Lord's of Jacob's Ladder

[ArlEammon]

Mikael walks away from the computer after a while of info-gathering. He has now finished his first six-pack and his halfway through his next. While walking through the corridors he lights a cigarette, turns a corner and walks off to a life-pod.
"The people in this f-ing tincan are idiots." He says to himself, as he climbs into the life-pod and closes the hatch behnid him.
He takes is seat before the controls to the station.
"Now let's see here... I wonder if Munich is still around down there on Earth." He clumsily hits the controls trying to program the flight computer, when he accidentally hits the LAUNCH button before he is done.
The pods is shot away down to Earth, where it crashlands with a loud boom, creating an small crater, not far from the LHC.
Mikael emerges from the crashed pod, beer bottle in hand. He is not walking straight anymore, from the alcohol and the crash, and appears pretty confused, but unharmed.
Then he speaks with slightly slurred words: "Wooow... ouch. Ouch. Man... that was brutal. Don't drink and drive! Alcohol and space-ships don't go well together."

Munich is indeed still there. Actually, there is a sort of transit system across the entire planet as well that is due to open up in 3 years. Powerful technological wizards have come up with a way to stimie any effect of having billions of people. Because of only a handful of governments around during these days, maintaining the planetary transit was easy.