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Pidge dreams of a city. It is strikingly beautiful, unnaturally perfect, even. The grime and disrepair and ugly utilitarian architecture that are ubiquitous in all the cities they've known before are notably absent here. On the horizon, they can see some buildings disassembling or reshaping or erecting themselves, as if it were no more difficult than raising a tent. In the space between and above the buildings fly craft which could be loosely described as flying cars, if flying cars did not much resemble actual cars and had—apparently—few to no constraints on their shape, size, ornamentation, or general practicality.
Walking down the street, they see the people of the city, some of whom look like ordinary humans. Others have fantastical features—purple skin, cat ears, cute curly horns, and robotic prosthetics, to name a few. There is at least one centaur. Very few of them look old, and none look unhealthy.
Pidge comes to an intersection and sees a park nearby, at its center, a fountain. It launches water into the air which, on its way down, shapes itself into animals that playfully chase each other across the water's surface. A crowd of people watch the show, many of them eating ice creams, snow cones, or more exotic snacks. These seem to originate from a small kiosk beside the path which, on command, forms food out of thin air.
In any other city, one would expect to see people who are downtrodden, struggling under the weight of their burdens—it's visible in their faces, their posture. There don’t appear to be any here. The prevailing mood in the city is one of peace, joy, and hope.
Pidge awakens to a star-studded dark sky. The sun and the earth are visible in the distance.
Burning your way through the atmosphere as you hurdle to earth, protected only by a blue forcefield bubble thingy, is pretty scary! Pidge was trained to re-enter the earth in a nice safe reinforced landing capsule, if you are bodily falling through the air during a mission then something usually has gone catastrophically wrong.
The next time Pidge goes to space they intend it to be in a vehicle, the way man was meant to travel.
As Pidge gets closer to landing they direct the ring to take them to a less dense part of the city, maybe the suburbs, no need to frighten crowds of people by landing in the city center or something.
Upon directing the ring, they suddenly shift direction, before coming to a landing in a suburban park north of the city. It is nighttime. In the distance, the skyscrapers of the city glow with soft yellow light.
The park looks... kind of old fashioned? And the cars parked on the street nearby all look old.
The cars look really old, most still look gas powered! Pidge can see only a single electric vehicle in sight, and on closer inspection barely any of the roofs have solar panels. There was also a lack of security cameras and a lack of the ubiquitous delivery bots that were usually scooting around any sizeable city.
Was that a payphone Pidge sees?!? Not even just a gutted and broken down outer shell cover of one, but one that looked like it was in working order. Pidge had only ever seen intact payphones in old movies.
Pidge was very certain they landed in Delaware and not somehow in one of those weird tiny fascist island states that still used gas cars.
Something weird was definitely going on. Well, a different kind of weird from emotionally powered rings with AI and supertech.
Pidge will look around for a gas station or corner store or something. Somewhere that they can buy a phone, so they can get a map to the shuttle station and let Galaxy Garrison know where they are.
By wandering around, following roads to larger roads, Pidge is able to find their way out of this neighborhood and onto one of the main streets. A block away, there is a BP gas station with a 7-Eleven.
When Pidge thought of a 'gas' station they meant a quick charging or battery swap station, but those were actual gas pumps! They also don't recognize the BP logo at all. At least the 7/11 sign was a familiar sight.
When Pidge enters the 7/11 they notice a lot of unfamiliar snack brands, and jeez the machines looked old, they looked well maintained but with a really old aesthetic. Did 7/11 do retro stores in special locations or something?
They dont see any phones for sale up at the front counter where they would usually be, but maybe they are just under the counter for safety reasons.
Pidge walks up to the counter. "Uhhh you got any prepaid phones?" Pidge asks the cashier.
"Sure, I've got some." He pulls a plastic package down from a shelf. Inside is a pretty cheap-looking flip phone. "Sixty bucks, and I think it's got a hundred minutes prepaid."
“I get this store has a retro theme going, but isn’t this going a little far? It doesn’t even have a camera? How are you supposed to vid call people. Whatever, I just need something I can use the maps app on, but I doubt you could even navigate maps on that things tiny physical numpad.” The only phones Pidge had ever seen with physical keypads like that had been huge sturdy military models meant to survive a bomb, who the heck put them on civilian models?
Pidge is very confused and their tone is maybe getting a little rude. But come the fuck on, those screens were so small you'd barely be able to see anything on them! and, they looked way too cheap to be stealthily carrying expensive holo screens. What would you even be able to use them for?
Pidge guesses that's why they were so cheap for only $60, who would pay more than $60 for something that shoddy.
"I don't know what you're talking about. This is a perfectly normal phone. And it doesn't have maps or anything, you'd need something much more expensive for that. We do have maps of the area for sale if that's what you're looking for."
“Like… physical maps? On paper?” This retro theme was being taken waaayyyyy too far. “Guess I’ll take one”
Pidge is little irrationally worried a store this committed to retro won’t have a embedded chip scanner, and will demand paper money instead, but that would be ridiculous.
The cashier gives them a quizzical look.
"Yeah dude, paper maps." He pulls out a thick, folded map. "Map of Metropolis. It's twenty bucks."