And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further… And one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925, 2nd Era)
Everyone stiffened and spoke in hushed tones in Yniol’s closer. The closer they got to Vega, the more the Pendragons sat on the edge of their seats. They weren’t any better than Erec. Which was surprising. They’d been here before. The Jewel of the wasteland, they called it. Though, in the light of the day, the city was more grounded than before. It came alive at night when those neon lights blasted everywhere.
Vega… was beautiful. A world completely on the surface; the massive buildings in the center of the dome were impossibly tall.
Yet on the outskirts of Vega, outside of the dome, was a sight quite to the contrary. The Kingdom had its slums, people struggled to survive. But they had the protection of being underground if nothing else. Here, the luxury of protection wasn’t granted.
Outside of the walls were ramshackle hovels filled with people roaming by with guns, bats, and metal pipes—a whole second city that dragged itself along outside of the barriers of Vega. It wasn’t as big, but it was clear the people here suffered. Sad strips of torn-apart buildings, many of them with caved-in roofs, and the occasional splotch of dried blood on walls spoke all the stories Erec needed to hear.
“Damn,” Erec said, watching a girl digging around in a building wreckage.
Vega didn’t lift a finger for these people. No one past the barrier existed to them.
His eyes turned to the light blue dome that stretched miles into the sky. Within its confines was an entire city, including a few smoke stacks that drifted out of the barrier. Houses, restaurants, and production. Even from this distance, he saw a fully functioning place. But what didn’t make any sense was in what he didn’t see. There were no farmlands, no form of agriculture. The Kingdom survived off its bio-caverns, and supplemental food on the surface, and still the strain of feeding everyone was a constant concern. While Vega wasn’t as massive as the Kingdom, it still had to support a sizable population.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“They can’t pay the entrance fee, that’s why they’re stuck out here. Either that, or they got booted, lost their savings, you name it.” Enide shrugged. “Oh, look—one of the red robes.”
Sure enough, there was one of the priests as the cars entered the streets leading to Vega; he had bread in one hand, with a group of hungry children reaching out for it. But he stopped them every single time they tried to grab a bite. Too busy delivering his sermon. Not all too different from the Kingdom. But seeing a priest out here was beyond surreal.
The priest trailed off. His eyes tracked the cars as they slowed on the road to cut through the slums. People gawked from all around. Given the cars were carrying a load of Knights in their Armor, shouldn’t have been surprising. Some kids ran into buildings, a few alarmed thugs cut through the crowd to put themselves between the cars and the people. Treating them with a weary suspicion like they would a monster approaching their homes.
“Bogeymen of the wastes, little do they know how cute you are under that helmet of yours,” Enide whispered and laughed.
Thankfully, none of the of people confronted or tried to block the way of the cars, if anything they moved even faster to get clear. The barrier was coming up fast. From this distance, they could see a small booth on the otherwise of the road, past the dome. Staffed by two men in suits layered by a small dark blue half-cloak.
The cars came to a stop fifteen feet from the barrier. Rochester climbed out of the driver’s seat and pulled Boldwick with him. They stopped at another car to grab Seven-Snakes. The man lowered his head as they marched him towards the dome to speak to people on the other side.
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It wasn’t like the gate of the steel curtain. The dome cut through the road; and the actual city didn’t appear to start for another fourth of a mile past that.
“Should be pretty straightforward,” Enide yawned. “Tell’em they’re here filling a contract for the council. Guard’s wave our entry fee. Then we roll on in with our prisoners. Given we have you guys with us, I’m willing to bet they’ll throw in some kind of accommodation at one of the hotels. Diplomacy, business… Same thing to the Magi.”
The gatekeepers on the other side were forming glyphs and conferring with one another after a brief talk with Rochester and Boldwick.
Ten minutes passed, and word spread through the outskirts of the arrivals—People wanted a look at the Knights. Including five priests; who seemed to converse, no longer bribing children with bread to get them to listen to their sermons. It was eerie seeing them here, and the drive he had before to investigate their existence outside of the Kingdom was evaporating. The way they stared was creepy—as if they saw past his Steel. Saw through him. He was sure it was just the remains of how he felt with his last interaction with them in the Kingdom, but now he wanted nothing to do with them.
A black car rode out from the interior city of Vega, unlike the ones the Pendragons had. This one was pristine, its parts new, completed by black windows. It even had a roof, all designed to hide the people within. No crazy modifications.
But there wasn’t a shot in hell it was from the old-world.
It stopped near the barrier, and a man got out of the passenger seat. He wore a full dark-blue cloak and had slicked-back hair. A plethora of badged stitched on the right side completed his cloak. After a brief discussion; the two magi on the other side turned back to face the barrier and then conjured a glyph.
The edge of the barrier lifted; the dome rose like one big curtain held up by an invisible pillar. Tall enough for the cars to drive through, and wide enough to clear the road. Rochester gave the man in the black car a big grin and prodded Seven-Snakes through.
They took the man, shoved him into the black car, and drove off.
“Looks like we’re clear. Took long enough,” Yniol mumbled as Rochester motioned to the rest of the Pendragons. In a few minutes’ time, they were past the barrier. All the people behind them shut off from the interior, trapped to live their lives outside of the paradise city.
Like that, they were in Vega proper. The city was asleep, but he knew that it wouldn’t be long before it woke up.
— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —
As Enide predicted, they were led to one of the skyscrapers. A casino hotel. An entire street that was lined with these and other entertainment, distractions meant to keep people drifting by and spending chips. The currency of this place.
And the people here came from just about any walk of life Erec could imagine. They were rags with gold chains, others in suits like the Magi, some in leather and wasteland wear.
On the strip, the name of the game was pleasure. Outside of that, from the brief glimpse he got, life seemed more diverse and ordinary. Schools, workshops, and housing. An entire ecosystem to support this veneer of forgetfulness towards the outside world. Built to support this.
Erec looked out the window of his hotel room, near the top of the casino. At the lights already flaring up as the sun sank, at the women dressed in colorful feathers, and singers with microphones plugged into street speakers. Drinks, for sale, men and women waving around, every day a party. The people were a mingling of half-a-hundred different cultures and places, yet they heard of this place, sold something to get in, and made chips.
It made him wonder how wide the network outside of the Kingdom was.
What did all of this mean?
In the back of the room, he heard the shower cut off. The instructions were to wash up, then attend an event hosted by the Magi; after that, they were to have a meeting with the council. In a rare show, Boldwick ordered them to do so with no Armor, to not offend their hosts.
“Strange,” Erec couldn’t tear his eyes from the outside. This place existed in a literal bubble and denied the reality of the world. A place where you could live a merry life in sin.
Garin strolled out of the shower, a suit shirt on that he was adjusting the collar to; fussing with a tie. “Think Olivia will like it?”
“Take it easy, alright? No need to get all serious. We’re just along for Boldwick’s negotiations, and while we’re here, we get to see what the rest of the world is like. It’s what you wanted, right? Maybe we’ll find something here to use to convince him to go along with the Pendragons further. We’ll know more, and can plan more by the end of the night.”
“I know. It’s just that I never pictured something outside of the walls.”
“World’s full of surprises. Go get cleaned up, we got a show to watch, then get to listen to a bunch of old men talk for a while, then we’ll cut it there. And turn into enjoying the night. We can worry about the future tomorrow,” Garin threw an arm over Erec’s shoulder, a smile on his face as he looked outside at the window. “Damn, what a view.”