David fumbled his AR glasses onto his face and waited until the system boot status message had faded from view. "I'm going to work!" he called out.
"What time will you be back?" his partner called from the flat's single bedroom.
The software in the AR glasses heard the request and began to process the data, cross-referencing David's schedule for the day with information pulled from the city's data stream. "If everything goes right," David glanced at the glowing figures in the bottom right of his field of vision, "I'll be home about seven."
"I'll upload the dinner options for tonight."
David left the flat and headed for the metro station, keeping an eye on the data from the city's public transport network. Everywhere David looked he could see the streams of data generated by the city and its inhabitants. Data tags faded in and out of sight as the AR glasses filtered them by importance and relevance, showing him everything he need to know. Except - .
As David approached the metro station entrance, he became aware of a commotion: a knot of people, data tags and emoticons hovering above them. At the centre of it all were three red icons - law enforcement overrides. David didn't want to be late for the first of the morning's clients; but, on the other hand, whatever was going on might be newsworthy. Checking that he still had time in hand, David activated his glasses' recording function and pushed his way through the crowd.
Two policemen - their identities hidden by anonymous, official-issue avatars - were manhandling a figure made up of black censor boxes, trying to pull it towards a waiting police car. Whatever - whoever the censor boxes were concealing was putting up a struggle, resisting the officers' attempts to restrain them. High-pitched beeps muffled whatever the figure was saying, but the emotions behind the words were obvious to David.
With a sweep of a blocky limb, the figure sent one of the policemen sprawling. The second policeman struggled to keep its grip on the miscreant, but lost it. As the blocky figure turned to escape, only to find David in its way. The two collided and fell to the ground, both winded; the impact dislodging David's AR glasses so he was seeing the world without an overlay to interpret events for him.
The person who had collided with him was a young woman with a pock-marked face and chipped teeth, dressed in ragged clothing. As she struggled back to her feet, she caught sight of David. "Don't let them take me!" she pleaded. "I'm not a terrorist! I'm just - !"
"There you are, sir." A blue-gloved hand set David's AR glasses back on his face. "I believe these are yours."
The familiar overlays materialised in front of David. "What's going on, officer?"
The anonymous avatar helped David get back on his feet. "Don't worry, sir. There's nothing to see here."
