Jack Strong and the Red Giant

Chapter 15: New Varda

Jack had never seen buildings so tall before.

The starscrapers on Vyleria's planet just kept going up and up and up and up, their pointed spires disappearing into layer upon layer of pink clouds. Many were at least twice the size of those in New York and some were even bigger than that. Much bigger. The tallest perhaps did indeed scrape the edge of space. They would have blocked-out the suns too, but for the fact that they were made out of some kind of transparent material. Jack could see many people moving around in them. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. And since they were all so perfectly aligned it was possible to see right through a whole row of them.

There were also other buildings that were coloured light green or bright purple. One of these was shaped like a huge, flat star, its purple spokes spreading out deep into the bustling heart of the teeming city.

The city sprawled in all directions.

Jack could see nothing else: no mountains, no trees, no fields, no lakes, only a roaring metropolis bursting at the seams with people and all manner of flying cars and bikes. There were so many of them he couldn't count them all. They were like millions and millions of buzzing flies. Except there was no buzz: the traffic was completely silent. The only noise he could hear was the staccato chatter of billions of voices all chirping together at once. Their footsteps barely made a sound either, the ground made not of concrete, but a type of rubber.

"What do you think of my city?" asked Vyleria.

"I've never seen anything like it. It's amazing. I also feel..."

"Feel what?"

"Lighter. It's hard to explain. It's like I've lost weight or something."

"I don't know. It feels normal to me. Perhaps Earth has a heavier gravity than here. Hey, would you like to get a better view?"

"You mean like from up there?" he asked, looking up into the swirling clouds.

"Yeah sure, it's easy. I know a great place too."

They entered one of the buildings and stepped into an elevator.

"Level 1000!" she said.

With that they whooshed up the side of the starscraper at an incredible speed. The ground disappeared quickly beneath their feet, the people on the streets shrinking to the size of ants in seconds.

They passed thousands upon thousands of flying cars and bikes until finally they passed through a dense layer of pink clouds.

There they came to a stop. It had only taken a few seconds. He hadn't felt any acceleration at all.

Jack and Vyleria stepped out of the elevator and onto the roof of the huge building.

There were several other people about too, some of them with pale pink skin like Vyleria, but there were others that were a light tinge of purple, as well as some whose faces were tangerine-colored.

"Quick, come this way," she said, leading him to the edge of the roof.

Jack looked down over a towering precipice. About a hundred feet below them the sprawling metropolis of New Varda poked through a layer of clouds.

He gulped hard. He could feel the wind buffeting them. The tower was swaying a little bit beneath his feet and it made a whistling sound as it whipped past them.

There was nothing to stop him from falling off the edge. There was no wire, no railing, no fence. Nothing.

Jack's brain was in overdrive as he imagined tumbling off the tower, arms flailing and voice screaming, as he flapped and floundered in the airy nothingness.