There'd be no stopping, there was only doubling down. Time chose only that moment to slow for her sake. Some part of her soul was clearly messing with her. Different departments of Kate had different reactions. Her heart was completely offline. Her eyes, having clearly missed some memo, were wide open, absorbing every particle of light. Whomever was in charge of sound had fallen asleep on the keyboard creating a garbled mess for the brain to interpret. And closer it got until they passed it!
They were showered in snow before rolling up a driveway to a dentist's office, the gentle rise slowed them enough to jump free before she kicked the board into her hand. Where they stood face to face with a hologram of chomping teeth.
But the running wasn't done.
A hand on Griff's belt, she rushed him away down the street, around a corner and into heavy glass doors where the smell of bacon and eyes were strongest.
A diner… Mansfield Meat and eggs, if the glowing sign was to be believed.
Once past a secondary set of glass doors, heat made Kate's cheeks flush, and her ears were serenaded with happy noises of frying and conversation. Green laser light fell over them for a moment before, a light on the floor pulsed and flowed away, it led them to a pure white table. Light and circuitry painted two well cushioned seats.
The entire booth from floor to table to wall went from a sterile sheet of paper to a richly coloured home. White became aged mahogany with a digital menu that glowed into whatever shade ancient scrolls were.
In a minute a tall, blonde glass of holy hell arrived. It was a girl, with dreadlocks reaching down to her bosom. The dreads were in a white lacey net that hung loose like lingerie. Griff's gawking was proof that to call her hair rib length instead of bosom length would have been a disgusting porn censorship.
"Hey ya'll, I'm Tiffanay, Welcome te Mayns failed's meaht and eggz. I'll be yer waiter, how ya'll doin'?"
Kate had not expected that accent.
Credit Check
100 Credits
The hammer of a gun could never snap forward with the speed Kate's spine had snapped back. Her toes bounced, launching her knees into the table, thighs sinking into the cushions as her skull was trebuchet'd into attention so fast her hair covered her face.
Tiffany smiled in intense understanding and brutal sympathy.
Griff's grin was so wide his face consisted of only a forehead and teeth. And when, not if, she punched him, he'd stay like that.
The drink was shockingly thick. Thin slabs of chocolate stuck out but were quickly melting as steam rose. It wasn't hot chocolate; it was soup.
If every person had a limited amount of right choices they could make in a lifetime, she'd just used up three. Her bladder tingled.
"So ya'll lookin up a Zenith? Someone mention it on yer arrival?"
"Okay, number one… yes, but how are you all guessing that we're new? Is it the accent because we're technically from Massachusetts."
"It's tha co'wld. Don' get me wrong. It's cold here. But there's a pill or a cream fir it. Literally a dozen differen brands. And ya'll dressed like ya'll never heard of em'"
Kate and Griff gaped at each.
"Oh.. we-, Well, w-"
"Where do we get them?" Griff managed.
"Watch." Tiff said, touching her temple.
They both touched their temples along with her.
She flicked at hers.
Ping Incoming
Tiffany with information package.
Accepted.
The table changed as a mountain of footage flowed in. Windows, icons and thumb nails spilled over each. It was massive.
"Skateboarding, mountain biking, snowboarding and… is that an early release on the Happy Tug? Is that even possible?" Kate asked.
All Kate got was a knowing smile, which when combined with the balloon of caramel blonde hair in a fruit basket should have looked silly. It really didn't.
"Okay then, could you at least tell me what's happening?" Kate asked.
"Oh, naw tha's disappointin'."
"I let you down?" Kate said with fake pout.
She pointed to the long board on the chair next to Kate, one of the wheels dripping water onto a shoulder so thick in layers of 'jacket' she would never have noticed.
"That board, dem scrapes. I guess, I jus thought." She shrugged.
Kate was smiling but there was a sinking in her gut she hadn't expected.
"We got a Zenith." Griff gloated, around a mouthful of soup.
Tiff's brow raised, disbelief as clear as a summer sunrise.
"What was that girl's name... Jackie." Griff continued, no amount of etiquette or need to communicate would keep his mouth free of chocolate.
"Jackie, freckled cheeks, stupidly red hair? She spoke te yawl? Unprovoked mind ye. En she straight up tole ya'll about et?"
The disbelief had clouded over. Tiff looked moments away from sitting with them. Something had changed, hell Kate wanted her to sit. Who the hell was Jackie?
"She had two drones." Kate added and a part of her soul shrivelled and died from the cringe.
"Only two? Must've been a slow day. Ha! Look I'll be back, other tables. Fir breakfast' how's about some poached eggs? They're a specialty of the state.
"Again, we're from Massachusetts. It's not one of those DIY dishes, is it?" Kate asked.
"So ye know?"
"I was guessing from your tone. But I'd rather a fork to mouth meal, no extra work."
"Yor good. Then I recommen' tha breakfast pie special. It'll put ya in a good mood." She said with another wink, which was clearly some kind of signature move.
She took off without a confirmation.
"She didn't even check if we'd be cool with it. I guess we trust her?" Griff asked.
Kate shrugged before dipping her spoon into her hot soup. The chocolate had melted on top creating a chocolate puddle in the centre. The fact that melted chocolate wasn't dense enough to sink… Maybe it's just Jackie at risk of being stuck on a seat.
Warning: Calorie negative
"Let's check the footage, see what the hype is." Kate offered.
The footage left her gawking. The crowds were incredible. The moves awesome. It was like nothing she'd ever seen. The snowboarders, skiers and bikers were flying, they were unbelievable. It made her twitch and shiver, her tailbone aching from all the useless sitting. She should have been moving, running, climbing, anything!
Warning:
Calorie balance negative
Sugar balance negative
Overall health balance negative.
The first thing to come was pecan pie, a slice split in two. The original slice having been anaemic in the first place but topped in an authoritatively strong lemon honey syrup that formed a shell that hardened like glass as it cooled.
Warning: Calorie negative
Then came a glass of ice water and a pill, and then followed a strange bacon pie of some of the best most filling egg in the world. It was like they'd turned bacon and onion into a jelly and put them together with Lego eggs only to flash fry the whole thing while keeping soft enough to be eaten with a spoon but solid enough for a fork.
It left Kate grunting on the chair only to see Tiffany out of uniform and sitting next to her. Kate moved the board to Griff's side to make space but Tiff didn't need it as when Kate moved in, so did Tiffany putting them shoulder to shoulder while her longer legs reached across to rest feet on Griff's side of the booth, she had a plate too.
She tapped the table and a soft while light rose. Around the table more lights filled the centre. The image of a man holding his snowboard, completely airborne as fireworks rose behind him in tune with the movement. Kate wasn't looking at an image, she was looking at living art.
"Now, that's a moment of Zenith. Now watch as he rises. There's the Zenith of up and down, then the actual Gap itself in the inbetween. He's already started a double backflip, look at the insane air he's getting. And then, here we go, look at his moves and evolved in that moment."
The man flipped from the jump but was unhooking the board and flipping it back onto his feet, all before he touched the half pipe's slope with an ease so contagious Kate's bladder tingled as though it had eloped, sobered, annulled and just landed back into her groin.
The crowd's screaming froze.
"So when you reach the top," Tiff said, reversing the footage.
"That's the moment?" Kate asked.
The smile she got back was annoyingly small.
"Yeah, but…"
She lifted her hands after tapping her finger against the glass and then her head. The image rose, the detail and resolution expanding.
"When you see the whole thing in slow motion it gets better. Look at how his speed appears to boost like he's in fast forward. It's planning and talent, but it's also a moment beyond time and space. There's other stuff but that's a whole other thing. Now…"
Tiff flattened kissing the table before throwing the image away with a flick. She touched the table again and Jackie's face rose, spinning slowly. It was an oddly stunning photo. Had her cheeks and freckles glowed so individually before?
"Why's Jackie chasing ya?" Tiff asked, she remembered her food and money and sat back with the plate on her lap.
"My boy here did a flip off a trash can and landed on a post." Kate said.
"Oh…" Tiff grunted with a mouthful, she was clearly disappointed. "Tha's odd. How far was tha grind?"
"Barely any." Griff said.
Tiff's entire face scrunched in bewilderment, then it fell.
"The post was vertical across a str-"
"It was a vertical street post. Turned away from the float to a back flip and kickflip that made me piss my pants" Kate said, remembering the horror.
Griff gave a muffled cry after Kate reached over the top and threw Griff into a head lock of such precision it could only come from an older sister. Masterfully she scooped up his arms mid-flail and squeezed the way a fist squeezed a tomato. His cries turned to gargling.
The image of Jackie started talking. Tiffany rubbed her plate clean with her fingertips and licked them before she touched the air and a soft red light fell over them. A wall formed closing them in their booth.
"Stream incoming, stream incoming." Tiff said quick.
"You a fan?" Kate asked.
Tiffany scoffed.
"No!" Tiff all but yelled.
Tiff thought a moment.
"It's a fisherman looken across the dead sea to see another fisherman. We're polite enough te get drunk togethir but we are nawt friends."
The finality from her thick jaw as it gained a squareness made Kate smile.
Tiff bit her lip, thoughtful.
"My courses ain't done yet and I don't wanna risk… but screw it. I'm too interested, come, see tha real city."