Nimbus Novus

“Now arriving at: Nimbus Prime. Please gather belongings and prepare to deboard.” A robotic voice gargled through the rusty speakers of the passenger cabin. Vallen’s lips tightened nervously and she studied the speaker nearest to her intensely to try and take her mind off of how afraid she was. It looked like an old tin can, she thought, imagining the robot announcer at the other end of the line speaking into a second tin can, connected to the first by a length of string. Her mother had told her about an archaic children’s tradition like that once. She took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes as the ship entered the atmosphere.

A pristine white building shone across the field from where the transport ship landed, sporting the word “ARRIVALS” in hundreds of different languages across its front. A holographic screen projected against the containment field they had just been let through flashed a colourful greeting to the new arrivals. Looking around, it was easy to tell that the small, rackety ship did not belong in this place. Like stripes on a cow, Vallen remembered her mother’s silly phrase. A small staircase folded out from the bottom of the ship and the few passengers began disembarking in awkward shuffles. As Vallen stepped onto the field from the bottom stair, she expected to feel artificial turf beneath her, like in those old broadcasted sports where men ran around in padded suits and wrestled for control of a strange, egg-shaped ball. She had read that all the plant life in this place was artificially created, but had she not known that she never would have guessed that this was not real grass. Aside from perhaps looking slightly too full and healthy, and a little bit too endlessly, sweepingly green, the field was indistinguishable from a real one.

In total there were eleven passengers aboard the transport to Nimbus Prime. Vallen didn’t know any of the others – her stop had been the last one the transport ship made and when she had come aboard, she had rushed into the first seat she could find without looking at anyone. Now she slightly regretted her choice as she watched a few passengers who had gotten to know each other on the long flight chatting excitedly as they all made their way across the field. Nudging the thought aside, she adjusted her pack on her shoulders and looked ahead at the Arrivals building, beyond which lay a new world and a new life.

               Vallen skirted most of the welcoming displays of information about Nimbus Prime that faced her as she and the others entered, pausing only to grab a map of the public train system. The inside of the building was just as dazzling as the outside, the bright lights and loud chatter in her periphery trying to distract her from figuring out a route to her new apartment. She put her head down and kept walking, faster and faster as her senses gradually became more overwhelmed. The blood pumping in her ears drowned out the wordless babble of the crowds around her, and the stands and kiosks and information displays faded into a blur at the edges of her vision. Nowhere she had been before was as loud and confusing as this place. She tried not to regret her somewhat forced decision to come here.

Eventually she found herself at the train station and jumped back in alarm as what looked like a huge purple worm made of metal careened down the tracks towards the waiting crowd. It hovered a few inches above the tracks, using what Vallen realized must be polarized levitation technology. Fascinated, her fears left her for a moment and she nearly bent down to examine the bottom of the train more closely before she was buffeted into a car by the impatient crowd. Maybe this place isn’t so bad. She disappeared into mental calculations of magnetic field strength and the corresponding travel speed, daydreaming as the train whipped through the capital city.

Vallen’s new apartment was on the eighth floor of a tidy, bubble-shaped building with a lot of large windows, located on the outskirts of the suave, thriving downtown centre of Nimbus Prime’s capital city. A floral carpet runner decorated the hallway outside her apartment door, which was round and red. Vallen had never had a house with a round door before. She found it exceedingly charming. Delightfully, the apartment itself was also pleasantly round. A common area with warm-toned wood flooring looked out a large bay window, which provided a gorgeous view of downtown. Vallen was immediately drawn to the yellow-cushioned window bench set into the wall below it. It reminded her of her favourite reading nook as a child. Feeling simultaneously nostalgic, homesick, and excited, she started across the room to test it out but was startled by the opening of a door just off the main room. She looked wildly around for an escape, not feeling ready to meet anyone new yet. She’d known she would be sharing her apartment with three roommates but had hoped they would be out when she got here.

“Yeah, I’ll see you guys there! We gotta hit all the good places tonight.”

A tall girl with a purple pixie cut, spiked straight up with gel, came out of the room, talking on the phone. Her thick-heeled boots clunked across the floor as she headed towards the door. She gave Vallen a cursory look and a vague wave as she pulled the door open.

“Oh, and the new roomie’s here.”

Vallen remained rooted to the ground for a few more seconds after the girl left, unsure how to feel. She bit her lip and tried to keep from crying as the swirling memory of that dismissive interaction sucked all the anxiety-fueled adrenaline from her body.

Too much new.

Not enough exciting.

So alone.

She pushed open the door to her new room, dimly registering its friendly circular shape. Without even turning on the light, she fell backwards onto her bed, arms spread out wide. She stared blankly at the smooth, curved ceiling until she fell asleep.

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               Nimbus Prime was a civilization in the sky. Huge cities, artificial lakes, and even amusement parks had been built from the ground up on a series of interconnected floating platforms far above the uninhabitable surface of the planet. It had been so long now since people had been able to live on the planet’s surface that stories varied as to what it actually was that made the planet uninhabitable – some conspiracy theorists even believed that they were being kept up here so that the government could study their society in an isolated environment. Whatever the case, travelling down to the surface was impossible, even for the determined skeptics.

               Living up in the atmosphere of a planet meant some extreme and unusual weather. Early stories of this civilization told of incredible lightning storms that killed thousands and destroyed entire cities, of hail the size of boulders which buried a town in ice for a week, of immensely high winds that sent early versions of the sky platforms – and the workers on them – plummeting to the ground below. Now, Nimbus Prime was surrounded by a weather shield, a faint purple energy field which protected against lethal weather but still allowed some impressive storms to affect the cities. After all, a life with no rainstorms is hardly worth living.

               Despite their inability to reach the surface of their planet, the inhabitants of Nimbus Prime had come up with a way to preserve and admire some of its natural foliage and plant life in the form of great glass tubes which stretched all the way from the surface to beyond the edge of the weather shield. Since the sky platforms blocked out most of the natural sunlight the surface would usually get, these tubes created patches where sunlight and rain could reach, nurturing green life wherever they did. The only way the plants could grow was up, and soon the huge tubes were filled with healthy plant life for the civilizans of the sky to enjoy and the scientists to examine.

               Vallen had read about all of this in her research before moving here, but seeing it in person was an entirely different experience. She was downtown today, exploring the sights and getting her bearings. It was incredible. The realization that she was standing on a slab of rock in the sky held up by magnets was a little unnerving but she found it too fascinating to be afraid. She couldn’t see the edges at all - the cities were closer to the centre of the network of platforms because it was safer, and the edges were reserved for scientific study and observation of the surface. The air felt a little thinner and the wind whipping around her face was harsher than she was used to, but there were no other obvious indications that this wasn’t the solid surface of a planet besides the lack of natural foliage.

               The magnificent Nimbus Prime Museum loomed up ahead, an exceptional feat of architecture that held vast amounts of information about every facet of Nimbus Prime’s history. In addition to historical documents and artifacts, the Museum also contained a massive art gallery with pieces from new, contemporary artists as well as ancient, revered ones. Vallen would explore there another day when she had more time. She wanted to make rather a day out of it. She grinned in anticipation of her future visit as she strolled past.

               The chilly wind began to pick up, whistling down the narrow street Vallen now found herself on. A few poplar trees decorating the sidewalks rustled so convincingly that for a moment she forgot they weren’t real. Though her exposed ears were beginning to ache, Vallen continued down the street, determined to see the sights.

An exquisitely decorated restaurant had been built around one of the enormous plant-filled tubes, offering the rich-looking patrons inside a glimpse into the wonders of the uninhabitable (and thus alluring) world below. The artificial orchids and trees adorning the rooftop of a neighbouring bar glistened almost sickeningly in comparison to the natural vegetation being gawked at by restaurant-goers, like a jealous sorority girl with a spray tan.

Vallen could see an elegant-looking fountain up ahead in a large public square, the foreground to an impressive shopping centre. Intrigued, she continued walking in that direction but shivered as a cold droplet of water hit the back of her neck. She looked up at the purple-tinted sky and received a second raindrop to the middle of her forehead. Then a small, hard ball of ice. It quickly began to hail in earnest, ice pellets attacking from all directions as the wind howled even harder. Cursing herself for not bringing a rain jacket, Vallen stretched her thin sweater over her head and sprinted for the overhang of a small café nearby. She was about to pull open the door but noticed a large crowd was already sheltering in the warm interior. A flash of anxiety sparked through her and she decided to shiver outside instead.

As more soaking wet shelter-seekers entered the café, Vallen shunted to the side so as not to be in the way of the door, and so she couldn’t be questioned by friendly strangers wondering why she was staying out in the storm. She lowered her head and hunkered with her back against the grey stone wall, embarrassed and cold and wondering whether this place would ever feel like home.

Eventually the storm slowed enough for her to sputter over to the nearest train stop. She shivered miserably all the way back to her apartment, trying and failing to distract herself by wondering about the train’s carrying capacity and what material it was made of. It zipped along its route, bending itself smoothly as it encountered turns and hills. Despite her fascination with the wonderful technology that held the train aloft, Vallen found herself missing the familiar chugging and rattling of the firmly grounded auto-carriages back home.

As she reached her apartment and turned the knob of the red round door, she heard voices inside and grimly steeled herself for what she was sure would be another unpleasant encounter.

“Hi! Are you Vallen?”

The perky voice came from a girl with large glasses and a kind, round face. She was craning her neck from a seat at the kitchen table to smile at Vallen as she came in the door.

“Yeah, that’s her,” said the tall one who had all but ignored her the first time they met. She had been lounging at the opposite side of the table but stood up and walked to Vallen with her hand outstretched, a small crooked smile on her face. “Hey, how’s it going?”

Vallen shook her hand, a little stunned. The third person at the table gave Vallen a sweet smile and a little wave.

“Um. Hi, everyone. I’m- um, it’s great to meet you,” Vallen stammered, overwhelmed and still wet and shivering.

The tall girl chuckled and stepped back, beckoning Vallen to the fourth chair at the table.

“I’m Minnie. That’s Sam-” she indicated the round-faced girl, “- and that’s Fran.” She nodded to the third girl, who ducked her head and gave Vallen another quick smile.

“You look frozen,” Sam worried. “We just put the kettle on if you’d like some tea!”

“Oh – thank you. That would be lovely.” Vallen sat in the chair that Minnie pulled out for her and rested her hands on the table, then decided to place them in her lap instead. She looked down at her hands and pulled her sleeves over them, fidgeting with the fabric. Her face began to burn as she felt the gazes of all three of them on her, waiting for her to say something else. She started to wish she hadn’t sat down, but couldn’t ignore a small nugget of warmth niggling at her. These girls seemed nice after all. With some effort, she raised her head and smiled at her new roommates.

 Three rounds of tea went by as the girls sat and talked at the kitchen table. Eventually, Fran tentatively mentioned the late hour and scurried off to her room. Sam and Minnie had plans to visit a friend downtown but promised to give Vallen a proper tour of the city sometime. Vallen cleared their mugs from the table and poured herself another cup of tea. A smile crept across her face as she stood in the now-quiet kitchen. For the first time since she had arrived at Nimbus Prime, she felt comfortable. She took her tea over to the welcoming yellow window seat. The vibrant lights of the capital city shone below. Groups of people milled about the streets, coming in and out of various establishments and enjoying the now-clear night. Off to the left, the crazy purple train stopped briefly to let out a small crowd of people, then continued on its route. Vallen leaned her head contentedly against the window. This was her home now, and maybe that was okay.