HOME BUT NOT HOME

Chapter 5 - Getting to Work

Chapter 5 – Getting to Work

Vertigo Town
Arlington County, VA
Wednesday, April 29, 2076
10:17 EST GMT-5

I, for one, was amazed with how that interaction with the mayor went. But I decided to just let it fly over my head. We then got up to leave his office. Upon arriving outside, we saw more of the hover cars, in two zones, low and high. We also saw more drones, some police, some surveillance, some delivery for food (Pizza Hut, Domino's, etc) or packages (FedEx, UPS, Amazon), some for mail (USPS). Our first stop was the bank, and we found it. Vertigo Town Bank and believe it or don't. It was a Chase Bank location. It turned out, they moved away from United States dollars, to using a new form of cryptocurrency, called 'foxcoins', which equated to about six point three seven dollars each. Without further ado, we decided to walk towards the bank.

"I didn't like the manner in which that man spoke." Aurora spoke up. "Seemed like a primitive guy. Primitive in the sense, he was talking like he ruled this town or something."

"I wouldn't say primitive!" I then responded. "I'd say somewhere along the lines of medieval, or just plain pre-twentieth century."

We then got into the bank. Of course, as expected, no human personnel. Just robots and ATM machines. We then went to get registered for UBI. I.V.A.N.A was a large help here. After getting set up, which included using fingerprints, scanning our eyes' retinas, and voice and face patterns; we got what we needed. Our bank accounts' inventory was also converted into foxcoins. It was pretty swift and fast.

"Alright, we're done here." I told my boss and girlfriend. "Let's move on."

We left the bank and headed to the electronics store. On our way, we saw kids walking, playing around, riding small hoverbicycles. I was amazed. Do they even go to school? Or have they been microchipped like us, to access an entire universal online database, filled with petabytes of information? I didn't bother to ask. Finally, we got to the electronics store.

"Need to make a purchase? Upgrade? Repair?" said the robot working there.

"More than ever, an upgrade for sure!" I confirmed.

"No problem, just hand over the phones, I'll get your upgrades. This'll take only five minutes, which transfers all data and files into the holophones." The robot explained. "You'll need to pay the remaining amount, for each device out of pocket, as your phones are very old. Believe me, you're not the first to hibernate and wake up in the distant future."

"Yeah, I can tell." Ranger smirked. "At least, we're not the only aged dinosaurs out here."

"Ha, you can imagine how many people come out of hibernation every week. I just got about ten yesterday. Y'all were my fifth customers today." The robot laughed, showing some life-like human emotions.

It then continued to work to transfer the data and get what we needed, then activated our devices for us.

"Alright, we're done. Remember, those things stay charged, and always powered on!" said the robot. "They stay charged due to mobile Internet signals in the atmosphere. We've had them for twenty-five years now. In other words, we don't plug them in, anymore."

"That's convenient!" said Aurora. "No more wires."

"That's pretty much everything now!" exclaimed me. "I saw the same thing for the sheriff's phone, and Wheeler's computer. Alright then, let's head to the arena. Wheeler's gonna expect us there, ASAP."