What do people think about while they are waiting??? People do a lot of waiting. Waiting in lines at the burger joint. Waiting in lines at the post office. Waiting in traffic on the way to work. Waiting for the bus. Waiting and waiting and waiting.
Boredom is what you make of it.
I used to drive between Nashville and Atlanta every few weeks. A whole 4 hours of waiting for my car to travel the distance, and I USED it. I figured out a lot about myself on those drives. Winding through northern Georgia at 80 in the dark with Future Sound of London blasting away and my mind offering the road the absolute minimum attention required to keep me alive.
You are waiting right now... You've been waiting for about an hour... Waiting and waiting and waiting... What have you been thinking about???
The orange floor between your shoes is made of a newish synthetic smart-polymer that is capable of healing itself if it gets cut or scratched. Its like a living thing that seals itself back over according to an internal blueprint whenever it detects a fault. The whole building was grown from a small kernel of the stuff and some raw materials.
The thought of being inside something that lives makes you queasy.
They found it was easier to grow things in space then it was to build them on the ground and ship them up... Really brought nano-tech into reality, but then, space has always been a driver for materials science.
You are standing in a space station in orbit around Earth. You are waiting for a former tugboat that's apparently running passenger flights out of the gravity well to make ends meet. The ship's name is The Marcus Garvey. You bought passage. You're not really sure where it is going, but the ticket was cheap and anywhere is better then the fucking planet... You just need to get away...
Finally you see the ship approaching out of the window. There is the usual low THUD as it docks with the space station and ties into the molecule feed, but immediately after there is another thud, then another, and another... thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud
You back away nervously from the airlock. Is something wrong with the docking mechanism? No one else seems to be bothered by it...
Then you figure it out. Its music. The regular drum beat of trancy electronic music.
You hadn't really taken a close look at the other passengers. They don't look like your typical business travelers. They are dressed rather strangely. Baggy colorful clothing, hair died strange colors and spiked at odd angles, piercings, liquid crystal tattoo displays, lights on their jackets, and glowing shoes... A lot of mirror shades, which must be computer displays. A pair of them are sitting in a corner, both wearing the glasses, and seem to be playing with imaginary objects in the air between them. You wonder if their transmission is encrypted.
What kind of trip have you signed up for?
Music explodes from the airlock as it opens, filling the terminal full blast and bringing annoyed looks from people waiting for other flights. A huge black man pours out of the door, dreadlocks floating around his head at every possible direction in the light gravity of the space station. He is wearing overalls and a green fractal t-shirt. He seems kind of out of it. The other passengers hop up and get in line. Several excited whoops are heard. You find yourself waiting again.
When you finally get to the front of the line you complain to the man about the ship being so late. He says "Time, it be time, mon. Now put your finger on the pad."
He holds out a small silver thumb pad which is tethered to his waist. Mitsubishi. You press your thumb over the reader. A million things happen in an instant; trusted third parties, strong digital signatures, random numbers... protocols; complex and sinister and beautiful... a green led lights up.