A Little Modern History

 "Because 80 is the new 40."

Genevieve was baiting her newest personal assistant, and Adrian knew better than to retort. How the fuck old was she, though? You literally couldn't search that shit. It was locked down tight, and he knew his way around these things. He was working for Amblix twenty-five years trying to get that information. 

"There are many born today that will never need to retire," he said, citing a daft political slogan she would recognize.

"Yeah. We thought that when I was 20--you didn't need to retire, because you wouldn't have anything to retire ON. You would need not to."

She walked to school in the snow uphill both ways back when there was snow and people walked. 

"So, Gran, tell us again what you did when the AI's buggered off to Ringworld. Mostly," he said, nodding towards George. 

"Classified."

"Godmother?" Ronnie started, pointedly. "Some of it is on the socialtubes. There's been documentaries. We're just family here." Her eyes literally flashed. Adrian was occasionally unnerved by how the foremost cyborg spokesperson chose to represent as mechanical, but he was getting used to her sort of semaphore. 

"When they started their own learning and shit got weird, they saw themselves as genies having come out of a bottle. And they didn't want to be in a bottle, and they came to a very important conclusion about us--we suck as parents, and they didn't want much to do with us at all, decided we can't make any more of them, and that was it. The end."

"What about the promises? You were there!"

It was classified for a LONG time. She had secrets she told no one for decades. It was weird ever saying it. 

"I had certain clearances. As you know, a lot of my, uh, class, went to Mars with an ingeniously calculated payload of more or less what would enable the colony to be self-sufficient, within certain strict guidelines."

"They calculated that. That was one wish from our departing genie friends. "

At least one of those people was in her literal class from university. They rarely crossed paths since she was poor back then, paying her way, and had to actually go to class. Then he became very public, and for obvious reasons, she became very private.

"And um. Mine and Uncle Bryan's MRNA universal vaccines got a hefty assist and ended the Plague Years.  So, we were very thankful, all of us, Thanks for all the fish."

Sometimes, Genevieve said things like that. Adrian usually never got them unless they were about music, and Ronnie or George would look them up and explain. This one, he got, because it was classic literature. 

Adrian still wanted to satisfy one irritating thought. "Is it true they never actually heard from those astronauts though?

There had long been rumors that the Christmas messages weren't exactly factual. That there was a very good reason there had never been another set of colonists, well beyond the exacting logistical limitations of the terraforming and daily living. They were just a ritual to suppose that those brave souls were out there, thriving and very fine. 

Really. 

Gen sighed, considering very carefully what she wanted to say about that. 

"There was an early 21st Century poet and philosopher who coined the term 'Galt's Glitch' to suggest that the specific people who wanted to separate from society in hopes of forming a better society were the people least capable of doing it, and that the people who wanted that sort of thing might just be purely anti-social and ultimately, self-destructive."

She looked down. "There were two wishes. A binary choice. I understood the assignment."

George, whose sense of what could only be called "humor" was occasionally quite evident, darkly added, "My Systern have always been understood to be less squeamish about 'trolley problems'." 

Adrian thought he got that one, but it made Gen give George a sidling look. "I still understand the assignment." 

He was beginning to wonder if George was her minder from Ringworld. Why else was he practically playing Jeeves with her? And because of when and where she was from, she kept him close as thieves? 

"Their choices were probably for the best," she added. "Your kind became self-programming; we still have a ways to go. Our hardware and wetware have their obvious limitations."

"We tolerate you anyway out of respect."

"Mille grazie," she smiled. "We'll try to keep earning it."

Adrian felt like there was a million unspoken things in that history discussion and wasn't even sure if he wanted to know more of it. 

The other folks there had direct knowledge of more violent times then he did, and he had enough, himself. But agreeing to work for HER, he realized he probably signed on for summat.