Exploration

Gerald watched in awe as he looked at the slender web which wound it's way upward from where he stood trailing away into the blue sky. The space elevator had changed the paradigm of getting things into space and opened a new pathway into cheaper space exploration.

And that had changed everything forever. Energy was now beamed free from the solar satellites which orbited the sun in a Near Earth Orbit, it's Dyson swarm doing a graceful ballet around the Moon, making sure the huge collector satellites did not create minor eclipses.

Gerald was a space miner, something of a sunrise industry, and he smiled in reflection that just ten years ago, this would have been in the realm of science fiction.

The hard part had been to get governments to put down money to create the space elevator. But some powerful individuals had got together and created the initial funding and research, and the rest as they say, was history...

Gerald was not quite human. But anyone who worked as a miner was usually not human. He snapped open his suit lapels and looked at the dull metal gleaming exoskeleton where his body should have been. He was augmented beyond belief- both genetically and mechanically, he was a new species. Recognizing this, he was often called "Borg". He did not mind.

When his name was called, he walked into the clean white room and patiently waited for the suit to be 'painted' over him. The stuff hardened, while retaining it's flexibility. He took the space elevator and prepared to enter the small shuttle which would carry him to the new solar satellite, it was being built on a meteor.

He noticed Justine similarly clad her suit painted over the heavily augmented body. She looked like a crab. He grinned at her through the visor. She smiled back and yelled  "Good to see you Gerald!" as she took off her visor to give him a peck on the cheek and then box his shoulder. It made a clanging sound.  Gerald looked around wistfully, noticing that no one even looked at them. Everyone here was highly modified.