The van was quick in its journey towards the city of tomorrow. Tomorrow being today, Goodie having travelled through time in the traditional manner of sleeping through it, warded from the effects of the ages with the use of a stasis device, a glorified coffin that politicians long dead had relied upon to sweep away their problems.

The city rose out of the north Atlantic like a gothic monument to technological development. Ash black in colour and beyond description in size, it pierced through the surface of the water like some cartoonish overlord’s fortress. The unseen innards, a hive of roads and skyscrapers in Goodie’s mind, though he had yet to see anything but the exterior of it in truth. To say that he was intimidated would have been an understatement, though he guessed that was the whole point of its antagonistic styling.

It was a city that did not want guests. Or perhaps it did. Perhaps it would welcome anyone who would dare enter it…forever.

Or so it felt. For all he knew, in the mindset of tomorrow, pure evil was the very definition of some pretentious prick’s idea of haute couture or whatever architectural fashion was called. Whatever the case, he was heading there, welcomed or not.

Goodie distracted himself from any further unnecessary thought by focusing on the rhythmic bumping of the van as it moved through the water, repeatedly rising and lowering as it sped forth. He still had no idea of just how it was doing what it was. Amphibious vehicles were hardly new, such things existing since World War Two, but the structure of the van was just too thin, too light for him to imagine the machinery required for aquatic mobility to be supported within it anywhere, even if he accounted for whatever future technology might have come into being.

Goodie was beginning to realise that he was the proverbial cave dweller, misplaced in time.

As blunt as the city’s design may have been, it had not neglected the inclusion of artificial beaches, each tipped with what looked like the world’s largest bookends, stark black slopes that allowed the van to effortlessly make its transition to land with barely any perceptible change in motion. An ease that was shared by the van’s cloaking mechanism, the camouflage disappearing as smoothly as it had first appeared.

A smoothness that was then interrupted by the vehicle’s need to then come to a stop, the path forward blocked by garbage.

Leaning over as much as he could, Goodie tried to take it all in; in the van’s way was a mound of trash to outmatch anything he had ever seen in his admittedly brief life. Whatever modifications the previous owners had made to the van thankfully kept the smell from invading the interior. Still, his nose crinkled as he imagined the sheer stench of it all under the near midday sun.

He felt the implant in his nasal cavity activate, negating his ability to smell. Another of his non-consensual gifts. One that, like the rest of his implants, had its quirks. Specifically, while his ability to smell had been turned off, the device tricked his brain into thinking he was surrounded by frying bacon. Some would consider that a positive, but those people more than likely never had every moment of their lives and free will severely restricted for several years, their diets solely limited to the ingestion of some sort of nutrient paste—and even then, only at scheduled times of the day.

The smell never failed to stimulate his saliva glands—as it began to do so now, his stomach starting to growl. It had been a while since Goodie had eaten, and with the now present knowledge that he was no longer confined to the whims of his captors, new and old, his head started to fill with images of every dish that he had ever eaten or ever wanted to. Which is why Goodie deactivated the implant, his sense’s sudden return to normal almost shocking in its suddenness. He had more important things to consider than stuffing his mouth at the moment, and indulging in the distraction would be foolhardy at best.

He jerked backwards into his chair as the van suddenly reversed then stopped, the vehicle then turning to begin circling the outer rim of the city’s exterior.

For over an hour, they drove around, looking for some way into the city proper, only to find each new entryway overflowing with refuse. Eventually, unbidden, the van made to ascend to the higher levels in the continuance of its search for a way inward. And again, all that they encountered were more blocked entrances. And again, they rose. Ever higher, ever slower.

Eventually, the garbage did peter out; at first, lowering in volume, then giving way to actual roadway, but the van continued to rise upward, regardless. Once they reached the top, the vehicle turned inwards, then sped up as they made their way further along. Odd piles of rot dotted the roads still, though, the van having to ride over and even through a few as they journeyed forth.

But long bored of observing refuse, Goodie instead looked out the window to his side, out and over the vast city below and still rising further above.

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It was both as he had imagined and not. Looking out into the distance, he saw an endless sea of highways with islands of skyscrapers protruding into the sky as the city itself protruded from the Atlantic. A large artificial island of some kind of dull, black material. Something carbon based if he had to guess.

The van had displayed a small map for him earlier, but it was only now that he accepted what it had shown him, the staggeringly immense size of this place needing to be seen to be believed. But where he had envisioned an endless forest of mass-produced towers, each as soulless and inhumanly efficient as the next, instead were works of art.

Each skyscraper was adorned by a unique medley of ornamentations, from reliefs to gargoyles to simple nondescript protrusions; a vast collection of every art style humanity had ever dared to imagine displayed for all to see.

Zooming in with his left eye, he could see that the decorations were not limited to mere protrusions, but also intrusions, an equally varying array of carvings both broad and intricate decorated the surfaces of each building for as far up and down as he could manage to look.

Still, for all that each tower was both unique and random, they did emanate a feeling of being mass-produced. He guessed that they were some form of compromission between dehumanising efficiency and humanising eccentricity—probably designed by one of those art A.I.s that had been so hot in his day—then carved and installed by drones or something.

A novel form of dehumanisation.

Still, pretty.

Some part of his mind latched on to some oddity that took him a moment to realise the exact nature of; something that he was seeing before him, but also not.

The adverts.

Like any city, the adverts dotted every space that would allow them, but there was something off about them.

It took him a while to realise what the problem was. Those adverts? They were not advertising anything.

They were not blank; far from it, they were some of the most beautiful and well-designed ads he had ever seen, enough so that even he who had never bothered with such things before on account of never having the money to do so wanted to purchase whatever they were selling. But that was precisely the problem. There was no product. There were all the clichés: uplifting and inspiring quotes, eye-catching visual effects, everything adverts from his time would strive for and more, but ultimately, there was no product or service offered.

“…another form of art?”

They rode like that for a while, with just Goodie’s thoughts and the endless hassling from his artificial passengers to fill the void of silence that overtook the van. He was tempted to try to find a radio to turn on but with how alien the vehicle was and with the obvious clandestine modifications made to it, he still feared that any manhandling on his part would trigger some sort of self-destruct mechanism, his long-awaited freedom snatched from his grasp because of a little boredom, so he kept his hand to himself and waited.

There was a momentary break, however, when a waterfall of shit, both literal and metaphorical, began to descend from the sky. He saw what looked to be a ship, a spaceship, or just a flying one, at least, high above him. Wingless, it floated in the sky unsupported. He had always been the sci-fi guy of his little group of geeks, and the sight of the fantastic landscape should have had him tickled pink, but the wonder of it was ruined by the partially liquid refuse cascading down from its hold, the waste smearing the side of one of the artistic towers, the gothic angels carved onto its surface weeping wretched tears as the sky barge continued its assault.

[?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?]

…he ignored the oddity; Goodie already had more than his fair share of problems to deal with, right now.

It would be an hour more before the city centre came into sight. Goodie had no idea where the van was taking him, so he was just assuming that that was their destination, but it did bring his mind back to his problems.

What lay in store for him ahead? What was he going to do about the people that were probably looking for him?

“More importantly, what are we gonna do about all this?” he asked as he looked behind him to the van’s rear. The man calling himself John had told him to dump the van as soon as he could, and Goodie understood why, but there was just so much of worth held within it, not to mention just the utility of having a self-driving vehicle.

[This vehicle both contains valuable resources and could serve us in multiple endeavors. The danger is worth the risk]

[Resources] [We need more information]

[The danger is not worth the risk] [Agreed]

[We should stick it some place safe for later]

[Agreed, the vehicle’s utility alone justifies retaining it.]

[Transportation has always proven a valuable service; we will potentially have a means of earning money if we keep it. A potentially automated means of doing so if we can find a way to reprogram it.]

“But they could use it to track u…me down…,” he cautioned. He agreed with them, but chose to play the devil’s advocate.

[Ultimately, it is you that needs to decide what we do. It’s your life on the line.]

“Hmm,” he agreed, noncommittedly. He did not want responsibility—not when the consequences could be so dire. After thinking about it, he said, “No, better to be safe than…”

“May I suggest we initiate the restless protocol?” the van advised.