One Horsepower

The only two things keeping horses alive are rich people and racing. Once we have cheetahs genetically engineered to have a little staying power and congenial personalities, it's all over.

The Future's Sole Preoccupation

There it was, the lamentable routine. The distant curve forbade anyone from forgetting he lived inside a space colony, the dream of generations, but closer up, everything was as it ever was. Roger marched toward his designated external trash receptacle, rake in hand, ready to repel the scavengers the engineers back on Earth insisted were necessary for sustainable life beyond the planet. "They spent trillions to make, get out of here, space rats and space raccoons! Get out of here! Get!"
It was the indignity he hated most, Roger thought during the indignity of leaning over to poke the trash cart with the rake at maximum distance. He hated whichever part of the routine he was in the most. Regardless, the raccoon made that weird hissing noise, jumped out, and skittered away. Roger sighed and began composing mentally another request to let colonists put lids on the carts.

That scene was captured by recording equipment miles away. The operative checked the setup, confirmed, and activated his communicator. "I have the combat data," he reported.
"Good. Return immediately to the secondary . . . what's that sound?"
Helicopters deactivated their optical camouflage, eight of them. Through a loudspeaker on the lead, someone demanded, "Leave the combat data there. This is your warning."
By the end of the warning, the operative was hanging from the building's side, about to crash through a top-floor window, when bullets going the other way shattered the glass. "That combat data is ours," the lead power armor declared.
The battle soon became general the way it did every day. As new as life in space was, the routine was already old.
Finis

Addendum

The language of the gods, sure. A language embedded in our genetic code by the life-seeding civilization, of course. A newly developed language that was refined by linguistic engineers so that everybody understands it instantly in a clear improvement over old models. But don't forget about alignment languages!

Christmas Musings

Could it be that all our stories about Santa's sleigh are really about a spaceship and Santa lived his whole life on it? The North Pole workshop is also on the spaceship. You can upgrade it with currencies your elves collect through dispatch missions. Rudolph is a product of genetic engineering, of course.

Addendum

"space tenor"

Altos and Tenors and Whatnot

Will the people of the future discover a new one? Will they genetically engineer people with different vocal chords? The answer is yes, by the way.

What To Do With Giants?

Mostly they should be killed by knights, but there are other options.

1) Where do giants come from? Genetic engineering.
2) Where do humans come from? Once upon a time all people were giants who lived 800 years, but then . . .
3) If some humans turn into wolves, what kinds of transformations might giants have? Dinosaurs?
4) In a faraway country, they say in each community one person grows into a giant and becomes the chief.
5) Giant bodies mean giant magic, idiot.

You gotta pay me if you use any of those, but they're worth it. You can tell just by looking.