Rainbow Road [Super Mario Bros.]

9

This was good, Mario thought. For Luigi, this was the key: turn a long journey into a series of shorter ones.

The overlooks broke up the walk — they were 1.5-mile stepping stones, and reaching each one felt not only like a great accomplishment, but a prize: at each one, the brothers thought to themselves, What can I see through the telescope from this height?

At first, Mario was the only one courageous enough to find out. That was because each overlook appeared incredibly perilous — they were all glassy extensions of Rainbow Road, stretching out into space that grew blacker and blacker the further up they climbed, and they all terminated at a flimsy-looking, circular platform, to which were moored a series of standing binoculars, for looking at either the expanding cosmos, or the rapidly-shrinking Earth.

Luigi refused to step foot on the first two because the platforms had no railings whatsoever — Mario recalled Rosalina mentioning that the supposed danger this caused made each tourist's stargazing experience that much more acute. But Mario knew that there was nothing to fear because of the gravity wells, which were in full effect this high up from the ground — try to jump from here, and you'd be caught by an invisible force that would bounce you back up like you were on a trampoline.

At their third overlook, Mario finally managed to convince Luigi of this, and so his brother joined him and a cluster of other tourists and Rainbow Walkers on the platform. They didn't even bother with the scopes at first, but just took in the phenomenal view. At this point, they were close to fifteen miles above the surface of the Earth, and their great planet consumed one half of the sky, while the bleak expanse of outer space swallowed the other.

Orbit City also became more visible here: one of the Rainbow Walkers managed to pinpoint it in the sky, and the rest of the tourists swung their scopes around until they had it centered in their sights. From the ground, the great space city often looked like a blazing white, fast-moving star, but up here, it resolved itself to its true shape a bit more: to Luigi, it appeared roughly ovular, with a rugged silhouette suggesting many tall buildings and high-rises. Especially at the poles — two great towers rose from either end of the massive satellite, making the entire thing look like a big spindle. Shadows swarmed across its surface as ships docked or took off from ports, launch tubes, and rail guns.

Luigi couldn't help but shudder, seeing it. For a moment, he was floored that such a grand structure had been built, and that it was so far away that it twinkled in the night sky like another star. Mario patted his shoulder.

"What do you think?" his brother asked. "It's just another forty miles or so. Think you can handle it?"

Forty miles. Part of Luigi balked, but another part of him was amazed. Only forty miles to reach that strange, floating, alien place that they'd built for themselves up in the sky? It felt amazing that it was actually within walking distance. The thought pushed some of Luigi's dread away.

"Like you said, bro," he said as he collapsed his telescope. "I'm already here. Guess I've got no choice but to go all the way."

Mario beamed.