Darkness in the Brightest Day - Part 1

Sunland 2068

More than half a century into the future.  What would have changed?  The first problem for Jake was getting off the mountain.  Without the car, it was a 6 hour hike down.  Plenty of time to think about what he saw and get improving detail in his view.  He looked down at the city.  It looked pretty much the same.  The first thing he noticed was that brown haze that Los Angeles was normally cloaked in was gone.  There was no perceptible smog.  It was also silent.  No airplanes.  No helicopters.  No noise from the freeway.

As he got closer to the bottom, he did notice big black dots quickly darting between the buildings.  The buildings had changed slightly.  There were many more apartments than before and they were all clustered around the major roads.  He could also see the 210 freeway.  The traffic was light, but surprisingly slow;  it looked like they were going only 45 miles per hour.  The freeway had had 4 or 5 lanes but only two were in use.   There were very few vehicles.  Almost half of the vehicles were buses and most of the rest were trains of trucks.

As he got down to the bottom of the mountain, he noticed that there were no hikers.  He guessed that that must be because it was a work day. When he got onto the street, he noticed that at least two thirds of the houses were boarded up or torn down.  The other ones were poorly maintained and had bars over their fronts.  What were formerly lawns were now replaced by concrete that looked permeable to water.  The vacant lots and empty yards had plants growing wildly in them.  The neighbors were using the other yards to grow food; mostly grapes and olives, plants that would tolerate the dry conditions of the area.  The place was a mess.  Almost all of the houses that weren't vacant had big vicious looking dogs.

The future seemed bleak, Jake thought.  The road was in very poor shape.  It didn't look like any cars could even drive on it.  The potholes were so big and deep it seemed like it would be dangerous to walk at night since you couldn't see where they were.

Jake finally got to Foothill Boulevard, the main street in Sunland.  Here the street was well paved and many of the commercial buildings had been replaced by shabby apartments.  There were just a few cars, buses, and trucks on Foothill and a surprisingly large number of pedestrians and people waiting at the bus stops.  It wasn't what you would call vibrant city life.  All the vehicles were almost completely silent.  They must be electric, thought Jake.

He finally saw what the black dots were.  They were not-quite car sized quadrocopters ferrying packages between delivery trucks and the buildings.