Previous Story: 85. Settling Affairs - “Do-Gooders” - Family Matters
It was always the same. For all their good intentions, most people never thought about those like Hiko. The Creators, the Survivalists and the Peacemakers all seemed keen to help civilians out of the city, but none of them had considered how they might transport the elderly and disabled.
Hiko hadn’t thought about much else. Guiding her antigrav hoverchair into the temporary lab she had created in one wing of Cyborg’s mansion, she tugged a tarpaulin off the prototype. Though it shared some properties with her chair, the transporter looked very different.
It was basically a rectangular platform — 20 by 10 feet — which could be levitated and guided by a much smaller device mounted beneath. With some modifications, Hiko had been able to surpass even the world record power/weight ratio she had achieved with her chair. She’d been working on the transporter concept for years, and had the files with her, though she’d needed help from Cyborg to source the parts. Flyboy, Plate and Threads had assisted with some of the manual work.
The prototype was working well, and she had two more that would be complete within days. Each platform could hold nine or 10 people and was equipped with a foldable waist-level railing to aid the passengers. The transporters could be operated independently by a control panel in one corner, or from Hiko’s chair.
As she set to work on some final adjustments, the inventor allowed herself a wry smile. Not for the first time, the negative results of the accident that had put her in the hoverchair had been eclipsed by a positive consequence of considerably more importance. Such thoughts kept her going; she attacked the adjustments with a renewed sense of pride and urgency.
