Page 89 of Sparktopia
“Wouldn’t that have triggered an alarm?”
“Should’ve. But who knows? I sure wouldn’t. That’s the first time I’ve ever been down below the ground floor. I got a call from my friend, Stayn, asking me to check it out. It’s possible that Haryet is the one who triggered the alarm, woke up, wandered away, and then you showed up after she was gone.”
Clara sits up again, her face bright with hope. “Do you really think so?”
“No.”
She smiles. Then chuckles. “Then why did you even say that?”
“Because it’s possible. I just don’t think it happened. But I don’t think you’re from some other version of Tau City, either.”
She stares me straight in the eyes. “You think I’m lying.”
“No. I actually don’t. I think… you got hurt somehow and it’s affected your memory. I think you need to go to the health center and get checked out. I think you should let me take you there.”
She deflates and bows her head, looking down at her fidgeting hands in her lap. Then she sighs and gives in. “OK.”
I nod. “OK. The phone and food should be here soon. Then we’ll go down.” She doesn’t say anything or look up. “If you’re too tired to walk back up tonight, I’ll piggyback ya.”
This makes her scoff. “I don’t think that’ll be an issue.” Then, slowly, she raises her eyes to meet mine. “I’m not coming back up here.”
“Why not?”
She just exhales again—this one sounding even more tired and defeated than the last—and then crawls up the bed, turning her back to me.
She doesn’t say anything else and about ten minutes later, I know why. She’s sleeping.
I think about what she said, about not coming back up here. She’s probably right. She’s not gonna have to worry about that ten-story hike up the stairwell because in all likelihood, I’m gonna take her to the health center, hand her over to the Tau City doctors, and they are going to label her as mentally ill.
They’ll keep her there and then I’ll walk out and never think about her again.
I sit in my chair silentlywatching her sleep until the delivery arrives. Then I unpack the rations and shoot a text off to Stayn. I give him the story I promised her I would.A vagrant, it’s taken care of, nice doin’ business with you.By this time, it’s early afternoon and I don’t see much point in putting off the inevitable.
I pocket the phone and approach the bed, then shake her shoulder a little. “You ready?”
It takes her a moment to open her eyes, then another to remember where she is and what’s going on, but finally her gaze finds mine and she sits up, blowing out a breath. “Sure. Let’s go.”
We leave and descend the tower slowly. Everything about her is a little bit slow right now, her dash down the stairs this morning something akin to a long-forgotten memory.
The stairwell is crowded, as usual, and the lobby is even more of a madhouse than it was yesterday because the ID people are back. They have a whole bunch of tables set up this time and all of them have a massive crowd waiting in line.
We push our way through and go outside. She’s walking ahead of me at this point, but she’s unsure where to go, so she stops, looking up at me for guidance.
“This way.” I point to the stairs that lead down to the east side of the city. “All the government buildings are over on this side of the canal.”
She falls in next to me without comment, her mood dispirited. But she does start looking around at the buildings in front of us as we get closer to the edge of the ruin.
I would not say I like it here. I mean, I don’t care about Tau City. I’ve got no loyalty to it. But as a Level One Metropolitan Area it’s pretty fucking spectacular. I haven’t been to all the great cities, but I’ve been to a lot of them. And this one right here is definitely in the top three that people should probably visit at least once in their lifetime.
If they can afford the travel, that is. Which most people can’t.
But we went all over the world when I was in the Sweep. Especially that year before I was officially accepted into full-duty status. That was the year my augments were outperforming all expectations and I was at the top of my class. I was going places.
The Omega Outlands, as it turned out. Which sounds like a shit deal if you’re not aware of what’s actually out there. But for anyone in the Sweep, the Omega Outlands was the crowning jewel as far as deployment goes.
When Clara and I get to the very edge of the ruin, right at the boundary of all the new skyscrapers, she stops and just stares at it with her mouth open in shock as she tries to see everything at once.
It’s one thing to see it from a distance of ten floors up and five hundred yards back and quite another to be standing at the base, looking up at these towering examples of architectural genius.
