GAMBLE

Chapter Three: Reaching The Megacity

New Home

:

The stars glowed overhead, and the air was clear, the cold winds had driven away the clouds and shadows above the city, giving Bianca a clear view of the wondrous skyline.

She sat up in the seat to look out at the large sprawling city as they approached it.

It was a chaos of lights and endless landscapes below them.

The Vela Lux tore over the city as smaller ships and large cargo ships raced and sailed all around them to different destinations, zipping to and fro without fear of collision.

Bianca had never seen this many vessels together, flying in such close proximity or so fast together, and she felt herself tense up, watching them fly so close to Lucas's ship and then dart off just before impact.

She looked down through the windows of The Vela Lux, down at the city below, everything made up of glass and steel and lights, a world alive and teeming with innocents and monsters.  It was a constant vibration of life that continuously stirred the air as super skyscrapers shot high into the sky, reaching for the sun, the moon, and stars.

And in the shadows of the skyscrapers, where starlight and moonlight and sunlight did not touch, she could only imagine the secrets the city hid so well.

"Is it always like this?" She couldn't help but ask Lucas, her curiosity and nerves getting the better of her.

She was used to tranquility and serene order in Nebulon. But this, this was a different kind of living, breathing mega force.

"Yes, the city never sleeps." His voice was low and husky, "You'll get used to it."

She glanced at him.  She hoped she wasn't in Proteus long enough to ever get used to any of this.

Bianca looked back towards the world around them, and Lucas let her take in the everyday scene and noise, he was a little amused at the expression of complete wonder and disbelief on her face. He wondered at the stories she had heard about the megacity.  The nonsense that she had been fed and why.

"The building ahead, that's where we're landing." Lucas commented, indicating the skyscraper with the signage in blue neon that read, Andromeda. 

Bianca's eyes widened and her heart picked up speed as they kept getting closer to the building, and she turned to him, her last attempt to appeal to any good that he had in him.

"Listen..."  She broke the growing silence, her tone anxious.

Lucas turned to look at her. 

"You still have time to do what is right." Bianca pleaded. "Please."

But he only seemed resigned in his task, "That time came and went many years ago."

She furrowed her brow, "Aren't you ashamed?"

"For which one of the things I've done exactly?" And his voice surprised Bianca with its own emotion. His eyes seemed to turn a dark blue, and they held such deep sadness that she had to look away, afraid to feel any empathy for him.

The structure loomed ahead; it was a monolith of a building so tall it seemed to brush the very stars themselves. 

They rose higher as they got closer, and Lucas landed the ship smoothly in a docking station on the top floor of the building and he cut the engines of The Vela Lux.

The silence in the vessel was heavy when he cut off the engines, the comforting humming of the working machinery gone, the vibration stilled and everything seemed quiet and ominous and forbidding.