John woke up, around sometime later. He instinctively reached for his remote, which he usually used to turn on his PC. After realizing where he was and what was going on he reached interface ring.
He clumsily put it on, between the lack of sleep and general lack of skill with the ring it took longer than usual.
"Breakfast, lots of it" he lazily said into his ring.
"10 minute delivery" the ring responded.
John relaxed, and looked around the room. It was standard new pretty décor, standard bathroom standard wall screen, standard couch, standard table, and standard bed.
****10 minutes later****
The tray slowly hovered into the room, the front door automatically opening for it. John slowly sat up in the bed to look at what it contained which was toast, eggs Sunnyside up and a large plate full of "synthetic bacon".
"Table" John barked to the hovering tray, it slowly climbed to table height and turned off its lifters with a small thud.
"Feeds" John ordered at the wall screen, within seconds it was full of recent and important city news. John slowly got up, lazily walked over to the table and sat down , he began to dig into the food.
"In recent news the new party spires for Nian mansion is complete, these new spires are capable of holding a thousand people each, drastically improving the capacity of the mansion."
"so important john responded to the wall" they always seemed to fill the news with the least important information.
After finishing the meal he called Edwin, figuring he did not know about his surgery failing.
"Hey man how's the new life"
"Ok, I guess"
"So you are coming to the party?"
"O ya about that I really don't think that it's appropriate."
"Common man don't chicken out, I know it's your first party but don't chicken out"
"It's not-"
"Sorry but I got to go just be there, see ya later."
He hung up.
Next he went to return Orins call; he had nothing better to do considering he was still ugly. He called but no one picked, Orin usually picked up instantly.
"Time" john asked the room.
"11 hundred hours"
John realized that Orin would be in school now, studying stuff but more likely sleeping.
John realized that he had nothing to do. All of his computers where at his old dorms and all of his friends were either in school or pretty.
"Requisition"
"Order?" the room responded.
"1 heavy hauler class 3 hover board, blood and steel paint."
"Do you have required safety equipment" the room asked.
"No" since it was a class 3 hover board one spill without a heavy bungee jacket would kill or severely injure the rider.
"Is that all" the room asked.
"No, calibration toolkit, 6 inch titanium switch knife, and finally but not least a box of double whiskey."
"Is that all" the room repeated
"Yes, delivery time?"
"2 hours"
John sat on the couch and looked at the wall screen, nothing good was on.
"Message incoming from Orin"
"Display"
Common man I was in the middle of class, almost got busted, but I'll be done at 2 so seya then or something.
John finished reading the message, and his earlier suspicion got confirmed, he had nothing to do.
****in between****
The feeds were the same as always, never saying anything negative and only spinning information to make the city look good and noble. They always mentioned the recent prettiest but they never mentioned when the operation screwed up. People knew that the surgery could go wrong, but they did not want to see it, they did not want to doubt there perfect city. The saying that describes the city best is: Even if paradise is a facade it's still paradise.
****2 hours later****
"Your requisition is waiting in the lobby"
"Thanks" John started to walk towards the door, turning of the wall screen on his way. The walk wasn't far, considering there were elevators, he arrived at the lobby quickly.
"Here for a req" john said to the receptionist
"Over there" she responded, pointing to a floating hover board, its cargo compartment obviously weighing down the board. John walked over to the board, it rose to his chest level, waiting for commands to be entered into the small controls and displays on the side of the board.
He quickly set ownership to himself and told the board to follow him; with it in tow he began to walk the short distance back to his room.
When John entered the room he grabbed the board and put it on the table. He reached into the cargo compartment which, since it was a cargo hauler was about 3 times the size of the average boards, big enough to hold the whiskey, the knife ,"safety equipment",and the calibration kit.
He carefully removed the tool kit, bungee jacket,knife and whiskey from the board, and with the tool started to remove the upper panel of the board, a procedure he had done countless times. He quickly, with practiced hands removed the minders and speed inhibitors on the board. With equal speed he reassembled the board and checked to see that it worked, it did. No surprise.
Before, when he was younger he was not allowed to order fast hover boards, even though they were all caped at the same speed, the cities judged the boards at their top speed, this boards top speed was 356 MPH, even though it was usually capped at 15, so in theory it was completely safe to ride it normally, but the city used cap speed for safety requirements.
He grabbed the board and had it sit outside the window, he carefully loaded the whiskey onto the board, leaving it hovering in mid air, he slowly stepped on it to here "no sensors detected, no safety equipment detected"
"Override "john replied annoyed.
When john stepped out of his window and onto the board, it did not give, which was incredibly odd, most boards dipped a couple of inches when a rider stepped on, not to mention the extra weight the board was hauling around.
John studied his surroundings, the ugly dorms were across the river, ahead of him, and more of new pretty town was behind him and spread out along the bank of the river. After a second of decision he shot across the river towards the ugly dorms at incredible speeds, the raw power of the board sent shock waves rippling across the water.
Usually this would have been a rather long trip, crossing the river but with his improved board it only took a couple of seconds, when he reached the other side he quickly tried to slow down. John tried the usually large turn, to dispel momentum and velocity.
This spin, sent john flying off the hover board, his right shoulder smashed into the trunk of an old willow, dislocating it and sending blood flying everywhere. Luckily this stopped him, but did not stop his board from crashing into the willow tree, removing inches of bark and wood from the ancient tree. With some remnants of his strength John managed to sit up, leaning against the tree. The pain was almost unbearable, black slowly tried to envelop his vision but he fought it , he wasn't gona give up to some tree.
John through his one left arm up, reaching for the board. He managed to crab onto it and pull it down, he slung open the cargo compartment of his board and took a bottle of whiskey out of it.
He slowly, but with much effort opens the bottle and took a long gulp. He sat there for a while, letting the potent alcohol fight the pain. But he knew what he had to do.
An average pretty right now would call a warden and probably start crying, but he wasn't average, for that matter he wasn't even pretty. With all the force he could muster he popped his shoulder back into its normal location. Another wave of blackness attempted to overtake him but he resisted again.
He sat there for a while, slowly standing up and finishing the bottle.
"Common you little fucker" he said to the board, amazingly it came over to him and he slowly stepped onto it, testing it.
"Slow and easy this time k?" he whispered to the board, as it slowly ascended to the top of the tree. He slowly road to his old dorm ,it was a long ride , considering his speed and his injuries he did make remarkable speed.
He pulled up to his old dorm and slowly opened the window, it slided open with no resistance. From there he climbed into the room and walked over to the black velvet couch and collapsed onto it.
**** Short amount of time****
"Hey john what's up" Orin said, dropping his bag onto the floor, he proceeded to open a soda but stopped mid way.
"Wait a sec should you be pretty? Or still in surgery" Orin asked, a puzzled expression taking over his face.
"Apparently I can't be made pretty. Shocker." John responded, turning on the wall screen and taking a shot from the bottle that he had earlier retrieved from his board.
There was a silence for a couple of second, Orin was at a loss of words and John had nothing to say, the seconds seemed to be a eternity.
"So what you doing now" Orin asked, slowly walking towards the couch.
"I don't know, I should be going to parties and shit like that but it would be….. Interesting" John responded.
Orin finally reached john and was standing over him, the damage that the tree had caused was obvious.
"Looks like you've been through hell and back again" Orin said, taking a seat next to john.
"O ya kind of hit a tree at high speeds" john said pointing to his aftermarket hover board hovering outside .
"Nice gear, we could never get anything like that back in the day." Orin said, getting up again to inspect the floating technological wonder.
He curiously opened the cargo compartment to remove a bottle of the alcoholic beverage and quickly exclaimed "Nice!"
****time going by****
The two of them got completely smashed.
**** Some time later****
Ding, Ding, Ding. The door repeated rapidly.
"Coming" Orin yelled as he tried to stand up but he fell back onto the couch with a sickening thud.
"ize got itsss it" john yelled, standing up and staggering to the door. He slung it open, to see Yura standing in the door with a shocked look on her face.
"Shouldn't you be-"she began to ask but john cut her off
"nozeeeee some problemzzzzzzz" he said, his words become so slurred that it was barely recognizable.
"Well I came here to drop of Orins paper" she said, handing john a thin computer, he barely held onto it.
"Well ok seeya" he said slamming the door in her face, he through the tablet onto a table and collapsed back onto the couch.
"Dude I heardzz some awesome music the other day" John said to the half knocked out Orin.
"Play all music from FF franchise" john ordered the room.
The music slowly trickled in but eventually the harmony's and sweet melodies overwhelmed them.
"Increased volume by 200 %" Orin ordered from his face-into-cushion position on the couch.
The volume increased, to far over the limit that the city proscribes, but due to hacks that they had done in the past, the room accepted the command and raised the volume.
****time passing****
Ding, Ding, Ding. The door repeated rapidly.
"Common go the fuck away!" one of them yelled, both too drunk to know who.
Ding, Ding ,Ding. The door repeated rapidly.
"Come in"
A warden entered, his florescent green suit blinding both of them.
"Pause music" the warden demanded.
" you two are coming with me to the station house, you've violated enough rules to fill a book."
John stood up and walked up to the warden and stared into his eyes, the warden tried to guide john out of the door but john quickly punched him in the jaw, snapping a number of his knuckles, reinforced plastic vs bone was not a fair fight.
The warden quickly fell to the floor. A full thud rang out.
"Common we should roll" John called over to the couch; Orin quickly stood up and started to walk towards the board.
They both quickly walked over to the board and climbed onto it. Tandem riding with a insanely overpowered board was not the best idea, especially when the riders where both completely smashed and did not have any equipment.
They road along the river, not long later a couple of hover cars had started to chase them, due to the boards speed they were about equal in speed but the hover board couldn't not do any sharp turns due to the fact of momentum.
"ize thatz wahtz I think it is" Orin asked looking ahead at the shining metal blobs in the distance .
"How the fuck should I know, probably." As they quickly sped forward it became clear, hover cars arranged in a blockade.
"From where I see it we got a couple of choices, run the blockade, change direction or give up" john said.
"Giving up is kinda looking good, we will be completely fucked when we get caught."
"Ya but where is the fun in that" john asked
"Good point, change direction I guess then" The hover board began to gradually slow down, the high gs put on the riders were like being buried alive.
The board eventually changed direction but then quickly resumed its earlier speed, accelerating quickly to the far off hills.
"Think well actually make it" Orin was referring to the old bunkers built by the rusty's for ancient wars, they blocked all signals.
"Probably not"
John quickly weaved through trees and buildings, trying to lose the hover cars, and they did one by one drop of and slow down, looking for the fugitives.
"Now" John yelled, they both saw the fast approaching hill and they both jumped at the signal.
They landed, with minor injuries, considering the speed they were going and the lack of gear.
"You ok" John asked, looking at his friends path through multiple bushes and plants, all crushed.
"More or less" Orin responded, emerging from the bush completely covered in a crimson shade.
"So what now" Orin asked looking at john.
"I got a party to be at in like hour." John said looking at his fractured watch.
"Guess we should find the board" Orin responded, sweeping his vision over the area.
They found the board rather quickly, considering how fast it was going and the randomness of their jump. They slowly rid back into town, John dropped Orin off at his dorm and began to ride back to the party. It was not until he got half way they're that he realized he was completely covered in cuts and bruises and was extremely disheveled. But he figured, Ugly is ugly and pretty is pretty there would be no real difference.
**** Time passing****
John slowly floated up to the top story of the party. He began to search for his old friend Edwin. He finally found him, surrounded by a group of friends. He jumped off the board and processes to walk to him, stares from pretties. It was surprising that someone hadn't called the wardens yet, a ugly crashing a party did not go unnoticed but strangely no one showed up. He slowly approached Edwin, a path clearing for him; people treated him like a infected person, always making sure they were a couple feet away, not to catch his ugliness.
When he approached Edwin he nor any of his friends seemed to notice him , he walked in , gently nudging two pretties to make a space for him to stand, putting his arm around one of them he said, with a tone that said I totally told you so why dint you listen.
"So what's up" John said, a silence filled the never ending white noise of the party.
The pretties' which john had is arm on removed it and slowly moved away, the other pretties slowly followed suit.
" ya this is why I said I shouldn't come so I'm gona go now" john said as he turned and started to walk away.
"Wait" Edwin managed to mumble out.
John stopped walking out and turned his head, looking Edwin straight in the eye, causing him to flinch, like a ghost walked over his grave.
"You don't have to leave" Edwin managed to say.
"ya, I do." John responded
John started walking again.
"Sorry" john heard from behind him, but he kept going, he got on the overboard and road back to his new room, what a dull night that had been.
****time passing****
It did not take long for him to get back to the room, when he got there he headed for the bed and turned on the wall screen.
"In recent news wardens were called to stop a runaway hover board, its defective controls caused it to run out of control –"
"How typical" john said to himself, or to the room or to the city.
He waited but sleep did not come, he sat there, waiting for the night to overcome him but it did not, after laying there for a while he knew what he had to do, settle a long dispute. He grabbed the knife that had been lying on the table and proceeded to the hover board, and quickly flew over to the ugly side of town. Flying at incredible speeds in the night, weaving through water skimmers and drunken pretties. He arrived at his destination, Yuras room.
He walked over to the white board and took out the knife and started to etch.
You say were different you say we are better but we are just the same, you always say that the rusties are evil and that they almost destroyed the world but the only reason that has happened to us is because you and your government cronies control everything from birthrates to death rates. You know what that takes away? Our liberties and freedoms are a complete joke. You think we're better? Fuck you.
John stood back to admire his work, it got the message across. He walked over to his waiting hover board and flew away.
He flew away, to face the dark. Alone.
For those of you who are wondering why they dint seem to go after him after they escaped its because there sympathetic to john and they are figuring Orin just got caught up in it and they never punish people anyway.