The shards were quite beautiful. This one, Shard 3, reminded him of a floating garden. A ring of green trees interspersed with red hued ones, keeping in an orderly row of skyscrapers, like a blooming rosebush hedge around a gallery of marble statues. Viveca raised a few fingers to feel the pane of glass that showed him the shard with his own eyes. He'd almost always seen them through the screens of his Kensai, displays that showed him an image of the outside world while protecting him within a cocoon of armor and machinery. But for all the technology that made the display lifelike and realtime, Viveca still felt like there was something special about your own eyes.
"Captain speaking, all passengers are to take a seat and fasten their seatbelts as we come into final approach for landing." Viveca's eyes glanced back over where he was that was affording him such a view. The mass transit airship, little more than a glorified flying bus, was an uncomfortable poorly handling and poorly designed frame that was clearly designed for hauling raw goods. But, give it a good ol UN paint job that probably cost more than its stuttering CRS, and it's a passenger aircraft! With a sigh, Viveca glanced down at himself, still buckled in with nothing to do in reaction to the Captain's request.
His clothes were fitting to the persona he was adopting today. The pants were dark green mockeries of actual fatigues, likely adopted by the youth in some show of admiration for the Kensai Pilot culture. He wore a hoodie like garment in black over his body, baggy sleeves necessary to conceal the body armor and not exactly holdout weaponry he carried. He kept the hood down though, his hair was far too long for that to be comfortable. Bound in a tight braid yet he could still bat it forth in his lap if he wished.
Looking back out the window, he could see the shard no more. The craft had shifted its path, and he went ahead and played with his hair.
The UN cities were frighteningly organized sometimes, on the wealthy shards like this one. Viveca almost found it intimidating everything was so symmetrical so how did one tell where one was? Shard 31 that he loved so well was a rambshackle shanty town of epic proportions and he wouldn't have it any other way. But, following a map was not too difficult for a Kensai pilot, and after some time, Viveca found his way to his destination.
Shard 3 was one of the very few places to go if you wanted vintage style books. The Merging had wreaked havoc on both digital and print libraries, but enough computer technology had survived that many found it easier to preserve things digitally than weigh themselves down with books. Many books had been lost, and those that had survived, whether classics printed millions of times through the ages, or the latest genre-fiction best seller printed millions of time in the last years, had generally found their way into private collections or onto Shard 3. Or both, as the case often was. And, such, it was also the place where new copies were printed, to keep on the tradition. As likely as not, the cargo bays of the bus held great bales of paper to be printed upon.
Shard 31, for all its boons, did not even have a printing press as far as Viveca was aware, having shifted very quickly onto a free-for-all digital network. While certainly amusing and educational about social meme tendencies, Viveca sought something else. He wanted to try an actual book. Perhaps it was the same part of him that felt his own eyes were just somehow better than the sensor arrays of his Kensai. Not for the sheer ability to see, as certainly a Kensai sensor suite could see hundreds of times further than him, but to see something for more than what it was.
He found his way into one of the book stores. It was a middle range joint, Viveca had not wanted to start at the top or at the bottom, so that left him the middle.
"Mmm..." Viveca had hoped he'd have decided what kind of book he had actually wanted to try reading by the time he got here, but had failed. That left only to browse the iles, he supposed.
"Captain speaking, all passengers are to take a seat and fasten their seatbelts as we come into final approach for landing." Viveca's eyes glanced back over where he was that was affording him such a view. The mass transit airship, little more than a glorified flying bus, was an uncomfortable poorly handling and poorly designed frame that was clearly designed for hauling raw goods. But, give it a good ol UN paint job that probably cost more than its stuttering CRS, and it's a passenger aircraft! With a sigh, Viveca glanced down at himself, still buckled in with nothing to do in reaction to the Captain's request.
His clothes were fitting to the persona he was adopting today. The pants were dark green mockeries of actual fatigues, likely adopted by the youth in some show of admiration for the Kensai Pilot culture. He wore a hoodie like garment in black over his body, baggy sleeves necessary to conceal the body armor and not exactly holdout weaponry he carried. He kept the hood down though, his hair was far too long for that to be comfortable. Bound in a tight braid yet he could still bat it forth in his lap if he wished.
Looking back out the window, he could see the shard no more. The craft had shifted its path, and he went ahead and played with his hair.
The UN cities were frighteningly organized sometimes, on the wealthy shards like this one. Viveca almost found it intimidating everything was so symmetrical so how did one tell where one was? Shard 31 that he loved so well was a rambshackle shanty town of epic proportions and he wouldn't have it any other way. But, following a map was not too difficult for a Kensai pilot, and after some time, Viveca found his way to his destination.
Shard 3 was one of the very few places to go if you wanted vintage style books. The Merging had wreaked havoc on both digital and print libraries, but enough computer technology had survived that many found it easier to preserve things digitally than weigh themselves down with books. Many books had been lost, and those that had survived, whether classics printed millions of times through the ages, or the latest genre-fiction best seller printed millions of time in the last years, had generally found their way into private collections or onto Shard 3. Or both, as the case often was. And, such, it was also the place where new copies were printed, to keep on the tradition. As likely as not, the cargo bays of the bus held great bales of paper to be printed upon.
Shard 31, for all its boons, did not even have a printing press as far as Viveca was aware, having shifted very quickly onto a free-for-all digital network. While certainly amusing and educational about social meme tendencies, Viveca sought something else. He wanted to try an actual book. Perhaps it was the same part of him that felt his own eyes were just somehow better than the sensor arrays of his Kensai. Not for the sheer ability to see, as certainly a Kensai sensor suite could see hundreds of times further than him, but to see something for more than what it was.
He found his way into one of the book stores. It was a middle range joint, Viveca had not wanted to start at the top or at the bottom, so that left him the middle.
"Mmm..." Viveca had hoped he'd have decided what kind of book he had actually wanted to try reading by the time he got here, but had failed. That left only to browse the iles, he supposed.
