CHAPTER 41: ELYSIUM 2

Elysium... It was a place Sean had read about, and visualized countless times in his head, both back on Earth, and in this new world.

It was said to be a technological wonder, and he pictured it to as much as his imagination gave him leeway, using his currently known reality as a framework to ladder up.

What greeted him however, was beyond his imagination. He had watched a lot of Sci-fi movies on Earth, and even watched some sci-fi and cyberpunk animes and animations.

This, on the other hand, was worlds apart. There was a great divide, between imagining, watching through a screen, and experiencing such wonder live.

"Woah!" Drew exclaimed without decorum.

"Like it ehn?" Richelle smirked.

She found their reactions funny and cute. One could not understand the beauty of Elysium without seeing it for them selves. It was like a whole different world.

Technology and nature, blending in a ways never thought possible.

At most, one could only find articles and hear about important events that affected all of humanity, when it came to Elysium on the news. Anything else, including pictures, were unallowed to the public, as it helps Elysium maintain status and s mysterious allure.

It was the same thing with the sectors, though pictures were allowed for those. Unless it affected people of the slums and outer sector, any news of the inner sector was cut off from them. Same with the outer sector to the slums.

This system gave climbing up each ladder of society, feel monumental, like stepping into another world, and would make them strive to keep climbing and climbing.

Everything in Aegis was meant to entice. Higher castes of society, was meant to attract those of the lower castes, and the difficulty of life in the lower castes, plus privileges one had access to from living a more comfortable life, made one dread falling back to the lower sectors.

Elysium, was the one place where if you entered, falling out was almost impossible... At least for the most part.

Stretched out before them, was a glamorous and spacious city, roughly the size of both the inner and outer sector combined.

Hyper lanes raced through the wide roads, and small hover pods of different designs, the size of a car, zipped through the sky like birds.

Their vehicle immediately hit the road, and Richelle had the chauffeur wound down, so they could appreciate the world unfettered.

A rush of air, immediately swarmed into the vehicle, completely fresh and clean... Cleaner than any air Sean had breathed in before, in both worlds combined.

He had half the thought that just living here, a normal human without any kind of enhancement, could live up to two hundred, and still be healthy and strong.

Just breathing, seemed to invigorate him, filling him with energy like an energy drink.

Comparing just the air quality alone, made Elysium seem like heaven when compared to the inner sector, more so the outer sector. The slums on the other hand, wouldn’t even qualify to be mentioned in the same breath with Elysium.

Buildings that threatened to touch the clouds filled the side, lining the roads like sentinels... made out of polished metal and opaque glass.

The architectural style was incredibly sleek, and several buildings, even formed several shapes.

The drive was slow and quiet... well, as quiet as it could be, with Drew’s consistent "woah"s and "damn!"s.

The streets as well were quiet, and teleporters were a common feature that lined the roads, unlike on the ground, where it was only used for cross sector travels.

"Let’s go somewhere to eat, hmm?" Richelle asked, and the two teens agreed eagerly.

"Malek, Duke’s Haven please?" She said into the intercomm.

"Yes Miss," the middle aged chauffeur replied, driving the car, towards a teleporter.

"This place is heaven!" Drew squealed excitedly.

Sean’s sensory immersion, was broken by his erratic nudging, and he couldn’t help but frown.

"Quit acting like a little girl will you?"

"Dude, you can’t make me uptight like you. Have you ever seen anything this beautiful before?" Drew fired back.

"No? But I’m still not disturbing others due to my excitement." Sean said, trying to knock some sense into the block head.

"Nahhh, you just lack err..." Drew suddenly stopped, forgetting what it was, he was about to say.

"...What was it called again?"

"What?"

"That thing you usually say I’m drunk on..."

"Huh?"

"It’s in the brain!"

"Dopamine?"

"Right! You just lack dopamine receptors!"

"Are you serious right now?"

"What?! It’s not like I’m lying or something. You know that too."

"No, I don’t. But I do know you have a few cerebral screws loose."

"So from being drunk on dopamine, to having screws loose huh? Dude, make up your mind on this diagnosis already."

"Why am I even wasting time on you?"

"Why not? You think you can do without me?"

This time, Sean just decided to ignore the idiot. At some point, he began to regret knowing him. The meatloaf was way too annoying. More times than he could count, he felt like snapping his neck.

However, his lips were curled up slightly, so much so that one could mistake it for his normal expression. The small episode, did manage to lift the weight that pressed on his chest... Even if only slightly.

Richelle watched their banter with a smile on her face. Unlike Sean’s thought, she felt quite happy with her decision to take Drew in.

She quite liked his dynamic with Sean, and she could swear that in the past two weeks since he began living with them, she had seen Sean smile more times than he had in the last three years.

He knew how to wiggle his way into to a person’s safe space, with a contagious happy energy that was quite anomalous, considering he came from the slums.

After a few minutes of driving through a network of about three portals, the only times Sean was spared from Drew’s constant harassment, they finally came to a stop.

"We’re here." Richelle said, bringing a quiet end to their world, and giving Sean some much needed relief.

Before them, was a sleek, massive structure, shaped like a short scepter; wide and tall. Like the symbol of a heavenly duke’s authority.

Once again, Aegis Protocol responded, the familiar screen blooming before their retina.

[DUKE’S HAVEN]