A disc around the size and shape of a Frisbee rested in a specially-cut foam interior. In the center was a single circular piece of glass that looked a little like a radar screen, and around the edges were a rainbow of buttons, red shading into orange and so on around to purple and then red again. The whole spectrum was repeated twice over what had to be more than a hundred buttons. The whole thing looked like a super hardcore version of Simon made for the world's top players.
The surface was snow-white and absolutely clean. Dakota was almost afraid to touch it, but at the same time she felt like she had to know how it felt under her fingers. She reached into the box.
Her fingers were still inches from the surface when the machine sprang into life. The center screen filled with light, and a green sphere popped into existence right in front of Dakota's surprised face. She'd seen enough movies to recognize a holographic display, though she hadn't realized they existed in real life.
Well, crap. She hand't meant to turn it on. But now that she had, she was obligated to play with it for long enough to figure out how to turn it off again, right?
Yeah. That was definitely the responsible thing to do.
She waved her hand through the display. It swam a bit, but it didn't disappear. It appeared to be made of tightly packed numbers, charts, and graphs, none of which were labeled in any way she could read and none of which gave any indication what the machine was or how to use it...er, turn it off.
Well, whatever. She'd just have to pick a button. And since they were all unlabeled, one button was as good as any other button, right? She had no idea if the colors meant anything, but the green buttons just felt safer, so she pushed one of them.
Instantly, the mess of numbers and charts melted away and a new, clearer image took their place. Dakota blinked. At least she could make a start of figuring this one out, odd as it was.
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