The Towering Sky

“Then why—”

“I just thought you outgrew him, is all,” Chrissa said baldly. She flicked off her contacts, to level her bright-green eyes at Rylin. “But since he clearly makes you happy, I’ll shut up about it.”

Rylin didn’t know how to answer that. She focused on pulling her boots on over her socks, which were printed with tiny watermelons. “Anyway, I’m not going to the mall with Hiral, I’m going for class,” she said tersely.

“For class?”

“For psych class,” Rylin admitted, knowing exactly what was coming.

“Oh,” Chrissa said meaningfully. “With Cord.”

Rylin had already told Chrissa that Cord was her lab partner. She’d tried her best to sound unconcerned, as if the whole thing were no big deal, but Chrissa knew their history and probably saw right through her.

“We have to run a field study examining social mores in a crowded location,” Rylin tried to explain. “The mall seemed like the easiest place.”

“Social mores? What does that even mean?”

“Behavioral norms. The things people do automatically, subconsciously, because that’s how everyone else does it.”

“Mm-hmm.” Chrissa refrained from commenting on the fact that Rylin was going to the mall—on a weekend—with her ex-boyfriend.

Rylin felt plenty guilty without Chrissa’s help. She couldn’t stop wondering if it was wrong of her to have hidden this from Hiral.

She had meant to tell Hiral that Cord was her lab partner; she really had. Last night, when Hiral came with her to Lux’s birthday party, she had planned on telling him. But she kept putting it off. By the time they were walking home, holding hands, eating doughnuts from their favorite late-night food cart, she’d decided against it. Between her schoolwork and his work schedule—he was on the late shift again, which ran into the early hours of the morning—she barely saw Hiral these days. Why ruin a perfectly good night by bringing up her ex-boyfriend?

Besides, she and Cord were actually starting to get along during psych class, to relax back into something that resembled friendship, at least within school bounds. It wasn’t romantic, Rylin kept telling herself.

And the more time that went by without her mentioning it to Hiral, the less it seemed like a big deal.

After all, she was keeping a much bigger secret from Hiral: all the drama over the Mariel investigation. Mariel had known that Rylin stole drugs. If that secret somehow came to light through the police investigation, it wouldn’t take long for the cops to realize that Hiral had been involved too. He was the one who’d sold the drugs for her.

Hiral had worked so hard to put all of that behind him, and Rylin had no desire for it to resurface now. She knew it wasn’t easy—god, even last night she’d seen their old friend V approach Hiral at Lux’s party, throwing an arm easily around Hiral’s shoulders as he whispered something. Probably offering him a hit of his latest drug. But Hiral just shook his head, ignoring him.

When she arrived at the main entrance of the mid-Manhattan Mall, a teeming monstrosity that spanned the entire 500th floor, Rylin was startled to find Cord already waiting for her. He was standing near the doors, his arms crossed, wearing an oversized sweatshirt, mesh athletic shorts, and rubber flip-flops.

“What on earth are you dressed as, a basketball team’s waterboy?”

Cord gave a bright, unselfconscious laugh. “Is it too much? I raided Brice’s closet. I didn’t want to look absurd.”

“Then you’ve failed miserably.” He would have looked perfectly fine in his usual T-shirt and dark jeans, Rylin thought, confused. It took a moment before she realized why he’d wanted to dress up—or rather, dress exaggeratedly down. “Is this your first time going this far downTower?”

“Absolutely not. I’ve been to Central Park lots of times.”

Rylin blinked to hide her consternation, though she should have guessed. Even when they were together, Cord had never come down to her apartment. Their entire relationship had begun, thrived, and ended within the confines of his 969th-floor apartment.

“I’m happy to buy something else, if you’re embarrassed to be with me,” Cord offered. “You look nice, though.”

Rylin laughed. “That’s just because this is the first time in months that you’re seeing me in something that isn’t a school uniform,” she pointed out.

Cord gave a puzzled frown, as if he hadn’t quite thought of that, and didn’t especially like the realization.

They swept through the main double doors into a department store, and Rylin was immediately assaulted by the sensory overload within. There was just so much of everything—stacks of black cyra tops, row upon row of upcycled denim, not to mention the soaring walls lined with women’s shoes. There were stilettos and slingbacks and boots, some color-shifting to match your outfit, others self-repairing so they never showed a scuff mark. Most were lined with the new piezoelectric carbon soles, which converted the mechanical energy of walking back to electricity and fed it directly into the Tower’s main grid.

Chrissa had been right: The mall was overcrowded today. The breathless conversations of the other shoppers washed over Rylin as if she’d been in an echo chamber. Adverts instantly popped up on her contacts—Jeans just 35ND for one day only! or Don’t forget to vote in the municipal election this week! She quickly disabled the contacts, slightly relieved by the newfound clarity of her vision. She’d had them for a year now, since she started at Berkeley, but she still wasn’t used to how crowded they got in public places.