The city was unlike the ruins of Denver that Jesse was familiar with. It was beyond anything he imagined Denver could have ever been. Could this be what the Old World was like? No, this was better. This world wouldn’t collapse. Nobody in their right mind would allow that.

The mechanical beasts people called “car” were not reserved for a noble few, but allowed to seemingly anyone. And the buildings of brick and concrete were full of people. It was more people in one place Jesse had ever seen. There were cafes and pubs where Jesse was from, but they were built from poorly cut wood planks and scrap metal, and few and far between. Here, the smell of cooking food was almost everywhere, and didn’t have any rancid scent at all. Some of the people were large and round, and Jesse had only seen such large people a few times in his life before. He didn’t even have words for it.