Empyrean Iris

Captain Vir waded through a billowing cloud of choking neon smoke. His lungs burned as the hot exhaust washed over his face, seeping into his skin. The diffused red light from city neon glowed over half of his face, highlighting it in red.

He pressed his face against his jacket trying to block out the choking smoke that attempted to invade his lungs at every turn. His boots clattered against grimy metal as they broke from the cloud of noxious steam and onto the first section of oxidized catwalk.

Heavy footsteps followed behind him, and as the smoke cleared, Sunny cursed, or at least he assumed it was a curse, it wasn't in English after all but the guttural vocalizations of her own language, which seemed to have no translatable equivalent.

It took him a moment to figure out what had upset her so much before realizing that the catwalk they were on, was a little less than well maintained and a little more than a deathtrap.

"Is there another way around?" Sunny asked as the two of them leaned over the low, rickety handrail and down into the abyss that stretched before them, where the pulsing red mist still swirled in slow undulations. The catwalk didn't go the entire length of the chasm, but sort of cut diagonally across to where the chasm dead ended at their final destination.

"Not unless you want to walk all the way around." He said, resting his hand on the rail and gently tugging at it. Little specks of grime and flakes of rust rubbed off on his hand, but the handrail remained firm, which was a good sign if not completely encouraging, "Looks like we are going to have to walk across."

Sunny didn't look particularly pleased, and he couldn't really blame her for that.

He wasn't too thrilled either.

Turning to look, their destination – which couldn't have been more than 100 meters away – might well have been a mile off.

"Afraid of heights?" He wondered, gently testing the metal before him with half weight on his front foot.

She stayed behind him, "No, but... inexperienced perhaps"

That made sense, when he had been on Anin, the Drev hadn't had the technology to fly, and her only other travels must have been inside shuttles. Not to mention that her particular homeland wasn't known for its soaring heights or rocky cliff-faces.

"Just stay behind me, and try to step where I step."

She grunted, whether in exasperation or agreement, he did not know.

He kept his eyes down towards his feet, though occasionally he glanced up to determine their progress.

The side of the city they had come out on – after traversing miles and miles of rickety fire escapes – was rather dead in comparison to the rest of the planet, or what they had seen of it.

Most of the buildings here, built into the side of the chasm, were old and rickety, mostly abandoned, generally warehouses and factories. It was not unlike earth in that way, that all cities seemed to have a mostly abandoned industrial district, where the buildings were crumbling, and rusty chains held even rustier chain link gates closed with large red KEEP OUT signs. However, unlike earth, these factories and warehouses grew on the side of the chasm walls like vines clinging to the walls and snaking down into the darkness.

Bridges and catwalks spanned the distance between every abandoned factory turning the air around them into a hazardous areal spiderweb.

The catwalk creaked under his feet, and he slowed up a bit as –behind him—sunny pulled up.

"Everything alright?" She wondered.

He held up a hand, "We are about to find out.

He stepped forward onto the creaky spot and then, without too much thought began jumping up and down first little hops and then bigger ones feet thudding against the metal below.