Signal to the Fortified Residential Zone

Four

"Alright, alright," The voice called out to them, signaling the start of his speech. "This is DJ Professor K, coming at you from the heart of Tokyo. Hey kids, are you still receiving me?"

The team wished they had some way to answer, hoping to egg him on. 

"If you managed to get your goodies last night, then you have everything you need to really turn this thing on its head. What thing, you ask? The Fortified Residential Zone! Rokkaku Goji's human trafficking center slash science project slash weapons factory. But enough about all of that, I'm not sure you'd understand it all right now anyway.

Those shoes you got last night are early versions of Goji's final plan. They're called skates. Kids used to wear them and roll all over town, mostly for fun and not transportation. But Goji's are a bit different than that. These things have motors meant for reaching incredible speeds. They're magnetic, and completely responsive to their owner's thoughts. Most normal people couldn't wear them.

But you all, you've been training the younger years of your life away just to be able to wear them. I'm not sure what the Rhinos have you doing, but it must all be the prep work for getting these on."

The trio were having a hard time following what the man was saying. What was trafficking? How could they be weapons? 

"Anyway," K continued. "Operating them is as simple as this: Just put the damn things on! No seriously, they're supposed to connect with their user. Try one on for size. I'll wait."

The words stopped pouring into their ears shortly, signaling that he surprisingly was waiting for them. 

The teen's hands shook as they each grabbed a skate from their boxes. 

Rhyth was the first to have her foot inside. Immediately, she felt a worrisome tingling and wanted to pull the thing off. However, she couldn't figure out how to release it, and soon they were all one-bare-legged and scared. 

"Now, now, I'm gonna assume you're all set and ready," K pushed on. "If you're thinking of going at all in these things, you're going to move. There's still a fair bit of exercise involved, but these skates will do most of the work for you. Try it out, but carefully now. I don't want to damage any private property."

The three hesitantly laced up their other matching skate, and Beat bit the bullet, being the first to stand up. When he'd lifted one foot off the ground to walk forward, the other started rolling forward in response. He lost his balance and crashed into Rhyth's shelving, knocking down all of her possessions once more. 

"Holy shit, it just moved without me doing anything!" He yelled, as the girls hurried to shush him. 

The trio stared at each other for a while before the two women laced up. Soon, they were all making clumsy bounds and crashes around the tiny room. 

"Now I'm gonna leave you all to get your sea legs for a bit," The DJ said before chuckling. "You probably don't even know what that means. It means I'll go now and let you get used to them. Tomorrow is when the real stuff begins. By the way, you just have to push a button built into the designs on the side to get them off. Peace."

Gum, Rhyth and Beat moved almost effortlessly around the tiny room, joyfully laughing when the skates responded to their muscles and thoughts. They had no intention of taking the weird shoes off any time soon. It was almost too fun to wear them. 

Unfortunately, they didn't realize how much fun they had been having and just how much time had passed until the pounding started on the door.