I rolled around and flopped side to side on my bed with glimpses of an early morning darkness that could be made out through the crevices of the window shades. My eyes were opened and I closed them in an effort to subside their burning sensation. Another day, but no sleep.

I sat and looked at the analog clock on the wall to the side. 05:07.

The efforts that went into sleeping relaxed and were directed towards preparing myself for the pick up in about two hours. After my cleaning routine, I looked in the kitchen to see if breakfast existed. There were some fresh fruits left, and it would be best not to let it spoil.

I grabbed the pomegranate I received five days ago, sitting on the kitchen counter. I was walking on my way home when a grocer handed me a red ball and said it would go to waste if no one ate it. I voiced that I couldn't possibly eat it since it was at least three times the size of my fist, until she showed me that the red fruit coated its seeds and taught me how to extract its juice. She gave me a sample taste, and it was sweet—a fruit I hadn’t heard of or paid attention to, so why not take it home.

The pomegranate juice took a while to extract, compared to the ease the grocer displayed. Taking out the seeds was simple, but I had no way to tell whether the fruit had detached from the seeds until I put the mixture on a sieve for separation. In addition to two bananas and an apple, I completed an energetic and lightweight breakfast. The extra energy was likely unneeded, but who knows what would happen later today? Certainly not me after the letter of surprise.

One ripe banana remained and it will join my journey with the officers to the Integrator—wherever he was.

05:38. About thirty minutes passed, yet the window displayed only darkness. I could pack things before I left, but I had no container to hold any extra food or clothing other than a backpack. I’ve decided to depart without preparation since the Integrator mentioned it unnecessary to bring anything.

Feeling a bit expressive, the palest options in my wardrobe were appealing—gray pants and a navy blue tee. With a hand, I swept my hair to the side while looking into the mirror, giving my head some volume. That's where the smarts are, so I had to make it more substantial.

06:10. Maybe I should go down early so I don’t miss the officers. I left my apartment in a black winter jacket and black sneakers, remembering to stow the banana and Integrator’s letter in my backpack. Down the crystal-powered elevator and out the front door, a morning breeze further lightened my mood with an enveloping welcome of goosebumps.

The quiet, red-tiled sidewalk stretched long with residential buildings packed next to each other, each with colors of earth and land as to remind me to plant my feet on the ground, despite their towering heights. The leafless trees were firmly rooted in their designated patches along the sidewalk, aligning themselves perfectly at the trunk when I positioned myself to view them one behind another.

For another half hour, I waited with visible exhales in the cold air while the sun began to peek over the roof of the residential buildings across the street. Movement was caught in my peripheral and I turned left to see a silent and levitating silver car making its way down the road; stopping a few paces away. It had a low height and its windshield seamlessly connected to the metal in the front in one smooth curve. Compared to other cars, the front was rounded and not angular, giving it aerodynamics that could pierce the air.

Two men stepped out on opposite sides of the levitating vehicle dressed in off-black ceremonial robes with gilded trim. I could make out a white undershirt below their collarbone, overlaid by brown beads that hung over their neck. If my noncomplementary gray pants and black shoes created a bearable sense of unease, their serenely draped robes and slick metal hunk of a car were strangely out of place and bereft me of thoughts on where I was going.

“Laizen Sommer?” One of them asked and I nodded in response. “Welcome. We are here to escort you to the Integrator’s location.”

“Where’s the energy in your welcome?” The other man said with a hoarse voice. “Come, boy! I see you are here much earlier than us. Shows your dedication! Don’t let this man of formalities scare you.”

I looked at the old man with a hoarse voice and turned to the other whose pale skin did not match the vitality of his demeanor. The younger officer opened the door to the back seat and gestured me in without wasted movement, and I watched as he strode around the front, then back into his driver’s seat.

Embedded in the center of the dashboard, a small and white diamond-shaped crystal glowed dimly. The electrical channels running throughout the compartment were glowing the same white, indicating the car was connected to and powered by that jewel. I have been in many cars and never saw a white crystal—only blues and indigos that were quite aesthetic in the night. For its external appearance, the white light may have matched the silver metal in the sun and became inconspicuous to my eye. Its designer must possess keen eyes for design and an aptitude to make lighting effects blend into the metal without sacrificing function and efficiency. With this impressive final product, it must look stunning in the night.

The old man lowered back into his front seat and shut the door, then faced me as the acceleration of the car gently pushed us back.

“Looks like you’ll be with us for a bit. The journey is a ways away compared to the young girl we picked up earlier. Not much of a talker,” the old officer snickered. “Can’t believe the man himself wanted us to pick you all up this early! I broke my schedule again, but meeting younglings like you made it quite worthwhile.”

I gaped my mouth to make an aspirated sound before the young officer interjected with a smiling, yet serious tone. “This old man talks a lot, Laizen. Let me know if you want it to stop.”

The two interchanged glances and smirks before I broke the silence. “‘The man himself’, you’re talking about the Integrator? What’s he like?”

“An unexplainably strange man. He acts no different compared to the rest of us, yet a warm embrace welcomes you anytime you interact with him. He could even break your sanity in the nicest way possible,” the old man chortled.

“This taut young lad here also works under him as I do. I could never imagine such a relinquishment to happen.” The old man slapped his colleague’s shoulder before he was brushed off.

“There was simply a lot I had to learn, that’s all,” the colleague chimed in.

The old man turned his head back to the front and I turned mine to absorb the view through the window. Many buildings rushed past us on a highway, but as we continued, the towering skyscrapers lowered to single-floored rectangular buildings until we reached an empty field in the outskirts of the city. Only then did the vehicle begin to take off into the sky.

I have never heard of or seen a flying car – only levitating ones going about in daily traffic. Recalling information from previous seminars, the city grid was only programmed to help cars levitate. There wasn’t sufficient energy to allow every vehicle to fly, so the consensus was every one of them should at least have levitation; that way no fuel or wheels were needed. Without any moving parts, vehicles were absolutely silent and produced almost no mechanical heat. How engineers managed to discover levitation, I do not know, but this was on a different strata.

“I have only seen levitating cars on the street; how is this one able to fly?” I asked.

“Ah, this is a special vehicle that was built under the direction of the Integrator and is unknown to the public,” the young officer said. “This cannot be mass-produced as he is busy with other projects; primarily with decomposing, recycling, and removing junk from the forests and oceans since the pre-integration era.”

Sky-blue light surrounded the windows and I looked out to see splotches of clouds above us, the sun shining in the east, and vast green fields beneath. As we lifted further, the green fields below combined with the browns of trees, grays of cities, and other colors of harvestable farmland. At the apex of elevation, snow-peaked mountains and oceans were most conspicuous because of their vastness and impressionable presence unmatched by flat and hilled lands.

As more land passed beneath us, the shorelines and beaches were the next attraction. From this height, the waves stretched wide and seemed slow as it hurtled towards the sand, ending in fizzy white colors as they crashed. The breathtaking view distracted me from the silence of the flying car. What would it sound like up here? For a moment, I thought the physics of the world should allow you to hear all sounds the higher you are in the sky. I yearned to experience the totality of the rustling of leaves, crashing of waves, and the exhilarating energy of people on the beach enjoying their day.

Over the oceans, I could see the vast expanse of the planet that stretched endlessly in all directions. The color of blue was more prominent now, and I looked at the entrances and exits of rivers, and the enclosures of lakes that lined and settled within the land. The ripples of water were discernible as the sun shined, which brought my attention to the few conspicuous wildlife that emerged to the surface every so often. Specks of lush green islands stood out from the brilliant blue of the surrounding water, and I could only imagine what resided there.

I returned my eyes to the huge landmass that we were approaching—South America. “So these continents are much smaller, if I recall from my history lessons,” I stated.

“Oh nostalgia; that reminds me of my youth,” the old officer said. “My piloting days were filled with surviving on many islands of various climates. Now the beauties are submerged or flooded and setting a toe in them is impossible. Countries and shores experienced the same decimation when the ice melted off the land and changed the traditional maps. The peak of havoc was during global and simultaneous floods that flushed out farmland and altered the navigation paths of supply ships overnight.”

“Wait, you remember your past?” I asked in astonishment.

Silence descended upon the flying car as my question lingered in the air. The creaking of his chair made the situation more unsettling as he leaned his head back and I waited for his answer. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?” The old man said.

“Adults I have spoken to about the pre-integration era either don’t recall or have fuzzy memories. You are the first one that I’ve encountered who is an exception,” I told him.

“That is strange indeed. I haven’t seen or spoken with anyone in that condition,” he said.

I desired to delve deeper into the matter, but didn’t know what questions to ask. I never anticipated such a situation because I didn’t think it was possible, so I kept it in the back of my mind. This newfound information only compounded my confusion and spawned more questions than answers.

"Anyway, you mentioned navigation, which reminds me – if I may ask – where are you taking me?"

Both officers looked at me and let out a laugh, with the old man responding. “You don’t know where you’re going? The young girl must not have known either and never said a peep!”

“We are heading to Antarctica,” the young officer said.