she herself went to load up on as much raw fish as she could possibly manage, before realising that she didn't have any money with which to pay. She stood, thinking, a whole sushi roll in her mouth in front of the automated payment machine. If she stepped out of its boundary without paying it would deliver an electric shock – a very good anti-theft deterrent, she, a professional thief, thought. As a last resort (because she was very hungry) she drew out her screwdriver and sonicked the machine, causing its coloured screen to turn blue to indicate payment had been accepted. Then she went to join Oswin, who was doing something with her hologramatic screens.

"No attendants?" Jenny asked Oswin, looking around.

"This is the future, Jen. The robots have taken over all the jobs."

"Don't call me 'Jen.' What do people do if there aren't any jobs?"

"Beats me. I've never had a job. Maybe they all become disillusioned with contemporary civilisation and joined a group of mad space-hippies and go to live on an inhospitable jungle planet. Or maybe they all become intergalactically wanted thieves, planet-jumping whenever they feel like it?" Oswin said, "Aren't you supposed to eat that with chopsticks instead of just shoving it in your face? Isn't that rude?"

Jenny glared at her, then said with her mouth full, "Rude to who? Nobody's paying attention."

"Aren't you supposed to be good at blending in places?"

Jenny paused, thought, then answered, "No. People normally think I'm quite weird." She stuffed another entire sushi role in her mouth. Maybe it was rude, but she was famished, and nobody in there was paying attention. Perhaps she would be more bothered with etiquette if they were out somewhere fancy.

"I wonder why…" Then, while Jenny continued to eat, Oswin took a photograph of the skyline with her phone. She caught Jenny looking at her. "I'm just showing it to Flek."

"Does it not bother Adam how you talk to her constantly?" Jenny asked.

"Not particularly. I'm sure he's a lot more bothered about me talking to you than talking to Flek."

"Why would he be bothered about you talking to me?"

"Because you fancy me," she said. Jenny frowned. "Give the glasses to Sprite, see if he can do something about them. He's delicate." Sprite scurried onto the table-top in between them and Jenny set down the glasses. She was delicate, too, she thought bitterly – just a lot less delicate when she had a stupid cast weighing down her right hand.

"I don't actually fancy you. It's a joke."

"You definitely do, though," Oswin said, eyes on her phone. Jenny scowled even though Oswin wasn't paying attention, then decided to change the subject.

"I thought Earth's meant to be a wasteland. That's what everyone always says."

"It is, outside of Japan and a few other parts of East Asia. Most other people just gave up, went out to the stars. The moon is really flourishing. Funny how they call it the 'Homeworld' Alliance when they've never seemed to care particularly about the home world. Even the Spores would rather try and colonise a place like Eslilia than try and sort this wasteoid out," Oswin ranted. "And because Cluster Spores aren't allowed on Earth. Part of their anonymity. The oxyveses-"

"What're those?"

"Oh – the big ships with the greenhouses on the back. You weren't there when we got Squidzilla, were you?"

"No, only heard about it."

"They're supposed to be going around and purifying the air. They're researched, created and maintained by Japan." Her phone buzzed, and she checked it and laughed. "Flek's totally jealous, and she wants me to work out how they made the atmosphere hospitable again."

"What part of the atmosphere on Eslilia is so notoriously dangerous?"

"Well you're allergic to it, for starters."

"Am I?"

"Your dad is. And since you're his clone, I assume you are as well. He ended up absolutely covered, head-to-foot, in this awful rash. Although, I'm sure Clara very much enjoyed rubbing him up-and-down with special antihistamine lotion for the next few days."

"Please don't talk about Clara covering my dad with lotion."

"Not your Clara."

"I know not mine, but still." The thought was threatening to put Jenny off her food. "How does it affect humans, though?"

"Gives them respiratory problems. Sort of like, inducing asthma. Not immediately fatal, but could definitely lead to lung failure over a long period of time and shortened life-expectancy. It's the pollen, it's toxic. But, see, I was out with Clara a while ago on this asteroid that didn't have any atmosphere, and they were generating an entire artificial one over an enclosed area with external generators. I've actually got a few blueprints, I'll show you." Oswin waved a hand to reverse the images on her projected screens and dragged up a few drawings.

"All notably phallic."

"Well, I do love a phallus. Hard to make an atmosphere generator that looks like a vagina, but I suppose it depends on what kind of shape they like for the layout, you know?"

"Why do you want me to look at these? They'll all work, from what I can tell," Jenny shrugged, squinting at the calculations she was finding very difficult to read. "You're such a perfectionist. Haven't you run sims for these?"

"Yes."

"And what did the sims say?"

"That they'll all work."

"Why the worry, then?"

"I just like to make sure," Oswin said, "Before I go building a dozen of them. I think I need better air and plant samples. What I should do is build them new respirators first and send them out to gather specimens…"

"You don't want to drag out their suffering any longer, Os."

"I don't know. They're a bit obnoxious. Although, that reminds me, keep your eyes peeled for any fit birds while we're out here today. Eco-freaks."

"Why? Are you looking for a side-piece?"

"Not while I've still got you."

"Very funny. Amusing."

Oswin winked at her, "I try my hardest. I'm still trying to find Flek a replacement girlfriend, that's all. One who doesn't look like me. So if you spot anyone cute, lonely, and who might want to relocate to an alien jungle, let me know."

"And then what? You'll kidnap them and dump them with the Spores?"

"How dare you – I can be very charming and persuasive sometimes. By the way, news just broke of a UFO sighting over Tokyo and people are worried it's the precursor to a larger alien invasion," she said, while scrolling through her screens. Jenny rolled her eyes.

"Maybe I will invade," she muttered, chewing, "That'll show them..." Sprite was delicately reconnecting the various wires of the OCF, a task he was much better suited for than her.

"What is it you need the glasses for?"

"Contacts," Jenny said, and nothing else.

"You're sexy when you're being enigmatic."

"So you and Flek were going to come to Tokyo, or something?" Jenny changed the subject, licking her fingers of any stray food.

"That was always the plan, sort of. Run away together and come here, live in these high-rises… didn't mean anything, though. She'd never dream of leaving the Spores, and I never thought I'd be able to leave Horizon…" Oswin glanced out of the window at the cityscape, the shimmering, silver towers and flying cars high above. "Just one of those things people say to each other, I suppose."

"We could always go get her?"

"Nah. Not while you're around, I don't want you getting her into trouble."

"I don't get into that much trouble," she mumbled, aware of the cast on her hand, her grisly black eye, the bullet wound on her arm, and most of all her hypocrisy.

Jenny stared at her plate after realising it was empty. Sprite still wasn't quite done with the OCF, so she took it upon herself to go and get even more fish. She could never get enough fish, really. When she returned after only a minute or two, Oswin was using her phone again. She was now getting looks from some of the other customers, probably because of the sheer volume of sushi she was consuming. Funny how the hologram didn't get a second look.

"Do you like being back in the future?"

"It's not the future," Oswin said, "It's the present. It is refreshing not having to worry about advanced technology, though. About what people might see, or even about just explaining concepts we take for granted here. Adam asks so many questions."

"Aw, I'm sure he's fascinated about how you grew up in space," Jenny smiled, taking a large bite out of another sushi roll, "You should bring him to Tokyo, show him around the future."

"Maybe, maybe… but he does have an unfortunate habit of trying to google himself. And I still haven't quite convinced him to come to Venus with me to meet my dad."

"I'll come to Venus with you and meet your dad," she volunteered.

"Thanks, but it's more of a sort of, boyfriend-girlfriend meet-the-parents thing," Oswin said.

"So, I'm not allowed to meet your dad? You've met mine!"

"I'm not saying you can never meet my father, just that it would be a bit weird for you to meet him before my boyfriend does," said Oswin, "You and I aren't a couple. Despite all your pining."

"Alright, that's-" Jenny dropped her sushi roll on her plate, about to make a few very good points about how Oswin was completely wrong and imagining things, when Sprite beeped and held up in his tiny, metal claws the OCF to Jenny. Her demeanour flipped and she beamed. "Yes!" She took the frames and put them on, greeted by an AR text display of the diagnostics. "This is brilliant – I love you and your machines, honestly." She ate two sushi rolls in one in her excitement.

"What're the glasses really about, then? Not just to turn me on, surely? You've never needed to go to much extra effort to accomplish that."

"No, no – it connects me to the BiteSoc Node."

"BiteSoc? Another fetish of yours?"

"Shut up. It's short. For 'Blacklight Society.'"

"The biting society."

"No."

"Where you all enjoy biting. Must be hard being with a vampire, then, since she's not really able to bite you without you getting all… dead."

"Uh-huh. Not going anywhere near that. It's a cloud-based network designed so that members of the Blacklight Society can connect with other members in certain areas. Black market contacts, primarily, but also information. Any weird meteor that crashes in the bay is bound to have passed under the nose of the agents they've got out here."

"You sound like you miss it."

"I do! Don't tell Clara. I only left in the last twenty years."

"Wow, that's like, my entire life."

"Yeah, well, I'm old. I only left because I acquired a spaceship, which has unfortunately found its way to the Fowl Pocket and is now full of corpses, but… nothing that bad ever happened when I was running with-"

"BiteSoc?"

"I could kill you sometimes."

"You're too late for that."

"Part of being in the Society is getting access to these resources. It is a thieves' guild, after all, there are benefits to stealing for them."

"It's almost like a real job."

"Look, say what you want, but I've just got the location of their safehouse in Tokyo, so we'd better head there right away."

"Right away?" Oswin asked incredulously.

"Well… right away as soon as I get some more sushi. For the journey. I might take some for Clara…"

"You'll eat it before you can get it all the way back to Hollowmire," Oswin said. Jenny knew she was right.

"One day I might start my own seafood restaurant. It's a dream I have, I suppose. Like you and Flek with the Tokyo thing."

"You should always follow your dreams. Except when you have sex dreams about me, because I'm taken."

"I could hire Nios as my sous chef."

"Sounds like you've got it all figured out. Now, go get your third helping of raw fish. You never know, if we get this wrapped up quickly we could do some tourist stuff. Like fight Godzilla. You could kill him and eat him – you'd love that."

"Godzilla's not real," Jenny scoffed, then caught Oswin's eye, "Wait… is Godzilla-"

"No!"

"Which one is Godzilla? Is he the monkey?"

"Is… no. No, Jenny. Godzilla isn't the monkey…"