The Story of Emily Evans

XI: Hovercrafts

"Are you sure this is alright...?" I asked Sol as just the two of us stood beside what looked like a machine that you could take cash from, give-in you have a bank account with cash in it...most likely. The Doctor decided to split off from the two of us as he wanted to check out the holo-poster he had found in the park. Meanwhile, Sol was breaking into the cash machine, with her sonic, while I stood watch, casually, making sure that nobody was really around to see us. No one was really around us, and the few who were walking along the street didn't pay us any mind...they probably thought that we weren't breaking into the machine. After all, Sol didn't even haft to do much to get the cash out...she just aimed her sonic at the machine and pressed the button on the side. A small humming sound sounded before two circular disks popped out of the machine.

"I thought it was a money machine...?" I asked Sol as I looked at the two disks.

"It is." Sol responded as she handed me one of the disks. I looked at it with curiosity, there was a small button on the bottom of the disk. When I pressed it, a hologram popped up from the disk as it showed a strange symbol followed by a long string of numbers. "This is the money of the 22nd century...you didn't think they'd have cash like you do...? They do, but it looks different as well. For one, it's made out metal. Think...think of this like a credit card...no that wouldn't be right...a debt card...a prepaid card...it's something similar to that." Sol then pointed towards the numbers on display. "That's how much this disk, for lack of a better word, will let us use before it runs out."

"It's quite a lot." I told Sol as I looked at the numbers, it was at lest 20 characters long.

"Prices can be, well are, a bit more than you're used to but yes...this is a lot...even for this time." Sol responded. "But...you don't want to run out...that's the worst thing you could possibly do...even if I can get us more we'd haft to walk all the way back to a machine. Which, if you hadn't noticed, took us some time to walk to this one and this is the first one we'd seen since we've been here." She then pressed the button on the bottom of the disk I'd held as she made the hologram disappear. "And don't leave that one for just anyone to see, especially out in public. Quickly check it before you close it back again."

"Ok." I told her as I placed the now closed disk in my bag, Sol doing the same with hers.

"Now...what do you want to do first...?" Sol asked me as she looked around. "You hungry...?"

"I just ate lunch about half an hour or so...I think." I told her as we walked along the sidewalk. "But it's hard to gauge time when we...you know." I didn't exactly want to say that we've time travelled here...especially since we were nearing a red light and there were already a group of people waiting to cross the street.

Sol's eyes seemed to constantly scan our surroundings until they landed on a shop. I looked over towards that shop and noticed that it sold things like skates, and skateboards, and bikes. Although, none of them had wheels and my mind went back to that first guy I had noticed as soon as I had came here: he had been riding on a skateboard, only it had no wheels and it hovered off the ground.

"Do you know how to skate...?" Sol asked me as she looked at the shop.

"No...not really." I told her. I have been skating before but I was rubbish at it...kept falling down. I eventually gave up at it all together.

"Good." Sol told me. "Cause this is nothing like that...kind of." With that, she pulled me over to the shop and we entered it.

"Good morning...!" The shopkeeper happily greeted us as Sol and I entered the shop. "Welcome to Hovercraft-N-Stuff, how may I help you...?"

"Is it alright if we just look around first...?" Sol asked the shopkeeper. "There's quite a lot of stuff in here, we don't really know what we're looking for just yet."

"That's fine." The shopkeeper replied. "Take your time, let me know if you need any help with anything."

"We will." Sol replied before she gave her attention back to me. "Let's look around, anything you see that's interesting...?"

I looked around the shop, there were hover bikes, hoverboards, hover skates, helmets, elbow pads, knee pads, hand guards, as well as these vest like things hanging up on a wall. I really didn't know where to start. I suppose the vests seem like the most unusual thing in this store, so that's where I went to...the wall of vests.

"What are these...?" I asked Sol, referring to the vests.

"You know the small wheels you'd put on the back of a child's bike so that they could learn how to ride it?" Sol asked me.

"Yes." I responded. "They make the bike more stable so you don't fall over."

"That's basically what these are." Sol told me.

"How...?" I asked, a little bit confused at just how these would make a hovercraft more stable.

"They're made with hover technology, same as the other hovercrafts in here." Sol told me. "They stabilize you while you ride on them to keep you from hitting the ground if you fall off. That way when you do turn them off, you just float down to the ground."

"I wish they had these when I first learned how to skate." I told Sol, keeping my voice low as to not let the shopkeeper hear me. That would only confuse them...probably....

"They do now." Sol told me as she grabbed one of the vests off the wall and held it up to me. "So...think this'll fit you...? It's made to strap over your clothes, and you'd want it to fit snuggly around you but not too snuggly."

Sol and I looked around the store for near an hour before we picked out everything we wanted. I just got a vest and some hover skates where as Sol just got a hover board. We placed our items on the counter for the shopkeeper to scan up for us.

"Together or separate...?" The shopkeeper asked as we set our items onto the counter.

Sol looked at me, probably wanting me to answer. "Together...?" I more so asked than told before the shopkeeper started to scan the items.

"Can you pay for everything all at once or do you need to set up a plan for the payments...?" The shopkeeper asked us once she had scanned everything. I looked at the holo-screen next to the shopkeeper, the number that showed for the cost of everything was within seven digits. The number of the price of the hover board was 3,000,000, the skates were 2,900,000, and the vest was 1,500,000.

"We can pay the whole total right now." Sol told her as she looked at the holo-screen, checking the price.

"Chips, debit, or credit...?" The shopkeeper asked us.

"Debit." Sol responded as she took out her money disk from her purse. She then held the disk in her palm as the shopkeeper scanned the disk with a scanner.

"Now...depending on how many credits you have on this, this may take a moment." The shopkeeper told us, referring to Sol's money disk. The loading screen on the holo started to go round in a circle as it loaded, luckily it only took a couple seconds to finish. "And done." The shopkeeper responded as they looked at the holo screen before looking back at us. "Would you like it in a bag...?"

"Please...?" Sol told them, to which they loaded up my skates and vest in a bag while putting Sol's hover board in another bag. "Thank you." Sol told them as we both grabbed our bags.

"Have a good day...!" The shopkeeper told us right before Sol and I turned away from the counter.

"You too...!" I called back just as Sol opened the door.

"Feel free to come back...!" The shopkeeper stated before Sol and I had walked outside of the shop.

~~~

Word Count: 1438