Landing Party

50 years later.

“See you guys next time!” Oscar called out to his colleagues as he was about to make his departure from the mattress covered gym.

“Going so soon ?” one of Oscars colleagues shouted

“Yea. I have a shift, and I really don’t want to be late. I also want to get a snack on the way to the fire station” Oscar replied while he tucked in his jeans in his heavy boots and his green polo shirt into his jeans as he headed to the door.

“Bon voyage, I hope you have a quiet shift of eating snacks and sleeping“ the man said with a small smile.

“I hope your right. Next time could you help me with that backflip? ” Oscar shot back while closing the door behind him and started descending the steps “Pas de problème. Er… no problem!” the man managed to shout back as he went back to practice his Falls.

‘This parkour business is no joke’ Oscar thought as his muscles reminded him of his limitations. Even after learning wrestling and boxing in his youth, Oscar determined that this was harder on his muscles.

‘But HEY… I get to be in Paris for the summer. This is a total win!’ he determined just as the long winding stone stepped spiral ended abruptly with a metal balcony.

The balcony overlooked a public garden-like plaza that was, in itself, connecting the building he was on to a huge open market. This market just so happens to be above a government building containing the elevator Oscar was looking for.

The balcony itself connected to another building that had elevators going one hundred floors in each direction be showed no obvious ways to get down to the garden.

It took Oscar three weeks to learn how to navigate Upper Paris without getting turned around, most buildings were built so close they were practically built on each other; while other buildings extended all the way down to Old Paris.

The roof of one building could be the floor of a garden, and the city’s electric rail could pass through a tunnel in the middle of a building. Pockets of color and plant life were scattered between monoliths of metal, glass, small blue crystals and stone. The streets were all parts of the buildings they touched while the entire monolith was supported with many arches and buildings reaching all the way down.

It was a marvel of engineering! Two cities, one above the other.

A good thing when trying to house way to many people after the fall but not so great for navigating

Oscar was tempted to try some of the things he learned to just jump down and go to the market.

He could see himself plan a rout by leaning from the lower part of the balcony and swing his legs to a particularly tall tree. But Oscar had a shift to get to and immediately refused the unnecessary risk.

Instead, Oscar went to the elevator into the building close by and descended 2 floors down into an infirmary that connected to the market. It was not the biggest market but still it was impressive to see. The place was covered in lights from holograms displaying the latest commercial over large brand-named stores to small shops and food-stalls being covered in string lights in various pairs of colors signaling what they sell.

Oscar was scanning with his eyes after all green and red lights to find the best place to get something to eat.

The food in Paris was so different from the one in the UK, back home he would just grab some fish and chips from literally anywhere on his way to work but here they had a bit of everything, from all over the world.

‘I am so lucky I was the one that got picked for the department exchange program. I get to go to France, learn parkour to better preform at my job and still help people while I’m at it!‘ Oscar thanked his lucky stars in silence for the opportunity as his eyes found a sign that said, “Perpetual Stew”. It was at this moment that Oscar knew exactly what he was having for dinner.

With a warm box of stew in a bag at hand the young man decided to double his pace to the fire station at the halfway point between New Paris and Old Paris.

The elevator from the market took Oscar hundreds of floors down, a ride that took almost forever in his mind but in his heart, he knew it was only seven minutes.

‘Damn! My legs are killing me. If I had my hover car here, I would have been there by now. I really wish they had let me bring it with me. Maybe the fact I built it myself made the French authorities stressed and refuse, but the car is sky safe.’ Oscars mind wandered while awaiting in a long line going really quickly towards a magnetic rail station.

The contraption was simple in design. A metallic rail containing coils of metal goes from one place to the next and a small platform, big enough for 2 people, attached to the rail with a docking system containing a blue Tartarus crystal collected from one of the monsters.

The crystal generated electricity and the coils turned it into a magnetic field that moves the platform.

The rails themselves could be boarded either with the publicly available platforms that have limited maneuverability and go to planned destinations, or personal docking systems that have the capacity to change rails and navigate freely but Oscar thought them terrifying as they dangled quite a bit at a very high altitude.

As the platform carried Oscar and another stranger to the “Floating Center” station where the most important buildings for the function of the city resided, including the fire station as well as other local authorities.

“The view is beautiful this time of year don’t you think ?” Oscar said out loud to the old man he was bound to for the next 10 minutes as he looked at another double helix like structure being built in the distance to carry wheeled cars from Old Paris below to New Paris above.

The structure was just about to connect to the network of roads in New Paris that functioned both as a way to get around and as extra support to the floating city.

The man replied in French that he does not understand what Oscar was saying, and after an awkward moment of trying his best to word his thoughts in the local language, while failing miserably, Oscar determined to enjoy the view alone.

The sight of the many people in various exoskeleton suits carrying different loads of metal and rock while cutting and bending other materials was ever impressive. In his mind they seemed like a force of nature defying gravity with their architecture. ‘This could not have been built without those mechs, they more than quadrupled the speed of work of most blue-collar workers’ Oscar thought as he remembered his own machine named Chestnut awaiting for him at work.

When he finally got to work Oscar was cramped completely. He went directly to the lounge hoping to eat in piece and rest his legs, but before he even managed to take the first bite of his eternal stew a siren sounded calling him to action.

“Red alert ! red alert! Fire at the docks all units to the port. a ship sailing upriver just blew up  Port de la conférence and the surrounding area”

Oscar put the stew in the fridge. 

Cursing under his beard in every language known to man, he ran to put on his uniform and got into Chestnut, his mech.

The mechs themselves were immediately picked up by a giant drone and taken in groups of four directly to Old Paris below.

As they got closer, Oscar could see the ground approaching.

Everyone prepared for the touchdown, sixty seconds to sea level.

A small light in the corner of Oscar’s eye started to bother him suddenly.

A blue glint, very far away at the center of what could only be described as an inferno.

The whole dock and most of the harbor were ablaze, with many Fallen running about – those same monsters created by the infamous “Compound Y2K”.

Oscar’s eyes barely managed to register the chaos in front of him and the blue light at its center.

‘it’s all coming from… a boat?’ Oscar thought.

But there it was – a boat that crashed into the harbor of old Paris.

The blue light turned into an arc of heat in an instant, and suddenly the world was turning, as Oscar and his team were in freefall, their drone annihilated

Oscar crashed on top of a nearby tall building.

Metal bouncing from the impact with the concrete, Oscar saw his three colleagues missing the building completely and crash all the way down to sea level with burning parachutes, dying on impact in a mushroom cloud.

After bouncing another time or two the three-meter-tall mech picked himself up,

And Oscar , thanking Chestnut profusely, discovered suddenly his legs were not so cramped anymore.