Call a Taxi

Although the weather was quite nice, a walk on those huge bustling pedestrian highways is not what Cindy preferred. It was her birthday, and a Taxi ride was quite rare anyhow. "How about we just take the cab?" Cindy asked. "Not a problem...!" Henry said with a drawn out voice as he turned to a seamless and flush in the wall display. Tapping the screen a few times brought up a bright yellow page, and tapping a few more times produced a check-mark. "Alright, let's head downstairs!" Henry said, opening the front door.

Both of them stepping outside, they found themselves on a well-lit semi-suburban pedestrian road. Several people coming and going, but not as many as on the ridiculously full pedestrian highways. They didn't have to walk far to come across a cyan coloured box, which somewhat resembled an ancient phone booth. Another display illuminated as they approached, and tapping the screen where a button was shown, allowed the doors to slide open and them both to step inside. The booth had space for up to 15 people without those people feeling like squashed sardines. The doors closed behind them and moments later the carriage descended rapidly.

A few seconds later, the carriage arrived at the destination, and Cindy and Henry stepped out onto what appeared to be a viewing gallery onto an absolutely gigantic two-way tunnel, 5 lanes for each side, with cars whizzing past them at incredible speed. But the gallery wasn't just that, because behind where the elevator carriage dropped them off, was a recess with a road, which led down long tunnels back down onto the main highway on either side. Flashing yellow lights all around the gallery alerted them that a taxi was arriving, and sure enough seconds later, a brightly coloured car whirred up to them.

Stepping inside was a unique experience. The Taxi was driven autonomously of course, which meant more room for passengers, allowing for three seats facing the direction of travel, and three seats in the opposite direction, facing the other seats. The whole front and side of the car was covered in one giant pane of glass to better see the outside world. Another display illuminated as they got in, and worked it's computer magic to verify that the people who just entered the cab were indeed Cindy and Henry. Once done with that, the doors closed and the cab launched forward, accelerated down the ramp like crazy, and without any hiccup rejoined the main underground highway.

Just a few minutes later, the cab signalled to drive up another ramp and onto another Taxi stand/viewing gallery. As they stepped out of the cab, the doors immediately closed and as silent as it came, the Taxi zoomed off to the next customer. "I love Taxi's, they're so cool!" Cindy said, excited like a 5 year old child. "Pretty nifty huh?" Henry said, as they stepped into an identical elevator carriage, and were transported back to the surface, directly in-front of the Universal Inhibitor store.

As they approached the door, Henry gave Cindy a quick peck on the cheek, and Cindy gripped Henry's butt much more firmly. Then they went in.