White stones on the hillside and no people on the path; since the GeoCauseWay tracking was instituted everyone knew exactly when to leave to avoid accidents, and arrive on time, if they wished. So freeways were busy but not frantic. People were for the most part ushered into their tuktuks, cars, boat, trains, and planes at the right time to avoid complications or miss connections.
While identities known by plastic chips inserted at birth in to the skin of the wrist, not every corporation (once termed countries) required them. Many of the wealthy of the estimated 600 Billon people on the planet used them for fear they’d get lost, misidentified or waylaid for body parts or ransom.
But she looked down at those white stones and thought - still, there should be someone walking there even if their HealthLife notifier doesn’t say "it's time to walk" in it's melodic warble. The rich often mistakenly believe that others live life the same way they do.
Where did he go that satisfied him? Was into the polished mahogany library with its graveyard of books, to the Men’s Club under the red volcanic showdown of Seattle’s hot core, for a drink of some rare alien brown and purple beverage? or into his mistress’s arms for a trouble free night of amazing passion? Was it to listen to piano music, eating chocolate brownies made by the Chicago Hotelier where they were invented? Was it into his favorite virtual reality with its psychedelic pumps and juniper motorcycles singing skyscraper jazz below a sky arched and illuminated by the childlike drawings of 14th century Irish monks. Where did he go?
He went north to view the perfect summer arctic sunrise and sunset in the same half hour between 3 and 4 am - blush with rose and flush with blue as his helicopter flew chopping gently above the arctic tree line so as not to disturb the ranging reindeer herds and other animals.
Where did he go? He went back to one place -- he went into his minds eye -- to think of her, all adventure, all excitement, all a challenge.
And where did she go? Pretty much any place other than where he was.
Loneliness and longing set in when he couldn’t have her in person in his sight, he retreated sometimes to history, sometimes to making more money -- piling it on like so much fine French sauce on a round of boiled cabbage - no matter how much he added, underneath it all, it was still cabbage and he was still unsatisfied.
Sometimes he trawled the lower invention districts of Einsteinium in what had been Turkey looking for something new, or some new toy.
As his helicopter took off at a very steep angle on the hill below there were little white stones, each one about the same size, but no, they were polar bears, he could tell by their reflective Iridium brand collars. Every large beast on the planet now wore them; each camel, every lizard, every whale was tagged and identified - tracked for life.
Computational BioScientists had determined that adding the tags, which were once International orange or bright red, pierced through ears or cinched around necks, altered natural selection. The brighter and more obvious the color and type of tag the more likely the animal was to breed. There was another less obvious reason as well...