There are also two trans-human "meta-characters" in this book who provide comments from time to time. Living a thousand years in the future, they have a detached curiosity about this period of Earth history . . . They do not actually usually speak any 20th Century Earth language, and their thinking processes have been augmented. All translations are but simplified segments of their data streams.

Ning: A skilled linguist residing at the edge of the Solan system. With an highly developed oral/aural skills, she loves singing opera arias while taking bubbly baths & humming strange tunes while sipping odd mineral salts. Fond of purple, she's also known for her quirky attire which generally reveals more than it covers. An expert on early 21st century Earth literature as well as several martial arts, she's doing research on the transformations that occurred after the Internet developed. Proud owner of a pet ercineé, she also has a collection of Earth photos by Anousheh Ansari & Martin Gray. Once very close with Vidhya during graduate school, recently she decided to eschew romance & devote herself to extraterrestrial ecology.

Vidhya: A 31st century Martian colonist also interested in the early Internet era. She's in periodic contact with Ning and is a minor bureaucrat in the Department of Ancient History of the Commonwealth of Planets. Although almost 60 Earth years old, she's learned to regulate her body & doesn't look a day over 33. With a particular interest in marine life, she has a modest collection of extinct corals. In her free time she also chants devotional verses and ponders how trans-humans will continue to evolve over time. Regarded as spacey, her cybernetic routines ensure she stays on top of day-to-day deadlines. Fortunately, other sentinet beings regard her as amusing and harmless.