Strike Squad

Kimberly wrinkled her nose. “Strike Squad? Isn’t that a bit… corny?”

“You mean like ‘Open Sesame?'” grinned Arya.

Kimberly rolled her eyes with a smile.”Point taken.”

“What about the suits?” Mo asked, wide eyed as he looked around at the stark walls.

“Ahhh yes. Those.” Arya smiled. “Right this way.”

“Mtumishi, wardrobe A, please?”

Mtumishi responded, “Wardrobe A, Arya.”

A few paces down the right side of the wall, a section extended out of the wall with several clear cubbies hanging from it. Arya opened four of them and took a ball out of each one. She tossed each of us one and kept one for herself. We looked at our balls, which were grey and scaled like a fish.

“These are your suits. Allow me to demonstrate.”

She pinched what appear to be skin on her ball and held it up by the pinched skin, then swiped down fast in front of her. The ball fell into the shape of a human, albeit a very tiny one.

“Your turn,” she encouraged.

We each did the same thing. The skin felt very thin, yet sturdy. All of our suits looked the same, very small, but not grey like the ball. They were purple, with parts of them grey.

Arya continued her demonstration, “Place the feet on the floor like this and step on them.”

We did as she did.

“Now pull up and onto your shoulders.” When she did, the suit wrapped around her whole body, leaving only her head exposed.

“Whoa!” we said in unison. Then we all pulled on our suits.

“Extraordinary!” Kimberly said as she admired the suit on her. “Have a mirror?”

“Ask Mtumishi for anything you want.” Arya laughed.

“Mtumishi. Can I have a mirror?” Kimberly asked, while still admiring the suit.

We heard what sounded like water rushing, then a panel extended from the wall close to us and a full length mirror turned toward Kimberly. We watched as Kimberly walked to the left; the mirror maintained its focus on her, turning to the left. She walked right and the mirror turned right.

“Whoa,” we said in unison.

Arya laughed. “Since Mtumishi now recognizes you as ‘friends’, you can ask any ‘friend- level’ request and Mtumishi will present it or let you choose whether it should be acquired for you.”

“So if I want a Big Mac?” Mo asked.

“That would be expensive to acquire, since we’d have to pay delivery charges. But, Mtumishi would have it delivered to the house if you wanted. You could get it from there. Pizza would be less expensive.” She winked.

“Very cool…” Mo said.

“Three more mirrors, Mtumishi, please,” Arya requested.

We watched as three additional panels opened beside the other and three more full length mirrors came out of the panels. Kimberly’s mirror retracted to the same extension as the other three to form a seemingly seamless mirror. We all stood looking at ourselves in the mirrors.

Arya said, “Last but not least…” and pulled a piece of grey cloth from her sleeve. She held it up so we could see that it was a mask, then laid it on her face. The cloth wrapped around her head and neck — completely concealing her.

We all laid on our masks and, like magic, we looked like four versions of the same purple and green scaled person.

Kimberly said, “Frrrrreaky…” but her voice came out distorted — sounding like our friend and Mtumishi.

“Whoa,” we said in unison — all of us sounded like Mtumishi and our friend. Then we burst into uncontrollable laughter — sounding like our friend and Mtumishi, which only made us laugh more. Arya was laughing at us laughing. We laughed so hard we could hardly breath.