Cut to the chase

A sunny day. The birds are making noise. There is clear water. Pain. My hand.

Abelo sat bolt upright in her chair. Beads of sweat adorning her temples.
"Are you alright sir? If you had a disturbing sleep cycle, the subconscious erasers can be put to your use."
Abelo stared at the general room."Two comments for you; first, get an upgrade to your genetic reader and second ask for a refund on your intellect banks. You got ripped off."
"Thank you sir, I'll store that immediately."
She wiped the sweat off, "and this is why computers will never replace humans."
"Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?"
"How far away from Earth are we?"
"About twenty Newtons sir."
"Whose bright idea was it to name a unit of measure after a dead guy anyway?"
"Mr. Newton was a brilliant scientist and..."
"I was talking to myself. Can this pod survive a trip through the atmosphere?"
"Yes sir."
Abelo got up and wandered over to the wall. Scanning it for a moment she brushed a panel to reveal a console.
"Sir I understand that you may be disturbed by your recent sleep cycle but I'm sure there are other was of dealing with it other than sabotaging an innocent computers systems."
"Go turn off."
"Sir, please do not be unreasonable, if I were to shut off then the pods life systems would..."
"Shut your electronic trap. I know what I'm doing."
"Sir, ejecting the pod is hazardous and I'm going to have to ask you to refrain or I will be forced to call authorities to contain you."
"I can't be contained by them anymore than I can be contained by you. Oh, it want access codes."
"I will cooperate with you in no way, until you cease this unlawful intrusion into..."
The console made a beeping noise as the pass codes were accepted.
Abelo glance over her shoulder, "I wish you had an avatar so I could see your face when I did that." Her left hand continued to type and move data points around on the screen.
"I'm afraid you give me no choice but to call the authorities."
"I'm very sorry, I just disabled your ability to do that."
"Sir, please stop."
"Stop? I'm just getting started."
The sound of metal popping out of joint briefly filled the compartment as Abelo continued to type. "You will forgive me if I seem oddly enthusiastic about this, I haven't hacked a system in so long that I'm a bit happy that I haven't lost my skills."
The room shifted as the pod released from the interplanetary train.
"But you won't remember any of what I just told you." She hit one last button.

"In other news a pod was detached from the Venus train today. The recovered log shows that there was no one in the pod and since it landed in a rural area no one was hurt. Investigators are looking into the indecent."

"Shut that thing off."
The attendant rushed to fulfill the order, "Yes Mr. Dorvenbach."
Samuel Dorvenbach pulled the gold watch from his coat, "can't this contraption go any faster. I don't want to be late for my meeting."
"Sir impatience never got any one any where any faster than..."
"I know that, " he snapped at the driver. "You don't know a thing about what I'm suffering or rather anticipation right now."
"No sir I wouldn't."
Samuel sighed and looked out the window at the passing city. nearly eight years ago his late wife had sent their daughter Amara to a special university on Neptune and he hadn't seen her since. She had left a message not even a week ago about how she'd like to reconnect and had by some miracle a couple days she could spend at home before the start of the next semester. He scanned the imposing skyline of towers and smiled.
Who would have believed the change that had taken place in the last several thousand years? The terra forming of the other planets in the solar system, the perfection on lightspeed and zero space technology all led to the glorious advance of the human civilization into the universe. The nature activists were still harping on their downfall coming from not giving what was due to preserve the environment but with fourteen planets they couldn't manage to get enough people behind any singular cause to make any kind of difference.