Segment
9 The Adventures of Jennifer Starfield
by
Walt
Barrett © 2014
It's
the 31st Century in the now thriving city, Rachel, Nevada.
Jennifer
Starfield had given Molly a very large suite of rooms in her
country
home on Galaxy Drive. Molly was relaxing by herself and thinking
about her future. It was wonderful. There was an entire wall in one
room that was a television screen. Molly had never seen or heard of
a television before, but the chip that was implanted in Molly's brain
explained to her what made it work and how to operate it. It was
all run by voice command. People could talk back to it and could
even use it to vote. It had entertainment, education and news. Molly
thought. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”
Now
Molly had to decide if she would like to spend most of her time in
the 31st century with Jennifer Starfield or go back to
1910 where she came from. Molly liked the modern things that she had
seen in the city and she liked the clothing and the boots that people
wore. She could not even begin to list all the modern conveniences
that people had and the homes were like palaces where robots did all
the work like cooking and cleaning and laundry. The Robots even ran
the farms on the outskirts of the city. There was hot and cold
running water and a giant tub in an indoor bathroom. “It was
absolutely wonderful!” Molly thought. Thanks to the electronic
chips that had been implanted in her brain Molly was as educated as
well as anyone in the 31st century and then she thought
“What will I do if I stay here?” “Back
home in 1910 I have a job six days a week spinning yarn in the yarn
mill to keep me busy and all my friends that work in the yarn
mill too.” And then Molly thought. “Just because things had always
been that way in her lifetime and in her mother's and grandmother's
lifetime it didn't mean that things had to be that way for her.”
After all, Molly's grandmother had died of a heart attack while
tending looms at the textile mill and no family in their town that
Molly knew ever had any money or a nice home with things like these
people in century 31 had. Molly thought, “Maybe I should stay
here, after all, I can still go home and visit. Maybe I'll stay
here.”
Then There
was a knock on the door and Jennifer said “May I come in?” Molly
said “Yes, of course, I'm trying to decide if I should stay here or
go back to 1910 and I think that if you can replace me there in 1910
with an Android and If I can visit my family once in a while then I
will stay here.” “Good, then it is settled.” Jennifer said.
“We'll take you down to the Android works first thing in the
morning for a total body and brain scan; and then there will be a new
Molly the factory worker Android while the real Molly Sterling goes
on to bigger and better things.” Jennifer was smiling and said
“She was very happy that Molly was going to stay and that she would
be teaching Molly about the 31st century and that there
was a lot for Molly to learn.” Jennifer told Molly “You will be
my assistant for at least two years while you learn all about our
society and our space fleet operations.” Molly said “thank you,
this is very exciting and I won't let you down.”
Jennifer
said, “Now that I know for sure that you are going to be with me I
have something exciting to tell you.” Molly was on the edge of her
chair. “What
is it she asked?” Jennifer replied, “I have been asked to take a
battle cruiser to the Planet Mars and investigate some irregularities
in the robotic mining and smelting operations that we have had going
on there.” “No one has visited in over fifty years.” Molly asked, “When do we leave? ”Jennifer replied, "We leave
for Mars in four days, but first we have to drop off your Android replacement and you can
visit your family while we are there.” "Tomorrow we'll pick up your Android."
