03
Circle of Light

“It’s just smoke and smoke everywhere. Some guy slapped a patch on me.” Kayla and Luna were strapped to a vertical scooter wheeling next to the couple. They were slowly moving out of the West Wing, while groups of people came in at a wing near them attempting to seek an interview.

Thank god no one saw them.

“You too, Luna?” Angel looked over to a butler with her head low. “Did you see anything?”

“No. This scooter is the first thing I have any good memories on. There’s one thing, though, this round thing you wear on your ear.” 

Luna pointed to the off-white Headset they both had in.

“Oh, um, it’s just something we both had in. We all do.” Angel pulled out her left earpiece. A circular pill with gunmetal black grills hidden in the inner edge next to the output area was attached to a fiber mold that housed a small speaker within. The pill component flashed yellow as she pulled it from her ear. “Works with this film you had on your arm. Everyone had one, but since you don’t, um, have one, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Interesting.” The compliment wasn’t even over when Alex showed both of them that he was calling a Taxi off of the filament of a device that let the skin of his arm be seen.

“I used this thing called a ‘phone’.” Kayla shuffled her right pocket to find that it has gone missing.

“I suppose it’s yours, and yours.” Alex pulled their two phones from his vast right pant pocket. The screens lit up and failed to locate a cellular tower. He took one look at the screen that filled the rounded rectangle with a small cutout on the top. “You guys weren’t that far behind technology-wise. I apologize.”

The visitors got their phones back.

The Taxi purred as it descended through the air. The two on the scooters looked up in silent amazement.

“I want to make sure you two have no problem riding in an aerial vehicle.”

“We have helicopters back then.” Luna reported. “Kayla used to hitch on one of them in Hawaii.”

“Fantastic. We had a friend that would sometimes has issues. Biology is a peculiar subject.” The door moved open with a hatch at the front as the main gate moved to the back of the vehicle. “Your scooters.”

Angel unstrapped them while Alex took both and stowed it in the box. It shut itself.

“I figured they should be inside first?” Alex nodded.

Kayla and Luna boarded and claimed home on the raised cuboid that stretched the width of the cabin next to the back wall. The two hosts stayed in front of them.

The two that were seated at the back watched as the text lit up through the furred overhang above the window directing the vehicle back home.

“Completely autonomous.” He pointed to a square shaped hatch that was covered by the same carpeting as the rest of the interior. “Button in case of an emergency.”

The door sealed shut.

The Taxi moved over a suburban area, where the occasional square sword fights by kids whose parents left them for their own shopping in the block next to it streaked the ground in neon light.

“Looks fun.” Luna looked at her master.

“When we were kids we used to have tournaments every week. Um, every Friday my mother would drop me off, me and a friend would pick one up.” Angel floated her sight over the glass and down into the circle arena lit by a strip of light that also acts as a wall of air to cushion falls. “Whoever got the highest score wins by the end of three minutes, I think. I don’t know how it works now.”

The circle ticked down as the more of the ring of the white light faded into darkness. The red and blue swipes went blurry as the sparring continued and the odometer display flew its scores up frantically as it tracks every hit.

“They took the hit detection algorithm and turned it into a free-for-the-public exhibition piece. Laser sensors detect hits and strokes. The light was drawn and if the system detects an interception, it’s counted as a hit. Certainly it could also differentiate between different body parts without a visible camera. Simply an array around the ring that captures activity data.”

Kayla stared at the glowing circle intently.

“There’s a line, heh.” Luna took note of the some thirty children lined up next to a seated attendant that watches for emergencies and entries.

“Always popular.”

“You know, I saw something.” Kayla’s mouth stayed close to her butler’s ear. “Those kids, playing in that circle.”

Kayla paused briefly to check on the couple. They were watching a podcast playing on Alex’s arm while the audio was rerouted to both their headsets.

“We’ll ask them about it. I’m too tired right now.” The rich girl leaned against her own corner.

The Taxi lowered itself several blocks away from that central square, and onto the pavement next to the modest house to their left cohabited by their hosts. The left door gave way, the stowage box opened, and they got off. As soon as the two scooters were lifted out, the box and the door closed, and the Taxi took off by itself.

She took her thumb to the small waist-high gate that preceded a small bricked walkway. The fence surrounded the two-story home paid for by their corporate’s financial department. It was a rectangle that extended to the right to accommodate the backyard with a lone barbecue grill parked on the tiles.

The four walked up to the main door, and the scanner quickly authenticated them in. The security device blinked above the door to disarm itself. Angel’s brother was alerted to the influx of people.

“My brother Max.” He gave a groan through the ramen.

Kayla was unimpressed.

“We have a spare bedroom upstairs. Third room after you made left.” Alex turned to face them. “After your needed rest, let us know.”