Two minutes later, Lu was panting on the starting platform of Sector 42. In front of him, Mei was doing stretching exercises. She wore a bright pink cyber aviator goggles and a jacket made of reflective material that changed color in rhythm with the city’s advertising holograms. Under her feet hovered her pride and joy: a custom-made, illegal magnetic hover skateboard with two oversized plasma thrusters at the rear.
“Lu! You look like you’ve been run over by a cargo drone,” Mei called out, grinning as she sent her board soaring into the air with an elegant kick and caught it again. “What’s so important that I have to interrupt my training? The big race on level 100 is next week!”
“No training, Mei! Emergency!” Lu gasped, pointing into the abyss between the gigantic residential blocks. “The new company prototype… Bao. I spilled soy sauce on his brain. Now he’s flying around, stealing cyber goggles, and thinks he’s the messiah of logistics!”
Mei blinked twice, then burst into deafening laughter. “You did WHAT? Soy sauce? Lu, that’s the best story you’ve ever made up.”
“I’m not making it up! Look at your monitor!” Lu shouted desperately.
Mei tapped her bionic forearm display. Immediately, the official Neo-Chongqing security app opened. The top alert in Sector 42 flashed red: “Warning! Unknown flying object in the shape of a gigantic dumpling dough pocket harassing citizens. Increased risk of accidents due to falling objects.”
“Oh. My. God. It’s really true,” Mei said, her eyes glowing with excitement. This was exactly the kind of chaos she lived for. “Hop on, unlucky bird! We’re going dumpling hunting!”
Lu didn’t hesitate for a second. He clung to Mei’s shoulders from behind as she steered the hoverboard over the edge of the platform. Gravity cut out for a moment as the plasma thrusters ignited with a loud *whoosh*. They shot straight into the dense traffic of flying street food stalls and taxis.
“There he is up ahead!” Lu shouted, pointing to a bridge connecting two skyscrapers three hundred meters high.
Bao hovered there calmly above a group of businesspeople. In his claw arm, he held a glittering, holographic data disk that he had just pulled from the pocket of a very important-looking man in a tuxedo.
“Data set analyzed,” Bao’s voice boomed over the sector radio that Lu had intercepted. “This is the secret, sacred recipe for the legendary Five-Spice Noodles of the Sheng family. Secrets create unequal power relations and thus misfortune. I am initiating open-source distribution!”
“Bao, don’t do it!” Lu shouted as Mei banked the board sharply. But it was too late. Bao pressed the send button.