I snickered at this line:
She had a phone in her dashboard, like all modern cars did.
I almost want to add, "because this is the future, duuuuuh". It's like you're explaining to your audience that this is sci-fi. It's sci-fi, you guys. Okay? It's sci-fi. Here we are in the future which is different from the present because in the future all cars have phones in the dash and that's how you can tell that it's the future because it's not like this in the present. This line is superfluous.

None of them looked over fourteen.
It's possible that I'm very wrong about this, but I think the grammar here is funky. 'Not one' would work better than 'none' in this context. It's like replacing 'All of them looked over fourteen' with 'each of them looked over fourteen'. I don't think the collective noun is the right move there. Do I make sense?


I don't know why you're embarrassed by this. I won't comment too much on your writing style because it is notably different from mine and I don't want to interfere with that, but this is very well-written. It's engaging. The imagery is great, the details wonderful and vivid. The great thing about this piece is that although I have questions about this world, they're the right questions, you know? I won't chatter on much longer but I'm really interested. Don't be embarrassed.