The Thousandth Floor

She’d never been to Brooklyn before. It used to be a fairly popular neighborhood, she knew, back before the Tower was built—and cast part of the borough in perpetual shadow. The township of Brooklyn was still locked in a lawsuit with the engineering firm that had designed the Tower, but no one thought they would actually win. In the meantime, people had been trickling out of the area for the past two decades. Eris wasn’t sure who even lived here anymore.

“Here we are,” Mariel said, walking up a staircase that led to an old, once stately brick town house. FORECLOSURE: PROPERTY OF FULLER WEALTH MANAGEMENT, read a bright red sign taped across the front door, which had been sealed off and then crudely broken into. Eris heard music thumping behind it. She gave a dark chuckle at the irony that she was going to a party in a house owned by Avery’s dad. Avery would find it hilarious. Too bad Eris could never tell her.

Mariel gave a series of knocks at the door, which swung inward, revealing a burly guy with inktats and a beard. His frown melted into a smile when he saw Mariel. “Where’ve you been?” he asked, pulling her into a hug. “My mom keeps asking about you!”

“Tell your mom we’ll come by soon,” Mariel promised, and stepped past him. Eris tried to follow, but the guy put an arm up, blocking her way.

“Thirty nanos,” he said firmly.

“Oh—um—” She might have thirty nanos left in her bitbanc, but only just.

“She’s with me, José,” Mariel called over her shoulder.

“Sorry.” José lowered his arm. “I didn’t realize. Have fun.”

Mariel looped an arm in Eris’s and pulled her forward, toward what looked like the living room, empty of furniture but crowded with teenagers wearing cheap-looking clothes and broad smiles. Bars had been set up at both ends of the room, and there were speakers in all four corners, including floating speakers that followed the highest concentration of people. It wasn’t a bad party, for being in Brooklyn.

“My cousin José,” Mariel explained.

“It’s his party?” Eris still didn’t understand why they were in a foreclosed house.

“You could say that. This is his side business—throwing parties in abandoned and foreclosed houses, then charging for entry. He actually makes decent money off it.”

“Oh. Well, thank you for getting me in without paying,” Eris said awkwardly. She hated being in anyone’s debt, especially this girl’s.

“Don’t thank me too much,” Mariel said. “Now you can’t flirt with anyone here, since I told José we’re together.”

“What?” Eris stared at her, even more confused.

“Sorry,” Mariel said, “but he stopped letting me bring my friends for free, because I abused it too much. Now he only comps whoever I’m hooking up with. I figured you’re strapped for cash right now, so …” she trailed off awkwardly.

“Thanks.” Eris had no idea what to make of that. She looked around. “Who are all these people?”

“Friends from school, from the neighborhood. You might know some of them, actually—a few of my Altitude coworkers are here.” Mariel grinned wickedly.

Eris looked around the room and realized that she did, in fact, recognize several people. Wasn’t that tall brunette girl the barre instructor she’d flirted with all last summer? “I need a drink,” Eris announced, heading for the bar as Mariel laughed behind her.

The night wore on. Eris introduced herself to almost everyone; they were all perfectly friendly, and all seemed to know Mariel, as if Mariel were the social glue holding this group together. But something ineffable kept Eris separated from them, with their easy laughter and high energy. Maybe it was the hot coal of resentment still burning in her chest, or maybe it was just that she came from upTower. But whatever it was, Eris felt somehow apart from them all. She kept drinking, hoping the alcohol would close the distance between them: kept drinking until she too could laugh easily, dance carelessly. It felt good, floating around this abandoned house without caring what any of them thought of her. She had needed a night like this.

At some point she discovered the stairs to the roof. This house was so low to the ground, only four floors up; no one in the Tower would consider this a view at all. Eris leaned against the low protective wall, looking at the dark forms of the surrounding buildings. Light fell in golden rings on the street below. She could see straight into another house’s living room, where a couple was seated at a tiny table, holding hands over their food. Eris looked quickly away, feeling somehow invasive.

Across the water loomed the massive hulk of the Tower. She let her eyes skim up, up, up, wondering which of the tiny twinkling lights—which little slice of sky—was her old apartment up on 985. Forget them, she told herself, the resentment still warming her from within. They had all treated her terribly, her mom, her dad, even her birth dad, whoever he was. She didn’t need any of them. She didn’t need anyone at all. She was doing just fine without them.

Eris tipped her head all the way back, even higher than the Tower, to look up at the dark expanse of night sky. She remembered all the nights she’d snuck into Greenwich Park hand in hand with whomever she was dating at the time, to look up at the vast holoscreen of stars. No matter how good holo technology got, it would never come close to this.