Racing rivers with a blue glow flow through the rich forest of silver trees under the intense warm cyan sky, the great supersun setting as it sets the skies ablaze. The silver towers glisten in the thick sunlight, with few scattered white sheets of clouds hardly covering the ethereal painting. Illuminated images are faintly visible on several scrapers, projecting commercial images displaying orange pods with a sleek low exterior and silhouettes of people with the only color being that of their clothing, which is white with black stripes patterned throughout.

Submerged within the river, pods race in several vertical and horizontal lanes, beside one another and above. Among the pods are large red and gray vehicles with rounded corners, appearing friendly, as ahead of them is a sleek matte black pod with a body that seems aggressive compared to the neighbors. It roars as it drives through the road, surrounded from the sides and below by pods, however sitting on the surface of the river, able to view the surrounding scrapers and sunset sky.

Within the swimming pod, the driver sits on the left front black seat, dawning his leather jacket with his back straight and his blue eyes focused on the road, his white locks resting behind his head to give him full vision. Beside him sits the front passenger, wearing her blazer with her back against the seat and relaxed, casually staring out the window beside her which gives a perfectly clear view of the rich sunset, her amber hair well groomed to not cover her face albeit for a wide bang over her forehead.

Behind the two lies the backseats, with two seats and a cushion of the same color in the center. Seated on the left seat is the back passenger, sporting his overcoat with his side against the wall, his head resting against the window without any hair to inconvenience him.

Absence of sound hollows the pod, as the holographic dashboard’s menu remains abstinent from providing any entertainment. The only sound inside the pod is the soft hum that could be heard from itself and the neighboring pods outside, albeit heavily suppressed by the walls. Both of the passengers seem rather bored, disinterested as they stare outside, watching the many skyscrapers that they fly past.

Ekitai’s soft yellow eyes watch the silver towers rush behind him repeatedly. He lets out a soft sigh, well exhausted after what for him was a rather long and fulfilling day;a soft smile grows on his face, feeling proud of the events that transpired and their implications for him. In front of his seat were two companions, a score worthy of self praise in his book, as though it was his lucky break.

His attention is redirected however when he hears Dana speak exhaustedly, “Can I put something on? I forgot how slow these streets get during this time, I’m not used to driving out so much.”

Rohan offers in a stern, focused voice, “I can play a podcast if you want. I have several I haven’t finished anyways, I’m currently viewing this one by MTR, it’s on soft blocks. I think I’m almost caught up, I still have a good ten to go.”

Dana lets out an exaggerated huff and pout, overly conveying her distaste to the offer, “God you’re so boring, always listening to programming podcasts, I can’t believe you. Come on, can we listen to something fun, like hmm…ooh what if we listened to Daily Dose of Drama? It’s like the news but fun!”

Rohan lets out a soft weary exhale, “Dana, it’s The Shield Memorial Day. They’re just going to ramble about them for the whole session. Can we not?”

Dana pushes her back against her seat, leaning more in an attempt to recline herself without reclining the seat. She softly acknowledges, “Sorry, got it.”

Ekitai tilts his head in curiosity, for the extensive silence that began from the departure of the building has shattered, presenting him the opportunity to chime in. Therefore, he inquires, “So, where are we going exactly?”

Rohan instinctively opens his mouth to answer, yet he freezes up. His jaw hangs without words to be pushed through. His eyes remain on the windshield, displaying the pods ahead of him with augmented highlights, dumbstruck and left inarticulate. The revelation dawns on him that he has no set destination in mind.

His plans had been set in the morning. If his errands had run the way they were intended to, by this time he would’ve made the simple decision to return to his place of residence to work. However, his plans couldn’t have become more sidetracked and malformed, now bringing the question of how to resolve this modified journey.

His blue eyes scatter from left to right, attempting to formulate a makeshift plan, as his previous plan no longer seems viable with the cargo he was carrying. The day was coming to its end, and truth to be told, he was rather tired and didn’t want to continue being out. But he couldn’t simply return home with the people he had with him, especially the one in the backseat, who was still in most respects to him, a stranger.

While Rohan ponders where to go next, Ekitai’s attention is once again swept by a buzz coming from his right wrist. He lowers his head and brings his wrist into view, grabbing his sleeve and pulling it back to reveal his pale, skinny forearm. Within his wrist is a small circular cylinder, seemingly impaled into his bony arm, with surrounding slim metal rectangular prisms also punctured into his arm like bolts.

The modification is rather crude and grotesque, as the pieces don’t seem clean but rather rusty, and the skin pressed against the metal components seems to be purple. The integration appears makeshift, and likely made unprofessionally or at least without proper and careful procedure.

From the disk in his wrist, a gray light projects upwards before expanding out to create a rectangular holographic screen, similar to the one used by the elevation pads within the building they had just left, with the size being about half a foot in length and a foot in height. His wrist buzzes again, with the buzz seemingly coming from inside his wrist, urging him to discover the source of the pings.

The screen opens up to display a black window with lighter gray digital bubbles on the left and warm yellow bubbles on the right. His eyes focus towards the bottom of the screen however, which predominately features gray bubbles.

Ekitai’s yellow eyes focus on the three particular messages, which hover over a faint white line of text, not encased, which reads, “Today 6:06.”

The first bubble contains the text message, “Hey hey,” followed by the next bubble housing, “How are you,” and the final message holding, “H E L L O D U M B D U M B.”

Ekitai lets out a sharp breath through his nose, sighing from the interesting string of welcoming messages. He returns his stare onto the screen, contemplating for a few moments, while Rohan still has yet to answer his question, still deep in his own mind.

After a few moments of thought, a yellow bubble larger than the others appears at the bottom of the screen, and within it text characters begin appearing as though being typed without a keyboard. In the bubble writes, “Yes I’m here, what happened?”

Ekitai shifts his body as he searches for a more comfortable position, putting his back against the seat. The bubble then resizes itself to the size of the other bubbles, as does the text, shifting onto the right side of the screen, residing along the wall of messages. While Ekitai continues shifting his body, not even a full second after his response is seemingly sent, his yellow message is shifted upwards to allow for the appearance of a new gray message along the left side of the screen.

Reading the timely response, the message answers, “Oh you’re not dead, good. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, you should come to my place so we can catch up. I’m free now actually, it’s a bit last minute but come on it’ll be fun! I’ll be up waiting for youuu, don’t keep me waiting or you’ll regret it!”

Ekitai’s expression flattens as he seems hesitant about the request. His expression immediately changes as his eyes flash upon receiving a followup message beneath the first, “I’ll make cupcakes if you come too!”

Now more intrigued, Ekitai leans his head back against the seat, humming softly in deep contemplation as he analyzes the offer. His yellow eyes move off of his screen, and to Dana, who’s seated across from him, before then moving to where Rohan presumably is, on the other side of the soft black seat directly in front of Ekitai.

While the offer of deserts had initially compelled Ekitai, an epiphany reaches him, as he finds himself in a position he has never before been. Seated in a pod with two companions, he is surrounded by proof of a thriving social life, something he knows his friend had wanted for him for ages. But now, before him, was exactly what he wanted: the opportunity to show them with pride.

Ekitai’s eyes return to the messages, and then back up to the seat in front of him. He gulps deeply, formulating his request as he gradually sits up straight while keeping his back against the seat.

“Hey, Rohan?”

A few moments of silence follows, moments that stretch longer into awkwardness.It seems Ekitai’s call wasn’t heard. He takes a deep breath, and with greater force and volume he inquires, “Rohan??”

“What?” Rohan immediately replies with a sharp sternness, focused on the road and thus merciless to distraction.

Ekitai clicks his tongue a few times as he further contemplates his response, bobbing his head back and forth. Then in an act of propulsion, he explains, “So I have an old friend who just invited me to meet with her, and I was wondering if we could all go to her house…right now.”

Another few moments of silence follow, yet rather than ignorance, the explicit affirmation of comprehension indicates that it’s a voluntary verbal absence. Several seconds of silence later, Rohan once again asks, although now with an apprehensive curiosity, “What?”

Ekitai lets out a soft chuckle in nervousness, and he continues, “Well, I’ve known her for a long time, and besides, she offered to make cupcakes, and trust me, she makes real good cupcakes. You must try them. They’re the best. Come on, you’ll love her, she’s really nice! I’m sure she’ll love you too! Please? It’ll be great!”

Air is sucked in through Rohan’s nose as he takes in a deep breath, preparing himself for a great and powerful speech. Primed with only one potential response to such a blatantly foolish request, Rohan prepares his harsh rejection. For it was certain that there was not one good reason to even reason with the idea, as it was another impulsive move done by a man Rohan still needed to find a way to get rid of.

Rohan’s mouth opens, but rather than his cold voice speaking, the soft, warm female voice of Dana answers, “That sounds like a great idea!”

Rohan’s blue eyes instantly shoot wide open, and while he doesn’t move his head, he simply interrogates with a ruthless, threatening tone, “What?”

Dana lets out a soft giggle, and she sways forwards and backwards while explaining in a gleeful, innocent voice, “Come on, you have no idea where to go anyways, at least this is a place we can choose! And besides, you’ve had a long day anyways, why not end it with a nice chat with our friend’s friend? She seems nice anyways, I’m sure she’ll be a doll! And hey, I like cupcakes. Who doesn’t like cupcakes, it’ll be great!”

Rohan’s mouth gapes wide open in absolute horror for he recognizes that the decision has been made in solid concrete, and he couldn’t do anything against it. While he can’t turn around, he knows that behind him, Ekitai’s eyes are sparkling in joy, as he sits up straight with his hands gripping the edge of the seat.

Ekitai has a wide grin on his sunken face, and he clarifies excitedly, “Really? We can go??”

Preventing Rohan from responding, once again Dana immediately answers for him, “Of course! Here, uplink her address, we’ll head straight there now!”

She then turns around to face Rohan before leaning forwards, and softly explaining, “Come on Rohan, live a little. You can brood in your man cave later.”

Rohan grits his teeth in irritation, for he has lost the battle before he could even raise his blade. He lets out a soft defeated sigh, acknowledging the circumstances and submitting. Tilting his head down, he mutters under his breath, “You’re evil.”

Dana smiles gleefully, tilting her head to the side before retorting, “You’re the best!”

In the backseat, Ekitai brings his wrist back in front of him, returning his eyes to the screen. Another yellow bubble appears at the bottom of the screen, and text writes itself into it, “Okay coming now, and I have a surprise!”

The message then is transmitted as it resizes and moves along the right side of the screen. With the message sent, fate has been sealed, the meeting confirmed to take place.

Smiling widely, Ekitai stares forward with anticipation, overjoyed by the coming experience, for he has waited for centuries for this moment to prove himself.

With his hand forced, Rohan steers the pod to make a harsh left turn, following the directions set on the dashboard in front of him. His dreadful eyes stare on ahead as Dana and Ekitai both stare in enticed awe, delighted with the new direction they’d be heading.

The pod moves to another lane, departing the larger network, leaving an open space for the pod behind to take, that being a rather large black pod with rounded corners and the size of a van. The pod, while large, has a sleek profile with gunmetal rims, and gives off a beasty roar as it drives forward. The black van takes the same left turn anyways however, also detaching from the greater racing river.

The black pod races through the city, flying past silver buildings as the sky gradually darkens. It courses through the lanes, slithering past neighboring pods and making diverging turns to new streets. While the pod was fast, the city was titanic, and the great skyscrapers forced restrictions on speed. Even at the great altitude of the pods, the towering buildings seemed to surpass the sky in comparison, the peak of the neighboring highrise impossible to view from the interior of a pod.

The pod makes a turn on a wider street with fewer goliath buildings, however it seems to approach an odd silver rectangular tower, far more rigid than the other smooth clay-like buildings. The building isn’t as tall as the surrounding neighbors, yet it still had an impressive height, and its unique architecture made it project forth regardless. The black pod, still riding the wave at the highest lane of the street, rides straight forward with no more turns, seemingly focused on the box.

Drawing closer, there seems to be wide platforms that protrude from the sides of the building, with there being platforms about every two stories. They were like extended rooftops or umbrellas, albeit flat, which draw near the edge of the block the building resides on.

Ascending, the black pod rises above the waters as it diverges off the street, now seeming to be moving towards the building above the height of the lanes. The single black dot drifts towards the rectangular tower as the remaining blue river continues without hindrance.

As the pod gradually slows down while getting closer to the building, an interesting aspect of the structure becomes apparent, as the building appears to be composed of separate silver cubes, with the tower being built with a base of four cubes creating a larger square face. Rather than seeming as a single entity, the cubes seem separate enough that the disparity caused by the creases between each cube were apparent, with each cube’s bottom marked by the wide platforms that act as ground. Each cube is noticeably large too, near the size of a suburban house in total volume, as four of them beside each other formed a full block of a city that had noticeably spacious blocks.

The black pod slows and cools, its raging roar soothes to a hum as it moves slightly above the highest platform, approaching the top cubes. It crawls over the flat platform, a size adequate as a front lawn, with there even seeming to be vegetation covering the majority of it, with a field of vibrant green grass of many trimmed blades. Farther up by the cube itself also resides a beautiful garden flourishing with rich pink flowers, dancing in the soft breeze, moving so swiftly it seems like natural life. Behind the flowers sits a wall of bushes, a delightful sight that gives life to an otherwise dull silver box.

A silver lane resides beside the lawn, pure of decor, wide enough to fit two pods side by side. The black pod drifts over the lane, descending closer to the platform as it moves steadily, its hum softening to near silence before ultimately halting. The pod gently touches the lane, and the hum silences entirely, momentarily muting distractive noise and allowing for the tranquility of the surroundings to make its warm welcome.

Mere seconds after the silence, the walls of the pod combust into clouds with distracting whooshes, and the three figures step out of the vehicle, the Tempest and his passengers, with Dana emerging from the other side of the pod towards the front, and Ekitai stepping out from the back behind the driver.

The winds of the high altitude, coupled with the drawing close of day, rustles their hairs as the Tempest’s white blocks drift behind him while his blue eyes stalk the cube in front of him. Once the three are out, the openings are covered from the appearance and hardening of the black clouds, enclosing the pod once again.

Rohan steps forward, his hands hidden in his pockets, as his expression has a mixture of exhaustion yet curiosity. The intense cyan sky warmens the platform as well as the right side of his body, yet he takes no notice. His infatuation is instead on the cube as he takes another step, raising his head to observe the destination.

“Hmm, impressive, living in a Block, these places aren’t cheap at all. More expensive than a lot of the nice houses off city, are you sure this is the right place?” He says.

Passing the perplexed partner, Ekitai walks towards the cube exterior, a great wide grin on his face. He declares, “This is it alright, and yeah I know, crazy isn’t it? So expensive to live in such a…dull little box. If you ask me, Earth 89 housing has way better clang for your credit. I mean you are living on the shore of a warzone but hey, you get used to the sirens.”

Dana steps forth beyond the pod, her green eyes lit in awe from the sight in front of her. She proceeds along with Ekitai, also passing Rohan, as she exclaims, “Woah, cool! I’ve always wanted to live in one of these! I mean, if I couldn’t live in my office!”

Rohan lets out a soft sigh, and he starts approaching the exterior towards the two others. He watches as they walk past the green bushes behind the garden, which reveals a path between the bushes and wall that leads to the center of the cube. He follows Ekitai who embarks on the path, approaching the center, however his eyes linger on the pink flowers, seeming infatuated by the inclusion of sights rare in the city.

Ekitai stands in front of the center, and he leans forward before closing his right fist and knocking on the wall twice before standing up straight again. While waiting patiently, both Dana and Rohan arrive at his sides, both of them too staring at the wall in anticipation.

Seconds pass as there is no indication of a response, and Ekitai begins tapping his foot anxiously, as though concerned if there would be a response at all. Rohan glances at him with an apprehensive and irritated expression, becoming impatient with this procrastinative quest they had embarked on, swaying him from his mission.

Ekitai smiles widely, softly informing, “Any second now…she’s a busy girl…just give her a minute.”

Rohan lets out an attitudinal exhale through his nose after his patience runs dry, and he opens his mouth to argue.

Interjecting however, a rectangular piece of the wall combusts into a cloud, a piece the size of a door similar to the one in the bar. As the cloud vanishes, a figure appears in the doorway, stepping forth while leaning forwards.