Derek and Ryan parted ways when they got to his street, leaving Ryan to travel the next couple of blocks to Lisa’s house on his own. He had left the PerSpectives off during their walk and took the opportunity now to slide them back on. There was one thing that he had been anticipating all day and wanted to take the short time before he arrived at Lisa’s house to check it out.

Sure enough, bouncing excitedly at the top of his display was the shopping cart, with a number 1 in the bottom corner. He focused on it and the cart turned smoothly in his direction as a sound like roller skates shot at his face. The cart came to a screeching halt right in front of him, causing Ryan to jerk back as if to dodge it, then the cart fell over, and he let out a soft chuckle as the contents began to spill out and seamlessly morph into the grid of a shopping window. Ryan had to stop walking because he couldn’t see anything, but the store window quickly became transparent enough for him to see and shifted to one side, so it wasn’t taking up his entire field of view.

Thanks to daily tasks and (mostly) his reading assignments he currently had 1,938 CP, but before he even thought of spending that on the store, he had the Silver Token to spend. He pulled up the second tier of the shopping list and started browsing through items. His first reaction to the store was the cost. These items were, to his sensibility, unaffordable. The cheapest he came across on the list was 1,800 CP. He had been intending to use his first batch of money to get something nice for his mother, like a new coat or take her out to eat somewhere nice. But just one of these items and he would be back to zero real quick. It made him appreciate the Silver Token he had.

The items in the store went from practical utility to almost unbelievable tech. There was the Sifting Technologies HaptaGlove, that could provide real tactile feedback when interacting with the mixed reality environment, providing another level of immersion into Perspective Vision. A Mapping Drone called “Eye in the Sky” that really caught Ryan’s eye. He focused on that one to get more detailed information.

“Eye in the Sky”
Mapping Drone
2,200 CP

A small, silent, collapsable quadcopter that syncs with your PerSpectives. Small enough to fit in your pocket, this little guy offers quite the bang for your buck. Equipped with patented 3D Mapping sensor technology.

This device will extend your PerSpectives sensory input by up to 500 meters (depending on field of view), providing real time rendering of the environment it is scouting. It comes complete with multi-spectrum scanning including, but not limited to thermal, infra-red, and astral resonance to help pick out those pesky anomalies before you run smack into them.

“If that isn’t a little used-car-salesmany I don’t know what is,” Ryan thought, but then remembered the add for the PerSpectives and decided that was about right. Even though he felt rather sold on that as his Token item, he minimized the window and continued browsing. There was a Dimensional Filter Lense, which reminded him of something that stranger had said about how the PerSpectives were tuned. The description made it sound like he could retune the perspectives and see things that he would otherwise be blind to.

Ryan’s foot landed wrong on an acorn in the middle of the sidewalk and almost slid out from under him. He managed to prevent himself from falling over by flailing wildly like a surfer in training. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching and then instructed the PerSpectives to tweak their opacity a little, so he could pay a little more attention to the real world while he walked and shopped. He kicked the acorn away and continued scrolling.

There was a pocket fabricator, kind of like a portable 3d printer, it could create a wide range of objects and could be fed by plastic scrap and metal he found on the street. One that he considered completely wild was the “Whisper Mantle” a Personal Cloaking Field that could render him as invisible as the PerSpective camo did for his headset. There was an Enhanced Reality Audio Implant, a mod for the PerSpectives that extended the range of the audio reception.

One thing on the list that disturbed him was the Q-Lixir; also called an Accelerant Shot, it was a single-use item that simulated the effects of the Chemical Q they had been speaking of in the class earlier. Ryan didn’t like the fact that he was being offered the chance to buy a drug through the app. The description claimed it was safer and had much milder side effects, but he dismissed it out of hand. If he couldn’t get the job done without drugs, he wasn’t about to try to do it with them. There were several other items on the list that were blurred out and no way he could tell to see why or how he might make them available.

The last item on the list that caught his eye was the Adaptive Clothing Upgrade. It was a smart fabric jacket that could change its color, generate pockets (for the cost of additional CP), regulate temperature, or even grow tough enough to protect against ballistic damage. That one was 1,900 CP and really tempted Ryan into getting it. There was an option when viewing the description to see a holographic projection of the items, and that one looked sweet.

Ryan thought about how belittling it was whenever Jeremy pointed out the difference in clothing between them, as a way of reminding everyone of the difference in their status. With a jacket like that he could really shut that jerk up. Then again, that would be a little flashy, and Ryan didn’t want to start standing out, not when he had a growing number of things he wanted to hide.

In the end he decided on using the Token for the drone, it was one of the most expensive items so it made the most sense to use the Token on it, and the utility it provided was the most immediately useful to him. He found that observation had generated the most tasks, and thereby had the potential to increase his CP gain, allowing him to ultimately purchase all the juicy items he wanted.

“Eye in the Sky” --2,200 CP

You do not have enough CP to purchase this item.
You have [1] Silver Store Token available.
Would you like to use Silver Store Token to purchase “Eye in the Sky”?

|Yes | No|

Ryan selected [Yes] and was given another message that said the item would be delivered within the next 24 hours. He considered wasting the rest of his money on another one of the alluring items in the store but forced himself to take a day to think about it before making any impulse purchases. With that, he closed the store and kept walking to Lisa’s house. It was almost five o’clock by the time he got there, and the sky was starting to turn that twilit tone that brought a calmness to the world. The wind had died down and the rustle of falling leaves was dampened.

On an intellectual level he knew Lisa had asked him over because of their shared interest and the fact that she had tangible advice to help him on this new path he had started to walk. But somewhere inside he had a hope that there was something more to it. After all, she could have just as easily asked to meet him at the library to discuss her theories. Standing in front of her house now, he told himself not to overthink it, took a steeling breath, and headed up to knock on the door.