Finally! An update!
"This just gets weirder and weirder" Holly breathed as she and Artemis stepped out of the pod and onto the roof of a skyscraper. Both were dressed in ripped jeans, sweatshirts and hi-tops.
They gazed in stunned silence at the never-ending sprawl of the strangest city either had ever seen. Artemis immediately scanned for recognizable landmarks, but there was no Eiffel Tower, no Empire State Building, no Golden Gate Bridge, no Space Needle, and no fairy tale castle. To his frustration, Artemis had no idea where they were.
Greenish smog obliterated the sky and left the lighting low, as though the world was caught in constant twilight. Colossal buildings towered around them, so tall the highest floors were lost in the smog. Traffic clogged the streets far below them.
The building they were standing on was one of the smaller ones, perhaps only 200 stories. It was dwarfed by some of the neighboring ones, great monliths of steel, glass, and concrete. To Holly's fairy eyes, it was horrificly ugly.
"Where are we?" Holly asked finally.
Artemis shook his head. "I can't tell." He took a deep breath, than began to cough.
"Satellite City," said a voice behind them. Holly and Artemis spun around to find themselves faced by four teens.
"Did you guys come from outside the city?" asked the middle-sized boy.
"Yeah…" Holly said warily. She glanced at Artemis.
"So what are you doing up here?" Holly was surprised by the deep voice coming from the shortest person. A dwarf, she reasoned.
"Our jet packs ran out of fuel," Artemis said scathingly.
"Ah, that's happened to me a couple times," there was no joke in the girl's voice.
Ok, then, thought Holly. Jet packs. I can live with that.
"What are you guys doing up here?" Artemis asked in turn.
"Blasting Parasites," The first boy answered with a grin.
"Cosmo!" There was a warning note in the oldest boy's voice.
"It's ok, Stefan, they don't know what we're talking about."
"Yeah well, thanks to you two they know half our names now." The girl glared at everyone in general.
The four turned back to Artemis and Holly in time to see their confused expressions.
"I'm Mona," the girl said. "This here's Ditto, and Cosmo, and Stefan." She pointed in turn to the shortest boy, the middle one, and the tallest. Ditto and Stefan weren't really teens. Stefan had to be at least 20, and Ditto could have been full grown, despite his size.
"I'm Holly, this is Artemis."
"And we did come from out of the city," Artemis added.
"Huh. No kidding." There was genuine surprise in Mona's voice.
"What are Parasites?" Holly asked. "I'm assuming you weren't talking about fleas that live on your dog?"
"No," Mona said. "Something much worse."
Stefan cut her off. "And something that will make us all sound insane, so we're not going to tell you any more."
Mona rolled her eyes.
"They sell fuel that works for most jet packs at that corner store," Stefan pointing to the street below. "The building's elevator is behind you." He turned away and began to cross the roof towards the next moderately-sized scyscraper.
"Uh, thanks!" said Holly.
The other four nodded and began to run across the top off the building. Just before reaching the edge, they all whipped out extendable ladders and shot across to the next building, then the next, and the next.
"Wow," Holly whistled. She turned to see Artemis looking sadly at the expanse of the city.
"This is the future," he murmured. "Pollution and genetic experiments."
They turned back to the time machine.