Unfrozen

Reality; step 1

It took another 3 days for us to be able to leave again. We had a small ceremony for Felix - the man who jumped, but that was it. We didn't really grieve that much, nobody knew him, we simply were in shock and the guides did not anticipate this whole situation either, they never even considered this kind of reaction and that not everyone is excited for future. Some of us, like me, just want to go back to our past lives.

When we left the building for the second time, the weather was identical like when we left for the first one, cloudless sky with bright sunshine. I didn't feel the same kind of excitement as I did previously. Just being on the balcony, it made me feel nauseous. When I looked towards the edge, I noticed that someone has made the fence much higher that it was few days ago. If those people only cared a little bit about how we felt and helped that man... I clenched my fist and tried to not think about all of this. I have to look forwards to the future, it's all I can do.

We stepped into a huge lift - it fit us all in and we still had plenty of space.
"This lift will be going down for a long time, we are over a kilometre above the ground on the tallest platform in this part of the city. The lift will go down with a speed of 40km/h, but it shouldn't be very noticable. Below the Shift Centre, there are many facilities including a hospital, where you were waken up, and many research facilities." Amina told us, like a typical city tour guide. In fact, this whole thing did feel like a school trip in a way. A bunch of people who are still learning and one teacher who has no idea how to lead a group - typical school trip.

I didn't feel the movement of the lift at all, just like Amina said. I sat on one of the couches on the side and looked through a window, as we were speeding down the tower. I could see that in the distance, the other buildings had huge balconies around them, making it look like the city basically had multiple levels. Every level had a different colour theme and was filled with different kinds of plants and decor. I wasn't able to make out everything perfectly, the lift was moving too fast for this.

Just a little bit later, we got to the ground. After leaving the lift I realised how much shade there actually was, the ground level was separated from the sun by other balconies-levels after all. The ground floor had a simple, white theme. The jungle-ish theme was replaced by more ordinary nature aspects, something much more likely to be seen in a city of the past, than the other one. The edge of the sidewalk was covered by small birch trees, their treetops shaped as various things - some kind of busts, stars, spikes, spirals and even animals, which were supposed to be extinct. Truthfully, ground floor did not make any impression on me. It looked normal.  When I looked towards the road I noticed that there were literally no cars.
"The lowest level is the poorest part of the city. As you can see however, even here, people live comfortably." Amina said. "I am going to bring you to a residential complex where you will be living. It will be on 4th floor, the most populated one. Here, in Birmingham, there are no rules about what floor you can live on, besides what you can afford." She explained.
"Yeah, what about other cities?" asked the blonde man who sat at the table with me, Jasmin and July few days ago "If we are under domes, how do we leave them and go to another city?"
"You don't." said Amina "We don't have any means of doing so, common people don't have any business travelling anyway. We are all connected AND the city has everything you need."
"So, we are just hamsters under a glass lid trapped by you?" say July with a visible irritation and her arms crossed on her chest.
"Why would you want to leave?" smiled Amina and turned around. "Alright. We are going to a maglev station."
"Maglev?" I asked "What's that?" We obviously didn't know. Or maybe I just didn't pay attention? Both situations were possible.
"Patience, ms Fox!" Amina said cheerfully.

It turned out that maglevs were basically trains. The thing is that those trains were levitating.
"Electromagnetic levitation!" said a dark haired man, who stood next to me. "I used to take part in the research connected to them, they even got to the testing phase back in 2010s... I'm glad to see work of my life popularised" he sighed and looked at his feet, the turned his had to me "What do you think, may I still be able to create something new...?".
"I don't know..." I said. I never really thought about my future, much less anybody elses. I'm just a kind of person who gets through the life. "I guess... Its still possible." I added, then turned away. The dark haired man realised I felt uncomfortable and just left me alone.  The whole group got on the train. It was pretty busy and a group as big as ours definitely didn't help to make the experience of travelling on a maglev very comfortable. To pay for the tickets, we did not have to do anything, but simply scan our hands as we stepped on the train. Amina told us, that since we currently don't have money, the bill will just go to our account and we will pay later.
"The system allows even the people who do not have money to be able to buy necessities like transport, food, clothes, medicine, but they cannot buy luxuries if their balance is on the negative - they need to repay it first."