Chapter 8: Sights Of The Megacity

A large portion of the people on the MagLev hurriedly stood up and exited the opened doors onto the 4th level MagLev station.

Arron smacked his face once to regain his composure and grabbed his hovercase from above his seat before following the crowd of passengers.

As soon as Arron stepped onto the large platform he was hit with a large wave of cold air that he had never experienced before. It would soon be spring so Arron had not bothered to pack any thick winter coats, just the jacket he was currently wearing.

The air was also thinner which made it harder for people to breathe. Arron stood there with his hovercase next to him as he tried to grow accustomed to the new atmosphere.

He took in all the sights trying to calm down. The large platform and the station were the largest he had ever seen before. It had 6 MagLevs Loading and unloading people at any one time. As soon as one was finished it would shoot back out of the entrance in the wall and disappear from view with another one soon arriving to take the empty spot.

With such high activity, the fourth level entrance was only closed during emergencies or on mandated holidays.

The entire station was a semicircle, with its walls and ceiling made of shiny cold Parasteel. The ceiling was several floors above his head making the entire place feel like a large metal cave.

It looked and smelled completely sterile as if someone had just cleaned the entire area with harsh medical chemicals. It had to be the cleanest station he had ever seen. Even with the thousands of people constantly walking off and onto the MagLevs.

Arron walked along with the several other thousands of people as they made their way towards the mag-shoots that continuously shot upwards, each one carrying at least a hundred people out of the station.

There were over ten mag-shoots on this side of the station, each of them had a long line.

Arron didn't see the difference in the lines so he just picked one.

Standing in line he watched as the other lines were moving along faster than the line he was in. The people just waved their hands through a holographic light which turned green and allowed the person to pass the wall separating the station from the Mag-shoots.

He was weighing whether or not to switch to one of the other lines when he saw a woman wave her hand through the holographic light. The light, instead of green, turned Red and the gate stayed closed.

“What? Why am I not allowed to pass?” asked the woman.

Several security bots floated down from a small hole in the ceiling 'gently' grabbed her arms and escorted her out of Arron's view.

Seeing this Arron was worried that he would be rejected at the gates and was not sure what to do if that happened. In the end, he decided against switching and waited another ten minutes before reaching the front of the line.

At each gate was a flag of the party of Mother and Father which had a red background with three yellow words which descended from the top to bottom: [Liberation, Inclusion, Normalization.].

Arron found out the reason the line was so slow was because the two Police officers in their red and yellow uniforms, were scanning each and everyone's NerViz chip in their hand as well as asking them several questions.

Arron held out his hand and it was quickly scanned by one of the officers. He was wearing an Oxygen reBreather, which made him look quite sinister.

“Arron Wynterz, M-031-3-239019. Rejected,” said the officer as he read through all of Arron's information that was streaming up in front of his eyes.

“Stop wasting our time unless you're actually here for something,” said the second officer.

“I am here for an interview with a police chief named Harlan. Here is the document proving it,” said Arron, presenting the secure datapad.

The first officer grabbed it and turned it on. The holo-document immediately started to scroll up and at the end showed the signature of commander Rub.

“What do you think, Zerk?” asked the first officer.

“Looks real to me, Berk. See, his records say that was his commanding officer before he retired last year,” said Zerk.

Berk did a quick scan of Arron and his luggage scanning for anything illegal.

“You can pass but don't think this gives you the right to cause trouble. If you step out of line you will receive a visit from the [Office of Reason]. Move along citizen,” said Burk.

Arron passed through the gates and squeezed onto one of the Mag-shoots that still had room.

The mag-shoots were fairly simple compared to the ancient tech like Elevators. The only moving parts of the Mag-shoot were the round platform disc that everyone stood on and the one that was above their head. No walls were connecting the two discs which fit snugly in the Parasteel tube shoot.

Arron was one of the last to get onto the mag-shoot disc before the Para-steel doors closed. The disc started to rise and gained speed quickly.

Soon, the parasteel walls next to Arron were nothing but a blur before... whoosh!

They passed a section of the wall that was made of reinforced glass revealing the 4th level city for a second before continuing up into the parasteel shoot. Several seconds later the disc came to a complete stop at the exit platform.

Everyone spilled out on the platform, the majority with wobbly legs.

Arron stopped in his tracks full of wonder at what he saw.

Hundreds of large buildings towered high into the sky. There were even some buildings that floated high overhead using some sort of hover support system.

In the sky, several stylish blocky flying cars flew overhead following one of the many sky roads. There were a few larger semi-truck variants that were flying below them hauling their cargo to unknown destinations.

Arron stared open-mouthed at the newest generation of flying cars in amazement. He had only used hovercars in both the military and his civilian life back home. Although he had to admit the flying cars looked cool, he was more into the classic hover cars.

The Sky was not as jam-packed as he thought it would be with how big Neo-Tokeyo was. Some of the information he had heard about the city must have been wrong.

Arron was brought back from his daze as the doors to the Mag-shoot behind him slammed shut.

He saw the platform rise and then flip over into another Mag-shoot. It descended and stopped at another platform that had several thousand people waiting to get to the MagLev station below.

Arron began walking down the steps following the path into a large domed-off area.

He sighed in relief as he entered the dome. The entire place was far warmer than outside. When he inspected the place he found that the entire inside of the dome was a large lush garden.

At the center of the garden was a large town square. There was already a large gathering of people at the town square, while several others walked around enjoying the garden.

From high in the sky an artificial waterfall gushed out water which fell into a large fenced-off pool in another part of the garden.

As he walked down one of the paved paths that led to the town plaza, he counted at least 100 different types of flowers that were all blooming or just about ready to bloom.

The air was filled with many songbirds chirping and tweeting in the several different varieties of trees that were scattered throughout the garden.

It was all quite breathtaking but Arron had to stay focused as he was not here for sightseeing. He still didn't know where exactly he had to go, so he found a carved stone bench near the waterfall pool and sat down.

He curiously tapped the bench with a finger and was surprised to find out it was real stone and not an imitation.

Arron turned back to his NerViz menu and tapped onto the option for the Holo-Net, so he could access the city map.

“Why is it not connecting?” asked Arron.

He tried multiple times to access the Holo-net with his NerViz, but all he got was a grayed-out error when he tried to access it.

After getting nowhere this way, Arron stood up and started to look for someone who he could get information from.

He found an officer walking leisurely down one of the paths, so he jogged over to him and asked, “Where can I get access to a map?”

The officer silently pointed towards the town plaza where the large crowds of people were gathered.

When he arrived at the plaza he found several large opaque holo-screens constantly flickering with ads for those who passed by them.

It took him a few more minutes to search the plaza for the map that was hidden in between all of the ad screens.

Next to the map was an even larger screen that dwarfed all the other screens. The large yellow words: [Breaking news and announcements.] scrolled continuously at the bottom of the opaque holo-screen.

“For this morning’s breaking news. The Office of Reason has released a short statement that a small group of Separatists was captured. They ask if you have any information...”

Arron turned his attention to the map which was a large top-down 3-d rendering of the fourth level.

When he walked up closer a red dot appeared on it with his identification and the message 'You are here!'.

The red dot showed that he was almost at the edge of sector 3 which was situated on the outskirts of the city. Sector 3 was one of the five large sectors of the fourth level. Sectors 1-4 were all on the outskirts of the city while sector five was sandwiched in between.

He scanned the map for the Police HQ and found that it was in sector 5, zone 3. The very center of the large city. He would have to pass through several different zone checkpoints as well as the sector 3 and 5 borders to reach his destination.

Arron tried to memorize the route to the Police HQ before turning around to find the exit from the garden.

As he turned his gaze fell upon a bald man who was staring at one of the holo-screens intently. Arron stopped to look and see what it was that had caught the man’s attention.

“With one! That's right 1 surgery. We can screw on a new head of hair for you! Act now and we will throw in two extra hairstyles for free! All you have to do is unscrew and replace it with a new style to keep things fresh every other day! For those who want more variety, our ultra package contains 10 different styles!”

Arron had to stop himself from laughing.

The bald man continued to watch the ad for several more seconds, deep in thought.

Moments later he accessed a menu with his NerViz that Arron could not see, and with a few motions of his hand he selected an option on the menu.

A floating ball hover-bot popped out of the ground and beeped a greeting to the man. It immediately started to float away leading the man to some unknown destination.