USF Progenitor & Crew: Adventures in Cosmos 01

[#18] Sight Seeing in H&G

Cyberpunk 2077 Ambience

The Progenitor's crew and H&G's Christopher walked out of The Nectarine together and onto the dark reddish, cement-paved plaza outside. They looked to their left and right, seeing engineers and repairmen working on their mag-bikes and mag-vehicles-'mag' short for magnetic-while a few crowds of civilians walked around them. There was a burly man wearing a standard repairman's jumpsuit, orange with neon silver trim. He was carrying two heavy items that looked like car batteries or ammo containers by their handles. The burly man dropped the items down onto the ground with two thuds next to a metallic shed, then walked down the road to another machine shop area. Two more men walked out from the shed wearing casual engineering uniforms-blue overalls, orange safety vests, and space boots. Both of them had their hair slicked back and greasy, smoking cigarettes, smiling. They were continuing a conversation they'd already started. The listening crew members overheard:

"And that's his whole point, too, is that they were blocking an entire civilization from achieving enlightenment!"
"Enlightenment? Huh. What's enlightenment?"
"Yeah! Alright, so we're going to get these inside, and I'm gonna show you how to install it. Saves us big money! Nobody can complain, because it's still eco-friendly." He chuckled mischievously.
"Oh, does it now? How do you know-."

They both walked away, tossing their cigarette butts onto the smoothened pathway made of asteroid rock and astro-turf material, then they went behind a side of the shed that the crew couldn't see. The sound of a door sliding open and then closed could be heard.
"What do you think they were talking about?" Asked Christopher.
Peter answered, "Yeah, I don't know, it sounded like..." He couldn't find the words.
"It sounded like they were talking enlightenment, and then they were blocked by something, and something about eco-friendly," Stavros said.
"Well, yeah, that's-," Christopher began, smiling. He, Ka'eo, and Stavros looked at each other. Christopher schmoozed, "That's pretty much word for word what they said, Stavros. There wasn't much to it, but what I got from it, was that, they were doing something cool."
Stavros, Mana, and Peter laughed.
Stavros parroted, "They were doing something cool!"
"How cool!" Peter inside joked, looking at Ka'eo.
Christopher resumed, "They were going to do something cool with that gear, and that's very enlightening. Right? And did you see that big guy? What do you think those things were?"
"I don't know. I don't know who that guy was, and I don't know what they were talking about, but I know that they were talking about enlightenment blocking eco-friendly things. That's all I could hear," Stavros replied dryly, looking around at the people walking past them.
Ka'eo corrected, "No. That's not what they said. Not the only things they said." He pulled his vape cartridge out and puffed on it a few times.
A feeble-looking man with a low-tech space suit and an open helmet walked over to the cigarette butts left on the ground. He got frustrated and grumbled, "F$ckers. Our clean air."
Stavros, Peter, and Ka'eo chuckled, grabbing the frustrated man's attention for a moment. He looked at them trying not to smile, somewhat startled, like a deer in headlights. Stavros and Peter continued snickering, looking at him.
"What the f$ck is he doing?" Mana asked quietly. He chortled and went serious, looking at the feeble-looking man confusedly.
Ka'eo said, "He's mad at the cigarette butts." He took another draft and blew a cloud into the air, forcing people to walk around him. A few people waved their hands trying to clear up the orange soda cloud.
The subject of the crew's attention picked up the cigarette butts he was angry about and placed them in his pants pocket. Then he went on his PCD, typing something up, walking away like nothing happened.
Christopher and the crew laughed at that.
Stavros chortled, "Yeah. Okay!" He looked up at the asteroid ceiling and took in the scenery of walkways high above them, strings of lights hung up between the asteroid's walls, and giant light fixtures like spot lights that kept the area well-lit. The feeling was just like New York City. Christopher quickly took notice of where Stavros's attention was going and looked up with him. He pointed his finger at the ceiling. Christopher's voice went crisp and deep. "Ohhh, yeah! You guys see all the lights up there? And look at that over there! I never saw that before." He pointed out trees growing sideways from the walls, hanging down over a few walkways, and dropping fruit produce into what looked like a trough. Right above the trees was what looked like a concentrated weave pattern of ventilation shafts. There were nozzles all along the vents.
Christopher suggested, "We should see if we can get up there and take a closer look at that! The trees and the walkways there! That's so cool!"
Peter laughed making Stavros and Mana chuckle with him.
Two more men walked close to where the group was slowly walking, occasionally stopping to take in the view.