The Towering Sky

“I think I should buy you this.” Cord held up a soft green tank top that said CAN’T I JUST WATCH THE SCHOOL VIDS FROM MY BED?

“I don’t think it matches the school uniform,” Rylin jested, though she hadn’t missed the fact that Cord offered to buy it for her, rather than suggesting she buy it for herself. And did he even understand what the shirt meant? He’d probably never watched a school vid in his life. Up at Berkeley, the courses were taught exclusively by live professors.

They headed through the department store’s far doors and into the mall proper, toward the massive bank of elevator pods at the center of its cathedral-like interior. The elevator pods looked like nothing so much as a strand of delicate opaque pearls, constantly detaching and reattaching as they moved throughout the mall along their fiber-cable necklaces. They would float up, sporadically stopping and starting as new people got on or off, and then finally drift back to earth.

Elevator pod technology was nothing new. It had been invented before hovercrafts sometime in the last century and wasn’t useful on any kind of large scale, certainly not for the Tower itself. But in self-contained spaces like malls or airports, it was still the cheapest and most effective way to move people short distances.

“Ready?” Cord asked, starting toward the nearest station.

Because of the way the tech worked, pulling them along on that nanofiber, the pods themselves only opened from one end. And for some reason that Rylin had never paused to question, everyone always entered the pod and then turned around to face the entrance, waiting expectantly for the sliding panels to open again.

For their experiment, Cord and Rylin were going to board a crowded car and then face the back instead of the front, to see how people reacted. It had been Rylin’s idea, actually. She liked to think that it was brilliant in its simplicity.

The moment they stepped onto the station, the smartmatter beneath their feet registered their weight and summoned a pod. Cord tapped at the screen to mark their destination as the highest level of the mall, a full thirty floors above them. Then they both stepped inside.

Rylin started to turn unthinkingly toward the curved flexiglass door. As the pod clicked shut and jerked into the air, the surface of the mall fell away before them, making the shoppers look like a swarm of ants.

“Forgetting something?” Cord asked behind her, amused.

Rylin quickly shuffled to face the back, resisting the urge to turn back and look at the view. “You know,” she said, “when Lux and I were little, we used to ride this up and down for hours.”

It had been like a free carnival ride, the novelty of which never wore off. Rylin used to secretly imagine that she was the president, riding in her private hovercraft up to the White House—until she learned that the White House wasn’t even a tower, but a flat, squat building. It still didn’t make sense to her. What good was it to be the leader of America if you didn’t have a decent view?

“That’s funny,” Cord said, though Rylin heard the note of disbelief in his voice. Of course he hadn’t spent his childhood riding elevator pods; he’d probably been playing a full suite of holo-games on his expensive immersion console. “Who’s Lux?” he added.

Rylin blinked. “My best friend.” It was easy to forget how little Cord really knew her. But then, he only ever saw her at school or on other upper floors.

Before Cord could respond, their pod lurched sideways to pick up someone else. Rylin and Cord stayed where they were, facing the featureless back wall, as a pair of older women stepped inside.

There was a palpable moment of silence. The women had turned to face the curved flexiglass doors at the front, but Rylin felt their necks twisting, their gazes boring into her. The pod resumed its motion.

“Tanya, I’ve been meaning to show you this,” one of the women said to the other, pulling out her tablet. She held it in such a way that it was angled toward the back wall, forcing herself and her friend to look in that direction. Rylin saw their feet edge slightly backward. She felt strangely triumphant.

Slowly, by degrees, the women turned to face the same way as the two teenagers. It happened in minuscule increments, the curve in their spines so subtle that it would have been undetectable to someone who wasn’t looking. But by the time the elevator pod pulled to another stop, near the top of the mall, the women were also facing backward.

The doors opened again and a boy, around twelve or so, stepped on board alone. He didn’t even hesitate, just kept on facing the back as if that was what he did every time.

Rylin lifted her eyes to meet Cord’s. He gave an exaggerated wink, forcing her to stifle a giggle.

Finally they reached the top floor, where a colonnaded walkway circled the center of the mall. Rylin hurried toward a display of activewear bracelets. She was laughing now, a full-bodied laugh that began deep in her belly, revealing the twin dimples on her flushed cheeks.

“Did you see that? Those women totally caved to our social pressure!”

“And the effect clearly magnifies with more people. That boy didn’t hesitate at all,” Cord agreed. The fluorescent lighting caught the warmth in his light blue eyes.

“Just think of how much faster they would’ve turned if you weren’t dressed so ridiculously,” Rylin couldn’t resist adding.

“Absolutely,” Cord agreed, with mock solemnity. “We both know that you were the success factor in this experiment.”