>When people imagined the future a lot of images came to mind.
>Flying cars.
>Skyscrapers built as high as the clouds.
>Things that were only really visualized in science fiction films.
>But when everyone started realizing that the future was here no one really gave it much thought.
>One of the greatest achievements that was glossed over by the human race was the introduction of artificial intelligence.
>For years scientists struggled to curtail the negative outcomes of A.I. impacting the human race.
>Many preached that it would eventually lead to the downfall of man.
>But just as with all things, it came and went.
>With time, the surge of machines with sentience was as common place as having a smart phone in the beginnings of the 21st century.
>Walking down a busy street you would see people on their way to work, being closely followed by an assistant robot.
>Most of those robots had various shapes, sizes, and looks, basically if you could imagine it, someone could build it.
>It didn’t take long for humans to make robots resemble people and characters from films and television.
>And as with all technology once someone created it, it would eventually multiply in an exponential manner.
>It wasn’t uncommon to see Yogi Bear watching the kids in the park, Doc Brown from Back to the Future teaching physics in a classroom.
>But enough about that.
>Here you are, Anon.
>How did you fit into this amazing world that human ingenuity had created?
>Well you worked in a pawn shop.
>And thanks to your lazy boss you had the Friday night shift.
>Bastard was probably going to the red light district again.
>Fuck him anyway, it gave you time to explore.
>The pawn shop was a small space in front of a series of warehouses.
>Nothing special really, but you always wandered around to see if you could find anything cool.
>So being a responsible employee you closed the storefront and began your search.
>Because seriously who comes to a pawn shop on a Friday night?
>Walking into the first dilapidated warehouse your nose was assaulted with the usual stench of bleach.
>The cleaning-bot took care of the place pretty well even though it looked like a wreck on the outside.
>Walking in you wandered around the various shelves, most reaching all the way to the ceiling.
>Each shelf was piled with various things people pawned over the years.
>Various gadgets long forgotten by those that pawned them.
>You already walked through this part of the place a few times.
>Its time to go deeper!
>Walking further you spotted some old arcade machines.
>Maybe you should convince the boss to let you pull those bad boys out and set them up to make some money.
>Just as the though passed through your head you spotted a black crate with a strange symbol on it.
>It just looked way out of place.
>Carefully you edged between the machines to grab the odd thing.
>It didn’t weigh much.
>Probably thirty to forty pounds at the most.
>Lifting the box you managed to make your way out of the confined space and placed it on the ground.
>The black box was perfectly square with an embossed symbol of three party balloons.
>Someone put in on lot of work into this thing that’s for sure.
>You lightly let your fingers trace the symbol.
>A soft hiss and the sound of locks disengaging made you recoil your hand quickly.
>Oh shit, what the fuck did I do now?
>The box in question split open, smoke obscuring its contents from your view.
>Hopefully whatever you did didn’t break whatever was inside.
>Otherwise the boss was going to have your ass.
>Waving your hand around to clear the smoke your eyes fell on what appeared to be a small pink robot pony.
>A pony?
>Who the hell would buy a robot pony, let alone pawn one?
>Whatever, I’m putting this thing back. This is enough exploring for one day.
>Leaning in you grabbed the split edges of the box in order to close it.
>That’s when your eyes met hers.
>She always had the prettiest blue eyes.
>”Party?”