The SmartWheel

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(present day)

The monowheel still LOOKED much like it did before...but looks were deceiving. It worked much MUCH better.

Instead of a solid tire there were a great many little sticky out things around the rim...like porcupine quills except that they telescoped in and out. There was a little shoe thingie on the end of each of them.

The the part I stood on held the battery, just like the old one did, but it also had ‘smarts’. A computer was imbedded that analyzed and acted on the data it received from the many sensors implanted around the circumference.

There were lidar, sonar and other things I didn’t understand.

It was AWESOME.

So it went for some time. Jenny and I used the new machines to make more new machines. Now and then we’d get a ‘special delivery’ from Kitty. Very special delivery, airmail.... by birds. They’d leave them in my chair on the balcony. Cyborg birds I assumed but they looked no different from the real thing to me. The size of the bird indicated the size of the package. Some of the birds were pretty big. The contents were mostly exotic stuff we couldn’t make I guess, but there were also pharmaceuticals...for me.

“Vitamins” Kitty popped up out of nowhere, when I started to protest.” You are , after all, a member of the ‘Geritol for Lunch Bunch’. This is Lunch. Take it.”

When Kitty set her mind to something it made Jenny’s Whim of Iron appear weak as wet tissue paper by comparison. In other words...argument was useless.

Whatever...down the hatch....and Kitty was gone again...just like that.

Then .....One day, days or weeks later, who the hell knew how long it was, one day was just like the others, I happened to look around the apartment. What a mess. Stuff was stacked on top of stuff. If I sneezed there’d be an avalanche.

“I gotta get rid of some of this junk.” I muttered to myself .

“Very good Sir” Jenny said...

then a beat later.

“I have an offer on.”..and she named various pieces of my surplus junk and the prices offered.

“That was fast work.” I was amazed.

“Thank you sir” she replied. "The first ‘meet’ is right away’.

“Where?” I asked.

“At....” and location that wasn’t all that close.

“Why so far away?” I asked.

“Security” she said.

I mulled that over for a bit while I got ready to go. Security huh? I hadn’t thought about that. Probably something to consider. At any rate I was sure glad I had the smart wheel. That would be a long way to walk.

“Don’t forget to wear your trench coat and carry your staff. I don’t recommend the cane. Balance you know.” she said while I was gathering stuff up.

No..I didn’t know. But I suppose it made sense.

Off I went, RuckSack on my back, riding my improved mono-wheel, wearing my trench coat and using my walking staff for balance to avoid falls.

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