Buncar opened his eyes to stop reading the book downloaded to his optic nerve memory.

Sure, he was old-fashioned like that, preferring the linear text method to full-immersion stories.

He looked at the folding chair on which he rested his left foot.

Sensing Buncar’s mood, the chair changed the fabric pattern to cheer up Buncar.

Buncar frowned.

What happened to the days when his hunting cabin was a getaway-from-it-all?

The living room monitor upped the pheromone therapy treatment, relaxing Buncar’s tense shoulder muscles.

Buncar closed his eyes and picked up where he left off reading “It was the best of dregs, it was the worst of dregs,” pop fiction about the Great Cyclical Recession of the 2010s.

His buddies setting up blinds to hunt Terraform pseudodeer could wait for him to join them later that sol, especially since he’d already closed the business deal with Genzhou at breakfast, Buncar’s sole reason for the hunting expedition.

Despite advances in automatic technical spec generation and computerised empathetic business contract negotiation, nothing satisfied an oldtimer like Buncar as an all-expenses-paid trip to the ice cap wilds of Mars with similarly minded intuitive sales execs.

Plus, the bonus off this sale would pay for his wife and him to enjoy a second honeymoon on Ganymede.