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Prologue

January 7th, 2206
Vancouver District, Canada Sector

Vancouver District was bustling with people. Mom, Dad and I were walking down the busy streets with cake in our hands and one thought on the brain - My eleventh birthday. We were on our way to the beautiful Capilano Park, where we would dine on my favourite meal. Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The cake was beautifully decorated with little red roses and "Happy 11th Birthday Sybella!" written on top in my mom's messy cursive. She was never all that good at cake decorating. Still, I knew it would taste good.

The people of Vancouver District were interesting! They wore really strange clothes compared to me and everyone back home. I saw one guy wearing a shirt covered in pretty green leaves! I wanted to say hello, but my Mom reminded me not to talk to strangers. I didn't mind though, he smelled funny anyways. Now that I think about it, a lot of people in Vancouver District smell funny.

The streets of Vancouver District were busy. Really really busy. Which is saying something since I grew up in Toronto District - a city that's far bigger than Vancouver. Surprisingly though, there wasn't as many funny smelling people.

I noticed a lot of people wearing these green leaves on articles of their clothing. Some had the leaf on their socks, others had them on their shirts or their pants. One guy was even dressed all in red, green, and yellow and was covered in those weird green leaves! He had to have smelled the funniest out of all of them.

I had asked Mom and Dad what those green leaves were from, they laughed and told me it was from something called "pot" and that all the people wearing them were probably "potheads". They wouldn't tell me what "pot" was, or why anyone would ever want to wear a pot on their head. I guessed maybe it was because they needed a helmet, they were playing pretend and that green leaf was a symbol. They were Pot-Knights!

Yeah I thought that's it. I giggled. Mom and Dad thought it was funny too.

As we walked, I stopped admiring the people and instead took interest in the windows of all the stores we walked past. Clothing stores. Jewellery stores, and my all-time favourite - toy stores!

"Mom! Dad! Can we go into the toy store?" I begged.

"No can do, kiddo. We have a HoverCraft to catch!" Dad said. He pressed two fingers on his left wrist and activated his Hologram. It's homescreen buzzed to life and showed the time was 12:36pm.

"We have less than half an hour to get to the stop!" My Dad went on. As he lowered his arm, his Hologram locked instantly.

"Maybe on the way back, sweetie." My Mom continued. I nodded in agreement.

I stared in awe at both of their wrists. Holograms were so cool. You could do anything with them! Well... almost anything, given the Technology Laws my great-grandpa hated more than anything in the world.

"Back in my day, you could do anything on cell phones! Call people! Text people! Scroll through Facebook and look at pictures of stupid - err - silly cats for hours on end! Nowadays there's all these rules and restrictions and so little you're allowed to do. It's so ga- erm. Uncool." He would tell me.

I didn't know what a "cell phone" was and didn't know why Grandpa Alex hated Hologram's so much. HoloTech was incredible! You could watch and look at the pictures and videos that people post on ShareView, you can talk or send messages to your friends using ConnectMe's audio and video calling... You can even explore the KnowledgeCenter to learn about anything you could possibly want to know! Of course, you can only use the Hologram when you turn 16 years old.

I've always wanted a Hologram. I wished to myself.

My parents and I kept walking. We were getting into an even weirder part of Vancouver District now. There were people huddled along the streets wearing super dirty clothes. They smelled even funnier than the strange Pot-Knights I'd seen earlier.