Bubbles: when tech-magic gets loose

It's a silly little crisis... As still and quiet as thought, little bubbles drifted down and surrounded them like weightless marbles. In the twilight, Bubbles appeared somewhere over their heads, sank slowly straight down (wasn't there a breeze?) and rested briefly on the ground, then popped or as people had said, disappeared. She touched one, and it really did seem to just go away instantly without a trace.
It was like being inside a computer graphic of being inside a giant invisible bubble machine."They're not exactly bubbles, " she said, turning around and taking it all in."Maybe it's an illusion, " he countered, squinting, trying to see a pattern.