The Game was almost over; I was going to win. I smiled happily at the thought, prematurely celebrating my victory. No one had ever remained in the Game while Janet was a Hacker; she always eliminated them all before the Game was over. Today, Janet’s winning streak would come to an end. I sat down at the end of my bed, confident that I wouldn’t have to move for the remainder of the Game, short-lived as it may be. TWO MINUTES REMAINING, my armband chimed in its metallic voice. Perfect, I thought to myself proudly, there was no chance she would be able to catch me in that time frame.
    Laying down and rolling over, I looked out the large window, ordering the glass to go opaque at my spoken command. There was no need for that, true. The odds of Janet seeing me through the window were slim, but better safe than sorry when the Game was involved. Unhindered by any opacity on my side of the glass, I calmly watched the world beyond. From my vantage point of one hundred and forty-two floors above ground level, all of Starside was laid out before me. From the rooftops of a few buildings across from me, I could see multiple hang-gliders jump off and swoop between the imposing mountains of glass and steel. Hang-gliding was the new trend on Starside; everyone who wanted to be someone had one and would be out showing off what they could do. Some of them swooped dangerously close to the buildings and I couldn’t help but be impressed.
    Far beneath me, I could make out the street below, covered with the multicolored sparkles that could only be the hover cars the citizens of Starside used to get around. Besides the buildings and the streets, the ground was laced with parks, pleasure paths and other attractions for people to enjoy as they went about their busy lives. From this distance, everyone looked like tiny ants as they scurried about, shopping at the newest boutiques and commenting on the latest fleeting trends.
    But, as always, the one marvel that caught my eye was the Dome. Without the Dome, none of us would be here; it kept everyone inside and the harsh environment of space out. One remarkable sheet of solid curved glass, it covered the entire topside of Starside, the newest space colony in humanity’s slowly expanding empire. There was no place on topside where the Dome couldn’t be seen, but who wouldn’t want to see it? In the mornings and evenings it sparkled brilliantly, a wave of colors that illuminated the sides of buildings in a light show that could not be rivaled anywhere else.
    Truly a remarkable feat of engineering, Starside had been built entirely in space. It had taken several decades, the mining of several asteroids, and the combined efforts of the five space powers, beginning with the planned colonization of Mars. Attracted by its beauty and grandeur, the rich quickly moved in and transformed it into their wonderland. It  soon became filled with shopping malls, small lakes, and mountains for the rich to enjoy. Below all this were the processing plants that fabricated everything needed to live in this lavish world, as well as the tools needed to expand humanity to the wonders beyond. Utilizing artificial gravity created by its rotation, clean nuclear and solar power, and with Topside slightly larger than a massive Earth city, Starside was a world of its own.
    With a smile, I rolled off my bed to head towards the kitchen. A glass of victory scotch was needed—or better yet—a bottle. Sure, I wasn’t nineteen yet, but that sort of thing went unnoticed here; no one would care. Kicking a dirty shirt that the housebot hadn’t picked up yet, I paused as a shrill whistling sound filled my ears. It was a familiar noise; I had heard it many times before while hoverboarding around the city. However, I could not seem to place it out of that context. The answer came to me as a red light began to flash in the optics inserted in my right eye. A message flashed below it in bright red: “WARNING: IMPACK WITH HANG GLIDER IMMINENT.”
    I managed to throw myself out of the way at the last possible instant. I was still flying through the air as the window imploded behind me. There was a horrible crashing noise, and I didn’t have to turn to know what was going on. The glider that Janet was doubtlessly flying had been deliberately crashed through my bedroom window, demolishing my room. I could hear the bed bend and snap under the impact of the glider at high velocity. I let out a cry of pain as shards of glass pierced the skin on my legs and back through my clothing. Although my outfit was designed to withstand high impacts, it could do nothing when it came to sharp glass. The E-fabric ripped, however it could not reform itself per its design until the glass was completely removed.
    My optics were already warning me about all the dangers in the room. Messages appeared rapidly in my right eye, superimposed upon my vision. “WARNING: SKIN PIERCED IN 74 LOCATIONS. WARNING: POSSIBLE INFECTION DETECTED IN 55 LOCATIONS. WARNING: INTRUDER DETECTED IN HOUSE. WARNING: HORMONES EXCEEDING ADVISED LEVELS.” It became difficult to focus on anything in that eye and I was forced to resort to shutting it so I didn’t get dizzy. Automatically, the nanites in my body activated and began to fix everything. “NOTICE: REMOVING GLASS FROM SKIN. NOTICE: TREATING POSSIBLE INFECTION SITES. NOTICE: REDUCING HORMONE LEVELS. NOTICE: SCANNING INTRUDER FOR IDENTITY AND POSSIBLE WEAPONS.”
    I groaned in pain as the glass shards in my legs and back were slowly forced out. The nanites quickly sealed up the skin, halting the flow of blood and blocking the nerve impulses that sent stabs of pain up my body. Clear of obstructions, the E-fabric activated and stitched itself back together, good as new. A calming sensation swept through my body from the drugs administered by the nanites. My heartbeat slowed back to normal, no longer pumping at an intense rate.
    “Cancel weapons scan.” I sub-vocalized to my eyepiece, and search shut off. I had no need of it; I already knew who it was as there was no one else that would make an entrance like that. Slowly and carefully so as to not pierce myself with any more glass, I turned and stood up. Janet had unstrapped herself from the black glider and was standing beside it, surveying the damage she had done to my room. Her black leather outfit formed perfectly to her toned and athletic body, revealing an hourglass figure.  She still wore her black helmet with its shaded visor, but I could sense her piercing stare behind it. Janet’s confidence in herself was staggering, and she held herself in such a way that demanded respect and showed her superiority. She reached up and slowly pulled off her helmet, shaking her head as she pulled it off, allowing her blond mem-hair to fall perfectly about her shoulders as it was programmed.
    Janet’s silver eyes bored into mine and I smiled at her weakly. My fondness for Janet had grown over the years. I admired her strength and strong willpower. Since meeting her, I had developed a huge crush on her, as had most of the guys she hung out with, and I’d been dying to ask her out. She had recently broken up with someone and we were really good friends at the moment; I was hoping that now would be my chance to seize the opportunity to finally ask her.
    “Mark, Mark, Mark,” she said, smiling. “As Hacker Black I declare you caught and this Game over.” She waved her finger at me and laughed. “What a disappointment.” She shook her head slowly to emphasize her friendly derision. “I expected more of a challenge from you. You’re slacking. That’s the last Game I play with you for a while.”
I said nothing, too confused for words. Was she flirting, or was this her playing hard to get? I didn’t know too much about girls; I should have taken Jack up on that offer to get the Mem-Plant with him. Do I play it cool? How do I react? I glanced over at my armband to see where the timer had stopped. “Forty-three seconds.” I blurted after a second. I groaned inwardly at my lame reply. Could I not come up with anything better? “Were you planning on cutting it that close?”
Janet shrugged nonchalantly, not saying anything about my confused expression. Thank God. “In truth, I had all but given up on finding you.” She patted the discarded glider affectionately. “Then they lost my reservation for this baby so I had to wait in line. I was so mad.”
“How did you find me?” I asked, not sure what to expect.
Janet put a finger to her lips. “A master never reveals her secrets.” She whispered, teasing me. “But I had Alex scope out your room from over there.” She waved out the window, pointing to a building across the street. “She informed me when your window went opaque. You know the rest.” She said with a taunting smile.
I sighed; it had to be the window. “Victory celebration at the Golden Tablet?” I asked, hopeful. Who knew how this would turn out. Perhaps I would finally work up the nerve and ask her out, like I had always wanted. Janet looked at me, no emotion showing on her face. I couldn’t tell what she thought of my idea. Was she going to reject me? She brushed hair out of her face that wasn’t there.
“Umm…” she muttered softly, as if deep in thought. “…I’m sorry. I’d love to Mark. I really would. It’s just…” she trailed off absently. I didn’t like where this was going.
“But what?” I asked, already expecting the answer that I dreaded.
She looked down at the ground for a second, as if contemplating what she was going to say next. She looked back up at me before replying. “I’ve already promised Corey that we’d go down for ice cream after the game. He asked me after I had caught him. Mark, I’m sorry.”
Corey. Of course. It had to be Corey—the self-centered snob. The two of us had been at odds ever since our interests clashed a few years ago. By interests, I’m referring to a girl named Alex. Constantly fighting, neither of us wanted to give in. I tried not to show the disgust and disappointment on my face. “That’s O.K. I’ll see you later then. I’d better call someone to come clean this up before the housebot does its daily check.” I turned away from Janet, not wanting her to see my unhappy face. Calming drugs from the Nannites swept through my system before I had a chance to overreact. I picked up the videophone and called the Cleaning Company, a cleanup group that was used for this type of mess. Janet stayed silent the whole time I was on the phone. When I finished, I ended the call, but didn’t turn around to face Janet.
“Mark…” She whispered. “I like you—I really do. I know you don’t like Corey, but he’s a great guy when you get to know him.”
“That’s fine,” I replied, not wanting to talk to her any more. “I understand. I’ll see you later then.” She sighed, but said nothing in response. I didn’t move until I heard her leave and the door close behind her. I turned and brushed enough glass off the ruined bed to sit down. I pulled my legs up to my chest and sat there quietly, brooding. I groaned silently—what a waste of effort asking her; I should have known. Janet would never be seen with an average Joe like me. She was just being nice. Janet was the type of girl who went for the guys with the muscle implants, or whatever other crazy things they put into their bodies. I could look like them too, only the modding that Janet went for required parent’s permission if you were underage. Mom and Dad were real sticklers for keeping the body proper, the way it had naturally evolved over the years, a philosophy I found annoying, archaic, and stupid at times. Because of their beliefs, my modding was limited. I reached up, brushed slivers of glass out of my hair, and watched as they fell to the ground, sparkling as they hit the floor and reflecting the lights in the room. I removed my red armband that designated my team and threw it on the bed; it would get picked up and returned later.
Drifting in from the entranceway, I heard the door chime go off signaling that there was someone on the other side. I waited for someone to enter and call out, but no one did. I sighed;  it could only be Chris. Chris’s family had only just acquired a large enough fortune to move to Starside and had not had enough time to become used to Starside’s customs. I had met Chris yesterday in the ground lobby of the building.  He was looked confused and lost, and so I introduced myself to see if I could help him out. His apartment was in the building beside ours, one of several connected by a series of sky bridges on several floors. He was checking out the connected buildings and returned to the wrong building when he was done. When he returned to his room, he ended up knocking on someone else’s door with the same room number as him. He returned to the lobby in confusion; that’s when I found him. I brought him up to my room where he met Jack; my best friend I had known for years. He couldn’t stay for very long, but promised to come back the next day when he got a chance. He came back the next day as promised and the three of us hung out. While he was here, I showed him pictures of everyone we hung out with, so he would be prepared when he met them later. On Starside, knowing people was everything. In order to fit in you had to have a core group of friends and many acquaintances. It was always hard for people coming in from the outside to fit in because of this. I figured I’d be a good friend and give him a head start on everything.
With all the wealth on Starside, there was no point in locking your doors or guarding your valuables; everyone already had their own and didn’t need yours. Chris still hadn’t learned the open-door policy and still knocked on people’s doors to get permission to enter. I got off the bed and walked to the front door, ignoring the Refrig’s report on my heath as I walked past the kitchen.  I wasn’t too concerned that my body was 9% dehydrated and low on vitamin G6.
I opened the front door to see a skinny boy with blond, curly hair standing in the hallway. He wore a green polo that matched his eyes and a tattered pair of jeans that were three seasons out of style. Wait until Alex got her hands on him. I smiled at the thought. “Hey, Mark. I wasn’t sure if you were home. I saw Janet leave so I figured…” his voice trailed off as he noticed the rips in my clothes and the dried blood in my hair and on my face. He raised an eyebrow “…Did you guys have—”
“No!” I exclaimed, cutting him off. I was shocked; from what I had seen so far, Chris was usually not this direct about things like that. He seemed to be more of the shy, sweet type, not the one to make comments or suggestions about sex.
He shrugged, indifferent. “’K man, just curious.” He said, now uncomfortable with what he had just asked. “Y’know, from what you and Jack have told me, Janet can be a bit…rough.” His eyebrow rose again as he said this.
I felt my cheeks coloring at the thought of what he was suggesting. “No, nothing happened. Janet crashed her glider into the window, that’s all.”
“The Game?” He asked. I nodded, about to say something. He held up a hand to stop me from apologizing for not getting him the required invites the Game required to be able to participate. “It’s cool, man. I’m not one of you guys yet. I had other stuff to manage back home anyway.” I felt bad for him; he hadn’t had a chance to become good friends with anyone in the group yet. Besides me and Jack, no one else knew him. You needed three friends to vote you into the Game. He only had two so far, but Jack and I were going to introduce him to Alice. Jack was our group’s self-appointed matchmaker, although he had yet to prove whether he was any good. Jack predicted that he was going to hook the two of them up within the week. I wasn’t so sure about how well it would work out. I had my reasons, Jack being Jack and all….
“What’s up with your voice?” I asked, stepping back from the doorway so that he could step through. “You were talking kinda funny back there for a second. It sounded strained” I turned and lead him through the living room and kitchen to the lounge.
The Refrig sent a drone over to me as we passed and practically forced a glass of water down my throat. “Fortified with vitamin G6. Drink.” It beeped in its mechanical voice as I took the glass from a metallic arm that protruded out of the side of the orb shaped housebot. I quickly drained the glass and handed it back to the droid.  I made a face at it as it took the empty glass back and returned to the Refrig.
Chris’s cheeks colored. “I…uh…I bought a conversation starter mem-Plant.” He said shyly, almost embarrassed. “It’s a bit…forceful at getting the most interesting conversation starter out. I don’t realize some of the things I’m saying until after I’ve said them. It shuts down once the conversation has been started, otherwise I would be making sexual references all day.” I led him into the living room; he glanced at my bedroom as we passed. His jaw dropped. “Wow! Janet sure knows how to make an entrance. Did you make a move on her?” He dropped his eyes as I glared at him. “I see.…”
We sat down on the couch in the lounge, shifting our weight as it molded itself to our bodies. Before I could say anything, the Refrig drone appeared once again and hovered over to Chris’s side. “Guest 1282 is low in protein.” A mechanized arm protruded from the drone and waved a brown bar in front of Chris’s face. The drone tried to shove the bar into Chris’s closed mouth. “Here guest 1282. Eat.”
Chris grabbed the bar and shoved it into his mouth before the drone could do it for him. He muttered something unintelligible around the bar in his mouth.
“Stand down, drone.” I commanded. “Please call guest 1282, ‘Chris,’ and store him in memory for next time.”
The drone buzzed in its mechanical voice. “Failure. Guest 1282 does not have SkinID. Cannot comply.”
I sighed and looked at Chris. “You’ve been here for how long, and you haven’t gotten your SkinID yet?” I waved my hand at the drone as it attempted to force another glass of water down my throat. “Stand down drone. Stand down. Stupid thing.”
“SkinID? What’s that?”
“What do you mean ‘What’s that?’ Do you not have SkinIDs on Earth?”
Chris shook his head. “No, not at all. What are they for? What do they do?”
“Well.” I said, before pausing to suppress one of my Mem-Plants as it came online to lecture Chris. “SkinIDs are used throughout Starside. Your SkinID is linked to all your personal information and accounts, and it’s the connection point for any modding you do. Basically, the city uses it to tell everything what it needs to know about you. Doors automatically open for you, taxis stop for you, and advertisements change depending on who walks by.” My lecturing Mem-Plant urged me to keep talking and explaining things to Chris, but I shut it down with another sub-vocalization.
“Can I remove it later if I don’t want it?”
“Um… no. Why would you?”
Chris shrugged. “I don’t know…. What if I moved back to Earth? I would have no need for it there.”
“How would you open doors without it?”
Chris smiled. “You really don’t know anything about Earth, do you? We’re not in the dark ages you know; the doors are all motion sensored.”
I stood up. “C’mon. We’re going to go get you your SkinID.” I did too know things about Earth. Perhaps it wasn’t that obvious, but I knew more about Earth than most of my friends. At least I’d been there; none of them have. “Besides we can’t stay here; the cleaners are going to be arriving soon to clean up Janet’s mess.” Chris sighed and stood up too.
“Whatever.” He said stubbornly. “But only if you pay for ice cream after.”
I nodded. “Fine. Let’s go.”
We walked out of our condo to the hallway. In our building, there were only four families on a floor. Each separate apartment was large, 4000 sq. feet or so, one of the largest available inside the city. With space hard to come by on Starside, it was difficult to get large apartments like ours, however with my parents important positions in the city, the required strings were relatively easy to pull. We didn’t really know our neighbors; we only really saw them when we passed each other occasionally in the hallway. Outside the front door, two men were setting up a lot of machinery to bring into the house. The two men wore red jumpsuits and a green bandana around their left arms.
    “We’re from the Company.” One of them said as he noticed us. He was a big man with a short beard. He was a bit on the chubby side, which was a bit unusual for someone on Starside. Here, everyone can afford to be healthy and look good. It was rare to see someone so out of shape. “Sorry we’re a bit late. We had a prior commitment we had to take care of.”
    I nodded. “That’s fine. Just make sure that it’s all fixed before the drone comes and does its daily check. My parents shouldn’t be home before their scheduled time.”
    “Sounds fine with us.” The other man said, nodding. He was shorter than the other man by two heads and had an ugly scar that ran down his right cheek. The skin around the scar was puckered and pink and did not look healthy. I was surprised at this too; scars like that were unheard of anymore. Current medical technology cured almost all bleeding and scarring immediately, even on Earth. Hospitals visits were rarely required if you had Nanites, which included pretty much everyone on Starside. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them had a pimple or something.
Chris and I turned away from the two strange men to leave them to their work. We boarded the elevator. Its far wall was made of clear glass that looked out over the streets of the city. The sun had risen higher in the sky and was almost at its peak. There were more people out and about now, as if their numbers rose and fell with the sun. The number of gliders had increased too. None were as sleek as the one Janet had, but many of them were more colorful; Janet had always been partial to black. All the buildings in the area were large and towering. With the lighter gravity of Starside due to it’s rotation, it became much easier to build structures much taller than was possible than on Earth. The buildings were however limited by people’s fears of heights. After around three hundred floors, people just didn’t want to live or work there; it was too high for their comfort, and evacuation became increasingly difficult. We descended swiftly and were soon on the ground level. As we stepped out of the elevator, my mind was still on those two strange men who were going to clean up my apartment.
“They sure were strange.” Chris said suddenly, referring to the men upstairs. He looked over at me, raising an eyebrow. “I bet they don’t get any—“
“Chris!” I hissed. Heat rising in my cheeks. “You’ve got to get that mem-Plant out. Where’d you buy it from?”
“I downloaded it before I arrived on Starside to make integration easier.” Chris said, turning for the doors. “It said it would increase conversation stimulation or something like that.”
“Conversation stimulation, honestly? How legit was it?” I asked. “Just be careful of what you say around people. Some might get the wrong idea about what you’re suggesting.” The two of us walked out the automatic door into the hustle and bustle of the street. The street was crowded; all sorts of people were walking back and forth on the moving sidewalks. Not used to some of the mods people had, Chris openly stared at some. The usual sorts of people were out, nothing that I would find out of the ordinary. Chris stumbled as I led him onto the moving sidewalk because he was staring at someone with green skin and pointed ears.
“Is-is that normal?” He stuttered once he was out of hearing distance.
I laughed softly. “Yes, that’s normal. A bit tame for some people to be honest.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Great. I can’t wait to see what else this place has to offer. Where is the place we’re going?”
“Twenty blocks or so.” I said. “We’ll grab a cab on the other side of the street.”
Chris looked out across the street, gasping as if seeing the traffic for the first time.
Hover cars sped everywhere. Designed to look like 21st century cars, hover cars had no wheels. No wheels, no brake, no gas pedals, no driver. Swerving around each other and stopping randomly to let pedestrians pass, it looked like any two cars would crash at any minute. I reassured Chris and myself that each and every car was controlled by the Central Computer. There was no chance of a crash. I motioned Chris to step over the moving sidewalk going the opposite direction of us. Chris hesitated for a second so I stepped out before him and the individual sections of the sidewalk briefly stopped moving to let us pass, resuming once we were on the street.
I stepped onto the road with Chris on my heels. He didn’t venture too far away from me, afraid to be hit. “Relax Chris, the cars wont hit you.” I said as a red car swerved around us without breaking speed. “They can sense your SkinID and…” I paused in the road as I realized what I had said. Chris looked at me with a pained expression on his face and practically jumped on top of me.
“Hurry please!” Chris said loudly. The two of us crossed side by side, the whole way Chris whimpering at me to go faster. He kept pulling at his curly blond hair that hung just over his eyes, something he seemed to do often when he was nervous.
We quickly got out of traffic and stopped on the other side of the street. The SkINC building was too far away just to walk and I wasn’t in the mood to teach Chris how to hoverboard around the city. I figured a cab was best, deeming it to be the quickest and least embarrassing way to get around. Activating a program implanted in my SkinID, I mentally accessed the codes to have an empty cab locate our position. Simply thinking initiated the commands that communicated with the city’s central system. It was a common enough procedure that could almost be done without conscious thought. Soon, perhaps it would be done automatically.
Chris wiped sweat away from his forehead and I grinned at him. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He stuck his tongue out at me, but I ignored his jest.    
“So we’re taking a cab?” Chris asked, smiling. I nodded at him. “Gotcha. I’m from New York. I know how to do this. No need to show me how this is done.” Turning, he stepped out onto the road. He whistled once and stuck his arm out. “Taxi!”
A few people standing nearby laughed at him weakly, while others looked away and tried to ignore him. I ran out after him, embarrassed, pulling his arm back to his side. “Chris, you’re not on Earth anymore. This is Starside. We don’t hail a cab like you do. Here, you hail a cab with your SkinID, like civilized people. No arm-waving on Starside. You look like a fool.”
Chris frowned at me. “We are civilized people.”
My reply was cut off as a cab pulled up before us. It was a light green color, one of the new models that were sometimes seen around the city. I had heard that they were still being tested and were taking no passengers, but I guess all the programs and glitches were fixed. I stepped into the open door followed by Chris. I slid over to let Chris in.
“Destination, Markus Rish?” The mechanical voice asked.
Chris turned to me, shocked. “Where’s the driver?” He asked. I laughed at him as he realized that we were sitting in the front seats. “Is this safe?”
“Of course it’s safe.” I said, reassuring him. “Cab, SkINC building, please.” I said, and we pulled away quickly. Chris began muttering something about steering wheels and seat belts.
“Chris, relax.” I said, turning to him. “It’s perfectly safe. Don’t worry.”
“Cab, where are the seat belts?” Chris asked. There was no reply. “Cab?” Chris began to pull on his hair again.
I slapped his hand down. “Chris, don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
“I at least want a seatbelt.” He said. “Give me that Earth comfort, please.”
I nodded. “Cab, Chris wants a seatbelt. Please give him a seatbelt.” The car said nothing for a second and I began to get worried. “Cab?” Uh oh. Was this one of the bugs that the system was rumored to have? This couldn’t be good.
“Cannot comply.” The cab finally said. “Chris does not require seatbelt. There is no Chris. Would Markus Rish request a seatbelt?”
“Umm…” I said, turning to Chris. “Yes, Cab, give me a seatbelt.” As I said that, a seatbelt popped out of the seat. “Chris, sit here.”
The two of us switched places and Chris hastily buckled himself in. “What happened?” He asked.
I shrugged. “Cab? Why is there no Chris in this vehicle?”
“There is only one person with a SkinID in this vehicle and that is Markus Rish. No other persons are recorded as having entered.”
“Thank you Cab.” I said. I turned to Chris. “See why you need a SkinID? How have you survived in Starside so long without one? I was surprised at your expression when we walked outside; have you ever been outside before?”
“Clearly, this is a flaw in the design.” He grumbled. “This is my third day here; I haven’t had a chance to cross the street or take a cab before. The day we got here, it was too early in the morning for traffic or people to be out on the streets. I hung out at your place for most of the afternoon. Same with yesterday. I’ve spent most of the time setting up my room and the rest of the house.”
“You know we have bots to do that, right?” I asked him as we turned around a corner.
“Yea, I do. But I’m not that used to them. The models are all so different from what we have on Earth.” He replied. He turned and looked out the window. “How much longer?”
When the Cab didn’t respond, I asked the question myself. “Cab? How much longer?” I asked.
“6.46 seconds.” It replied. “Correction, destination time, zero seconds. Welcome to SkINC. Have a nice day Markus Rish.”
We jumped out of the cab onto the sidewalk. The crowds here were a bit smaller and more manageable to walk through. The SkINC building was a dull silver building. Square and blocky, the building did not display what they company dealt in. The sole irregularity of the otherwise dull building was the large holographic sign with ‘SkINC, Your External Needs’ written in flashy blue and silver letters. The buildings to the left and right were similar, though not as tall. The SkINC building towered above all the other buildings in the area.
“Here we are.” I said, scanning for the top. “Let’s get this done with.”
We walked into the building, barely giving the automatic doors enough time to open before us. The lobby inside was huge, and strangely empty.  It was strange; with body modding being so popular I expected the place to be packed. The only important structure in the lobby was the reception counter on the far end. The far wall was a large screen where the company was proudly displaying some of the changes they could make to your body. Chris stared with an open mouth.  
“They can do that?” Chris asked, raising an eyebrow. “I bet with that I could—“
“Chris. Quit while you’re ahead.” I said. I dragged him towards the receptionist before he could say anything else. The lady behind the counter was blond, her hair tied up in a sharp ponytail. She appeared to be around twenty-five. But on Starside, you never know. A black and white dragon tattoo swirled around her face, the tail disappearing down the side of her neck. The lady frowned at her monitor as we walked up to her. Her dress glowed an iridescent pink, changing shades like light reflected on water.
“Welcome.” She said in a bored and annoyed tone, not even looking up at us as we approached. Her desk was cluttered with photos and pamphlets of the company’s various merchandise. The lady was painting her nails a color that changed like a lava lamp while watching something on the small screen resting on her desk. Her nameplate was concealed behind a stack of unorganized papers and I couldn’t make out her name because of it. I gasped as her tattoo moved over her face. Its wings flapped and its mouth breathed black fire. The dragon settled into a new position and froze. “New movable tattoos are our newest feature that you can add to your skin.” The lady recited in a bored tone that suggested memorization, without even taking her eyes off her nails or the screen. “If you act now, you can be all the rage on the street.”
“Sur—” Chris began before I could stop him.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” I politely replied. “My friend Chris is here to get a SkinID”
The lady finally looked up. “Would you like our basic SkinID package? We also offer other features that you can add to your body.” The lady held up her fingers as if checking for spots and blotches and began to recite a memorized list. “Translucent skin, vibrant skin, muscle implants, changed skin tone…Um…”
“Just the basic.” I said to her before she could continue.
“It’s his choice.” She said. “Let him pick.” She turned to him. “We can also change your hair color to match your shirt of the day, memory hair, optic zoom, feline qualities, lupine qualities, avian, reptilian or piscine qualities. The list goes on, what do you want?”
Chris paused, considering it. “Well…that would be cool. But no, I’m not used to any of this stuff yet. Better just get the basic.”
The lady nodded. She tapped something on her desk and whatever she was watching was replaced by another screen. “All right. I’ll need your name and info please.”
Chris gave her his full name and address. I saw the lady swallow visibly as she entered his information into her computer. She smiled sweetly at Chris and asked for more information.
Not wanting to hear Chris’s personal info and interfere with his privacy, I zoned out and stared up at the big screen behind the counter. There really were some interesting things that you could get done. Some that would impress Janet. Maybe I should consider getting some of these. The people on the screen looked good with the changes.
“Step this way please.” The lady said politely. She motioned for Chris to step towards a door that led deeper into the building.
“Can I come too?” I asked, following Chris.
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. You’ll have to wait here.” She turned to Chris. “The bot will come and get you in a few seconds. The procedure will only take a few minutes; you’ll be back in no time.”
The door to the back of the building opened and a grey droid hovered out. It was spherical in shape with various panels and sensors on the front. “Christopher Silverton, please step this way.” It said in a mechanical tone that was typical of most bots. Chris followed the droid into the back.
“How long did you say?” I asked the lady, watching as the dragon did a loop around her neck.
“Five to ten minutes.” She said. She noticed me staring at her tattoo. “You like the tattoo? We’re still researching color tattoos; they’ll take a bit longer to develop.”
“Do you notice it move?” I asked, curious. “Can you hide it at all? Or change it?”
The lady nodded. I was wondering why she was being so helpful all of a sudden. “The motion tattoos are completely unnoticeable and can be temporarily removed. Parental permission  is required of course.”
I sighed; Mom and Dad would never let me get one. “Thanks anyway.” I turned away as I got a Ping. It was a voice Ping, from Jack. I was surprised; he usually sends a vid because he’s such a showoff. “Open Ping.” I said to my eyepiece.
“Heya Mark!” Jack’s voice came on loud in my ear so only I could hear, shutting out all other sound. The lady said something to me, but I couldn’t hear her. Jack had a loud voice that he uses a lot for yelling and laughing. He’s a very vocal person. “You’ve gotta check it out. This new mod I got is sweeeet! I’ll be chillin’ at the I.C.P. in about…uh…half an hour. Meetcha there. Bring Chris, I’ll rustle up Alice. We’ve gotta get the two of ‘em bangin’ togetha soon. See ya soon. Chatz!” With that, the Ping shut off and sound rushed back into my head. I winced; it was always a shock to hear the world’s noise come back to. Others don’t have that problem. I would have to get it fixed.
I sent a quick Ping-ply back to Jack, telling him we’d be there soon. I looked over at the lady. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Your friend. Chris, he’s new here, right?” She asked, curious. “Typically people get their SkinIDs before they move here, or when they’re five or six”
“He’s a bit late, I guess,” I replied. “Will that be a problem?”
“No.” She said, biting her lip. “His bio says he’s already got a mem-Plant. Why’d he get one before he got his SkinID? ”
“Don’t look at me.” I said, holding my hands up. “I don’t know anything about those kinds of things. He’s from Earth if that explains it”
She shrugged. “It’s not important; but I figured he would have been well informed because of what his parents do.” She glanced back at her monitor as she spoke. I once again shifted my attention elsewhere in an attempt to not hear any more of
I decided to sit down on a bench to wait for Chris to be finished. While I was waiting, several people came in and out, requesting new mods, upgrades, or simply wanting to get rid of a mod that they found too cumbersome to keep up. One man came in and asked the receptionist for his real arm back. He got really angry when she told him it would take 48 hours to regrow it properly.
The door leading into the back opened and Chris stepped out. The door closed behind him, almost clipping him on the heel. He carried a red piece of candy in one hand and a large packet in the other. “All done.” He said with a big grin. He held up the candy for me to see. “Ha ha! They gave me candy too.” He laughed. “I’m surprised. It didn’t hurt one bit. They put me under and then woke me up two seconds later and it was all done.” He turned around. “Do I look any different?” He raised one of his eyebrows. “Did they do anything with me that they shouldn’t have?”
“No, you’re fine.” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Let’s go get some ice cream. Jack just sent me a Ping. Some friends are going to the I.C.P for ice cream. I told him we’d meet him there.
“Awesome.” Chris replied. “We have an I.C.P in New York.”
The two of us walked out of the SkINC building. Our cab was still there, as if it was waiting for us. The door opened as Chris walked up. He jumped in, and I followed quickly after.
“Destination, Markus Rish and Christopher Silverton?” the car asked.
“Cab, I.C.P, please.” Chris said, he turned to me as the cab sped off. “Look at that. It recognizes me now.” He turned his concentration to the packet on his lap. “Wow, look at all this information on my SkinID. It will take ages to read through.” He flipped through the pages. “Eye sensory? Hormone balancers? Ping nodes? Auto Sense Adjusters? What is this stuff?”
“Add-ons.” I said, pointing at the page. “It says right here. You might want to think about getting some. I thought they came with your SkinID; mine did. You can go back later and get what you want.”
“I’ll get that cool tattoo too.” Chris said smiling. “That thing was so cool. I would look so hot in it!”
“I’m surprised. You haven’t asked for a seatbelt. You’re all grown up now.” I teased.
“Very funny.” He growled. “When we get to the I.C.P, I’m ordering the biggest thing I can find. It’s going on your tab remember.”
“Whatever.”
We turned another corner and the cab stopped. “Welcome to the I.C.P. Have a nice day Markus Rish and Christopher Silverton.”
“Thanks cab.” Chris said as the two of us hopped out.
Before us was the I.C.P. The Ice Cream Place. It was the coolest place to be seen. It had rules, of course, and age limits. 15-21. No adults allowed. Sure, the staff was all adults, but they were different. A cool brand of adult. The building wasn’t large, only two stories tall. Having been built in the park district, two stories was the max allowed. The building was mostly red and blue, built like something out of the twentieth century. Way old. They say some of the stools and tables inside were really used by those olden day earthlings.
Inside, the place was quiet, which was unusual. It was usually packed at this time of day. Chris walked in and immediately took a table like he owned the place. It could be possible. I hadn’t had time to ask him what his parents did. His family could own the whole candy industry for all I knew, although from the brief conversation with the lady in the SkINC building I now assumed they worked on some aspect of technology on Starside.
“Hurry up Mark.” He said, waving me over. “I’ve got a whole table.”
I sauntered over, taking my time about it. I sat down just as the waiter droid placed two holo-menus on the table. “Enjoy gentlemen.”
Chris grabbed a menu, oohing and ahhing at everything that was to offer. I opened the menu up to see that they had updated it since the last time I had been there. I glanced at the first item, a large chocolate Sundae with everything on it. As I was looking at it, the succulent smell of the sundae came wafting out of the menu.
“Mmm.” I said. “That smells good.”
Chris nodded. “It sure does. I’m not sure what I’m going to have. Perhaps the Scottish Explosion. Or the Mundalo Volcano. The Suppa Sunda looks good too, but the Deluxa Chocolata is even bigger. I think I’ll get that.”
I put my head on the table and groaned. Chris once again forgot how to order.
“Oops.” I heard him say. “Sorry. I forgot.”
I looked up. “That’s OK. I won’t order anything. I’ll eat yours instead. I’m sure you won’t be able to finish it all.” I shook my head. “I thought you would have learned when we ordered takeout yesterday.”
Chris smiled in reply. “I thought it worked differently this time. You know, with waiters?”
Seconds later, four drones hovered out of the back room, each carrying a large bowl of ice cream. They placed all four on the table in front of Chris.
I raised my hand. “Put them on my tab.”
“All of them?” The drone asked, confirming with me.
“Yes.”
The drone said nothing in reply. It, along with the three others, turned and left.
Chris picked up a spoon. “Do you mind if I take the Scottish Explosion?” He looked at me hopefully.
“Whatever. My favorite is the Mundalo Volcano.” I replied, pulling it closer and digging in. I put a large bite in my mouth, savoring every second of the delicious chocolate.
There was a commotion by the front door and I could hear the sound of someone running into the restaurant.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, me!” Someone behind me yelled. It could only be Jack; only he would make an entrance like that.
Not sure what to expect, I turned to see Jack’s new mod. I dropped my spoon in surprise. Jack had always been crazy with his modding, but this was way extreme. Now I knew why he sent a ping instead of a vid; to not ruin the surprise.
Jack stood in the center of the room, arms outstretched, showing off to the place. His permanently spiky mem-hair stood as straight as ever, the vibrant strands of hair changing colors rapidly. Jack’s yellow feline eyes clashed sharply with his deep blue-tinted skin. He wore a deep green shirt with no sleeves, all the better to show off his roughly chiseled arms. Muscle implants of course. No one got muscles like that with hard work. The could only be bought.
Jack’s pants were green too, a first that something matched. He went barefoot to reveal his two matching dragon tattoos on his ankles. They changed colors as rapidly as his hair but the two never seemed to match up. They didn’t move, but once he learned that they could, he would be covered from head to toe.
All of this was normal. Jack had been like this since I met him, well, close to this. He often changed his hair and skin color, along with other temporary features. The one new addition—the real shocker—was the wings. A pair of angel wings protruded from his back. The feathers pristine and white, they seemed to shimmer in the daylight. The wings were huge, rising above his head and falling close to the floor.
Jack turned to face me. “Well? Whatcha think of my new mod?” He stepped forward lightly, almost dancer-like.
As he stepped away from the door I become aware of another girl who had been standing behind him, as if overshadowed by his brilliance. Timidly, she stepped forward too.
“C’mon Alice.” Jack said, noticing that she had fallen behind. She smiled at him briefly before running to catch up. Alice was the shyest one in our group. She doesn’t talk much and she’s never really loud. She’s extremely friendly; she’ll go out of her way to help anyone, even a stranger. Most people here on Starside wouldn’t even consider that. Alice is  average height, and  she has light hazel eyes and strawberry blond hair. She isn’t one for modding herself; she says that she likes herself as-is. She only really has the basics, the stuff she really needs to live on Starside. She’s the only person in the group with less modding than me.
“Chris; Alice. Alice; Chris.” Jack said, sitting down at the table with us, already smacking his lips. I rolled my eyes at his introductions. “Siddown Alice.” He said, pointing at a chair across from him and beside Chris.
“Hey guys.” Alice said, eyes cast downwards.
“So whose is whose?” Jack asked, eyeing the Deluxa Chocolata, the largest item on the table.
“Take whatever.” I said. “Chris accidentally ordered everything.”
Jack laughed while pulling over the large dessert. “Sweet.” He said, “I love when Chris makes mistakes like this.” He looked at Chris and smiled. “I have never eaten so much takeout before.”
Chris’s cheeks turned red. He turned to Alice. “You want something? Take whatever you want. Order something even; Mark’s paying.”
“Sweet!” Jack cried out, interrupting Alice. “Oops, sorry Alice. You were saying?”
“I’m not hungry: I just ate.” She repeated in her soft voice.
“That’s too bad.” Jack said. “If you want something, just take some of Chris’s; he won’t mind. Right?” Jack flashed Chris a big smile and a wink.
“R-right.” Chris said, tugging at his hair. “Here,” he slid the large dessert over to her.
Alice took the dessert wordlessly. She took a spoon off the table and stuck it into the ice cream. She stuck the spoon into her mouth and sucked on it for a moment before putting the spoon back down on the table.
    “You still haven’t told me what you thought about my new mod.” Jack said impatient as ever.
    Stalling for time, I put a large scoop of ice cream into my mouth. I wasn’t sure how to answer exactly. Sure, the wings were cool, but were they really necessary? I was positive that my opinion would not make one bit of a difference in how he thought of his wings, but here on Starside appearance was everything. A friendship could be lost or gained depending on how good you looked. If you weren’t part of the ‘in’ crowd, or any other crowd for that matter, you were out.
    “Do they work?” I asked, deciding to ask a question of my own instead. Perhaps if I kept him talking long enough, he would forget that I hadn’t responded.
    Jack flexed his shoulders and his wings sprang to life. They flapped twice and managed to create a breeze that blew every napkin off our table.
    “Sorry.” Jack said as the robots brought us new napkins and picked the ones up off the floor. “I’m still getting used to them.”
    Chris raised an eyebrow and I kicked him under the table to silence him before he could say anything embarrassing. It had taken me a while to notice the connection between his eyebrow and the comments. It must be a glitch in the system; Mem-Plants weren’t supposed to be visible to anyone. I was just glad that I had caught it before he had a chance to make a fool of himself in front of Alice.
    “The wings are connected to my muscle, tissue and nervous system. I can move them, feel them and bleed from them; I’m officially part angel.” Jack said, shoveling more ice cream into his mouth.
    “But can you fly?”
    Jack’s face fell. “Well…not really. They advised me not to try. I talked to Chloe and she said the structure wasn’t large enough to support my weight. She did, however, say that it may be possible to glide with them.” He got caught up in a rush of excitement, and words seemed to spill out of his mouth. “Then just this morning, I was talking with my Dad and…never mind.”
    There was an awkward silence for a second before we all dived back into our ice creams. On Starside there’s an unspoken rule not to mention anyone’s parents, including your own. This rule has been adopted by everyone that has not yet joined the workforce. With the sheer number of business that happen on Starside, Because many of the families that live here have feuds with other families because the import an, their children were also forced to live with these feuds. This bad blood between families always got in the way of friendship.
    There are some feuds between the parents in our group. Jack and Alice, for example. Jack’s family works for SkINC and that was the main reason why he had such extensive modding. Alice’s family, on the other hand, works for a company that tries to publicize the negatives of modding. They want the human race to remain pure and untainted as we were before technology.
    If their parents knew about Jack and Alice’s friendship, the two of them wouldn’t be allowed near each other. So now, whenever one of our parents are accidentally brought up, an awkward silence immediately follows. We all know what each family says about the other at the dinner table.
    “Tell us.” Alice said in a small voice. Alice was not one for fighting and hated these awkward parent situations above all else. I also had a sneaking suspicion she had a crush on Jack, just a guess though. “Our parent’s feud is not our own. I do not mind you talking about your father.”
    “Um…you sure?” He said quietly. He waited for Alice to nod before continuing. “Dad told me that they were working on grav. implants that make you lighter so the wings can carry you and you can properly fly.”
    “That would be a sight to see.” Chris said. “Weren’t there complications with them before?”
    Jack nodded. “Yup. Pretty gruesome. The trials used to tear the subjects apart. Literally.” Alice winced visibly at the image. “Oops. Sorry Alice.”
    Alice shrugged, indifferent. “It’s cool, Jack.”
    There was a commotion behind me and I turned to see what was going on. It appeared that two of the robots had malfunctioned and collided, causing their tray’s contents to go everywhere, covering each robot with sticky ice cream.
    Just then, the door opened and Janet walked in. With Corey. Great.
    Janet had changed into a pair of dark green jeans and a pale blue tank top. She had curled her hair and had added brown highlights to the tips. Corey had his arm wrapped around her waist and was laughing at something she had just said. Corey’s skin was a little more tan than most people’s, but unfortunately it still managed to look good on him. Corey wore a tight muscle shirt that showed off his toned frame, just a little larger than Jack’s.
    Besides his muscle implants, there wasn’t anything that made him stand out from the crowd. His eyes were blue and there was nothing special going on with his brown hair. He stood about six two, a typical height for someone on Starside.
    Janet effortlessly steered him over the fallen ice cream, appearing nonchalant about where she stepped, but avoiding the ice cream with ease. Corey, however, failed and I snickered under my breath as he stepped in a rather large glob of ice cream. Trust Janet to make herself look good and make everyone else look like a fool.
    “Hey.” Corey said in a deep voice as he noticed us. I growled lightly in my throat; I was not looking forward to this. Jack sent a quick glare my way, but otherwise ignored it. Jack knew about my fondness for Janet, and most other people did because of him too.
    “Do you mind if we join you?” Corey asked, not taking his eyes off me as if he hoped I’d object. Before any of us could answer he steered Janet over to our table while snapping his fingers at a robot to pull up an additional chair. Janet silently glared at Corey but said nothing to him.
    “Looks like the gang’s almost all here.” Corey remarked as he sat down at the chair one of the robots had just brought. “Where’s Alex, Nina and Scott?”
    Janet glared fiercely at me as she sat down. I could feel my cheeks redden and warning signs popped up in my vision. “Who knows. I thought it’d be just the two of us here.” She was speaking to Corey, but she spoke directly at me as she said it.
    “Perhaps they knew we were coming and wanted to meet up with us.” Corey said, laughing. He grabbed a menu and glanced at it briefly. “Bana Slurp, please.”
    “Perhaps.” Janet said coolly. She pushed the menu offered to her away. “I’m not hungry. I’ll eat later.”
    “You sure, babe?” Corey asked. “That game was intense. I’m surprised.”
    “Don’t call me babe.” Janet growled. “You know I don’t like that.”
    “C’mon. You know you like it.” Corey said. “Especially when I say it.” He turned to me, “What brings you guys here?”
    “We’re celebrating.” Chris said. “I just got my SkinID and Mark agreed to pay for ice cream. Jack and Alice met up with us here only a few minutes before you two arrived. What brings you two here?”
    “A date.” Janet said with distaste. She shot a piercing stare at Corey that would have numbed me to the bone. Corey ignored her. “This was supposed to be a date, Corey.” She punched him in the arm, hard. “Look at me!”
    “Ouch.” Corey complained, rubbing his arm. “No need to hit. I thought you wanted to hang out with them; you kept talking about how you caught Mark this last time. It seems like you had nothing else to talk about. It was all getting annoying.”
    “Annoying?” Janet said, puffing herself up. “I was annoying? Look who kept talking about himself the whole way here. Who cares about your stupid implants—you don’t use them anyway. You would have spent your money better buying brain implants.” Janet stood up in a huff. “Enjoy your talk. I’ll see you guys later.”
    Janet pushed herself away from the table and walked out of the restaurant without looking back. Corey stared after her, open-mouthed. He opened and closed his mouth a few times as if thinking of what to say. Coming up with nothing he stood up too. I smiled slightly, glad that Janet’s date wasn’t going as well as she had hoped.
    “I had better go talk to her.” He muttered under his breath. He too turned and walked out of the restaurant.
    “Well.” Jack said with an amused smile. “Wasn’t that funny. Who woulda known the two of ‘em would light up like a lit rocket? Pity I forgot to install that optic-cam I was looking at this afta-noon. It would be all ova the net in a flash.” Jack frowned and stared down at his bowl. He looked over at Corey’s half eaten Bana Slurp and pulled it over to him. “He won’t mind.”
    Alice looked up at Jack. “I got the whole thing.” She giggled softly, brushing hair out of her eye. “I’ll send it to you.”
    Jack’s eyes bulged as he spit out his Bana Slurp, creating a mess that narrowly missed Alice and Chris. “You what?”
    “I have a few mods that my…my parents don’t know about. I don’t share the same opinions that they have about the body.”  Alice said, stumbling over bringing up her parents. “Don’t tell them, please.”
    Jack nodded, serious for once. “Sure, no problem. It might be best then if you gave me the video. What would your parents say if they saw that you had posted the video?”
    Alice nodded. “That would be best. They would blow a fuse.” Alice quickly sent Jack the video and he put it on the net.
    “There.” Jack said with a laugh. “Everyone will have seen it by tomorrow. They won’t be cozying up with each other for long with that out.”
    A soft buzzing noise went off in my head and I got a Ping on my eyepiece. It was Mom; her message had an urgency notice attached to it. I excused myself from the table to see what she had to say. “Open Ping.” I said.
    “Mark?” Mom’s voice drifted into my head. She sounded worried about something. “Mark? Where are you? What happened? The house? Mark?” Mom’s voice was getting desperate now.  “No, honey; don’t touch that.” She said to Dad, who must have been with her. “Mark. Come home, something’s wrong; the house is a mess.” There was some muttering in the background that I couldn’t hear. “No, David. I don’t know. I said don’t touch that. Leave it.” Mom was yelling now. What was going on? The cleaners should have cleaned and left by now. Why didn’t Mom just call me? She usually loses her mind when something happens, but not enough to go completely ballistic.
    “Mark? I don’t know what you did, but whatever it was we don’t blame you; we’re not mad.” Mom was pleading. “We tried to call, but something isn’t working. My nanites…. I can’t even send a Vid-Ping or open a proper conversation. If you’re getting this, please come home, we still love you. No, David. Just leave the body.” Body? Something was horribly wrong. Maybe Mom did have a reason to overreact. Mom was now down to a quiet whisper. “Mark. Mark, just come home. We love you.”
    The Ping ended with a click. I stared at the far wall for a second, praying that everything was all right. I turned to the table. “Hey, something’s come up. I’ve got to head home. I’ll see you later.” I turned and was out the door before any of them had a chance to respond.

    Not sure what to expect, stood outside the apartment door. When it didn’t open as it should, I pushed it open myself, and it swung open silently on its hinge. As I pushed through, my attention lingered on the door longer than necessary, party in concern as to why it didn’t open, and partly because I wasn’t sure I would like what I was going to see inside. I wasn’t sure what to expect; with the way Mom acted on the phone, anything could have happened. Mom did however, have a tendency to overreact to some situations. But the bodies she mentioned? I shuddered at the thought.
    I pushed the front door open the rest of the way. Based on what I saw before me, Mom definitely had a good reason for her reaction. In my absence, the apartment had been completely trashed. The living room was the only room I could properly make out from the door, and if the rest of the house was like this, Mom certainly had a right to panic about where I was.
    Nothing in our living room had been left alone. Tables were smashed and couches were ripped to shreds. The ornate area rug that had been passed down to us from my grandparents lay smoldering on the floor. Every single book on the shelves had been taken down and thrown about the room. Most had their spines bent and pages torn out, covering the floor with a thin layer of paper. Dad’s prized painting of Starside had been taken off the wall and thrown through a crystal lamp that Mom had brought a few years earlier. The painting, ripped clear through the middle lay dejected on the floor with the lamp still stuck in it.
    “Mark?” Mom’s voice drifted hesitantly out of the other room, soft and frail. “Mark, is that you?”
    “Yes, Mom.” I replied, letting the door close behind me.
    Mom came running out of her bedroom once she knew it was me. Mom looked to be about twenty-two, but I knew that was not the case. She was around thirty when I was born, and Dad around thirty-five. Mom had straight black hair that she usually lets hang loose about her shoulders, but now had it done up in a crisp, professional ponytail that bobbed behind her as she ran. She was still dressed for work: black rimmed glasses that were more for professional appearance and than vision correction, a short grey miniskirt and a matching top. News messages were being displayed across the bottom of her glasses as she ran towards me, constantly updating her on the status of things at work.
    Her cheeks were a bit flushed and she had been crying a little; remnants of tears remained in the corners of her eyes. As soon as she got close enough, she grabbed me and pulled me into a tight hug.
    “Oh, Mark. I was so worried! What happened, do you know?” she asked, dabbing at her eyes before pulling me closer. “Nothing’s been working properly; my nanites haven’t been working since I got home. I haven’t felt this bad since that power outage three years ago.”
    “Where’s Dad?” I asked, pulling away from her embrace. Mom held on a little longer before letting me go, as if needing my warmth.
    “Checking out the safe,” she replied. “We’ve called the police; they should be here any minute now. Where were you?”
    “I was out with Chris.” I told her, reaching down to examine a ripped book. “We had gone down to get him his SkinID and then we met up with some of the others at the I.C.P after.” The book I was holding was titled ‘Inside the Stars’ by Thomas Carr. The front cover had been partly ripped away, but I knew the book well. It was a book that I had looked at often enough; it was one of my favorites in the house. The book had some incredible diagrams of Starside’s interior that I liked to look at; architecture was one of my favorite subjects. Who knew, perhaps one day I would help design the next Starside. I flipped through what was left of the book, searching for the picture with the cross-section of Starside. Unfortunately, that had been ripped out, as well as some of the other diagrams. It would be pointless to try to search for them now; there were too many pages on the ground.
    “Why did you come home so early?” I asked her, looking up from the book. “Usually you’re out late working.”
    “The drone called me in.” She said, frowning at the lamp and painting on the ground. “It told me that two men had entered the house when you weren’t in it. I thought it might have been your friends playing that game of yours and almost dismissed it.” My cheeks colored, but she didn’t seem to notice. Mom didn’t really know how often I had trashed the house playing the Game; it was a well-kept secret by all the kids in the area. The cleaners were well known and used, I was good friends with most people that worked in the Company; I had needed their services often enough. Those two men who were supposed to clean today were an exception; I had never seen them before. Perhaps they were new; the Company certainly was expanding rapidly because of their use. However, the drone shouldn’t have told Mom about the men; our contract with the Company states that they would not be identified as intruders if we were not home because they cleaned it so regularly. Well, a bit more regularly than Mom thought. “I’m now glad that I didn’t.” Mom continued. “I left something for work here so I used that as an excuse to get out of work and go get it. When I came home, the house was like this...”
    I needed to tell Mom about the two men that were sent to clean the house. That may help us find out who did this and why. Sure, Mom would be annoyed at me for trashing the house, but it would be good for her to know about them. I was horrible at lying, and I hated keeping secrets; it would come out eventually. I opened my mouth to speak, but was interrupted by dad.
    “Mark, you OK?” Dad said as he walked down the hall, putting all thoughts of telling them about the men out of my mind. Dad had allowed more of a visible aging than Mom had, looking more like twenty-six. He still retained a bit of a boyish look with his unkempt blond hair and his bright green eyes. He was dressed casually at the moment; his work had offered him some vacation time because of all the extra hours he had put in this past month. He wore a green polo and some surf shorts. He had been talking about hitting the beach for a while now, but had never gotten around to it.
    Dad looked down at the book in my hands. “So…how do you feel about all of this?”
    I shrugged. “Well, it’s upsetting of course.” I held up the book in my hand. “I would have preferred that they left this one alone; it was one of my favorites.”
    Dad nodded. “It is a good book. I seem to recall that we have another book by the same author. I can’t remember his name, but we were given some other papers of his and I had put them in one of the books. I wonder where they would be now. I’d like to get them back; they were one of a kind.”
    I wasn’t sure how to bring up my next question. I was a bit scared, and nervous. “Dad?” I asked, hesitantly. “On the Ping, Mom was talking about there being…bodies.”
    Dad nodded sadly. “Yes. There were two. I’ll show you.” Dad turned away but Mom grabbed his arm before he could go anywhere.
    “David. He’s only a boy.” Mom said as if I wasn’t even in the room. “He doesn’t need to see that.”
    Dad looked at me for a second before replying. “He’s old enough. Besides, this concerns all of us.” Dad turned and led me into one of the guest rooms. No one had stayed there in a while, so the room was mostly empty. The only thing out of place in the room was the two men lying dead on the floor.
    They were the two men who had been sent to clean the house earlier. If I hadn’t already been told that they were dead, I wouldn’t have even known it. The two of them lay on the floor, as if sleeping. Their eyes were closed and their mouths open, a slight bit of crusty drool stuck to each of their chins. Their skin was a bit pale, as if they hadn’t been in the sun for a while. It looked like they just fallen over and died.
    “Happy now?” Mom asked, not too pleased at what I was seeing. She grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the room. “C’mon. You don’t need to be staring at this.” There was a knock at the front door and mom let go of me to answer the door. “That must be the police.” She muttered to herself under her breath.
    I was a bit shocked at seeing the two men in the other room. I could think of no reason why they would be dead on in our spare room. I wondered who would want to kill them, who had raided our house and what they were looking for.
    I turned as Mom led three police officers into the house. The three men were well dressed: blue outfits with square shoulders and badges on their chests. They each wore a blue cap with a green rim. One of them had a short beard while the other two were completely clean-shaven. The two looked exactly identical to one another. They were Perfect Twins, not something that was very rare anymore. Connected to each other telepathically at birth through modding, they were essentially the same person. Their thoughts connected to each other as long as they both remained connected to the net. Some cultures looked down upon Perfect Twins because of their arguments on Individuality, but here on Starside they were wildly accepted.
    “This is my son, Mark.” Mom was saying to them, shifting her gaze from one to the other as she talked. “He was out when this happened. I called him to come home; he just walked in a few minutes ago.”
    The man with the beard nodded, while the other two ignored my mother and looked about the room silently. He had a hard look in his eye, as if he had seen worse than this before. His iris flashed gold as he looked over at me. It’s not that uncommon to see a golden eye every once in a while. They were a big fad a while back, but now most people wanted to limit them to  signal people with authority.  “Yes. I see.” The man said, as if he could look right through me. There were rumors that the authorities were allowed an upgrade allowing  them to tell if someone was lying. I wondered if he could. “Where were you when your mom contacted you?”
    “My friend and I had just left the SkINC building and were at the I.C.P when I got my mom’s Ping.” I told the officer.
    “Who’s your friend?” The officer asked.
    “Chris.” I replied curtly, not wanting to give his full name out in front of my parents; I didn’t want to ruin this friendship.
    The officer’s expression didn’t change at my reluctance to giving up Chris’s full name. He was probably used to working with teens and knew about the last name business. “Chris who?” He growled.
    I sighed, glaring at my Mom who was watching me expectedly.
    She threw up her hands at my glare. “All right, all right.” She said rolling her eyes at me. “I’m not listening.” She turned away from me so that her back was towards us.
    I waited a second before replying, giving up the name reluctantly. “Chris Silverton.” I glanced over at Mom to see if there was any reaction; there was none. I was hoping she hadn’t heard.
    The officer nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing to me. He turned to Mom, already asking another question. “Where are the bodies?”
    “In here.” Dad called out from the other room. The three officers, followed closely by Mom and me, entered the room. The lead officer walked up to the bodies and leaned in close to the fatter guy.
    “Hmmm.” The officer said, examining the bodies without touching them. “One small puncture wound in each of their necks.” He officer pulled a cube-shaped object out of his pocket and waved it over the men on the ground. Once the officer had waved it completely over both men, he stood up and looked at his fellow officers. “They’ve been poisoned.” He said gravely. “I haven’t seen this poison in a while.”
    One of the other officers nodded, glancing at the tiny machine. “Yes. Palpura it seems. Back at the power outage three years ago was it?” He glanced over at the third officer. “Was that your post then?”
    “Yes.” The third officer said, nodding. “The Altari Case, that it was.”
    The first officer turned to my parents who were watching the officers. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave the house for a while.” The officer said, including me in the glance he cast about the room. “The poison used on these men spreads easily and is deadly. We need a cleanup team to remove them from your house before they have a chance to contaminate everything. Did any of you touch the bodies?”
    “I did.” Dad said in a somber tone. “I touched them to see if they were dead or not.”
    The officer’s back stiffened. He glanced at mom and me before taking a deep breath. “I’m going to have to ask you to back away from your spouse.”
    Dad took a step forward. “What? Why? I did—” He froze as the officer pulled out his gun.
    “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step back.” The officer said in a commanding tone. “You might have come in contact with the poison. Palpura is a deadly man-made poison. We’re going to have to put you under quarantine you so that we can see if you’re clean. If you stay back, there will be no reason for anyone to get hurt.”
    They were going to take Dad away? This was not fair. “But—” I protested.
    “Please back out of the room.” The officer said, silencing me with a glare. “Have you and your mother gather a few of your belongings that you’ll need for the next few days and get out of the house. I will personally inform you of any progress on what we find here. We will let you know how David here is doing as soon as we can. We’ll let him go once we know if he’s clean.”
    Mom nodded slightly. She slowly pulled me out of the room. “Go get some of your stuff.” She said to me quietly. “I’ll meet you by the front door in a few minutes.” Mom turned and walked into her room, closing the door quietly behind her. I could hear her burst into large sobs before she had the door completely closed. I didn’t know what to do. I shuddered slightly; with Dad going into isolation and us being forced out of our house, this whole thing must be bigger than I thought. Plapura? I’ve heard of it, but knew nothing about it; I’d have to  research it.
    I turned away from mom’s bedroom door, not realizing that I had been staring at it. I wasn’t sure what I would find in my room. Would the glider still be there? Mom hadn’t said anything about it in her Ping or when I had been talking to her. I opened the door hesitantly, not sure what to expect.
    My room had been trashed like the rest of the house. The glider was gone. I was thankful for that; I would be saved tons of questions by those police officers. The window in my room had been replaced and a new pane of glass was put into the frame. Although the window had  been fixed, the room was still a mess. I take pride in keeping my room clean, although I do let it get a bit messy. This was nothing I had seen before; Jack’s room wasn’t even this bad.
    My bed sheets had been torn to shreds. The mattress had been ripped in half and all of the stuffing had been taken out. The contents that used to be under my bed were now thrown about the room. Books and old clothing lay scattered across the floor. My closet had been ransacked and souvenirs from my childhood I had kept there for safekeeping lay dejectedly on the floor.
    I bent down to pick up a small figurine of a white animal. It was a memento of our trip down to Earth three years ago; the only time that I had been off of Starside.  I examined it closely. There wasn’t a scratch on it. I tried to remember the name of the small animal I held in my hand. A polar bore. No, polar bear. I think. They were long extinct when we had taken our trip down. We went to the zoo; I’ve never seen so many animals in my life. Starside only has one zoo, and a small one at that. Most of the larger Earth animals can’t survive in this man-made environment. Most animals here quickly grow weak and die.
    While at the zoo, we had seen the bones of the last surviving arctic bear. I remember being surprised by the size of it. Afterwards, I felt so sorry for it. Who would have known that we as a people could have been so destructive all those years ago? We’re better now; we’ve learned from our mistakes.
    I was delaying the inevitable and I knew it. All this talk about arctic bears would do no good. I had to find the things I wanted and leave with Mom. Who knew when I’d be back again. I called my Personal Drone over.
    “P.D” I said to an object that had been thrown to the floor. The object was round, almost spherical except for its flat bottom. It was a pale green with a small blue stripe around its center. A personal touch. “Wake, P.D.” The object sprang to life at the sound of my voice. Lights flashing, it righted itself and hovered over to me, stopping only a few inches from my face.
    “Morning, Markus.” The Drone said in a soft feminine voice. I sighed; its personality was still working. Great.
    “P.D, stop calling me Markus.” I said to it. “Mark is my name. Call me Mark.”
    The lights on the Drone flashed and it emitted a buzzing noise as if it was laughing. “Failure Markus. I have been registered to a Markus Rish. Failure to call you as such goes against my programming.”
    I sighed. Why did I always get the Drone that refused to listen? Not one Drone in the house listens to what I say the first time, or the second. I was never really good at talking with computers. “P.D. Go get my H-Pack. The red one; I’ll need it to carry my stuff.” P.D beeped twice and flew out of my room.
    I turned back to the mess of stuff on my desk, figuring out what to bring. The figurine in my hands would be a waste of space. I wouldn’t really need it anyway. I put it down on my desk and rummaged through the things that had been thrown on top. I grabbed a few extra charge packs in case P.D ever ran out of juice and couldn’t find a juicer.
    P.D flew back into the room with a blue Hover-Pack supported by its extendable hand. “I thought the blue one works better with your eyes.” It said. Sometimes I wonder if it’s mocking me.
    I shook my head. “No. That one doesn’t work properly. Go get the Red one.” I grimaced as P.D dropped the H-Bag on the floor, narrowly missing my foot and flew back out of the room. That machine was going to be the death of me yet.
    Not caring about making a mess anymore, I swept some old Earth money off of my desk to see what was underneath. Paper money was useless here anyway. No one ever used it; everything was digital now. I was looking for the manual for my Drone. I might as well try to fix its personality while we’re out of the house.
    P.D flew back into the room silently, this time carrying the proper H-Pack. I took the pack from P.D and activated it. I let go of the pack and let it fall to the floor. However, before it was halfway down, it slowed and hovered back up just above waist level. I smiled. At least this thing was working properly. I quickly dumped the contents in my hand into the H-Pack and it adjusted itself with the added weight. I commanded it to stay put as I scavenged the rest of my room for things I would need. I grabbed some spare clothes that had just been cleaned and shoved them on top of everything else. I ran my eyes quickly over the room, picking up anything else that I thought that I might need. Where was that manual?
    “Follow.” I said to the H-Pack. “C’mon P.D, we’re going.” P.D followed me out of the room, for once not complaining. It bumped into the H-Pack once, but said nothing.
    I left my room behind and walked over to the guest room where Dad and the officers were. Two more men in white suits had entered the house. They had placed a clear plastic over the doorframe. A strange box was connected to the door by a tube, emitting a soft whirring noise. I looked into the room to see dad left alone in there with the two bodies of the dead men. I looked in the room to see Dad sitting on the bed, trying to get as far away from the bodies as he could possibly get.
    “Hey, Kid.” One of the officers said as he noticed me. “I’m afraid you can’t come any closer.” He put his hand up to stop me. “We’re decontaminating the air in the room before we can safely remove your father. We’re going to need you and your mother to be gone by that time”
    I nodded. “Can I say bye to my Dad?” I asked. One of the officers nodded and I called into the room. “Dad!”
    Dad looked up at me. His face was pale and his hands were shaking slightly. “Hey, Mark.” He said in a weak voice. I couldn’t tell if he was scared or was affected by the poison. It was kind of frightening to see him alone in the room like that. I wish I could have done something to help him. “Take your mother out of here.” He said to me. “I don’t want either of you to get contaminated with the poison. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if that happened.”
    I nodded slowly. “’K, Dad.” I said. “We’ll see you later. I’ll talk to you soon.” I turned and walked away before I burst into tears. I could definitely say that this was not the best day of my life. I entered the family room to see Mom sitting on a section of the couch that she had cleared of debris. She was still crying.
    “You said goodbye to your father?” She asked in a small voice. “Good.” She said at my nod. She eyed P.D and my H-Pack. “That everything?”
    “Yes.”
    “Linda, c’mon we’re going. Up, and follow.” Mom said, giving abbreviated orders. Mom’s personal Drone rose smoothly from the floor. It was the same shape as mine, but was a shade of pink instead of green. Mom never had any problem commanding her Personal Drone, or mine for that matter. Her H-Pack rose swiftly beside her—also a shade of pink—and followed her as she walked towards the door.
    Mom opened the door and we walked out of the house, H-Packs and Drones following behind us. The Refrig Drone tried to follow us out as well, its multiple arms loaded with nutritional bars and glasses of water, but Mom calmly told it to go back inside.
    As the door closed behind us, I looked over at where I thought Dad would be. I prayed that he came out all right. I’m not usually religious, but I would join any religion I had to just make sure that he would be OK. I’m sure Mom felt the same way.
    “Let’s go sweetie.” Mom said, pulling me away from the door. I could tell that it pained her to go, but she knew we had to.

    The evening was cool. The sun had just dipped below the skyline and the bright lights of the city had begun to illuminate the underside of the Dome. At night, Starside became a totally different place. As the sun goes down, entire stores change. Bookstores and coffee shops are literally replaced with fancy clubs and bars. The fun never stops; it only changes to match the time of day. Everything would change back to normal once the sun rose again.
    It was as if Starside had two different personalities; a normal, calm personality during the daytime, and a crazy and wild  personality while the sun was down. If you wanted to see crazy modding, all you had to do was wait for the sun to set. Some of the people who came out at night made all of Jack’s modding seem almost boring.
    As if proving my point, a man with fish gills walked by the bench I was sitting on, waiting for Chris. I have to admit the gills did look cool, but the thought of having to wear a giant bowl filled with water over your head turned me off. Stylish, but not practical. I tried not to stare at the man as he nodded in my direction, the water in the bowl splashing every which way. With the bowl on his head he probably got stared at a lot, although he was probably used to it.
    I turned away from the man, wondering what the conversations turned to whenever he entered the room. If Jack ever met this fellow, it would be a miracle if he didn’t have gills the following morning. I wondered what Chris thought of all this modding that is so popular on Starside. From what I’ve learned of Earth over the years, they are much more conservative and old fashioned. Mods there are rare and aren’t considered proper. They still drive their own cars and—for the most part—don’t even have their own robots. A pity, really. I wonder how they get by?
    After mom and I had left the house, we had driven across town to find someplace else to live for a while. In the end, we ended up finding a place in the tourist district of the city. It wasn’t the best place for a Starside resident to live, but it was the only place we could find on such short notice. The one cool thing though was that the occupant of the suite across from ours was a celebrity on Earth. I’ve never heard of her  before; she’s a singer or something.
    This wasn’t unusual, Earth has its own celebrities, as does Starside. There are only a select few who are known on both Earth and Starside. I think the Mars colony is large enough now to have its own celebrities, but none were famous enough to be known here yet.
    I doubted that I would ever see this Earth celebrity, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t important and I had much more pressing things on my mind since we left home. After Mom and I had finally gotten situated, I received a Ping from Chris arranging to meet up later that evening, and asking how I was.
    I was surprised that there weren’t many people in the park this evening. Usually when I’m out at this hour, there would be many young couples walking hand in hand through the trees or just sitting on a bench, passing the time. I had fantasized about this place many times, just me and Janet here, alone. At this date and time, I knew it was not possible, not with Corey around. I would have to find a way to make him lose interest in her anymore. Or, better yet, her not interested in him. Perhaps Jack would help me; he always liked a challenge.
    I was interrupted from my thoughts when something sharp hit me in the back of my head. I heard a short laugh that was quickly muffled. I felt something wet and warm trickle down my back, followed by a sharp pain a second later—a hot searing pain that started at the point of impact and quickly spread. Within seconds I was gasping for breath from the pain. The nanites in my body quickly activated in response, and neutralized the acid that had begun to burn and melt the skin on the back of my head. I stood up as soon as the acid was neutralized and I turned to confront my attacker, only I turned to see no one behind me, just the sound of quickly retreating footsteps.
    I shook my head slowly. It was just the kids that typically hung around here at night. It wasn’t unusual to have some of them throw something at you. Usually they would throw a ‘Shock Rock,’ at someone and run away. The Shock Rocks weren’t really that dangerous, only an annoyance; with everyone around here having nanites they weren’t an immediate threat. The nanites would purge the acid from your system before any real damage could occur.
    I reached to feel the back of my head. I winced as I felt the tender skin under my fingers. The nanites quickly healed even that until it was only numb to my touch. I shook my head, trying to clear my head while ignoring the dark shapes that ran from me. There were a bunch of sharp prickles in the back of my head that I ignored; it was only my hair growing back at an accelerated pace. I figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to stay sitting on the bench for too long; the kids might come back and throw another Shock Rock at me. I checked with my hand to see if the back of my head was back to normal before turning to walk down the path Chris would have to use to get to the park from where he lived. I hadn’t gotten very far when I spotted Chris up ahead of me. Spotting me, he raised his arm high and waved.
    “Hey, Mark.” He called out. I shook my head; he still had a lot to learn about the technology on Starside.
    “How’s it going?” I asked him in a normal voice; there was no need to yell. I laughed as I saw his expression. “Your SkinID can pick up sound waves directed at you and amplify them.” I explained. “There’s no need to yell when you’re speaking in the line of sight of someone.”
    Chris nodded. “I see.” He said, still a bit too loud. He walked closer to me before saying anything else. “How’s it going? Are you doing ok?”
    “Fine, I’ll get through.” I replied. “Mom has gone off relaxing and they’re still running tests on Dad; we’ll find out the results soon.”
    Chris nodded. “Hope everything’s OK.” He muttered, almost to himself. “Mom and Dad are busy unpacking still. I think they’re going to look at Droids tonight.”
“It’s about time.” I laughed. “Mom’s gone to get a spa treatment. So how are you handling everything? Pretty big jump from Earth. Did you ever think Starside would be this exciting?”
    Chris shook his head, laughing. “No I did not. I’m doing fine, though. It was a bit of a shock to find someone had broken in and died and stuff. I-We didn’t think that kind of things happened here. How are you doing by the way? With your Dad and all?”
    “Fine.” I told him. “It’s a bit stressful, of course. But Mom and I will pull through. Don’t worry about my dad though. With the medical improvements that are being developed, I’m sure there is something that will counter the poison that dad has.” I hoped he would be fine soon;  Mom wouldn’t be able to take it much longer without him.
    Something moved in the bushes and Chris and I turned to look. I sighed. “We had better move on. We don’t want them to throw anything at us. Once is enough for today.”
    “What?” Chris asked, instantly curious. “How did you know there was anyone there?” He peered into the bushes expectantly, searching for whomever might be in there to throw something at him. “It was probably a dog or something. Wait, who threw something at you, and what?”
    “There are no animals large enough on Starside to rattle the bushes like that. Starside has birds, some squirrels, but nothing large. Dogs maybe, but they wouldn’t be out and about without their owners.”
    “So who did you think it was?” Chris asked. “Do you know them?”
    “There’s a group of kids.” I explained. “They’re sort of—what do you call them on earth?—a gang. They call themselves the ‘Night Frights.’ They come out at night to pray pranks and stuff on people. Usually they throw things that blow up in your face, burn your skin, scare you, annoy you. ”
    “Can’t the police do something about them?” Chris asked. “Surly these kids are dangerous, blowing things up. Someone could get hurt.”
    I shook my head. “Our nannites prevent any serious injury from happening. Mostly it’s just to hurt our pride. They’re troubled kids, those who don’t fit into the social norm. Outcasts if you will. The police don’t want to get involved; there have always been rumors that some of them are very good friends with some of the high-end authority figures themselves. The police don’t want to get involved with that and risk their careers. As grand as Starside is, money and power rules here. It’s easy to become corrupt.”
    “Well that’s a scary thought.” Chris said, scrunching his face up. “To think that some of those kids are protected by who their parents are. I see why nothing gets done about them.”
    There was more motion in the bushes and Chris and I ducked as something was thrown our way. The object—whatever it was—landed a few feet from where we were standing. I looked up slowly and cautiously, expecting to hear whistling, steaming, beeping or anything else that may put us in danger from what they threw. I sniffed the air, searching for any hint of smoke or toxins that my nannites could pick up. There was none. That was a good sign; but it always helped to be cautious.
    I looked over at what was thrown. The object appeared to be a metallic black sphere, about the size of my fist. It was silent and featureless; it made no noises, there were no flashing lights or anything. It didn’t move or emit any smells. It didn’t appear dangerous at all. That’s what made me so nervous.
“What is it?” Chris asked, curious. He took a hesitant step towards the strange object before I could stop him.
“Chris, don’t.” I said, grabbing him by the arm and pilling him back forcefully. “We don’t know what it is. It could blow up in our faces for all we know. It’s best to play it cautious here. These kids always have some trick up their sleeves. Give me a sec.”
“Zoom.” I mouthed to my eyepiece. My vision pixelated for a second as the optics in my eyes focused in on the strange object on the ground. It was perfectly spherical with only two imperfections. The first one, nothing unusual about it, was a round little button. The second was an engraving, as if hastily scratched with a nail or chisel. The word ‘listen’ was engraved into the surface.
“Looks safe to me.” I said after a moment of examining it. I shut off the zoom. Chris walked up to the object and picked it up slowly. He turned it over in his hands a few times before running his finger over the engraved words.
“You probably shouldn’t press that,” I said, watching him to see if he did anything potentially dangerous. “You never know—“
Chris pressed the button. I squeezed my eyes tight, expecting the worst.
There was a soft hissing sound and Chris let out a soft “oh.” I opened my eyes slowly to see what had happened. The object had opened on a hinge and now lay in two connected halves on Chris’s open palm. A thin object was nestled in one side.
“It was vacuum sealed.” Chris said, picking up the small object with his other hand. The object was flat, paper thin. It was roughly rectangular and small enough to fit into the palm of your hand.
    “It’s a recording device.” I said, recognizing it immediately. I grabbed it out of his hands before he could react. It was a standard model. I had seen one before. Sleek black with five capacitive  buttons and a timer. The timer was set to zero.
“Start it.” Chris said softly. “See what it says.”
I nodded. I pressed the green play button and it vibrated slightly under my fingers. What emerged from the device was a horrible screeching sound, like a mixture of nails on the chalkboard and someone screaming. The pitch changed erratically, dropping low before quickly switching high and back again. I dropped the recorder in shock and it fell to the ground as I put my hands over my ears to block out the noise out. After a few seconds of the strange screeching, it was replaced by a voice. The voice was strangely metallic, not one a droid would use, but one that someone would use if they wanted to disguise their voice.
“The Corruption has spread. It has already begun. We will bring it to an end, and bring about a new Order. Take heed, power will shift. The Change is coming, the Change is underway.”
“W-what was that?” Chris stuttered as he bent down to pick up the device, checking for damages. “What was with those creepy noises? And the voice? What’s the change?”
I shrugged. It was nothing I’d ever heard before. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it sounded important. Capital letter important. The Change.” I tried the word out in my mouth. “Not very original. Do you think we should take this to Alex? She’ll be able to tell us things about it that we can’t. She’s a wiz at computers. I’ll send her a ping and see where she is.” The message was a bit daunting. A threat to Starside’s government, is that was it was referring to? It would probably be best to bring it up to Mom, since she worked for the government. However, there was a high possibility that this was just some dumb prank. Alex would be able to tell the difference.
“It’s kind of late.” Chris said, checking his watch. “Do you think she’ll be up?”
I shook my head; Chris always managed to surprise me. “How many hours of sleep do you get each night?”
“Only around seven.” He said. “I know I should get more, but I haven’t had the time to. Why?”
I sighed, running my fingers through my hair. “Boy oh boy. No wonder you don’t know anyone around here.”
                    

    Alex responded quickly to our Ping with a single word: Extravagance, one of several large nightclubs on Starside. Extravagance was a popular nightclub that Alex visited frequently. If there was one way to describe Alex, it would be ‘party girl.’ She made friends easily and quickly, and was always out and about socializing. Nightclubs were her scene, and she knew everyone in the business.  I wasn’t much of a club guy and neither was Chris, so we weren’t sure what to expect inside the club. We were shocked to see how large the line was outside the club, stretching far around the corner. Built in a coffee shop called “Extra Extra,” by day, the interior was changed completely when the club opened.  Coffee tables and stools were replaced by dance floors and DJs. Chris and I joined the back of the line behind two guys with pink hair and purple eyes waiting to enter.  The music from inside the club blasted out into the street every time the doors opened to admit anyone in line. The line moved slowly, only a few people being admitted at a time after a quick search by the bouncers.  The bouncers did a quick check of two kids before admitting them into the club.
    “So what’s it like inside?” Chris asked, trying to peer into the club through the windows.
    I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never been inside; we always go over to the club on the other side.”
    Chris nodded. He tried once again to peer through the windows. Only the dim images of flashing lights and the shadows of bodies pressed together were visible through the frosted glass. The line was shortening and we were only twenty people back in the line. The two kids in front of us were having an argument.
    “No.” The first one said, his pink hair longer than his friends, just touching his shoulders. “I can’t do it, I’m out.” He fiddled with something in his hands: a small black tube with strange markings on it. He kept tossing it from hand to hand, and rubbing his thumb over each of the smooth sides.
    His friend shook his head slowly, his short spiky hair remaining motionless. “You can’t; you promised. It’s too late to back out now. What do you think he’ll say?”
    “It doesn’t matter.” The first one replied, looking around. His eyes locked into mine and widened in surprise. He quickly turned back to his friend. “We’ll finish this conversation inside, where there are less ears listening in.”
    “Don’t think this conversation is over, Chase, because it’s not.”
    Before I could hear anything else, they were at the front of the line and the bouncers were checking them out. They were padded down for hidden weapons and were let in. They continued their argument into the club and disappeared inside.
    The bouncers were big. Very big. Chris’s face paled as we approached them to enter the club. I nodded at the bouncer and he nodded back. “Busy night?” I asked, trying to make conversation as he checked for weapons. It always helped to stay on their good side in case anything bad happened in the club and you needed to get out in one piece.
    “Yup.” He said curtly. He finished with me and moved onto Chris. Chris smiled weakly at him but said nothing. Once Chris was done, the two of us turned into the club and went inside.
    We were met by a wall of fog that was kept in place by a line of fans. The fog billowed up to about neck height and we could see the shapes of dancing people behind it, their bodies pressed together as the heavy beat vibrated the room around us. The ceiling was covered in strobe lights of every color, going off randomly, giving the appearance that everyone in the club was dancing during a thunderstorm. I went through the fog wall first, dragging Chris behind me.
    Chris and I stood just outside the mass of bodies in the clubs center. Chris was not willing to go into the crowd to search for Alex. We knew she was in there, but we didn’t know where. All the bodies in the center were pushed up against each other, swaying provocatively to the music.
    “So she’s in there?” Chris asked. “How will we find her in this?”
    “Simple.” I replied, “We send her a ping.”
    Chris smiled. “Duh, I guess that was obvious.”
    I sent a quick Ping to Alex, telling her we’d be at the bar. The bar looked to be one of the few things that remained from the coffee shop during the day. Made entirely of solid oak, it did not fit in with the rest of the club’s style. The two of us sat down on one of the metal barstools, I smiled at the bartender who was busy cleaning a glass at the other end of the bar. He nodded and signaled that he would be right over. The bartender was just short of seven feet tall. His hair was a brilliant green, done up in a perfect Mohawk. His purple eyes swept over us quickly, his optics doubtlessly doing body scans on both of us to check for weapons.
    Unfortunately, only certain people were allowed to perform body scans at will. As body scans were considered an invasion of privacy, there were only special circumstances that an ordinary person could use them. There were those, however, that had to ability to perform body scans when they felt they were needed.
    The man nodded at us as he approached after putting his glass down. “What can I get you?” He asked in a baritone voice.
    “Two scotches.” I said to him, grabbing two napkins and handing one to Chris.
    “How old are you?” He asked, not too interested.
    “Nineteen.” I replied. He nodded and turned back to get some glasses.
    “No we’re not.” Chris hissed in my ear so the bartender couldn’t hear. “I’m only seventeen and so are you. You lied to him; we could get caught. He probably knows; we don’t look nineteen.” He looked around the club, a worried expression on his face. “Those bouncers were big…”
    I turned to him. “He doesn’t even look nineteen.” I replied calmly, watching the bartender poor himself a shot of scotch and down it in one gulp. Chris turned to look at him. His eyes opened in surprise. “My mom looks over ten years younger than she really is. Why would he be suspicious?”
    Chris nodded. “But it’s still illegal.”
    “Chris.” I said, grabbing him by the shoulders. “No one here cares. Your twelve-year-old sister could come in here and order a beer and no one would care.”
    The bartender put our drinks on the bar. Chris and I both ignored him. “Why?”
    “Well, your little sister’s dad might own this whole establishment.” I said, grabbing the glass and downing its contents.
    “Fair enough.” Chris replied. He took a tentative sip of his, coughing it all back up. “Yuck, how do you drink this stuff? It burns!”
    I shrugged, downing mine. “It gets easier after a while.” I noticed Alex creeping up behind Chris, but I said nothing.
    She pressed herself up against Chris’s backside, putting her hands around his waist and letting her curly black hair fall over her shoulders onto his. “Hey there.” She murmured into his ear, her forked snake tongue flickering in and out of her mouth. “I heard you were looking for me.”
    Chris’s eyes widened in surprise. “I wish I was looking at you.” He said, recovering quickly as he raised an eyebrow.
    “Ooh!” Alex said coyly. “Let me get a look at you.” She turned Chris around on the stool. She put her hand on her hip and her other on her mouth, tapping her lips with her index finger. She wore a black strapless top, and paired it with a black short skirt that showed off her athletic legs. She went barefoot, something typical for her to do on an everyday basis. Her green eyes had added sparkles that flashed rapidly from the lights in the club. Her ears, though slightly pointed, weren’t elf-like enough to attract much notice. Her earrings though, they were large hoops within hoops that twirled within each other, producing a soft whirling noise. “Not bad, not bad…” she muttered half to herself. “Chris, right? Mark was telling me about you.”
    Chris smiled. “Nothing embarrassing, I hope.”
    Alex laughed, producing a bright, youthful sound. “Oh, Chris. He told me all the funny things you’ve done. Your ice cream ordering habits?” She laughed again. “That cracked me up!” She placed her hand on his shoulder for a second before fixing her hair. I rolled my eyes. Great, she was flirting with him. Alex flirts with everyone. She’ll lead them on just to see how far they would go. Her flirting usually led to getting some numbers, some drinks and a make out session, but nothing further. Alex wasn’t one to throw herself at everyone she saw and kissed. She may be a flirt, but she was not a slut. God help the guy who tries to get in her pants without her say-so.
    “Listen, Alex.” I said. “We need your help with something.”
    She sat down at the stool next to me, snapped her fingers at the bartender and ordered before turning to me. “You got yourself in trouble again, didn’t you?” She said.
    I shook my head. “No. It’s something we found—or—was thrown at us.”
    “Explain.”
    I quickly ran through what happened in the park, finishing up by handing her the recording device. She pressed play, wincing visibly at the noise. She listened to the recording with interest, not saying anything. When it was done, she put the recorder down and took a long swig of her drink, a pink substance with tiny black sparkles that shimmered whenever she would swirl the glass.
    “I see why you need my help.” She said, setting the glass down and signaling for a refill. “It’s not like them to pull something like this. That sound at the beginning? I’ve never heard it before; it could mean something. I can easily change the voice back to how it originally sounded. I can’t tell you who it is though; I don’t have access to that software. Perhaps you do?” She pocketed the recorder somewhere in her top. “I’ll run some tests tonight and give it back to you tomorrow sometime when I’m done. That’s it?”
    I nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
    “Chatz!” She said with a wave, pecking Chris on the cheek. She stood up, picking up her glass and downing it in one go before returning to the dance floor.
    “Well, I’m glad she could help us.” I said, nodding in her direction.
    “Yea,” Chris said, staring after her while stifling a yawn. He hadn’t touched his drink since the initial sip. “Gosh I’m tired. You know, we’re not going to be able to stay out this late once school starts.”
    “What? School!” I exclaimed. “There’s no school on Starside! You kidding?”
    “What, no school?” Chris said, taken aback. “How? How do you learn stuff? You need school.”
    I shook my head. “No, that’s not how it works here. If we were forced to go to school, it would be boycotted in a heartbeat. We’re not on Earth anymore; this is the way of the future. Here, we use Mem-Plants to learn; anything you want to learn you can in a heartbeat. Math, science, English, whatever.”
    “But how do you learn life skills then? I mean, how do you learn how to survive in the real world?”
    I shrugged. “Simple. We play the Game.”
    “The Game?” Chris repeated. “How?”
    I sighed. “It’s hard to explain, I guess you have to play the Game to understand completely what I’m talking about. The Game is very complex with a lot of rules and exceptions. There’s usually one or two every week or so. Hopefully you can participate in the next one. I’ll explain more after.”
    Chris nodded, yawning. “’K.” He shook his head slowly, as if trying to keep away another yawn. “I should probably go.” He said. “I need to get some rest so I can do some things tomorrow.” He stood up. “Thanks, I had fun.”
    “No problem.” I replied. “See you tomorrow?”
    “Definitely.” He said with a smile. He turned to go, but turned back after a second. “Oh.” He asked. “How do I pay?”

    I awoke to being probed in the temple repeatedly. I opened my eyes quickly to see a round shape hovering just over my head. I groaned and rolled over, pulling the blankets high over my head. Why were the lights on?  “Lay off, P.D” I commanded. “Go away.” Why does this stupid robot always do this to me, if it’s not one thing it’s another. No one else I know has a robot that wakes them up in the middle of the night. “What time is it?”
    There was a buzzing sound that originated from the shape above me. “Error. cannot ‘lay off P.D’” The robot said, mimicking my voice. “You are not speaking with P.D.”
    I groaned, sitting up. If it wasn’t P.D that was annoying me, then who was it? “Dim the lights, please.” I commanded. The room lights faded down to a reasonable level. I blinked slowly until my vision cleared and I was able to see properly.
    “The game has begun. You have been chosen.” I groaned, the robot in front of me was a game robot, sent out to each person whenever a game has been initiated and they have been chosen. Two feet in circumference and pure black, the Game Robots were sent out by GameBoard to keep tabs on all those playing the Game. This Bot had a single red stripe down the middle, signaling that all the robots patrolling our game would be red, to help identify them against the ones refereeing the other games going on at the same time.
    “What time is it?” I repeated.
    “Four twenty-three.” Came the reply and I groaned, sinking deeper into the bed. Two hours of sleep; I knew I should have left the club earlier. After Chris left, I stayed for another round of drinks and dances with Alex before heading home. It was too early in the morning for this.
    “The Game is being hosted by Janet.” The robot continued, not caring whether I paid attention to it or not. “Please select four more players.”
    I swung my feet around to sit properly on the bed, trying to ignore my pounding headache; the nanites hadn’t had a proper chance to remove all the alcohol from my system yet. “What are the special rules?” I asked, referring to the rules that the host of the Game could chose to add to make it more interesting. 4:23? Was Janet serious? Sure, Janet likes to start the Games early, like seven o’clock, not four-twenty-three. Two days in a row? I’m going to be sore no matter how good my nanites were.
    “There is no time limit in this Game.” The robot said. I looked around for something to change into. I had forgotten to pack an outfit for the game, not thinking that there would be another so soon. “There is a price limit of ten thousand dollars.” The robot continued; I flinched. That was steep. Janet was the first one to play the price rule in a long time; they weren’t always popular. People like to buy stuff when they’re playing the game, especially Janet. Looks like she won’t be able to buy that hang glider she used last time. However, everyone always wanted to play when Janet hosted, her rules always upped the stakes. Others tried to copy her rules, but they ended up being only cheap imitations that weren’t as fun. “Taxis may not be used, but a hover board may. Purchase of a hover board—unless already possessed—will not be deducted from your Game fund. Participants of this game may not travel farther than the city limits.” Well, that seemed fair. The city was big; most people didn’t venture too far away. “The finder of the flag will receive a map for ten minutes which depicts the location of all players.”
    “What!” I exclaimed, turning back to the robot. “You’re serious right? You’re not joking?”
    “I do not joke.” The robot replied blandly.
    “P.D, come.” I commanded, calling into the hall after looking for where P.D might be hiding. Of course the only time I needed him, he wasn’t by my side annoying me.
    “Who do you choose to participate in the game?” The robot asked.
    “Um…” I muttered, looking for where I had placed my shirt. “How about Jack?” Through the robot’s programming, it knew who I hung out with frequently, and did not need any more information to determine which of all the possible Jacks on Starside I was referring to.
    “Jack is already chosen.”
    “Chris?”
    “Chris has not been chosen yet.” The robot buzzed. “Is Chris your first pick?”
    I nodded. “Yes.” P.D slowly drifted into the room. “Here, P.D. Take these.” I handed him the clothes I had picked up. “Get these washed and bring them back. O.K?”
    “Whatever.” P.D replied. It took the clothes and turned to leave.
    “P.D, do it fast please.” I called after him, only getting a beep in reply.
    “Chris is confirmed. Second pick?”
    “Has Alex already been chosen?”
    “Alex has already been chosen.”
    “O.K then, what about Nina?”
    “Nina has not been chosen yet. Is Nina your second pick?”
    “Yes.”
    “Nina is confirmed. Third pick?”
    The two of us went back and forth until I had made my four choices of whom I wanted to play in the game. In the end, it was Chris, Nina, Tanya and Ben. I was good friends with Nina and Chris, but I didn’t know Tanya or Ben very well. I only really knew them through Alex and Scott. Everyone else I was friends with had already been chosen and thus was already playing. Through my constant asking, Janet’s Six Pick was Me, Scott, Jack, Alex, Alice and Erica. The robots weren’t supposed to tell you who was playing; they avoided giving out all information whenever possible. Some things could be found out though, but if you tried too hard to press information out of them, you could get eliminated.The six of us were automatically entered into the game, and picked four more people to join, once someone else got a certain number of votes, depending on the round they were picked, they were entered into the game as well.
    “Thank you.” The robot said. “The game will begin at five thirty sharp. You will be informed of your team at the earliest possible convenience.” The robot produced an armband from within itself and handed it to me. The armband had a white base with a white mesh fabric on top. I put it on my left arm, just over my bicep so it fit snugly. “Do not remove the armband or you will become disqualified. Please tune all your sensory to channel 2. Good day.”
    The robot turned and left, leaving me alone in my room. Great, now I have to wait until P.D gets back. Knowing how it behaves, the game will have begun and I would still be waiting for clean clothes to run to the store to buy some for the Game. I sighed, time to buy a new set of game clothes, shouldn’t be that hard. I walked over to the computer that I had in my room. It turned on as I approached it. “Open clothing shop menu.” I commanded.
    The screen flashed white and videos of people wearing different styles of clothing appeared on the screen. The videos lasted for a few seconds before being replaced with different ones. I recognized some of the styles they were showing, but not all. Some of them were Mars, Earth, or moon styles; none of which were very popular here. “What do you wish to purchase?” the computer asked.
    “Well, I’m playing the game today, so I need something rugged, but will allow me freedom of movement. Let’s start with that.” I said.
    “Calculating.” The computer said. “The Game. Rugged. Movement.” The screen changed and the images of six outfits were displayed. “Four hundred thirty three results found.”
    “Ouch. That’s a bit much. Well, I need to blend in with whatever crowd I’m in. so I’ll need A-Fabric.” A-Fabric was one of the coolest new clothing out. It has the capacity to change colors whenever required, it’s the same fabric used in my armband. It has the ability to stretch and mend itself while retaining its shape and structure. To a certain degree, it can change its surface to resemble what the wearer most wants.
    “Calculating. A-Fabric” The computer said. The screen changed once again, this time with only twenty four results. A-Fabric could only be used to a certain extent. It could not be used on the moon at all because of the low gravity. Mars was a bit of a problem too. But, here on Starside it worked just fine.
    I browsed through the options available, to see which outfit would suit me best.  “I like this one.” I said, pointing at one of the pictures. On the screen, the outfit was green, but that could be changed in an instant. The shoes were nice, although they weren’t A-Fabric, they allowed you to walk without creating a lot of sound. Jack had a pair a while back, before he stopped wearing shoes. He could run in them and you could only hear him if you were listening for him. The souls had a grip that conformed to the surface to provide better footing.
The pants were A-Fabric, they had added protection on the knees and back to protect you from falls and slips. There were no pockets, but they could be morphed into the pants at a moment’s notice. A belt came with the outfit, it was lined with sensors and battery packs. There was a whole bunch of gizmos that I didn’t understand.
It was the top that sold me though. It was form fitting, so it would always look good no matter who wore it. Not only highly resistant to heat and shredding, but waterproof and sweat wicking as well. “Yes. That’s it.” I said to the computer. “Buy it.”
“Confirmed.” The computer said. “Purchasing now.”
My armband beeped once, and I heard a voice in my ear. “This transaction has been deducted from your game fund account. Under Rule #34B, your account will be suspended until completion of the game.”
“Understood.” I replied. “Thank you computer, that is all.”
“Confirmed.” The computer said, shutting off.
Good. Now that that was taken care of, all that was left to do before the Game was to get something to eat. I walked into the kitchen, sitting down at the table. The apartment’s refrig drone immediately popped out of its slot on the side of the fridge.
“Order?” it said, placing the E-news tablet on the table.
“Bacon and scrambled eggs, please.” I said, picking up the tablet, and glancing at the first article on the thin screen. The first article was a scandal, of course. It’s what keeps people subscribing: gossip sells. I glanced at the article—skimmed mostly—checking to see if there was anything remotely interesting. I laughed, reading one phrase aloud before realizing there was no one else in the room. “Authorities report that Lacy Lightbridge repeatedly assaulted an officer for performing a full body scan while she was bathing nude on the roof of her mansion. What a riot.” Lacy Lightbridge was known for her strange habits that repeatedly landed her in jail or rehab, sometimes both.
“Error.” The Refrig drone buzzed as it placed a plate in front of me. “Cannot perform full body scan.”
“Cancel.” I said to the drone, laughing. “Thanks for the breakfast.” I picked up the fork that was laid beside my plate and glanced at the plate. Sighing, I put the fork back “I ordered scrambled eggs, not sunny side up.” The refrig drone silently swooped down to take the plate back, but I grabbed on before it could take the plate away. “Forget it. I’ll eat it; you’ll mess everything else up.” The drone flew back to the fridge without a word. I shook my head. Why was it always me?
The doorbell rang as I put a forkful of egg in my mouth. I stood up, thinking it was my outfit. I opened the door to see P.D hovering at waist level, all the clothes I had given it was cleaned and folded nicely. “I washed your clothing, will you be changing now?” It asked from behind the pile.
I shook my head, the one time…. “No P.D.” I sighed, letting it into the apartment. “I’m afraid not. I ordered another outfit while you were gone. I’ll be wearing that today. But thank you.”
P.D dropped the clothes in the floor. “Is there anything else?” It asked.
“Yes.” I said, nodding. “Would you get my hover board for me? It’s in the closet beside my room.” P.D beeped twice and backed out of the room, disappearing down the hallway. I picked up the clothes and walked back to the kitchen, laughing under my breath. The one time I compensated for P.D doing something wrong, it did it right. I made a note on my calendar to get it repaired. I wouldn’t be able to put up with it for much longer.
I sat down at the table again, only to be interrupted by my eyepiece. I checked to see what it was; Chris was asking for a video connection with me. I accepted quickly, and a Flatscreen glided out of a slot on the table, showing me an image of Chris on the screen.
He was still wearing his PJs, and his hair was a mess. I laughed under my breath at the sight of him. Chris looked relieved to see me.
“Good. It works.” He huffed. “I need your help. What do I do?” He paused to push a game robot away from him. The game robot had extended a large arm and was poking Chris on the side of his head with it.
“The Game has begun. You have been chosen. The Game has begun. You have been chosen.” The robot repeated, poking Chris with each phrase.
“What do I do? It’s been doing this for five minutes and won’t stop. It’s too early for this; I’m still dead from last night.” Chris said.
“The Game is being hosted by Janet. Please choose four more players”
I laughed. “Choose four more people you want to play the Game with.”
“The Game?” Chris repeated. “I don’t even know how to play the Game.”
I sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll explain it to you. It’s a bit complicated with a million rules; I’ll try to pare it down for you and give you the basics.” Chris nodded, pushing the robot away again. “So there are five teams.” I began. “The number of people on each team is not set in stone; it depends on how many people play. Each team is given a color and a captain. Your team is then given a color target; you then have to catch everyone on the team of that color. You catch them by touching them or by being near them for a specific length of time, depending on your proximity. If someone catches you, your team color changes and you’re on that team that captured you. The team captain changes whenever his or her team changes players. The captain is just for points, so you don’t have to worry about that yet. Every hour, your target team changes.
“There is also a flag involved. The flag’s location is revealed to all players, the player who finds the flag first will be given special privileges within the game, your teammates can explain that later. The last thing you really need to know is that there are two or three people who are not on a team. They work independently and are called ‘Hackers.’ Their job is to capture whoever they can that is playing the game. They have no one to help them. Most people don’t like being Hackers; it’s too tough.” I ran my fingers though my hair, checking to see if there was anything major I left out. There were so many rules it was hard to keep track. I had completely ignored to talk about communicating, or when your location is revealed or what happens if your caught by a hacker, or the point system….The list goes on and on.
“That’s a lot to absorb all at once.” Chris said, “I’ll ask questions later, tell me what to do now.”
“You need to pick four people that you want to play with.” I said, you can’t pick anyone that’s already chosen, and if you try to, it won’t count.”
Chris nodded. “O.K, that’s simple. Have you been chosen yet?” I nodded and he turned to the Game robot. “I pick, Alice.”
“Alice has already been chosen.”
“Jack?”
“Jack has already been chosen.”
“Alex?”
“Alex has already been chosen.”
Chris looked at me, “those are the only people I really know. I met Corey, but I don’t like him, Janet is hosting so…. Who should I pick?”
“Ask the robot what the score is for people with one or two votes.” I suggested.
“What is the score for people with one or two votes?” Chris repeated.
“Ben has two votes, Chloe has two votes, Nina has two votes, Anna has one vote, Erin has one vote, Quinn has one vote, Laura has two votes, L.J has—”
“O.K I get it.” Chris said, cutting it off, he looked at me. “Who would you advise?”
“Well, I voted for Ben.” I said. “He’s cool, Nina as well.”
“I pick Ben.” Chris said.
“Ben is your first pick?”
“Yes.”
“Confirmed. Second pick?”
“Umm…” Chris muttered. “How about Nina?”
“Nina has already been chosen.”
“All right.” He turned to me. “Who then?”
“Quinn and Erin?” I said, shrugging. “It doesn’t really matter; the teams are all random, you don’t know who you’re going to be playing with anyways.”
“Quinn and Erin then.” Chris said, turning back to the robot.
“Quinn is your second pick?”
“Yes.”
“Confirmed. Erin is your third pick?”
“Yes. How about Chloe? You mentioned her, right?”
“Confirmed. Chloe is your last pick?”
“Alright then.” Chris said, laughing. “I guess you did say Chloe. Yes, I choose her.”
“Confirmed.” The robot said. “The game will begin at five thirty sharp. You will be informed of your team at the earliest possible convenience.” The robot’s inside opened up and an armband identical to the one it gave me came out of its body. “Do not remove the armband or you will become disqualified. Please tune all of your sensory to channel two. Good day.” Chris took the armband out of the robots outstretched hand. The robot turned around in place and left the room.
Chris turned and waved the armband in front of the camera. “I have to wear this?”
I nodded. “Yes. Put it on. Change it to Chanel two by saying ‘command: channel two.’”
Chris nodded. “Command: channel two.” The band flashed twice. “That’s it?” Chris asked. “I was expecting something a little flashier. So how should I prepare for the game? Do I meet –” The screen abruptly cut off along with Chris’s voice. I was left staring at an empty video screen.
“Error 22401.” The video screen said in a monotone voice. “Players cannot communicate when they are playing the game.”
“Yes, but—” I began, attempting to explain how Chris had never played the game before and had a lot of questions.”
“Error. You agreed to this condition upon agreeing to participate in the Game. Full communication will be restored upon termination of the Game.”
    The video screen shut off and folded itself back up and tucked itself away. I picked up my fork and knife, rushing to finish my breakfast before anything else interrupted me. I looked at my watch, it was five o’clock, half an hour to the Game. Hopefully, by now there would be someone at the police station that could tell me how Dad was doing. I had my eyepiece dial the police office, hoping someone would pick up.
    “Starside police, Area 7. This is Shannon, how may I help you?” The receptionist asked.
    “Hi, I’m calling about my father. He was brought in yesterday because our house was broken into and he may have been exposed to Palpura.”
    “Your father’s name?”
    “David. David Rish.”
    “One second please.” The receptionist said. There was silence for a few seconds while she did her thing. “O.K. It appears that your father was not exposed to Palpura. However, we want to keep him isolated for forty eight hours, just to be sure. Palpura is a very tricky poison, we need to be extra cautious.” I let out a large sigh of relief. Thank God.
    “O.K. Thank you so much. Can we visit him at all?”
    “Yes.”The receptionist replied. “If you care to stop by anytime after ten today, you will be able to see him. Anything else?”
    “No.” I replied. “Thank you.” The receptionist hung up. Knowing Mom would still be asleep, I sent her a quick Ping to let her know that Dad was all right.
    There was a knock at the door and I opened it to admit a gray work drone carrying a box. “Delivery for Markus Rish.” It said.
    “Yes.” I said, taking the box from its outstretched arms. “Thank you.” The robot turned around and vanished down the hallway without saying another word. I turned around and set the box on the table. It opened automatically, lights turned on to illuminate its contents. I pulled out the first item; the shirt. It was a dull grey color, nothing remotely interesting about it. It was a long sleeve shirt with no buttons and a short collar. The fabric was silky smooth, just like every other bit of fabric on Starside. I took my shirt off and put on my new one. It went on loose everywhere. The sleeves were too long and wide, the neck too big and the whole thing too long and baggy. The shirt flashed white for a second before turning back to grey.
    The shirt started to shrink. First, the arms shrunk to their proper size just above my wrists, the length shrunk too, as did the neck. Once everything became the proper length, it shrunk so that it became form fitting. It fit smoothly around my arms and waist, the fabric remained soft.  I looked in the mirror on the wall to see how it looked on me. The color was boring, but I would change that soon enough. It looked good on me. It showed off my muscles, especially my chest. Hopefully Janet would notice.
    “Red please.” I commanded the shirt. “Increase the collar size and add two buttons, lower the neck down the front and raise the arms to slightly below my elbows.” The shirt’s color slowly changed from gray to red. The length of the sleeves shortened and the collar lowered, two buttons appeared out of the shirt while the front of the neck lowered some more, so show off some more of my chest. This was good; Janet was going to like this.
    I turned back to the box to pull out the next thing on top. The pants were already red, to match the shirt. I put them on quickly to see how they fit. Like the shirt, it was a bit too large, but quickly shrunk to fit. “Pants; change to black.” I commanded. The colors changed swiftly while I dug into the box to grab the belt. I fitted the belt around my waist and loops formed out of the pants to secure it in place. The belt ends morphed together to form one solid loop. There were various pouches sewn into the belt that lit up as I ran my fingers across them one by one. Their names lit up on the surface of the belt; gyroscope, energy pack, rations, radar scanner, and many more that continued around and behind the belt.
I reached back into the box and pulled out the shoes. A mixture of red and black, they looked like any other pair of running shoes I owned. I slipped them on, bouncing up and down on my toes to try them out, already enjoying the comfort they provided. I looked in the mirror to see just how I looked. I loved it; this outfit totally showed off my assets. Janet was going to love it. All I had to do now was wait for the game to start.
The doorbell rang again and I went to open it, hoping that Mom wouldn’t hear it and wake up. Mom never liked to be woken up early in the morning before she was ready to. P.D was at the door, with no hover board.
“Error.” He said. “Could not access room.” He buzzed around me into the kitchen.
“What do you mean ‘could not access room’?” I asked, turning around to face it after closing the door. “You got my clothes?”
“Could not sneak out with the hover board.” It replied. “Stopped by officers.”
“You snuck in and out of the house?” I said, shocked. “If you weren’t allowed to enter, you shouldn’t have. You can get in trouble for that!” Looks like I would have to purchase another one. I hope it wouldn’t come out of my game funds because I already had one.
P.D scurried off as I logged on to the computer again. “Computer, I need a hover board.”
“Confirmed.” The computer said, turning on to show me the different varieties of hover boards available.
“Let’s make this simple.” I said. “Show me the updated version of the one I already have.” The computer screen refreshed to show me the newest version. I breathed out; it was beautiful. It was ten feet long, half a foot longer than mine was. It was sleeker than mine too and didn’t look as bulky. The fin on the back had been reduced even more. The grip pads were smaller as well and conformed to your feet instead of just having them slide into them. “Sweet. I love it. Purchase it and deliver it on a drone that can track my current location; I’ll be moving around soon enough.”
“Confirmed.” The computer said. “Will that be all?” I nodded and the computer shut off.
My armband beeped once, and I heard a voice in my ear. “This transaction has been deducted from your game fund account. Under Rule #34B, your account will be suspended until completion of the game.”
I stood up and went to check on my Mom, hoping she was still asleep and that the morning’s events hadn’t woken her. I opened the door slowly; she was still in bed, sleeping soundly. The game would start any minute, so it was best to get on the move before it started. I walked out of the hotel room and was halfway down the hall when my armband glowed twice and turned back. My earpiece buzzed. “The game will begin in five minutes. You are Hacker – Black. You will receive your first location in ten to twenty minutes. Good day.”
Hacker? I thought to myself, sighing. Great. In the Game, there were two or three Hackers and it depended on how many the host wanted, each labeled black, grey or white. The Hackers weren’t on a team, and worked separately against each other. The goal of the Hackers was to tag anyone, on any team. When that happened, they were out of the Game. Well out, but not eliminated. There was still another whole part to be played once you got caught by a Hacker. Being a Hacker was difficult because you had no teammates to help you tag or corner anyone. Then again, you had more people that you could tag.
I took the elevator down and walked out of the building. I started to head towards the housing district; figuring that’s where most people would start the Game and would be the easiest to to tag. People weren’t quite awake at this time of day and would be easy to catch.
It was still early morning, and the sun had not yet risen. The street traffic was light, only the occasional hovercar or pedestrian walked the streets. The sounds from the last few open clubs drifted in from the distance, most having closed by this hour. The street lights were still on, illuminating those that briefly walked beneath them in a cool blue light. I kept my eyes open for anyone wearing one of the five colored bands that showed they were a part of the Game. Then, my armband flashed twice and the Game began. It wasn’t a very eventful beginning, but it would heat up pretty soon.
The building across from me housed a few of my friends who doubtlessly would be playing. Alex lived in there, but the odds of her actually being home at this point was slim; there was a good chance she was still at the club. She’s always liked it there; she calls it networking. I walked across the street and leaned against the wall of the building, beside the door, thinking that if I waited long enough, I’d be able to catch someone lazy enough to walk out the front door at this hour. Not many people used the front door while playing the Game; it was too obvious and you were very likely to be caught.
The door opened and I tensed, ready to pounce on whomever it was if they happened to be playing the Game. I relaxed and leaned back against the wall as an old man walked out, he was graying in the hair and had a slouch in his frame. I waited a few more minutes before the door opened again.
Alex walked out. She had changed her outfit completely. The outfit she wore was a dull gray; leggings and an armless t-shirt. It was nothing out of the ordinary, and wasn’t something people would normally wear while playing the Game. Her hair was done up in a neat bun on the back of her head, so that it stayed out of her face and wouldn’t get in the way while she played the Game. She was looking down at something in her hands and wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. I ran at her and she turned, her eyes widening in surprise. I expected her to run, but she turned instead until I could see her grey arm band on her arm. I stopped running a few feet from her and she crossed her arms and frowned.
“I wouldn’t have thought that you would have been the one to make such a casual mistake.” She said, smiling at me. “Only a Hacker would be able to walk around like I did. Anyone else wouldn’t dare use the front door; it’s too obvious.”
I shrugged. “It’s early in the morning, people make careless mistakes. Have you gotten your first location yet?”
“No.” She said, shaking her head. “But I’ve already caught someone.”
“What! Already!” I exclaimed, surprised. Alex was good, really good. She easily had the potential to be better than Janet if she tried. Alex was really good at reading people, and therefore, knowing where they would probably go next. Alex wasn’t all that concerned with winning though, like Janet was. To Alex it was just a game, not a competition.
“Yea.” She said, smiling. “I ran into Tanya as I was leaving my room; the Game had only just started. I felt really bad. I offered to let her run, but she refused. She said it wouldn’t be fair.”
“Tanya’s good like that.”
“I love her,” Alex agreed. “She’s so sweet and nice.” Alex’s voice changed suddenly. “Listen, do you know if Chris was chosen to play the Game?”
I suddenly found myself very amused. “Why?”
Alex blushed. “No reason.” I voted for him and I was wondering if he made it.” She looked away quickly, and I couldn’t really tell what she was thinking.
“Any updates on the recording device?” I asked, deciding it best to change the subject.
“No.” Alex said, shaking her head. “Nothing.”
What she said next was cut off as my earpiece buzzed and I was given my first location. “Location one: female, red team. Located outside the Harkley building on two ninety first street heading northwards on foot.”
“Sorry about that.” I said turning back to Alex. “I just got my first location; gotta run.” I didn’t wait for her reply as I sprinted down the street.
“What? No hover board” She called after me. “You’re not complete without it!”
I ignored her jest as I ran down the street. The Harkley building was only two blocks away to the north of Alex’s place. That meant I would be creeping up on my target from behind. I ran quietly across the street, my shoes making very little noise. There were still very little people out at this time, so dodging traffic wasn’t that hard.
I rounded the last corner at a walk, not wanting to alert her to my presence. There were few kids out, all of them returning from parties of one kind or another; none of them were wearing an armband of any color. “Zoom.” I muttered to my eye piece, stopping to stand in place as my vision blurred for a second. Thanks to the light traffic, I was able to spot my target easily. I recognized her immediately. Her name was Kayla, I didn’t know her that well, only a passing acquaintance that I saw when hanging out with mutual friends. She was walking up the street, away from me. Every so often she would turn and look around nervously, like she thought she was being followed.
I grinned. She was new to the Game; this would be easy. I casually walked up the street, returning my vision to normal while making sure not to run or appear anxious. I turned slightly as I walked so that she wouldn’t be able to see my armband from where she was, while changing the appearance of my clothing to appear more like street clothing. It was against the rules to hide or cover my armband, but there were ways to get around that so it wasn’t visible to others.
It was obvious she was playing the Game, even if I couldn’t see her armband. She was walking much slower than I was, so I managed to catch up with her quickly. When I was only a few hundred feet from her, the tracking device in my optics locked onto her position. This was a Game allowed add-on, and it was only allowed during the Game. A small timer appeared in red letters in my optics, starting at twenty minutes and slowly counting down. As I got closer to her, the timer ran down quicker and quicker to correspond to the length of time I had to stay that close to her to automatically catch her. She was illuminated by a red dot so that I would always know where she was as long as she was a certain distance from me. She turned around once more, but if she noticed me, she didn’t show it. She walked across the street, dodging passing cars with ease. I quickly followed her while attempting to remain behind as many cars as possible as to not be seen. When she was not that far away, I ran at her without her knowing. I grabbed her on the shoulder and spun her around before she could react. I touched my armband to hers and watched as they flashed white. Mine returned to its normal colors while hers changed to stripes of red and black.
“Kayla, as the Black Hacker I declare you caught.” I said to her, using the proper phrasing.
Kayla sighed. “Oh, great.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Guess I lost that bet.”
I smiled at her. “Sorry, you know what to do right?”
She nodded, “I’ve been added to your Comsys and am ready to go where directed.” She turned and pointed off in the direction she had been heading. “Our target was in that direction. Blue team, male.”    
“Thanks.” I said, happy that Kayla was cooperating, some people were reluctant to cooperate with their hacker at first, only because they were removed from the main part of the game. They leaned soon enough when they started to lose points from not following orders. “I’m off then, keep me posted.” Those caught by the hackers joined their “team.” Their new job in the game was to aid in the seeking of other players. They couldn’t actually catch anyone, but there were exceptions that allowed them to aid their hacker in catching them. “Uh…. I guess I don’t really care where you go right now; it’s too early in the Game, but I’ll let you know where I need you soon enough.
I head off in the direction that Kayla had pointed. The sun had started to peek over the horizon, and traffic was starting to pick up as people began their days.I smiled at the sight of more people on the streets; it meant that the game would start to get interesting.
As I was walking down the street, I was interrupted as a message flashed across my optic message system. “WARNING. INCOMING HOVER BOARD.” I turned around to see a bright red board heading directly for me, with no one—or nothing—riding it. I ducked swiftly, fearful that it would crash into me. However, the board slid to a smooth stop right in front of me, hovering down onto the ground at an appropriate height above the ground to easily be stepped onto. I smiled to myself, it was about time some piece of technology behaved and worked properly around me.
I stood up and turned towards the board. It remained in place as I put my foot on the front pad, only emitting a soft whirring noise as it adjusted to my weight. My shoe sunk into the strange black substance until it had sunk about two inches into it. After attempting to remove my foot by pulling up, or to simply move it around, I found that I couldn’t; my foot was firmly in place. “Out.” I commanded, not sure exactly what the correct words were for this model. It must have been the correct wording because my foot slipped quickly from the substance. I placed my foot back in, and put my other foot in  behind it.  Once I was sure both of my feet were firmly in place, I spoke the command that would activate it.
“Rise,” I said nervously, expecting the worst. However, the board smoothly rose to the height of two feet off the ground. I shifted my weight forward and the board began to glide smoothly in the direction I leaned. I leaned slowly to either direction, and to my delight, the board turned the appropriate amount as well.
    I leaned forward some more to increase my speed, rising slowly to the typical 12 feet above the ground reserved for hover board riders. Swerving in and out of the lampposts that dotted the street, it was easy to get around. Without anyone else in the way, getting around on Starside in a hover board was a breeze.
    At least it’s pleasant to know that I can always rely on a hover board, I thought to myself as I turned a corner. Hover boards seem to make up for the fact that P.D, the refrig drone, and other various robots seem to mock me. There was no better feeling than having the wind in your face and a good solid board beneath your feet.
    I looked around to see if anyone else was on a hover board. I sighed when I saw there wasn’t; it would have been nice to race someone; just to try this new one out. I shook my head; who was I kidding. The Game came first. This was more important than impressing a few amateurs. I continued up a few blocks, surfing over everyone with ease. No one looked up as I sped by overhead; they were all used to the flow of hover boarders that typically flew over their heads all day. There was no sight of my target and I slowed down to try and picture where he would go from here.
    To my right was the park district, near the center of the city. There was a lot of cover over there, and was a great hiding place later on in the Game. In front of me was the industrial center, where most of Starside’s everyday needs were produced. To my left, another housing district, similar to my own. I settled on going right, if my target wasn’t found, I would still be in the center of the action so I might get lucky and find someone else. I turned and flew over the street, keeping my eyes open for anyone wearing an armband.
    The next thing I knew, I was free falling through the air towards the ground. I yelled out in surprise as the hover board beneath my feet suddenly gave way. At that moment, every single light in Starside went out. Every lit billboard sign went gray and for a brief second, all of Starside was silent, not one note of sound. Power outage, I thought in fear. The biggest fear of those that lived in Space. All thoughts were thrown from my head as every car in Starside hit the ground at the same time. With no power to keep them supported above the ground, they fell instantly. Each car let out an ear-splitting noise like none I had ever heard before as each of them scraped against the road. No longer connected to the network that kept every car a safe distance from everything else, cars slid into each other while others slid completely off the road, narrowly missing dazzed pedestrians who were forced to jump out of the way.
    Then I hit the ground with my feet still attached to the hover board. I was forced loose from the foot restraints, thrown forward by my forward flight. I tumbled over the hard ground, head over heels until my momentum from flying forward stopped. Thankfully my clothing had enough energy remaining to harden to a firm shell for a few seconds before using all reserve power and returning to its normal state, preventing most of the injuries I could have received from such a fall.
    I stood up carefully, wincing at the pain in my left side from the fall. I put my hand on my stomach and gasped at the pain. There was going to be a horrible looking bruise there; thank God for nanites. I waited a second for the familiar blinking red light to pop up in my vision, telling me things were wrong and that they were being fixed. When nothing appeared, remembered why I had fallen. No power meant no nanites, no nanites meant more pain. I broke out in a cold sweat at the thought. After living my whole life with access to nanites, pain wasn’t really a problem. Then, to suddenly have to deal with it was a bit of a shock.
    “Open conversation with Jack.” I said. Nothing happened. I groaned, more in annoyance than in pain. Was the power out in the whole city, or was It just local? Somehow managing to stay calm, I looked around to see how others were reacting. Dad taught me what would happen and what to do if the power ever went out. I knew there was enough resources and oxygen reserved for events like these, and that people would have ample time to get to somewhere safe. But, it appeared that some of the people on the street didn’t have that information.
    While most people on the street were behaving rationally and recognizing the fact that they wouldn’t die immediately, there were a select few that were beginning to panic. That worried me; if the first back-up generators did not come on-line in a few minutes like they were supposed to then these people’s panic might spread to those that were currently calm.
    I approached the nearest over-reactor carefully; she was hyperventilating and looked like she might scream at any moment. Her arms were pressed against her sides, hands scrunched tight into a fist, knuckles going white. “Excuse me, miss?” I said with my arms out in front of me, both to comfort her, and to protect myself in case she did something silly or stupid. She looked to be about twenty and wore a work outfit similar to the one mom typically wore to work. Her hair lay flat against her face, an ugly lifeless grey due to the power lapse. “You can calm down; there’s nothing to worry about.”
    She gave me a strange look, like I was out of my own mind. “N-nothing to w-w-worry about?” She stammered, her eyes going wild. “T-there’s no p-power. We could die.”
    I shook my head at her, smiling. “No, miss. My mother works for the government, she’s told me that if there was ever a power outage like this one, we would be perfectly safe. The first of three backup generators should come on soon. There is enough food and water reserved to feed everyone here for over three months. Critical areas have their own power supplies that they can draw from as well, so we have no worries of running out of oxygen or any other essentials. There are shuttles that….” I trailed off and everything came back to life again. Signs and advertisements popped back into existence, resuming their sounds and colors as if nothing had interrupted them. Hover cars lifted themselves back into the air, some of them drifting back to their proper lanes. “See, nothing to worry about.”
    She smiled at me. “Thank you.” She wiped away a tear from her eye, turning as every screen changed to display the symbol of Starside, a golden starburst behind a silver crescent moon on a light blue backdrop.
    The screens changed again to show a middle aged man, the president of Starside. He sat in a large maroon armchair wearing a black business suit. He had a full face that was complimented by his silver hair and sharp blue eyes. Old as he may be, it did not show outside his silver hair. Not one wrinkle or blemish marred his face. His blue eyes remained youthful and vigilant. “Good morning.” He began, his voice stern and commanding, yet gentle. “We apologize for the brief power outage, I’m quite sure it gave all of you quite a start. We have—” He cut off abruptly as everything went dark again as the power was cut. The cars had not resumed their frantic journeys, so they simply fell to the ground with a large crack. I could see the people inside pull the override door handles to open the doors and get out, most of them massaging their hands and behinds.
    I looked over at the girl beside me, checking to see if I had to comfort her anymore. She was wide-eyed still, but gave me a weak smile when she saw my glance. I smiled in return.
    Everything came back online again, the screens still displaying the president who at the moment was leaning over and talking with someone in harsh whispers. When he noticed the power had returned and that the cameras were rolling, he straightened his tie and resumed his speech as if nothing had happened. “We have failed to pinpoint exactly where in the system the problem lies, but I want to reassure you that we are still using our main generator. I ask you—”    The power kicked off again and I sighed, looked like the Game was going to be canceled. “I ask you to be patient with us as we switch to our reserve generator until the problem—”
    “The problem with the main generator can be found. There is no need to be alarmed but—”
    “But I regret to inform you that all supplemental activities must be canceled for the time being, until we can fix our power issues.”
    I nodded in acceptance of this. Good, everything was as Mom described it. Had something bad been amiss, a different procedure would have been followed, allowing certain people to know something was going on discreetly, without announcing it to all of Starside.
    Figuring I should head back to check on Mom, I turned to make sure the other girl was going to be O.K. She seemed fine, she was staring calmly at the blank screen, waiting for it to come back online again. “I’m going to head home.” I said to her. “Are you going to be O.K?”
    She nodded, smiling. “Yes. Thank you so much; you’ve been so kind.”
    I turned and walked back the way I had come, carrying my hover board beside me. It wasn’t too heavy, but it still made my side explode in pain once more as I tried to lift it up. Most people’s panic attacks had calmed down, but it was easy to tell they were still high strung; the power had not been on long enough to properly activate everyone’s emotion balancers and so for the next little while, people’s emotions would be a little bit out of whack.
    I wasn’t happy about having to walk back; the streets soon became crowded with people as everyone decided that they should get home as soon as possible. Since there was no power, it meant no hover boarding, traveling via car or through the rail below the city streets. Most of the people on the streets were calm; walking with a determined focus. Some people were trying to communicate with friends or family, checking to see if they were ok. I laughed at that, with the power continuing to switch on and off, the people trying to communicate had to constantly restart their connection. The president’s face was still posted on all the billboards and signs everywhere, relaying messages to reassure people that everything would be ok. He urged everyone to head home, stay there and avoid using unnecessary power if possible. I laughed to myself as the hover cars on the streets rose and fell with each blip in the power. There was no doubt that many—if not most—would need significant repairs in the coming days.
    With the lack of power, some people’s moddings had failed. There were quite a few people whose hair was grey and lifeless, only coming back to life for a brief second as the power reinstated itself. Magnetized clothing fell limp on people and many had lost the control of one of their arms entirely, having switched them out for full bionics. No matter where I looked, I couldn’t help but wonder how that guy with the fishbowl over his head was doing. I hoped that he had a spare power supply for if he ever needed it in times like this.
    Finally, I turned into the lobby of the hotel I was staying. I paused just inside the doorway, resting my hover board against the wall and leaning against it, clutching my side. My side ached and burned. This feeling wasn’t something I was use to, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I couldn’t understand how people without nanites could go through this pain all the time. It was unbearable! The lobby of the building was pretty crowded, people milled about, asking the concierge for information as to what was happening. The concierge, of course, couldn’t tell them anything because he didn’t know anything more than we did. Sighing, I picked up my hoverboard, letting out a small groan of pain. Some people looked over, but otherwise ignored me completely. I turned to head towards the elevator to take it up to my room, but a bellhop blocked the doors.
    “I’m afraid the elevator is off limits until the power issues are all sorted out. We’ve had people stuck in them during the outages.”
    I nodded at him. “That’s completely understandable.” I turned away towards the staircase, pushing open the door  by leaning against it and walking though.    
    Out of breath and twenty minutes later, I arrived on my floor. I leaned against the stair railing for a minute, panting and holding my side in pain. I did not have the energy to open the door at the moment. The power had better come on fast or I wouldn’t be leaving the floor anytime soon, I thought to myself.
    Finally summoning up enough energy, I stood back up. I walked over, opened the door, and stared into the face of sheer beauty.