We'll Always Have Pluto

I can't remember the actual date I came out of suspended animation, but I know it was a long time ago, at least one Uranian year. I've forgotten how long that would be on Earth, forgotten pretty much of everything about Earth. I know it would be pretty much a perfect planet, if it wasn't for all the people. Is it wrong to hate my own kind? But then again,after coming out of suspended animation, I chose to have my consciousness placed in a cybernetic shell, so one could say they weren't my own kind anymore. Only a few dozen others had the same operation, though I have yet to meet another, but I was sick of being frozen and refrozen, like a piece of meat you decided not to serve and didn't want to spoil. I could last a thousand Uranian years now, and with future updates to my system, probably a few thousand more after that. Back on Earth, I was known as Henry Martinson, but I didn't think anyone who knew me as Henry was even alive. I tried to remember the names of friends and family, butit seemed pointless when all I had to do was print out the information, complete with personal notes; my cousin Otis McKinley took his first hit of acid and he freaked out listening to the song 'Close To The Edge' by a band called Yes. He stuck to the bluesman Howlin' Wolf after that. Both those cultural touchstones I experience from time to time, since I admire much of the cultural artifacts of Old Earth; it's just the people I have a deep loathing for. I know it's wrong, but I do. My mother raised me to be a better person than that, but there were some people she didn't like either so there you go. I suppose what I really should do is love everybody, no matter how rotten, stupid, worthless, banal, insipid, even outright evil they might be, and if you have to kill them, do it with deep regret and love in your heart. I never killed anyone personally, since it was always so much simpler to just leave people behind than to stay and rid a place I loved of some pestilence, which I suppose explains why I was a lonely nearly-immortal machine-man living by myself on Uranus. As of now, my greatest ambition was to see Sol become a red giant and consume Earth and the other inner planets, and see how that would affect the worlds beyond the asteroid belt. There are computer simulations available, but it's not the same as having it actually happen. Things rarely happen here, but to my chagrin, one day something did. Otherwise, I suppose this would not have been written. There was a distress call, which I dutifully answered. I turned on the homing beacon, which the troubled transport followed to my base. I watched as the passengers disembarked, then I saw her, silver-haired with piercing grey eyes, the last woman I had ever loved, fromdays long past when love was still a possibility for me. Her name was Melinda Carstairs: she had been a raven-haired beauty when I last saw her on Earth, but she still had a loveliness to her, and was in very good shape for her age. I had lost her to another man, and left Earth soon after, and now here she was, arousing feelings I no longer thought myself capable of. I wanted to hide, but duty made me hurry down to the passengers,strangers and former flames alike. I don't know how, but she recognized me. "Henry," she said. "It's a small solar system after all." "Hello Melinda," I answered. "I am here to tell you and your fellow passengers about the protocals in place." I proceeded to mention the various arrangements for food and sleeping, and their other needs. As the other passengers went away, she remained behind. "You never said goodbye," she said. "I never realized how much I hurt you." "It didn't hurt that bad," I said. "You were the only thing on Earth I cared about, so I left. Forgive me my bad manners." She smiled. "Consider yourself forgiven."