Braving the chill wind and slightly toxic air coursing through her low level flatblock, Aami reached inside the dark, weather-beaten postal delivery hopper and slid out the large package just before the beeping stopped and the hopper’s roller-shutter slowly lowered, accompanied by the intermittent glow from the grimy yellow alarm beacon. ‘I wonder what it might be?’ she puzzled to herself – she rarely received physical goods via postal delivery these days, once she was holed away in her small apart-dorm, so small it could be considered a large ‘pod hotel’ room, she was reassured by comfort and glow of her PC visual array. Since the government introduced a double working day/ night cycle and had made it obligatory for companies to offer jobs which could be completed solely online, she had no need to venture out into the danger and chaos that had become the greater city district of which she was a citizen.
She removed the reusable outer, tamper proof bag and looked forward to another trip to the delivery hopper in order to return it – which was mandatory, by law, great! The large, but not exceptionally heavy box inside was covered in a couple of layers of old, brown wrapping paper which was worn in places, as though this was not the first time it had been used ‘this must really be worth something’ she thought as, wearing ‘slip on-skin’ sanitary gloves, she carefully removed the adhesive tape that bound the antique material. ‘Could this be from the past somehow?’ The only text on the box was a company name ‘Ikeuchi Products‘ with the little-used Hiragana translation beneath ‘池内啓人’; at least she guessed that it was the translation, the various character systems that once dominated her part of the world were no longer taught.
Setting aside the paper for possible resale, or just drone collection, later, she came to the more usual nano-fiberboard container and unfastened the simple flap. The air-form packing within rendered the contents obscure from her view despite the ambient 7500k LED that she tended to prefer flooding her room. Using the vacuum tool from her kitchenette area, she gradually emptied the form packing sack, filling the immediate vicinity with a slightly stale, metallic smell. As she did so, an immensely complex shape composed of varying angular edges and shafts was slowly revealed. As the packing sack lay flat at the bottom of the container, two support blocks, themselves made from nano-cube air form, could be seen holding in place the most intricate looking piece of hardware she had yet encountered.
