Rainbow Road [Super Mario Bros.]

15

Dash promised to give them any updates on the blockade operation as soon as he got them, and then he took off, presumably to resume his watch of his romantic comedy. Mario and Luigi got back to hiking up the Road, which spiraled up like a glowing thread into the vastness of the cosmos.

Pretty soon, Luigi's hype for the Nabbit chase expired, and he started wheezing and complaining again. Luckily, by that point they were closing in for their abode for the evening: the Orbital Motel.

Like the Twenty Mile Mall, the Orbital Motel surrounded Rainbow Road, looking like a supermassive, ironclad Ferris wheel with fifty capsules the size of an entire apartment. That's because they were apartments — hotel rooms, actually, moving around the Road in slow circuits.

The "operating booth" functioned as both the check-in counter and a small employee dorm. There was a line, but because this place was kind of exclusive, it was short. A Goomba came to the window when they hit the buzzer, and informed them that they'd been put in Capsule 29, which was due to reach the six o'clock position in fifteen minutes.

"Room service is available for delivery at 10 PM, 5 AM, 9 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM, and 7 PM," the Goomba said as he gave them their room keys. "So please put your orders in ahead of time. Report to the Hospitality AI if you need toiletries or any other necessities. The common room is open twenty-four hours, but elevators only go down from 12 o'clock and come up from 6 o'clock, so please watch the directory so that you're aware of what position your room is in at any given time — once you enter the common room, you can expect to be there for at least forty-five minutes until your room is in position for re-entry. Check-outs need to be scheduled seven to ten hours in advance."

Fifteen minutes later, their room capsule came around: they were made the stand in front of a steel half-wall that towered about fifteen yards above their heads, and they watched the giant metal ball roll smoothly into the six o'clock position behind it, gears and cogs hissing and grinding and spouting steam. Then the steel door opened. There was a tiny gap in the floor, yielding to open space below, and then there was the hotel room door. Mario put in the key, and they went inside.

The space beyond was...weird. The floor was flat, but the walls curved in a way Luigi's eyes did not like — quickly, he got a headache. The ceiling was a dome, and the walls appeared kind of fake — Mario pushed a button near the door, and they changed from plaster to completely transparent, and suddenly the room really was like a Ferris wheel compartment, all windows.

Behind them, the door shut hard, and the floor shifted beneath their feet. "Arrival to twelve o'clock," a computerized voice announced. It was coming from a screen in the wall in the small sitting area; it was displaying a countdown. "Forty five minutes and thirty seconds."

"Okay, this is weird," Mario said. He jabbed the switch again, and the wall changed back to plaster. "It kinda feels like we'll be sleeping in an elevator."

Luigi didn't care all that much. After a day of chasing burglars and endless hiking, he just wanted someplace to put his feet up.

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Note: The attached image is not exactly what the Orbital Motel looks like, but it's pretty close. Schematic in the next chapter!