As we approach the city center and our first bar of the night my attention is drawn to two massive highrises angled in a harsh slope that defies numerous laws of reality and allows them to loom over a not insubstantial portion of the city.
And while I’m sure that normally the sides of these goliaths would be coated in countless advertisements, because of my new adblocker they instead emit an ethereal light that only adds to their majesty.
And situated at the point where the two megastructures meet — seemingly the crown jewel of the entire city — is “In The Clouds”, our current destination.
Constructed entirely out of frosted glass, Clouds constantly emits a deluge of colors throughout the rest of the city that can be seen even from the outer wall where we first entered.
The importance of this place — however — does make me voice a new-found concern of mine “Are you sure we can afford to go here?”
“Yep,” Ethan responds happily. “I might go bankrupt by the end of the night but it’s not like we’re spending real currency. Plus I can just earn some more later on.” Turning away from the window and looking into my eyes he continues by saying “Either way you don’t need to worry about money tonight. You just need to have fun. Capisce?”
Seeing the earnestness in his eyes I could only concede and redirect my thoughts towards the night ahead.
As our taxi started to land, however, my thoughts were redirected for me as I finally got a proper sense for just how big Clouds actually is. Stretching 500 feet wide and 50 stories tall the nightclub could likely pass for a mall if not for its eccentric exterior.
Constructed entirely out of orbs of various proportions, Clouds seems to have been made by a random number generator rather than a human. Composed of one central sphere with dozens if not hundreds of smaller, deformed balls — or, more likely, clouds — bubbling out of it, the nightclub will clearly be near impossible to navigate — although that was likely intentional.
When we finally land on one particularly flat ‘cloud’ hanging right below the main sphere and start to approach, an additional oddity makes itself known. There’s no line. Nor is there a bouncer in fact. Which I suppose makes some sense, seeing as they likely don’t need to check IDs and I can’t imagine they’d ever fill to capacity.
When we finally manage to squeeze through the constant flow of people entering and exiting I’m hit by an almost physical wall of noise. Thousands, possibly millions, of people talking, cheering, and arguing all unified by the thrumming base of the loudest EDM I’d ever heard.
The moment I stopped to drink it all in, however, Ethan put his hand on my shoulder and started guiding me deeper into the press of bodies at the entrance and towards some stairs off to our left.
When we managed to climb up to the second floor I was finally able to see the main hub of Clouds in all of its glory. At the far end of the enormous sphere was a DJ standing atop a pedestal and mixing songs in real time. Above them was an absolutely gargantuan screen displaying a cacophony of various VFX with a small bar along the bottom informing club goers of what song or mix of songs they’re currently listening to.
Right in front of the DJ is a dance floor the size of a baseball stadium. Taking up more than half of the floor space in this room, the dancing area currently had more people on it than I’d met in my entire life — and it wasn’t anywhere near full to capacity.
The open space on the ground floor, however, finally allowed me a glimpse of Clouds’s most distinguishing feature — the frosted glass exterior is one way, allowing clubgoers a crystal clear view of the city beneath their feet and all around them.
Surrounding the dance floor are dozens of levels of balconies and hundreds of bars slotted anywhere they could find space. The furniture, railing, and floors in this section was a prismatic glass that distorted the colors of light passing through it adding to the cacophony of sensations ever present in this place.
With stars in my eyes I turn to Ethan ready to explore every inch of this wonderful place.
And then the beat drops.
Instantly the volume of the room erupts and the neon animals and colored streamers swimming through the screen on the far wall leap into 3D space as vibrant holograms and start filling the formerly empty space in the center of the room.
A humongous phoenix shaped like a peacock and composed of vibrant pink and violet flames sweeps past me trailing sparks as the undulating form of a sea serpent swims its way up within arm’s reach of me. Countless streamers flash past and bounce off the walls like they're physical objects and pods of dolphins jump in and out of the floors.
Only when I feel a cold shock on my neck does time finally reassert itself and I finally start processing my surroundings again, finding Ethan offering me a drink.
When I take it from his hands he walks up next to me and leans against the railing to look out at the rest of the space. “It’s pretty damn cool ey?” Looking over at me he raises his glass and I raise mine in kind and we clink them together as he says “to new beginnings,” and then chugs his glass in one gulp. I — unfortunately — am unable to copy his feat and am forced to take slow sips of the incredibly bubbly liquid, seemingly composed of 50% ethanol and 50% carbon-dioxide.
“So,” he continued, “where to first?
“You could head down to the main dance floor or hang at one of the bars or we could go to one of the auxiliary halls. Whatever you want, tonight's your night.”
My answer was an instant “Let’s explore!” and immediately started marching off towards the nearest doorway to start my adventures into the labyrinthine network of clouds.
Over the course of the next few hours I’m caught up in a fever dream of various colors and sights only enhanced by the occasional sips of alcohol I take from my glass.
One moment I’m wandering through a room constructed entirely out of mirrors and the next I’m bouncing around a room with low gravity. Sometimes the halls are filled with blinding light and sometimes I can only see by the light of the city below us.
Whenever my drink runs out I wrangle Ethan over to a bar and order whatever the bartender made last. Throughout my wandering I ingest anything from a glowing cyan cocktail that tastes like every fruit on Earth had an orgy to straight up gasoline. Apparently that was too much and I was quickly injected with something and rushed off to a nearby bathroom.
And what a strange experience that was. Turns out the bathrooms here are all their own — separate — clouds, each the size of a suburban house. And considering the hundreds of people barfing their guts out all throughout the restroom I suppose the size is only logical, although puking into a crystal clear toilet while kneeling on a glass floor over a mile high drop was certainly an experience.
But even a brush with severe alcohol poisoning wasn’t enough to slow my roll and after emptying my system — both from the front and back — I immediately rushed off and convinced Ethan to get me yet another drink — this time a pure white cocktail lit by an LED straw and with the consistency of a smoothie — and start my exploration anew.
Throughout all of this I get to experience life like I never have before. Sometimes dancing like there’s no tomorrow and other times sitting at a table with some strangers and talking about random nonsense. The only constant is my brother’s presence at my side. Whenever I’m especially enjoying myself or something crazy happens I turn to share the moment with him and whenever someone approaches me or him the other sibling shoos them away in order to continue the night in just eachothers company.
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Which is why when I take a sip of my drink — that I’m pretty sure is just water but I’m still just as drunk as when I first got it so whatever — and find it empty I turn to ask Ethan for another one just like the last dozen times I’ve run out of alcohol, but I’m stopped short when I can’t find him anywhere.
Currently I’m in one of the smaller and quieter bars at the top of Clouds, which means that while there isn’t the vertigo-inducing experience of practically standing on nothing, the view out the side walls is uninhibited by any other parts of the club.
Additionally the music is a much slower pace and the chatter is done in whispers hidden away in private booths. Which is why it shouldn’t be possible for me to have lost him here of all places, but I suppose I probably got separated from him in one of the previous rooms.
Unfortunately — in my drunken stupor — I wasn’t thinking straight enough to realise I should likely just open my PI and send him a message. So instead I decided to go looking for him.
That was until I got to the next room — yes I moved to a new room instead of backtracking, I don’t want to hear it — and saw the football field sized dance floor beneath me and promptly decided that that was too much work and took a different approach.
Approaching the nearest bar I asked the bartender in slurred English “Haves you seen my brotha anywhere?”
In response the gray haired man in a suit behind the counter just smiled and asked “Well miss, I’m not quite sure. Could you describe to me what your brother looks like for me?”
“Hes a shorty withh brown hair an brown eyes an stubbly stubble.” God I’ve been standing too long I’m starting to sway. Luckily there was a convenient stool right next to me for me to sit on so I didn’t fall over, but it was a close thing.
The bartender seemed to give my words some thought and then said “well I’ve seen quite a few people that match that description tonight. Does your brother have any distinguishing features? Perhaps some inhuman ears or a tail or some such?”
“Thas silly, my brotherss human juss like me. Could I get the last thing you made!”
Seemingly caught off guard by my sudden shift in priorities the bartender pauses — stunned — for a moment before he smiles once again and starts pulling out some bottles from behind the counter and pouring them all into some mixers before topping it off with something from the tap and shaking it all together with a dramatic flair.
After only a couple seconds he pours the finished concoction into my empty glass and says “That’ll be 50 credits.”
Unfortunately for the bartender after hearing prices listed off to me and ignoring them all night there was no way my drink-addled brain would start processing my newfound need for a means of payment.
Luckily for me, however, I didn’t need to pay until I left this specific bar. Which meant my money troubles were cleared up for me when 5 minutes later a 7 foot tall behemoth walked up to the bar, took the seat next to me, and told the barkeeper “I’ll be paying for this lady’s drinks for the night.”
Even just judging by his appearance it was easy to tell this dude was quite the character. He was wearing city-camo cargo pants and pitch black rain boots but was completely topless. Except at first glance that’s not how it appeared because from the neck down every inch of skin I could see had been replaced by a shiny, black steel excluding the band of silver running along his spinal column.
Underneath that metallic covering was a barely contained musculature that could win ursine bodybuilding competitions — even if it was likely all synthetic — and covering him were a variety of seemingly spray painted on tattoos.
He could likely be described as baby faced if not for his almost comically sharp jawline. The black sclera and white irises of his eyes had a clearly synthetic quality to them. His black hair was woven into relatively long dreadlocks and his skin nearly matched the cybernetic armor covering the rest of his body.
After ordering a drink for himself he turns to me and asks “Hey gorgeous. What’s your name?” Which is a question that instantly stops me in my tracks.
First of all, being called gorgeous? Absolutely amazing. It’s been said to me dozens of times over the course of this night by men, women, and others — because apparently people lack all creativity — but it never gets old.
Second, what is my name? I never chose one and anyone who asked got chased away by Ethan before I had a chance to process what they were saying. Luckily my drunken mind managed to pull together a coherent thought for the first time in 2 hours and delayed by saying “Shouldn’t a proper gentleman introduce himself first?”
“Oh, but you see, I am not a proper gentleman.” Oh shit, quick, quick come up with a name the delay wasn’t anywhere near long enough. “But just this once I can make an exception.” And then he dramatically winks before saying “For your sake, fair maiden.”
Oh shit. Damn. I’m not interested but I am fucking impressed, that was smooth as hell.
In preparation for this surely grand introduction the man puffs himself up and makes a grand sweeping gesture with both arms — spilling a little of the alcohol still in his left hand — before bending his right arm at the elbow to point back at himself and leaning over in a slight bow, saying “My name is Buck.”
…
It may have been the alcohol but that one got a spit take out of me as I burst out into a fit of giggles that didn’t knock me off of my stool only because Buck reached over and wrapped his arm around my waist and leaned me against his shoulder.
Quickly I make sure to place my hand on his chest and push myself away slightly to make sure he doesn’t get any ideas but even still I continue laughing as Buck continues his introduction now that I’ve cracked — now with a proud grin on his face of course — “But everyone calls me Silverback, because I’m as strong as a gorilla and, well, because of my silver back. Personally I prefer the name Silverbuck but that hasn’t really caught on so I’m sticking with what I’ve got.”
At that — despite the abysmal joke — I start laughing even harder as tears start welling up in my eyes and a variety of snorts and coughs escape from me as I try to finally reign in my laughter.
“Now then, what would your name be, oh siren mine?”
With one final snort and some inspiration from his new nickname for me I finally come up with an idea I’m happy with and manage to get out “Aquela. My name’s Aquela.”
----------------------------------------
Over the course of the next hour my conversation with Silverback — when I called him Buck he said “Only people I am intimately familiar with get to call me Buck.” — continued. I quickly made it clear to him that I am not interested in a roll in the sheets with him, but it seems he wasn’t opposed to just hanging out and having fun chatting.
And I was most certainly having fun. I’m pretty certain that was the first time all night that I ordered more than one drink from the same bar and almost half the time I spent there was time I spent laughing.
But more than everything else, being called Aquela and having this big, handsome, charming dude flirt with me — because he didn’t stop even when he acknowledged he had no chance — had my heart bursting with joy.
Despite the fact that ever since I had met up with Ethan I had felt like a woman, this was so much more than that. For the first time ever I felt like Aquela and it felt so right. Even when the bartender joined in, even when a woman came up to us to shoot her shot with both me and Silverback — at the same time I might add — and especially when Silver started calling me Ella.
All of it.
Every.
Single.
Moment.
Felt more right than anything ever had in my entire life. And so for that 1 hour I had a perpetual grin splitting my face. At some point I stopped drinking, but never once did I feel any less inebriated, in fact I was so drunk on happiness I don’t think I’ll ever be sober again.
Eventually, however, all good things must come to an end, and when Silver finally asked for my number — more specifically my Islands ID number — I was finally prompted to open my PI. When I did I found dozens of messages from a panicking Ethan asking where in the hell I am.
With a little giggle — because that’s just the mood I’m in — I say to Silver “Oh shit, my brother’s been messaging me for the past hour.”
“Your brother? Is there something he needs from you?”
In response I shake my head and explain “No, but we got separated an hour ago and he’s been looking for me ever since.”
At that, Silver pauses and just stares at me for a moment before asking “Wait. You came here with your brother and got separated?”
“Yep.”
“And you haven’t responded to any of his messages for the last hour?”
“uh… Nope!” I chirp
Immediately Silver starts panicking — to my utter confusion — and stands up before grabbing me around the waist and guiding me towards a nearby door while saying “Ah shit. That guy’s probably panicking like the world’s about to end. Say, do those messages mention where he is right now?”
Looking at the latest messages I manage to just barely read one specific out loud “I’ll be at the front entrance, please come the second you can. I’m here to help.”
Under his breath Silver responds simply with “sounds about right,” and quickly pushes us through the crowd.
Eventually we reach the central sphere and make our way to the main entrance where we stop and Silver asks me “Do you see your brother anywhere?”
Before I get a chance to start searching, however, I hear Ethan’s voice from right next as he yells “What the hell do you think you’re doing to my sister!?” while grabbing my arm and pulling me away from Silver who quickly puts his arms up in a surrender gesture and takes a step back while verbally defending himself.
“Whoa dude, I know what this looks like but I swear I didn’t do anything.”
In response Ethan’s glare sharpens even further and he snarls out “yeah right. Why the fuck else would someone be hugging a beauty like her to their chest?!” then more softly he turns to me and asks “sis are you ok? No matter what he did to you I’m still here for you ok?”
Looking into his eyes I put on a winning smile and articulate as best as I can “iss ok Silver’s a cool dude. He fought the Gold Chest gang!” At that I snort and start giggling while burrowing my face into Ethan’s shoulder; however, when I feel his hand on my back and look up into his serious eyes I sober up slightly and continue more seriously. “He protected me while you were gone. He’s good people.”
Seemingly reluctantly Ethan finally accepted that Silver was — in fact — not a rapist and turned to look him in the eyes, saying “well… thank you for protecting my sister.”
“No problem. She was good company.”
That was — unfortunately — the wrong thing to say.