Taking the Skytrain, we came to the station nearest the Hana Ki building. Walking along the street, as mixed feelings of happiness and dread swirled inside of us all, we took it all in.

While eager to explore the new world without the worry of poverty, I felt put off by what I didn't know. I'd definitely need to take the adjustment slowly, as even walking here made me feel ostracized somehow. It was like a totally different planet.

"Are you excited?" Mom asked Eito, trying to take his mind off of the fact that our lives would never be as they were.

"Yeah, I guess," he said.

"It'll be a fresh start for us, and just think of all the games you can play now. I bet they'll be super cool," she said, jazzing him up.

"I'd put a hold on the games until you gage how loose they are with content," I said to Mom.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Like, you know, violence and language and all that stuff. They got more lenient in the last 20 years for us, right, so how lenient have they gotten in the last 200 years?" I pointed out.

"Oh, you might be right on that one. Well, I'm sure we'll find you something fun," Mom said with a smile, holding Eito at her side.

When we got to the building, a hologram appeared in front of the door.

"How may I help you?" she asked. She was human sized and acted as a concierge of sorts, though, I couldn't imagine she would be much help in carrying things, as light wasn't solid.

"We're were given apartment 89D by... what was it called?" Mom asked, looking to me for the answer.

"The Council. They said we would take up residence in 89D in this building for three months unpaid," I explained.

"Excellent, everything checks out. I'll just scan your face first before we proceed, Ms. Morita."

"Excuse me?" Mom asked. The woman stood still, as if the program had stopped responding, and a red light dazzled in dots over her face. Then, she became animated again, as Mom looked stunned.

"Perfect. I show you to your apartment," she smiled, walking towards the door. It whooshed open with precise movement, just like everything in this city.

We followed her through the door, seeing the beautiful lobby. I'd imagine this apartment was much more expensive than that of Hanako and Hamako. The lobby alone looked better than the entire street they lived on.

"Follow me into the elevator," she requested. The elevator door rotated. It was a cylindrical door that turned around the center, revealing the entrance.

Getting into it, we watched as the door closed around us. The buttons weren't where they usually would be, but instead were replaced by a glass panel. Clear screen, nice.

"The Hana Ki building has over 90 floors, 96 to be exact. We pride ourselves in our excellent resident relations. Any question you have can be answered immediately by our 24/7 resident hotline."

"How do we access that?" I asked.

"Calling for me, actually. All you have to do is say my name, Brooke, and I will appear. There are projectors in every room, meaning you can access me from anywhere. Beyond that, the building also features a pool, spa, dining area, a movie theatre for those classic films, and of course, all access Wi-Fi. And trust me when I say, our speeds are very fast," Brooke smiled.

"How fast, exactly?" I asked, wanting to hear what people of the future considered to be fast internet.

"Over 80 petabytes per second, in all areas, so you never have to worry about a slow connection," Brooke explained.

"How many gigabytes is that?" Eito asked.

"80 petabytes is approximately 80 million gigabytes."

"Oh. And, what are people downloading that would ever need those speeds?" I asked.

"That could range from streaming virtual reality games, to streaming virtual movies. The average virtual film requires a speed of at least 700 terabytes per second to render every little detail of the 3D world," Brooke said.

"Are all movies in 3D now?" I asked.

"Of course, the production of mainstream films switched to entirely 3D over 40 years ago. Now, to watch films displayed in 2D or fake 3D, you can use the movie theatre below the ground floor."

"I really want to watch a horror movie," I said.

"We have an extensive selection. What genre are you interested in?" Brooke asked.

"Paranormal, probably. Oh, and have any older movies been converted into 3D films?" I asked.

"Yes, several have been, but only the more recent ones. Anything earlier than the 40s was and is not able to be converted."

"The 2140s? I asked.

"Yes," she replied as the elevator began to slow down.

"Wow, 2D movies sure lasted a while," I said.

"Alright, we're at floor 89. I'll show you to your apartment," Brooke said as the door spun open.

The hallway floor was a matte glass with orbs of blue light shining through, changing in intensities. They appeared to move around underneath the floor, making it look like ice. The walls were also of a "different time" with them being made out of metal and some kind of plastic-looking thing. It probably wasn't plastic, but it did cover the walls, giving them a very specular coating. The metal bits lined the walls from floor to ceiling, like pillars. Behind the pillars shone a bright white light. The hallway alone was fancier than any room I'd been in before, so I could only imagine how nice the actual apartments were.

Getting to the door, we saw "89B" projected onto it in blue. Brooke unlocked the door using her hand, and pushed it open. I assumed the door opened itself for effect, of course.

"Are the door handles the key?" Mom asked, remembering the clones' door.

"Of course, but our security is much more than that. Besides the hand scanner on the door handle, we also scan your eyes and face."

The front room was beautiful. It was like being in a five-star hotel room, but bigger and with extra rooms. Everything had a dark grey theme, accented by several blue lights, ranging from strips to circles. The floor was also great, feeling like carpet but looking like wood. It was a marvel to say the least. 200 years of technology had gone into making wood feel like carpet, and I was here for every bit of it.

"So, is there anything else you need?" Brooke asked.

"No, I think we're all good," I said.

"Ah, just a second, uh, Brooke. How much is the... uh, rent?" Mom asked, walking towards Brooke.

"The rent is 1,670,000."

"Every month?"

"Every month."

"Ok...."

"Your first bill is August 1st."

"I thought you said 3 months without payment?" Mom asked.

"That is the deal, yes, what's the issue?" Brooke replied.

"You said August, that's four months, right?"

"Well, it's May now, so June, July, August. Does that clear things up?" Brooke asked with a smile.

"It's not April?" Mom asked, turning around to look at me.

"Probably not, I don't think the time gate keeps the same month, I think it's based on the year alone," I suggested.

"Oh, well, ok. May, sure." Mom said.

"Great, anything else, Ms. Morita?" Brook asked.

"No, that's it. Thank you," Mom said, giving a little wave.

And just like that, Brooke's projector went out.

From that point on, we adjusted. Our lives changed completely. We went from people of 2019, to people of 2209. It was almost a miracle. What I had dreaded so much had come so easy. Too easy. It took just one week for us to change almost entirely. While Mom was still the least to change, she definitely adapted to a few things.

She did groceries in a new store, which wasn't super easy for her as a lot of brands were completely different. She spent quite a lot of time talking to Brooke, asking her random questions to learn as much as she could about the future. Brooke had become such a large part of her life in that week, that one night she'd mistakenly made dinner for her as well.

Eito was certainly more content than Mom was, playing 3D-projected virtual reality games all week. He wasn't really interested in the newer games, as themes had changed a lot. Luckily, a lot of "classics" had been converted into this new format, allowing Eito to play upgraded versions of the same ones he'd enjoyed before, though, only a few.

I guess I was fine. I'd spent a lot of the week exploring the city, which Mom was definitely apposed to, making Brooke come with me to act as some kind of protection. I wasn't really sure how she would help, as she couldn't really do anything, but it was nice to have her company. At first, I wasn't sure how she operated, until she gave me a rundown.

"I can be projected in a million different places at once, but I only have one collective knowledge. Everything I learn is uploaded to a storage system, so, every Brooke you talk to will be the same one, even if I'm in more than one place."

"Hmm... so my mom is talking to you right now as well?" I asked.

"Exactly. She's really interested in history. I've basically become a history teacher. She wants me to go through every major event in the world, and so far we're in 2063."

"I never thought of my mom as a history nerd. I'm just your typical nerd. Or I was. Not much of one now considering I have nothing to study for," I said, stepping out of the way of a giant holographic woman dancing through the street.

"Well, you'll learn a lot soon enough," Brooke said.

"How?" I asked.

"The Neuralink appointment," Brooke pointed out.

"Oh, right. I suppose I have to download the end of my schooling, don't I.... Interesting to think that I'll be finished."

"Well, it'll give you more free time," Brooke said.

"How long does the download take?" I asked.

"Each year of school takes approximately ten seconds. However, you'll be downloading two years in one because you would've graduated in March despite having two years left based on your timeline."

"Right. And what about Eito?"

"Eito will get one year downloaded each year until he turns 16. He's got one year to download right now. See, the years didn't necessarily change, we just condensed the last two into the years before it, meaning you learn more in a shorter time, which is why you would've already graduated. And since there isn't a learning curve to downloading the things you need to know, it's way easier to condense the curriculum into ten years instead of twelve," Brooke explained.

"And kids start at the age of six?" I asked.

"Well, they start official schooling at the age of six, but pre-schooling starts at four. With that, you have two years of downloads to make sure you're prepared for school. It's also in those years that you need to have the Neuralink implanted, and while most do it at birth, some don't. If you don't get the Neuralink before the age of six, you can't actually learn anything, because we don't have schools."

"What about homeschooling?"

"It's very unpopular nowadays. Studies report less than 0.0002% of the Japanese population even consider homeschooling, and only a quarter of those who consider it actually go through with it."

"Might I ask, what is the current population of Japan? Most people predicted it would drop significantly."

"About 67 million, however, half of the people living here aren't originally from Japan. They immigrated because you don't actually need to know Japanese anymore to live here. And, if you don't know it, but do want to learn it, all you have to do is download the language, and you'll be speaking it fluently within a few weeks," Brooke said.

"The language isn't immediate?" I questioned.

"Well, that's the only thing that isn't. It does take a few weeks for a language to truly sink in, because while all of the information is there, it's hard to fully grasp it. We're still limited by how much our brains can process at once, and so, while Neuralink provides storage and download of this information, the brain still needs to learn all of the paths for the information, which is why the learning curve is, while completely diminished, is still present."

"Wow. So, I could learn every language ever? How long would that take?" I asked.

"Well, you'd take quite a while, actually. The thing is, it's recommended that you only learn one at a time, and only start the next one once all of the connections have been made in the current one, so you'd have to take about a month in between each," Brooke replied

"Oh, well, better than taking years to even be able to speak a language," I said.

"Sure is."

"You know, I had a question about pollution," I recalled, thinking back to last week when we first arrived.

"What was it?" Brooke asked.

"I wanted to know why the air was so clean."

"Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I do know that our energy consumption has swayed drastically towards clean energy, and our total consumption has definitely gone down."

"How did that happen, was it because of the population drop?" I asked.

"It was, yeah. Our population went up to eleven billion, but since then, it's dropped to six billion."

"Woah, what the hell happened?" I asked, looking stunned.

"Funny thing, it was a combination of wars, nuclear wars, pollution, lack of reproduction, all sorts of things. Though, we've been sitting comfortably at six billion for the last 30 years or so, so I think we've got it under control."

"You said nuclear wars? Let met guess, the US had something to do with them?"

"You're really good at guessing," Brooke said. "It's true. The US went into a nuclear war with several countries. Actually, the US isn't even a country anymore, it's nothing more than a pile of ash."

"Everyone died?" I asked.

"Everyone who was in the country at the time, yeah. The deaths were over 1.7 billion."

"Who killed them?"

"It was a combination of the UK, France, North Korea, China, Iran, and India. All of them launched within the same three-minute period, totalling over 20,000 nuclear bombs. In the first hour, over 75,000 had detonated across the country. The US tried to retaliate but they only managed to send out a few before they were gone. After that, the countries all called to stop, and they've been good friends ever since."

"Does anyone know why any of that happened?" I asked.

"The president at the time, John James Monroe, had been talking for days about nuclear war because those same six countries had cut ties with the US in terms of trading and manufacturing, because they all believed the US was spying on them through these things. So, to stop him from killing five billion people, they destroyed the whole country together."

"Seems a bit overkill," I said.

"Well, this was also at the time when global warming and all that were at their peak, and the US was the biggest cause of it all. So, the six did it to not only save their countries, but to save the world. They spent decades prior trying to make some kind of agreement with America to slow down their energy consumption and reduce their pollution, but they wouldn't budge. It seemed to be the only solution to them since Monroe didn't respond well to their cutting-ties punishment."

"I can't say I'm surprised, that's for sure."

The night started to creep in, and the sun set was among us. We'd gone on quite a long walk, having left the house at noon. During the day, we'd eaten lunch, walked over 200 blocks, according to Brooke's tracking, and discussed the world's history, my future, in great detail. Given that the sun had just crossed under the horizon, the light of the sky had vanished quickly. Brooke, however, acted like a lamp, given that she was made entirely of light. The glow of holograms shined brighter than ever at night, it was like a firework show at all times. Some holograms were even of fireworks, which allowed them to do impossible things.

"Where are we now?" I asked.

"Nearing the North West edge of Shinjuku."

"What's something fun we can do before we get on the train home?" I asked, feeling energized by the night air.

"You're acting more cheerful than usual," Brooke noticed.

"I don't know what it is, I just feel so excited whenever I see what the city has become," I said, looking up at the burst of colour that was the Shinjuku skyline.

"So, you want something exciting?" Brooke asked.

"Of course."

"I do have a protocol for just such an occasion. Though, I am legally required to tell you that as an A.I., I am entirely responsible for every decision I make, and in no way reflect the team that developed me, nor the company that owns that team."

"How nice.... Now, what are we going to do?"

"Follow me," she said slyly.

"Alright," I replied.

Brooke began to move, faster than walking, like a slinky zig zag. She dashed through alley ways, stopping quickly before darting across open areas, making sure to remain mostly unseen. I felt the rush. Knowing that no one knew who I was, consequences of whatever we might be doing didn't even occur to me to be possible.

Where we ended up after a few minutes of traveling appeared to be much more like the neighborhood that the clones lived in, feeling dark and mysterious, especially in comparison to the rest of the city. The apartments we were running through now appeared to house the shadiest of people, giving me a chill of fear. It made me more cautious than the thought of getting in trouble. Running into someone who didn't abide by the law could be much worse than running into someone who did, and given that where we were harbored those who didn't, I felt on edge.

Brooke eventually slowed down, looking back at me with a smile. Past her, through the alley, all I could