SoulStone
#90: Town Meeting
There had never been a town meeting on Flint Island before, never having been a need for one. The diner at which Viper had crashed and burned was the closest that they’d ever had and it had been in the factory. There also wasn’t room enough in any of the buildings on the island for everyone to gather at one time. Shelby had solved that problem in his on inimitable fashion. A huge grey dome of Structural Smoke almost entirely filled the largest open area in the middle of the island.
Cody was there with his parents. Everyone else on Flint Island was there also. Cody thought it was fun. His parents were a little bit less thrilled. It was a very strange building if indeed it was a building at all. It looked like a huge fog bank.
The small family had walked across the island from their residence to one section of the fog bank. High above them a huge floating neon arrow shaped sign pointed downward, “DOOR” it said. A dragon doorman stood at the doorway to answer any questions and direct them to their seats. Somehow the child sized dragon did not appear to be threatening in any way.
“Good after noon, sir, ma’am. Hi-ya Cody” the dragon greeted them. It had a number of pendant necklaces draped over one arm.
“Getcher program here. You can’t tell what's going on without a program.” it imitated an old time circus barker as it gave each of them a gorgeous golden necklace attached to a magnificent gemstone.
“Just put the program, er....necklace I mean, around your neck. If you don’t have one already I mean.” the dragon said “ It will sting for just a second. Ignore that. “
The small family did so. The necklaces did sting. But not badly. No sooner had the sting faded from perception than a whole new reality opened before them.
...it was a bit surreal. The parents smiled and Cody was delighted. A small blue genie faced them. Beside the genie hovered a really ODD looking....er.
Bat?
“If ya’ll will foller me I’ll take you to your booth” the Genie said “Gomer here will get you some snacks. Ya’ll want food or drink? Popcorn maybe? Whisky?”
The two adults were almost overwhelmed. Not so Cody.. “I want a...” he started to say .
“He’ll take a glass of milk and a cookie” his mother said.
“Very good ma’am. For ya’ll?” the Genie replied.
“We’ll take a cup of coffee each and cookies as well” she replied.
“Do you have chocolate chip?” Cody asked.
“We certainly do.” the Genie replied. “Gomer will fetch a dozen chocolate chip cookies, two coffees’ and a glass of milk. If you’ll follow me please I’ll escort you to your booth.”
... And he did so. The cookies and drinks were waiting for them when they arrived.
“Ahem....is this thing on?”...they heard someone speaking.
It was the mayor, Ms. Kamiko Akiyama. She appeared to be no more than a few feet in front of their booth. They could see and hear her easily. It was a hologram or something.
“If everyone will please be seated we’ll get this show on the road. We have a lot to go over tonight so let’s get started. Oh by the way, the chocolate chips cookies are excellent tonight, I recommend them. All of the ingredients come direct from our new food farm, it’s all home grown. Also our very own fully automated food factory made them for us. That’s one of the things we’ll cover tonight. Free food from now on.” she said munching on one as she spoke.
“First off.” She said “I want to thank the Maggi for providing the accommodations. Without Shelby and Chad none of this would be possible and we’d probably all be dead by now. Shelby is our ArchMage, for want of a better term, and Chad is the Mage.”
“I’ll give you the executive summary first.” she said after the applause died down. “then we can go into greater detail later if you want.”
“First off” she said “The Maggi have many projects in the works. The SSmoke that you see all around you is the basis for many of them. SSmoke is the main reason we wanted you all to come here tonight in person rather than attend by virtual reality. We wanted to make sure that you all to have the Necklaces, some do, many didn’t. Now everyone has them. They will allow you to control the SSmoke.
She nibbled the cookie ”And the cookies...you would not have wanted to miss the cookies.”
“The necklace is something the mages call a neuro-loop. It interfaces your brain to the SSmoke. The SSmoke will then just naturally do what you want it to do if you want it to do something that it has an app for. If you want it to do something it can’t do... if there’s no App., then nothing happens. That’s likely to be a rare occurrence soon since the Maggi have developed a programing language that’s intuitive and easy to learn. SSmokeTalk and SSmoke are both very, very versatile.”
“ The bad news is that something is happening to the economy. We’re not sure what it is. One of the effects is higher prices...and vanishing jobs. Some of you live off island and have lost your jobs. The worse news is that we’re loosing the Factory. Due to a number of factors it will no longer be available after next week."
"Even worse news is that Winter is coming on and it’s going to be a bad one. Thanks to the Maggi Flint Island has The SSmoketm now and cookies. We won’t starve or get cold......” she droned on and on and own.
Cody lost interest. Those chocolate chip cookies were GOOD, and the milk wasn’t bad either. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep.
He woke up later...”Mom?”
“Everything is ok dear. You just go back to sleep.” she said
....and he did..
The meeting lasted a long time. Cody woke up several times. He heard some of the questions that the mayor was asked...and the answers. He didn’t understand many of them.
“Yes...those are Scooper-Poopers. They are building a Levie around the Island.”.............
“No...those are not dangerous river sharks, although there might actually BE river-sharks. Those ain’t it. Those are Bottom Feeders.”
“Yes... Rent, food, water, electricity, and sewage are free retroactive to a while back. You will get refunds. We are working on other services such as internet and cable...feel free to help....we’ll keep you updated regarding their status. ”
“Yes...there is now a roof over the island. Under the roof the climate will be controlled.”
“Yes.. SSmoketm is being released inside the dome...eventually it will be much like right here.”
“yes...the SSmoke is open source. SSmokeTalk is freely available. Tutorials are online. Anyone can learn to program it to do anything they desire. I’m sure private enterprise will be able to offset the adverse economic impact of the missing jobs.”
“...yes...yes...yes..”...Cody thought it was marvelous.....”
The next morning, at home, he woke up and his Dad was still home.
“Hi’ya dad” Cody gave him a big hug. “Is this the weekend already?”
His father laughed “Nope. It’s not the weekend. If you’re wondering why I’m home it’s because I quit my job. What we saw last night at the Town Meeting convinced me. I’d been thinking about it for months. Now that the SSmoke and SSmokeTalk are available I’ll just stay home and BlowSmoke.”
“You mean you’ll be home with me and Mom?” Cody was excited
“Yes” his farther said
“YAY!” Cody gave him a big hug.
“Can I learn how to BlowSmoke too?” Cody asked.
“I don’t see why not.” his father answered. “We’ll start right after breakfast.”
The Next Episode is
#91: NeighborHood Patrol…
The Previous Episode was
#88: We need more pollution…
the First episode was
#1 : Prologue
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I'm
@everittdmickey
.
I write
SPECULATIVE FICTION
I have books on Amazon too.
Sometimes I also comment on the news
Sometimes it's hard to tell fiction from the news.
That was a rather pleasant read, I don't know why, just liked it. No strife, no bickering, no "Drama". Nice.
thank you
it's 'world building' in a sense.
"background' to make what happens later easier to understand.
got you long time didnt read your posts was really busy