HOME BUT NOT HOME

Chapter 8 - Meeting Shelley

Chapter 8 – Meeting Shelley

Vertigo Town
Arlington County, VA
Wednesday, April 29, 2076
13:06 EST GMT-5

It was already past one o'clock in the afternoon, or as the military says, thirteen hundred hours. Then I saw many people coming out of their homes and were just getting ready to enjoy life. I guess they were done with their workday and wanting to just enjoy the rest of the day, with themselves or with family and friends. Well, good thing was, the society was full of happy people still as it was prior to Mithra hitting us. We made our way to Shelley's Bar and entered the establishment.

"Alright, so here we are." I said with some delight.

The automated doors opened, and we went inside. The restaurant looked a lot like a biker's bar from the 1980s, good retro-vibes I had to say. They also had a smartphone-app controlled jukebox playing amazing disco songs. Robots were serving the customers and cleaning the place. Then he saw her, Shelley Stoner. But damn, by the looks of her, she looked like she was only in her late twenties. She had jet black hair, wearing a small T-shirt, exposing her lower waist and low-rise jeans. She had quite many tattoos and face piercings. Her bluish-green eyes with batted eyelashes were just mesmerizing, I tried to curb my emotions, as I already have Julia.

"Welcome, to my pub!" said Shelley. "I heard you were the outsiders from decades ago, trying to find a job and make a living? Cool! I can offer one of you to work on maintaining my robots, and frequently checking their OS for any possible anomalies. But other than that, I've no other work for you. Nevertheless, you're planning to go out in the wasteland, and hunt some mutants for me. They've been interfering with my business, and I need to have my supplies delivered to me. First, go to Jerry's Mechanics and Auto Shop. It's just half a mile from this place. It's also fair to say, he's looking for mechanics to help him."

"Julia, don't you have experience working with cars and automobiles? Your dad was an auto-mechanic himself, and you've worked on vehicles and drones for the military too." Ranger said. "I'm sure, you can work for Jerry."

"That was before hibernation back in 2034. It's 2076, forty-two years since then. I don't know anything about vehicles of this era." Aurora said.

"Oh, that's nothing too fancy." Shelley said. "Upon arrival, he'll provide you an augmented reality headset, which'll link to the computer there, and guide you to repairing everything in this era. And it'll pay you good too."

"Amazing." Aurora said.

"Before you go, may I get you something to drink?" asked Shelley.

"We're good!" said Ranger. "Might as well do this while sober."

"Agreed!" I exclaimed. "Maybe later, tonight."

"Sure, be advised I close by 10p." Shelley explained.

We then left to go to the auto shop. Aurora looked through her new phone, to educate herself about the vehicles which now exist in this period. I put on some AR glasses, to get information about stuff around me. Needless to say, but I'll just go ahead and say it anyways, it carried data on citizens, and if they had criminal records.