The Towering Sky

by Katharine McGee

  They were standing on the outdoor terrace of the Museum of Natural History: a real exposed terrace, its doors thrown open to the syrupy golden air of September. The sky gleamed with the polished brilliance of enamel. This was one of the very last floors where you could actually step outside. Any higher and the terraces were no longer real terraces, just rooms with a nice view, enclosed in polyethylene glass.

  Calliope’s soon-to-be stepsister, Nadav’s daughter, Livya, gave a little ooh of approval from where she stood near the doors. Calliope didn’t bother turning around. She was getting pretty tired of Livya, though she did her utmost to hide the feeling.

  She and Livya were never going to be friends. Livya was an insufferable rule follower, the type of girl who still sent embossed thank-you notes and gave a shrill fake laugh whenever one of their teachers told a lame joke. Worse, there was something unavoidably sly and beady-eyed about her. Calliope had the sense that if you whispered secrets behind a closed door, Livya would be the one with her ear pressed hungrily to the keyhole.

  She heard Nadav say something indistinguishable behind her, probably another quiet I love you to Elise. Poor Nadav. He really had no idea what he’d gotten into when he proposed to Calliope’s mom at the Fullers’ Dubai launch party. He couldn’t know that Elise was a professional at getting engaged, that his was the fourteenth proposal she’d received in the past few years.

  When Calliope was a child, living in London, her mother had worked as a personal assistant to a cold, wealthy woman named Mrs. Houghton, who claimed to be descended from the aristocracy. Whether or not that was even true—which Calliope doubted—it certainly didn’t give Mrs. Houghton the right to abuse Calliope’s mom the way she did. Eventually the situation reached a breaking point, and Calliope and Elise ran away from London. Calliope was only eleven.

  They had embarked upon a life of glamorous nomadism: jetting around the world, using their wits and beauty to, as Elise liked to phrase it, relieve wealthy people of their excess wealth. One of their many strategies for doing so was a proposal. Elise would trap someone into loving her, get engaged, then take the ring and run before the wedding. But it wasn’t just fake engagements; over the years, Elise and her daughter had fabricated all types of stories, from long-lost relatives to investment scams, tales of tears and passion—whatever it took to make people dip into their bitbanc accounts. The moment they had separated the mark from his or her money, Calliope and Elise would disappear.

  It wasn’t easy slipping off the grid like that, not in this day and age. But they were very, very good at it. Calliope had been caught only once, and she still didn’t know how it had happened.

  It was the night of the Dubai party, just after Nadav and Elise had gotten engaged—after Elise had turned to Calliope and offered to stay in New York for real. To actually go through with the wedding and live here, instead of taking the first train away. Calliope’s blood pounded in excitement at the prospect. She had been feeling a strange urge lately to settle down, to live a real life, and New York seemed like the perfect place to do it.

  Then Avery Fuller had confronted her.

  “I know the truth about you and your mom. So now you’re both going to get the hell out of New York,” Avery had threatened, unbearably icy and distant. Calliope knew then that she had to back down. She didn’t have a choice.

  Until a few hours later, when she saw Avery and Atlas kissing, and realized she had something on Avery that was just as treacherous as what Avery had on her.

  She’d confronted Avery about it back in New York. “I’m not going anywhere,” she’d declared. “And if you tell anyone what you know about me, I’ll tell what I know about you. You can take me down, but you’d better believe you’re going down with me.” Avery had just looked at Calliope with weary red-rimmed eyes, as if she weren’t even seeing her: as if Calliope were as insubstantial as a ghost.

  Calliope hadn’t realized back then what she was signing on for, staying in New York and playing out this con. She should have paid more attention to her mom’s narrative. Elise always tailored their backstory for whomever she was trying to target—and for intense, soft-spoken Nadav, the quiet cybernetics engineer, Elise had gone all out. She presented herself and Calliope as a pair of sweet, serious, bleeding-heart philanthropists who had traveled the world for years, volunteering for various causes.

  Calliope got to stay in New York and live a stable, “normal” life for the first time in years. But it came with a tremendous price tag: She couldn’t be herself.

  Although, was anyone really themselves in New York? Wasn’t this the city full of people from nowhere, people who remade themselves the moment they arrived? Calliope glanced down at the twin rivers, flowing around Manhattan like the cold River Lethe—as if the moment you crossed them, your entire past became irrelevant, and you were reborn as someone new.

  That was what she loved about New York. That feeling of utter aliveness, a rush and flow of ruthless, furious energy. That New York belief that this was the center of the world, and god help you if you were anywhere else.

  She glanced in resignation at her costume—she refused to think of it as her outfit, because it was nothing she would have chosen for herself—a tailored knee-length dress and low kitten heels. Her rich brown hair was pulled into a low ponytail, showing off a pair of modest aquamarine earrings. The whole thing was ladylike and elegant, and excruciatingly dull.

  She had tried at first to push the limits of Nadav’s tolerance. After all, he was engaged to her mom, not to Calliope. Why should he care if she wore tight dresses and stayed out late? He’d seen her at the Under the Sea ball and the Dubai party. Surely he knew that Elise’s daughter wasn’t as well-behaved as Elise was—or rather, as she was pretending to be.

  Yet Nadav had quickly made it clear that he expected Calliope to follow the same rules as Livya. Everything about him was direct and uncompromising. He seemed to view the entire world like a computer problem, in stark black and white. Unlike Calliope and her mom, who operated in shades of gray.

  For months, Calliope had thrown herself headfirst into this part. She’d kept her head down, actually studied at school, obeyed curfew. But it had been a long time, much longer than she’d ever kept up any con, and Calliope was starting to chafe beneath her constraints. She felt as if she were losing herself in this never-ending performance—drowning in it, even.

  She leaned her elbows onto the railing. The wind teased at her hair, tugged at the fabric of her dress. A shard of doubt had wiggled into her mind, and she couldn’t seem to dislodge it. Was staying in New York truly worth all this?

  The sun had lowered in the distance, a furious golden blaze above the dragon-back skyline of Jersey. But the city showed no signs of slowing down. Autocars moved in coordinated strands along the West Side Highway. Motes of the setting sun danced over the Hudson, glazing it a fine warm bronze. Down in the river, an old ship had been repurposed into a bar, where New Yorkers stubbornly clutched their beers as the waves buffeted them. Calliope had a sudden, fervent urge to be down there among them, caught up in the laughter and the rocking of the boat—instead of standing up here like a quiet, breathing statue.

  “I was thinking the guests could do cocktail hour out here, while we’re finishing our photos,” Nadav was saying. The corners of his mouth almost, but not quite, turned up in a smile.

  Elise clapped her hands girlishly. “I love it!” she exclaimed. “Of course, it won’t work if we end up with a rain day, but—”

  “I’ve already filed our weather request with the Metropolitan Weather Bureau,” Nadav cut in eagerly. “It should be a perfect evening, just like this one.” He threw his arm out as if offering the sunset as a present, which Calliope supposed was exactly what he was doing.

  She should have known that you could purchase good weather on your wedding day, she thought wryly. Everything in New York was for sale, in the end.

  Elise held up a hand in protest. “You shouldn’t have! I can’t imagine how much
that must have cost—you have to cancel it and donate that money instead. . . .”

  “Absolutely not,” Nadav countered, leaning in to kiss Calliope’s mom. “For once, everything is going to be about you.”

  Calliope just barely refrained from rolling her eyes. As if everything wasn’t always about Elise and what she wanted. Nadav had no idea that he was falling for one of the world’s most basic manipulation tricks: reverse psychology. With certain people, the more you begged them not to spend money on you, the more determined they became to do exactly that.

  The museum’s event planner ducked out onto the terrace to inform them that the appetizer tasting was ready. As they began to file through the doors, Calliope cast a lingering look over her shoulder, at the great wide expanse of sky. Then she turned to walk with dutiful, mechanical steps back inside.

  WATT

  IT WAS FRIDAY evening, and Watzahn Bakradi was doing the same thing he did every Friday. He was out at a bar.

  Tonight’s bar of choice was called Helipad. The midTower clientele probably thought that was some kind of hilarious hipster irony, but Watt had another theory: It was called Helipad because no one had bothered to name it anything more creative.

  Though Watt had to admit that this place was pretty cool. During the day it was a real, functioning helipad—there were actual skid marks on the gray carbon-composite floor, mere hours old—until every night after the final copter departure, when it transformed into an illicit bar.

  The ceiling soared above them like a cavernous steel rib cage. Behind a folding table, human bartenders mixed drinks out of coolers: No one dared bring a bot-tender up here, because a bot would report all the safety violations. Dozens of young people, dressed in midriff-baring tops or flickering instaprinted T-shirts, clustered in the center of the space. The air hummed with excitement and attraction and the low pulse of speakers. Most striking of all, though, were the helipad’s main double doors—which had been thrown open jaggedly, as if an enormous shark had taken a bite out of the Tower’s exterior wall. The cool night air whipped around the side of the building. Watt could hear it beneath the music, an odd disembodied hum.

  The partygoers kept glancing that way, their gazes drawn to the velvety night sky, but no one ventured too close. There was an unspoken rule to stay on this side of the red-painted safety line, about twenty meters from the gaping edge of the hangar.

  Any closer and people might think you were planning to jump.

  Watt had heard that copters did sometimes, unpredictably, land here at night, for patients with medical emergencies. If that happened, the entire bar would pick up and evacuate with four minutes’ notice. The type of people who came here didn’t mind the uncertainty. That was part of the appeal: the thrill of flirting with danger.

  He shifted his weight, holding a frosted beer bottle determinedly in one hand. It wasn’t his first of the evening. When he began coming out like this, right after Leda broke up with him, he would skulk around the edges of whatever bar he’d come to, trying to conceal his hurt, which only made it hurt worse. Now at least the wound was scarred over enough for him to stand at the center of the crowd. It made Watt feel marginally less lonely.

  Your blood alcohol levels are higher than the legal limit, reported Nadia, the quantum computer embedded in Watt’s brain. She projected the words over his contacts like an incoming flicker, communicating the way she always did when Watt was in a public setting.

  Tell me something I don’t know, Watt thought somewhat immaturely.

  I just worry about you drinking alone.

  I’m not drinking alone, Watt pointed out mirthlessly. All these people are here with me.

  Nadia didn’t laugh at the joke.

  Watt’s gaze was drawn to a pretty, long-limbed girl with olive skin. He tossed his empty beer bottle into the recycle chute and started over.

  “Want to dance?” he asked once he was standing next to her. Nadia had gone utterly silent. Come on, Nadia. Please.

  The girl pulled her lower lip into her teeth and glanced around. “No one else is dancing. . . .”

  “Which is why we should be the first,” Watt countered, just as the music abruptly switched tracks to a grating pop song.

  The girl’s reluctance visibly melted away, and she laughed. “This is actually my favorite song!” she exclaimed, taking Watt’s hand.

  “Really?” Watt asked, as if he didn’t already know. It was because of him—well, because of Nadia—that the song was playing. Nadia had hacked the girl’s page on the feeds to determine her favorite music, then hijacked the bar’s speakers to play it, all in less than a second.

  Thanks, Nadia.

  Are you sure you want to thank me? This song is garbage, Nadia shot back, so vehemently that Watt couldn’t help cracking a smile.

  Nadia was Watt’s secret weapon. Everyone could search the i-Net on their computerized contacts, of course, but even the latest contacts operated by voice-command—which meant that if you wanted to look something up, you had to say it aloud, the way you sent a flicker. Only Watt could search the i-Net in surreptitious silence, because only Watt had a computer embedded in his brain.

  Whenever Watt met someone, Nadia would instantly scan the girl’s page on the feeds, then determine what he should say in order to win her over. Maybe the girl was a tattooed graphic artist, and Watt would pretend to love old 2-D sketches and small-batch whiskey. Maybe she was a foreign exchange student, and Watt would act urbane and sophisticated; or maybe she was a passionate political advocate, and Watt would claim to espouse her cause, whatever it was. The script always changed, but in each case, it was easy to follow.

  These girls were all looking for someone like them. Someone who echoed their own opinions, who said what they wanted to hear, who didn’t push them or contradict them. Leda was the only girl Watt had ever met who didn’t want that, who actually preferred to be called out on her bullshit.

  He forced away the thought of Leda, focusing on the bright-eyed girl before him.

  “I’m Jaya,” she said, stepping closer and draping her arms around Watt’s shoulders.

  “Watt.”

  Nadia provided him with a few conversation starters, questions about Jaya’s interests or her family, but Watt wasn’t in the mood to make small talk. “I have to leave soon,” he heard himself say.

  Wow, really jumping the gun tonight, aren’t you? Nadia remarked drily. He didn’t bother to reply.

  Jaya startled a little, but Watt quickly forged ahead. “I’m fostering a rescue puppy from the shelter,” he said, “and I need to go check on him. I have one of those pet-minder bots, but I still feel weird leaving it with him. He’s so young, you know?”

  Jaya’s expression had instantly softened. Her dream was to be a veterinarian. “Of course I understand. What kind of puppy?”

  “We think he’s a border terrier, but we aren’t totally sure. Apparently he was found alone in Central Park.” For some reason the lie tasted rancid in Watt’s mouth.

  “No way! I have a border terrier rescue too! His name is Frederick,” Jaya exclaimed. “They found him under the old Queensboro Bridge.”

  “What a coincidence,” Watt said flatly.

  Jaya didn’t seem to notice his lack of surprise. She looked at him through her thick fluttering lashes. “Want me to come help? I’m really good with rescues,” she offered.

  It was exactly what Watt had been fishing for, yet now that Jaya had suggested it, he was shockingly uninterested. He felt as if nothing or no one would surprise him ever again.

  “I think I’ll be okay,” he offered. “But thanks.”

  Jaya recoiled. “Okay, then,” she said coolly, and stalked away.

  Watt ran a hand wearily over his face. What was wrong with him? Derrick would never let him hear the end of it if he knew Watt was rejecting cute girls who invited themselves over. Except that he didn’t actually want any of those girls, because none of them could erase the memory of the one he’d lost. The only one he had
ever really cared about.

  Instead of heading for the exit, Watt found himself walking the other direction. His toes edged against the painted safety line. The stars glittered far up in the sky. To think that their light was careening wildly toward him at three hundred million meters per second. But what about darkness? How fast did the darkness rush toward you after a star died and its light went out for good?

  No matter how fast light traveled, Watt thought, the darkness always seemed to have gotten there first.

  Inevitably, his thoughts turned back to Leda. This time he didn’t even try to distract himself.

  It was his fault. He should have watched Leda more closely, those first few weeks after Dubai. She had insisted that she needed some time alone, after everything that happened. Watt tried to respect her wishes—until he learned that she had overdosed and was going back to rehab.

  When she got home several weeks later, Leda didn’t seem all that eager to see him.

  “Hey, Watt,” she’d said woodenly, holding open the front door. She was wearing an oversized charcoal sweater and black plasticky shorts, her feet bare on the hardwood floor of her entryway. “I’m glad you came by. We need to talk.”

  Those four words filled Watt with a shiver of foreboding. “I—I was so worried about you,” he’d stammered, taking a step forward. “They wouldn’t let me talk to you at rehab. I thought that you were . . .”

  Leda abruptly talked over him. “Watt, we need to stop seeing each other. I can’t be with you, not after everything I’ve done.”

  Watt’s heart thudded. “I don’t care,” he assured her. “I know what you’ve done and I don’t care, because I—”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Leda cried out. “Watt, Eris and I shared a father. I killed my half sister!”

  Her words reverberated in the air. Watt felt his throat close up. Everything he wanted to tell her now seemed inadequate.

  “I need to start over, okay?” Her voice was shaking, and she seemed determined not to meet his eyes. “I can’t get better with you around. You’re one of my triggers—the worst of my triggers—and as long as I’m with you, I’ll keep turning back to my old behaviors. I can’t afford to do that.”