“Come on, Trent,” says Chris. They take off toward a huge drugstore called Aid-Mart, leaving me with Adam and Zoe.
We check out the Frosty Foam place first. It’s like a frozen yogurt shop, except that it sells sticks with foam on them in different flavors ranging from green tea to bacon to cupcake. Signs all over the place proclaim that it’s a fun, low-fat treat, but it looks like a weird, frothy mess to me.
The women with the face tattoos sit in the corner with bright-purple foam sticks, but there’s no one else inside. Instead of a counter with a cash register and someone to take your order, there’s just a wall of screens with a menu on each one. There’s also a TV showing the news, with a headline about supply problems with the Mars base and an ad on the side for cloning your pets. The date and time are displayed on the bottom, confirming our suspicions. We’re exactly thirty years in the future, even down to the day.
For a minute, our eyes remain glued to the TV screen, taking it all in, absorbing that this is really happening. I set my mother’s watch to match the current time: 8:13 a.m.
“Thirty years,” Adam says, shaking his head. “And there’s a colony on Mars now? Awesome.”
“I want to try one of these foam things,” Zoe says. She taps the screen for a coffee-flavored stick, but it flashes an error message: ID NOT FOUND. She tries again with no success. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“Maybe that one is broken,” Adam says. He tries the next machine, pressing a few buttons, and the screen reads, “Thank you.” Part of the wall opens up, and a light-brown foam stick slides out.
“Thanks,” Zoe says, grabbing it. The wall closes back up again a moment later. She takes a mouthful of foam and laughs, wiping at her lips. “It’s good! But weird at the same time. Like eating flavored bubbles.”
Adam examines the spot where the opening was. “This place must be all automated.”
“What about the food?” I ask. “Someone has to be preparing it, right?”
He finds a breakfast menu on the screen and orders some hash browns. They pop out of the wall within seconds. “Doesn’t look like it.”
I grab one and take a bite. Tastes normal. “How did you pay for these?”
“I’m not really sure.” Adam stares at the screen. “It didn’t ask for payment or anything. Just said ‘complete your order’ and then gave us the food.”
“Hmm. Strange.”
We leave Frosty Foam and walk into a store next door called Smartgear. This place does have people working here, each with one of those facial tattoos. The salespeople stand around display cases while videos play on the walls behind them, showing a woman applying something that looks like a clear Band-Aid to her temple.
“Welcome to Smartgear!” a man says. His facial tattoo is of a dark-blue geometric pattern. The collar of his shirt reads Smartgear in twinkling white lights. “Can I help you?”
“Um, yeah.” I stare past him at the video, where the Band-Aid thing on the woman’s face morphs into one of those tattoos. The screen reads Fully Customizable and shows the tattoo-thing changing shape and color. Ahh, that makes a lot more sense than everyone going around getting ink all over their faces.
Zoe is silent except for the scratch of her pencil against her sketchbook as she captures the store on paper. Beside me, Adam watches the video with his mouth hanging open. “We want to see one of those,” he says to the sales guy.
“Certainly. This is the newest model, the SG17 flexi.” He gestures to the table next to him, where thin, see-through patches are displayed on little stands. “We’ve improved on the augmented reality and the integration with household objects from the previous version.”
“Oh. Great.” I have no idea what he’s talking about. He picks one up from the display and hands it to me. The patch is flexible and curved to fit on the temple around the eye. It’s completely clear and feels like smooth plastic—it reminds me of when I got glue all over my hands as a kid and would peel it off. I pass the patch to Adam.
“How do they work?” he asks while he examines it.
“They’re simple. Flexis have microscopic sensors that read brain waves, allowing you to access the Internet using only mental commands. No more clunky glasses or heavy tablets to carry around. And the flexis are so thin and light, you won’t even know you’re wearing one. They make a great fashion statement too.” As he says this last line, the tattoo on his face—the flexi—changes colors from blue to purple. “See?”