[sb118-gorkon] Ensign Ethan Espinoza - Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
Ethan Espinoza
((Tourist Transport & Welcome Center, Edge of the Burrows, Adamas))
All around them was chaos of the thoroughly civilian variety. They had transported directly into what appeared to Ethan to be a tourist hub of some sort, which was deliberately designed to overwhelm the senses and largely succeeded. Tall screens loomed above the foot traffic on all sides, flashing through a rapid carousel of advertisements. On one, a cartoon character of some indeterminate species brandished what appeared to be a hotdog, its filling a squirming, smiling, worm-like creature that seemed entirely too enthusiastic about its circumstances.
Then the screen flashed and gave way to a band: a Tellarite front and centre, wielding a curious, fork-shaped string instrument; beside him, a Xindi-Insectoid that reminded him, with a small and involuntary pang, suspiciously of Naledi, brandishing some sort of woodwind flute; and anchoring the back, a Korri, or something strikingly similar, wrapped around a large drum.
The buildings around them climbed heavenward with height that bordered on obscene, rising so high that the tops were simply gone, swallowed by distance and atmosphere and whatever passed for clouds here. Looking up gave him whatever the reverse of vertigo was. High up the faces of the structures and barely legible from street level, he could make out flashes of colour, shimmering and shifting banners cycling through advertisements in slow, luminous waves, aimed not for the simpletons below, but for the lanes of traffic high above.
Spelvan: It seems this area has seen better days. I hope the transporter was not too stressful for you?
Espinoza: Oh, always is. You’re always one lil whoopsie away from molecular disintegration.
Ethan gave Spelvan a playful clap on the shoulder, then followed on to one of the many kiosks ahead of them.
Spelvan: We can search for activities while we wait for any additional crew members to join us.
Espinoza: Kinda the problem with places like this. So many things to do ‘n see, it’s kinda hard to decide on anythin’.
Any: Response
Ethan fell into step beside him and joined the perusal without any particular expectation. The stalls were, for the most part, miscellaneous tat, the kind of useless merchandise that seemed to materialise wherever tourists gathered in sufficient numbers. They reminded him of the markets that lined the beach fronts back on Earth, manned by vendors who occupied a curious middle ground between shady and aggressively friendly, deploying both in rotation as they attempted to upsell something utterly without value to anyone stupid enough to acknowledge them
One stall, he noticed, had carved out a niche for itself in what he could only describe as fidget toys. One caught his eye in particular: a little orb that, when activated, dispensed a series of small ball bearings around its equator in a pattern that reminded him of a debris ring. The aim, as best he could work out, was to keep the thumb moving continuously over the surface of the main sphere, navigating around the ball bearings that snapped shut with a nasty, magnetic clamp. The one that really caught his eye, though, and suckered him out of a purchase, was a small cube with a little lump - designed in the likeness of some creature he’d never seen - that repeatedly popped up across the cube, demanding the fidgeteer snap their thumb atop it. A portable Whack-a-mole for the restlessly inclined.
Spelvan: This seems it may be an amenable activity, Ethan.
The Ensign tottered over, eyeballing the poster. His jaw unhinged slightly, and for a moment, he looked like a giddy kid.
Espinoza: Oh, man. I hope you ain’t a sore loser, Spelvan. I’m gonna crush this. You ever been Go-Karting?
Spelvan/Any: Response
Ethan laughed, committed the address to memory, and fished out his tricorder, setting it to work plotting a route to their destination. On the map, it didn't look far, but given the frankly unhinged verticality of the place, he was aware that his aerial view might mean very little in practice.
They set off into the busy streets and were immediately absorbed by them, bumped and bustled along between an endless flood of bodies. The crowd was endlessly colourful, endlessly diverse, filled with species and silhouettes he both recognised and didn’t. He spared the occasional glance back over his shoulder, ensuring the Vulcan doctor hadn’t been stolen away by the tide of bodies.
Espinoza: ::loudly, over the crowd:: It’s like, uhh… little cars, usually really unsafe, really fast, an’ you fire ‘em around a course which is usually even more unsafe. Half of the fun is tryin’ to crash your buddies off of the course. The other half is tryin’ not to die. I don’t even know what Go-Kartin’ could possibly look like here. I’m excited.
Spelvan/Any: Response
They wound through the city. All around them, towers of dark durasteel and pale stone needled upwards into the sky. The sun hung low on the horizon, bleeding gold and amber through what gaps in the skyline it could manage. The architecture was varied and indifferent to consistency; there were spires here and cylinders there, and just beyond them sat large, domed things that crouched low between taller neighbours. It was a dense plateau of layered infrastructure, tall as the stars, that spread outwards, utilitarian and utterly unglamorous.
Great skybridges arced overhead, branching between colossal towers and platforms situated with a worrying precariousness, spanning gaps that had no business being spanned. Between and beneath them wound an endless sea of traffic, open-topped vehicles that reminded him of shuttles that had lost their tops. There had to be an order to it, some underlying logic of lanes and altitudes and right of way that made the whole thing function without catastrophe. From down here, though, there was no visible order. They moved chaotically, sweeping beneath bridges with inches to spare, and veering through gaps in the tangle of buildings that seemed far too narrow to traverse. Somehow, despite the endless stream of vehicles, inconveniences and obstacles, nothing seemed to collide.
Espinoza: We should be able to go up a level on the next block. It looks like the course stretches across two of those platforms with one of the bridges between ‘em. I was honestly jokin’ about trying not to die, but the map of the course is makin’ me a little nervous.
Spelvan/Any: Response