Future Shock

20

I find their website immediately. They’re still around and have an office in downtown LA. So why was the research facility here in the desert abandoned?

“I’m not finding anything,” I say. “There are too many hits for people with my name.”

“Yeah, me too,” Trent says. “This is impossible.”

Zoe’s head snaps up. “I think I found my sister! She has a website or a profile or whatever they’re called now.”

“Really?” Adam asks. “Is there a way to contact her?”

“Um…I don’t think so. Not unless you’re her friend or something. But her last status update says she’s at work and her profile has the name of the place, so maybe we can go there?” Her eyes widen. “We can go talk to her. My sister, in the future.”

Adam shakes his head. “You can’t talk to her. She’ll recognize you. Especially with your blue hair.”“I guess,” Zoe says, her shoulders drooping. “But you guys could talk to her for me.”

“You sure you want to risk it?” Chris asks. “Going into shock and brain damage and all that?”

Zoe chews on her nail for a minute and then nods. “I have to know.”

02:53

Zoe’s sister works at some place on Hollywood Boulevard called Blue Moon. We use the map program in our flexis to find a Metro station within walking distance that will take us into the city. This Metro line doesn’t exist yet in our time, but now the train is packed with people commuting to work or wherever they’re going in the city.

Almost everyone on board wears a flexi, some clear but most with patterns, and it’s hard not to stare at their clothes that look almost but not quite normal. Many of them are made of something sleek with a touch of shine, and some have moving or flashing lights. Uniform name tags are all electronic, and one guy even has an entire advertisement for mint gum running across his chest, playing on repeat. It’s as if their clothes—smartclothes, I guess—are all computerized too.

The five of us spread out so we don’t look suspicious in our matching, old-fashioned outfits. I sit by myself and stare out the window. The Metro train runs aboveground on raised bridges over the freeway, where hundreds of egg-shaped cars zoom by. I rode along the same freeway yesterday on my way to Aether, but everything is different now—more cars, more buildings, more everything.

It takes two trains and about two hours to get to the Hollywood and Highland Metro exit. We emerge from the station into a sea of tourists gawking at an Elvis impersonator and checking out the gold Walk of Fame stars in the sidewalk. The place looks almost identical to the last time I was here, four years ago on a school trip. Although I guess it would be thirty-four years ago now.

The street is lined with T-shirt and souvenir shops selling random crap covered in the words “Hollywood” and “Los Angeles.” Old neon signs hang below palm trees, and the air smells like piss and incense. Street entertainers and people in costumes line the sidewalk, trying to get some attention. Everything has that same dirty, fake feel I remember. The only things that stand out as different are the strange cars and the lit-up clothes people wear. And none of the tourists are taking photos—probably because the flexis have a camera app built in.

We head east, moving around the crowds and trying to stick together. Dark-gray clouds cover the sky, the air thick with the promise of rain. Adam stares down at the Walk of Fame stars the entire time, reading the celebrities’ names and nearly running into multiple people in the process. “Who are all these people? I’ve never heard of any of them.”

“Actors who haven’t been born yet probably.” I yank him out of the way of a guy in a Darth Vader costume. “Watch where you’re going.”

“Sorry. It’s just so odd. It’s like nothing’s changed in the future until you look at the details. Like that.” He points at a window display with dozens of different T-shirt styles for something called Comfortable Man. Some of them only have the logo, but others have a guy wearing typical superhero gear with a black mask and a rainbow-colored cape, along with a pink tutu. “What is that?”

“Never heard of it. Must be a TV show or movie we don’t have yet.” I shrug but then I nearly run into Adam, who has stopped to stare at something in front of us.

Outside the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not with the T. rex on the roof, a man is completely covered in fire. The flames ripple up and down his body and shoot off the top of his head, but there’s no heat from the fire. As we walk by, he hands us a ticket for 10 percent off admission, and Adam and Chris debate how the effect is done for the next five minutes.

We pass the Hollywood Wax Museum where there’s a creepy wax sculpture of an older Justin Bieber, of all people, in the window. There are other wax sculptures I don’t recognize, including an actress in a wheelchair. People in long coats stand on the side of the street and try to hand us things that look like little blue pills. Trent starts to take one until I give him a “don’t even think about it” look.

After a couple blocks, we move away from the tourist trap and the crowd thins out. The map says we’ve come to the place: a plain gray building with blacked-out windows and a dark-blue door. The neon sign above it says “Blue Moon” and has an image of a woman dancing on a pole with her ass sticking out. Classy.

“Is this the place?” Adam asks.

Zoe stares at the door with wide eyes. “The address is right, but…”

“I changed my mind. I want to go in now,” Trent says, grinning at the sign.