– 2199 The Hon. Cornelius Horatio Mundy marries Dr. Isabelle Chakravarthi, bio-chemist at Crey Industries.
And this is where I should introduce my mother, Dr. Isabelle Chakravarthi. I know little about her parents’ history, other than that they were on the first colonists’ ship, and their Terran ancestry came from India. Nani Hasmita was a physics teacher, Nana Phanishankar was a software designer. They never talked to me about why they left Earth, and any mention of the Purge would lead to an immediate change of subject, usually through an offer of food or tea.
I have seen recordings of my parents’ wedding, a mix of atheist and Hindu ceremony, with flowers and saris and dark ceremonial suits, tall white collars, pale waistcoats, and top hats. It could have been something out of the Raj, except for the fact that the fountains of Founders’ Falls were sparkling in the background.
– 2200 Frederick Cornelius Mundy, first Baron Chatsworth, dies.
My grandfather died before my older sister was even born. He was middle-aged and in fine health, working with enthusiasm and not even thinking about retiring. He had been visiting a Crey facility as part of the latest collaborative project between Trafalgar Tech and Crey Industries, when something caused an explosion which partially destroyed the lab building, leaving five people dead and seven seriously injured, with dozens more lightly injured. In a statement to the media, an icily calm Countess Crey claimed the explosion could not have been an accident, but must have been a Nemesis plot. She promised thorough internal investigations and full collaboration with Paragon Police Department. No evidence ever came to light.
Nemesis, I haven’t mentioned him yet. He was one of those semi-mythical figures, supposedly a brilliant scientist (another one) gone criminally insane, a megalomaniac genius obsessed with robots, artificial intelligence and the preservation of the human mind through bio-mechanical means. And ruling the world, of course. The toy shops sold Nemesis masks as well as Arachnos masks at Hallowe’en, and a toy Nemesis staff that whirled and made the expected whooshing noise was a prized possession of my little brother, especially because Dad disapproved.
As my grandfather’s only child, my father inherited the company, all its holdings, the Chatsworth estate and all other property, and the title of second Baron Chatsworth.