PREMIUM FILTERS

Good morning, Martha. Loading. Battery 96%. Gopple Goggles morning report: 05/11/2042; 40f; today’s offers: Caramel Coffee Flavored Morning Energy, Transparent Clothes Hanger Bundle, Gopple Goggles Extra Battery, Organic Superfood Meal Replacement Pellets. 5 New Unread Messages; Read Now? 3 Outstanding Debts; Pay Now? Your day’s agenda will appear after this ad. Today’s Agenda: QuikTrain to Manhattan Penn Station at 6.45 (timetable options); Work check-in deadline at Fit Cheat Burgers 8.00; Lunch 14.00 (3 new subscription episodes ready to watch); QuikTrain to Elmsford Simple Housing Containers Station 21.00. Please choose Filter for today. Filter options will appear after this ad. (To see Filter Options ad-free, subscribe to Filter Premium, which also includes exclusive filters such as Underwater Paradise, Winter Wonderland, Fantasy Farm, +15 more.) You’ve chosen Castle Cute. Loading. Follow directions to QuikTrain Elmsford Simple Housing Containers Station. Martha did not need directions for the walk she made six times per week. That morning the various Simple Housing Containers looked like castles. Some medieval, made of stone, with drawbridges and battlements. Others were based on Neuschwanstein Castle, with various pointed towers in pastel colors, long colorful flags waving from them in the nonexistent wind. Most people appeared as knights and princesses. If they were Filter Premium subscribers, they were pink or purple dragons. Bars were taverns, piles of trash were hay mounds. Streets were moats with happy fish and crocodiles swimming around, buses and cars boats. From the castles hug banners with ads for things like Castle Cute Viking Expansion; Goople Googles 9 Pre-Order Now; Positivity Mindset Audiobook. That week, tapestries hung from one side of the moat to the other announcing an upcoming release: Retro Super Mario World Filter. As part of the campaign, pixelated winged turtles flew in the air and squids floated in the moat. If you were lucky, you’d see a Mario in a frog suit briefly popping out of the water. Martha didn’t like it when they mixed filters like that. It took you out of the world. Her favorite filter was the Anime Candyland Festival. It came two weeks ago and she fell in love with it. But since her Goggles were already two years old, they couldn’t handle the graphics in crowded places, like the subway and work, so she only switched to it and the end of the day, on her walk back home. She admited that Nintendo made some of the best filters, price/quality-wise. They just weren’t her thing. Plus, she didn’t need the extra debt. A large boat full of knights, princesses, dragons, passed her. She heard a trumpet, the breaking of water on the ship’s hull, and the flap of billowed sails. The Gopple Goggles came with Noise Transformation Earphones, so that sounds were also transformed by the filter. She liked the string and flute sounds Castle Cute had as background noise, it calmed her. The knights spoke deep and courteous and the princesses elegant and sing-song-like. It helped a lot when taking orders at work. The QuikTrain Elmsford Simple Housing Containers Station looked like a wizard’s castle in perpetual celebration, with various dragons, griffins, and a pegasus flying overhead. Each letter of the sign QUIKTRAIN ELMSFORD STATION was decorated like the initial letter of a Medieval Book of Days, and below it was two knights in a perpetual jousting match. Martha saw in a review video that if you get the Ninja Expansion for Castle Cute the QuikTrain Station roofs are full of ninjas fighting each other. The full height wooden turnstile didn’t move and a text in Gothic Font appeared in front of her: Entrance Denied; Please Pay (3) Oustanding Debts; Swipe Here to Pay. She stepped back to let the knights and princesses behind her go through. Some gave her a kind curtsy. “Shit. Fuck.” She went around the Castle Station and stopped behind a tower. She took her Gopple Goggles off. The first thing that always hit her was the noise. A constant deafening hum from the various engines and transformers all round, the screeching of cars and trains breaking, people shouting. Then her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, it was always cloudy, the buildings dirty, and a dark snow covered most of the ground. It was the fourth day that the turnstiles didn’t let her through. Until she paid one of her debts they would keep blocking her and she wouldn’t have enough money until next week. She considered getting another Super Mini AmazLoan like the last time but decided against it. She would try to hold on. The QuikTrain stations were surrounded by old chain link fences and she knew where they were loose. She could lift it and go through as long as she was careful. She waited until the train was near, when everyone watched it arrive, to hop on the platform from behind the emergency exit. She then quickly put her Gopple Goggles back on. The tracks looked like a broad Roman aqueduct with a dirt road on it instead of water. The train was a long carriage pulled by 30 horses in plated armor. She would make it in time. The Gopple Goggles must have glitched as she put them on, trying to load the scene and the filter. As the train arrived, the ground blinked with black lines for a second and then she saw all the knights and princesses on the station turn to face her and make a deep bow.