The man walked around the lab, hands behind his back. His eyes focused intently on the screens, studying my work, looking at every detail I had carved into those digital sculptures. After what seemed like forever, he shambled up to me and looked me in the eye. “Let me ask you something,” he said, slowly, as if he was choosing his words carefully. “You’ve never seen the actual sky, have you? I mean the real sky, with your own eyes. Not from pictures or videos or 3D recreations made by other people.”
“Of course I have,” I said. “I just went to the Sky Dome last week.”
The man’s eyes widened and he grinned from ear to ear. “Interesting that you mention the Sky Dome! But we shall get back to that. For now, let’s get to the matter at hand. You have never truly seen the sky.”
“I apologize sir, but I did just say—”
“Yes, yes, I heard you. You went to the Sky Dome and you thought you saw the sky. But of course you haven’t. Sometimes you sit in an enclosed space like this lab for so long, you tend to not notice the passage of time. I failed to realize how young you are. How young everybody else outside must be.” He sighed.
“So it’s true then, sir? The sky I saw at the Sky Dome was fake.”
“You had your suspicions, eh? Observant, aren’t you?”
“It’s because I work with windows, sir. I know what makes a good model and what doesn’t. And the clouds in the Sky Dome looked subpar at best.”
The man scoffed. “Indeed. Yes, that echoes the feedback we’ve been getting. And so we come to the problem that has brought you here. We’ve had an increasing number of people complaining that the sky in the Sky Dome doesn’t look real. Considering how difficult it is to get tickets, it’s understandable they’re upset.”
“Why didn’t you get some good modelers to do it before?” I asked. “Forgive me sir if I’m out of line, but you’re only starting to worry about authenticity now?”
Dr. Munawar gave a resigned sigh and smiled at me. “You poor kid,” he said. “Come on, let’s go for a ride.”
“May I ask where we’re going, sir? I do need to get back to my duties. I’ve got a lot of windows to calibrate today.”
“Oh, no need to worry about all that,” Dr. Munawar said as he walked toward the door. “As of this moment, you’ve been reassigned to R&D Unit 12. You report directly to me now.”
×××
Dr. Munawar called up a trishaw and we took the tubular transport to a familiar place.
“The Sky Dome,” I said, a bit flustered. “What are we doing here?”
“I’m going to show you something no one but a few select people have seen,” Dr. Munawar said. “Come on, we’ll go round the back. No need to go in through the front entrance. I hate it when the andromaid staff make a big deal when I show up.”
We walked around the circular building until we reached an inconspicuous door. Dr. Munawar palmed the old-fashioned scanner by the side and the door slid open.
When we entered we found ourselves in a hall filled with desks and empty shelves, caked with dust. The lights were not activated by our presence and Dr. Munawar actually had to announce the word ‘lights’ before they came on. Even then they flickered slowly to life, buzzing loudly as they did. At the far end were windows – the old kind, the ones made with that fragile material, glass – that looked out onto nothing because a metal curtain was pulled down to block the view.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Welcome to the old operations room of the Sky Dome. Before we had vat clones like you, before we had andromaids, everything had to be run manually and this was where it all happened. Of course, this was a very long time ago. Everything’s automated now.”
He led me to a corner of the hall where stairs led the way up. It felt weird at first climbing stairs that did not move, but it didn’t take long to get used to it.
“These stairs wind around the Sky Dome building right up to the top,” Dr. Munawar said. “There are about two hundred and seventy steps altogether. Are you up to the climb?”
“I think so,” I said. “But are you?”
“Don’t worry about me kid,” he replied. “I got these replaced years ago.” He tapped his legs and the metallic sound reverberated throughout the long stairway up.
Half an hour later we were at the top, and I was panting and heaving, my lungs scorched and tortured.
Dr. Munawar grinned. “Yes, it’s usually the most difficult on the first climb. You’ll get used to it in time. Here, drink some water.”
When my lungs calmed down, I started to look around me, and the first thing I noticed was how much junk and litter there was strewn about. Obviously the Secular Authorities hadn’t been up here in a while. If they had been they’d have thrown a fit. There was also something odd about the air. Didn’t the climate control work up here? It was musty and there was a faint hint of something left to rot for a long time.
Then I noticed the one big thing that my new boss had wanted me to see all along. It was hard to miss because it was the biggest thing up there, looming as it did over me like a dark ominous shadow. It was in the shape of an overturned bowl, and covering its surface were massive arrays of electronics and machines, protected by thick, strong grilles. A discernible hum emanated from the electronics, occasionally punctuated with a buzz, or a crackle or two.
Slowly it dawned on me what the giant apparatus in front of me was.
“Welcome to the reverse side of the Sky Dome!” Dr. Munawar cried, his arms raised dramatically. “Something I am proud to announce I invented and have maintained these past years.”
“The sky in the Sky Dome is simulated by all... this?” I waved toward the upside-down bowl.
Dr. Munawar laughed. “Yes! Look, I know they look massive in comparison to the window panes we now use to coat our buildings but this technology is close to being ninety years old now. It’s the predecessor to the modern window pane.
“Back then we didn’t even have proper 3D imaging panes. We had to simulate the sky using good old-fashioned techniques like parallax scrolling and transparent planes. Positively ancient compared to modern 3D modeling techniques.
“Unfortunately that meant the electronics required were too thick and unwieldy to enable us a proper depth of field realistic enough for people to actually believe that it was the real thing. It’s a wonder we ever made it all work with the curvature of a dome, of all things.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why go through all that effort just to show a simulated sky? Why didn’t you just show the real sky?”
“Look up,” Dr. Munawar said. “What do you see?”
“Nothing. It’s the ceiling,” I said. “It’s the ceiling of this level, but the bottom of the first floor of the next mall above us. You could have just built the Sky Dome on the top-most mall where they can see the sky.”
“Ah. Unfortunately, that’s not the case at all,” Dr. Munawar said, sighing. “Let me tell you a story. Long ago, several centuries ago now, there used to be a great city called Kuala Lumpur that existed under us. They produced more garbage than they could get rid of, and so before they were buried underneath it, they decided to shoot their garbage into outer space, despite the protestations of their neighbors. Meanwhile, space down on Earth was getting scarce, and so we built malls on top of malls on top of malls just to create more space for people to live and work in.
“Then, about a century later, the garbage began falling back to Earth, threatening to bury us underneath it again. This time it was worse because the garbage fell to Earth as fiery meteorites, posing considerable danger to our increasingly towering malls.
“It’s funny, because there’s this quote I like from an old book, long ago banned by the Secular Authorities of course. It goes like this: ‘He Who made the Earth a resting-place for you and the heavens your canopy...’. It implies the sky is a canopy that protects us down here on Earth, and yet now it is the heavens themselves that pose the danger.”
“Or to quote an old Malay
proverb,” I said, “we depend on the fence, but it is the fence that ends up eating the grain.”
Dr. Munawar nodded. “You’re more knowledgeable than I thought. So anyway, the Secular Authorities decided to build a great roof that covered the whole area to protect the malls and that’s what you see above us right now. There’s no more mall above us. This is the very top. And all this junk lying about? That’s all garbage that fell from space before the roof was finished. You ever wondered why the Secular Authorities take littering extremely seriously? This is why.”
“So the real sky has been blocked out for almost a century?” I asked. “Has anyone ever seen the sky since?”
“Not as far as I know,” Dr. Munawar said. “I don’t think anyone’s gone to the other side in a long while.”
“People still longed to see the sky,” I said. “So you built the Sky Dome with the technology you had available. And given time, the people forgot that the sky wasn’t even real.”
Dr. Munawar nodded. “And in that time, the Secular Authorities learned that it was yet another weapon in their arsenal to control the masses. To control them by giving them another carrot to chase after.”
“I suppose people didn’t complain about the sky looking fake at the time because they knew the limitations of the technology then?”
“On the contrary, kid,” Dr. Munawar said. “Me and my team were congratulated for creating such a realistic-looking sky. We actually recorded three-dimensional footage of the real sky before it was ultimately closed off forever and we used that to build the display that runs over the Sky Dome.”
“You mean that’s what the real sky actually looks like?” I said. “But it looks so... so unimpressive.”
Dr. Munawar scoffed. “And therein lies the problem. You young kids are so desensitized to hyper-realistic imagery and visual stimulation that when you see the actual sky it looks plain and boring. Less than ordinary even. You need to see something flashy and bright.”
The realization dawned upon me like a falling brick. “So you need me to rebuild the sky for a new generation. Something that’s hyper-real. Something that’s more real than real because it’s what our generation is used to and what we have come to expect.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Munawar said. “I’ve resisted the calls to upgrade the sky footage on the Sky Dome for years but this year had the most complaints we’ve received so far. I was, let us say, compelled, to do something. And that something is getting you on board. It means losing what we have left of the real sky forever but that’s not what people want anymore. I suppose it’s time for me to let go.”
×××
I was having lunch in the plaza outside the Sky Dome, near the fountains which jetted classic plays, written by the twentieth century Malaysian playwright, Syed Alwi, in the form of spouting water.
The fountain was performing the second act of Alang Rentak Seribu, when I met him again.
“Hey, it’s the window cleaner! It’s so good to see you again. How are you doing?”
I looked up and saw the very same man who had stood at his window and asked me for illegal extra views. “Oh! What a pleasant surprise,” I said. And it was. “It’s window programmer by the way, though that’s not really what I do anymore.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I haven’t seen you at the windows in a while. What have you been up to?”
“I’ve been transferred elsewhere. Doing something much, much better now. And what about you? Did you just come out of the Sky Dome?”
The man smiled. “Yes, I did. A bit of a surprise that. I met someone new. And this time, she won the lottery.” He fingered his locater/partnering band. It was blinking blue this time.
“I’m so happy for you,” I said. “You must be the luckiest man around, being able to view the skies so many times. What are the chances of that happening, huh?”
“I know! It’s... well, I guess I’m just lucky.”
“So, what did you think of the sky this time?”
“Ah, about that. Remember our conversation last year, when you said it didn’t look real? I swear, they must have done something about it. I mean, I had no complaints, but it looks so much more real than ever before. I... I don’t know how to describe it but it just looks so damn realistic!”
I smiled. I couldn’t say anything of course. Couldn’t tell him it was me who modeled the new sky, rebuilt the arrays and the screens from scratch. The Secular Authorities had made sure I’d been sworn to secrecy.
“Yes, it is realistic, isn’t it?” I said.
He gave me a long, hard questioning look. Then he nodded. “Ah, I think I understand.” He winked and gave me a smile. “Good on you! Good on you!”
I was about to say something when I saw someone walking across the plaza toward us.
“Well, I’ve got to go,” he said. “I see my wife approaching. Enjoy the fountain play, my friend.” He waved a goodbye and I saw him embrace the newfound love of his life. They walked away and I never saw the man again.
HIGHER
ELIZA VITRI HANDAYANI
The window hasn’t been opened for days and the curtains haven’t been parted. The smell of clove and weed cigarettes dances in the air to the trance music that pumps the room. The thirty men and five women slouch on the floor or on the long sofa dappled with cigarette burns. Some bounce their heads, some chase the swirling light pattern inside the translucent coffee table. The view outside the window shows the dark buildings and blinking pale lights of northern Jakarta.
It’s Saturday evening, the last weekend before Ramadan, their last chance to cut loose before they have to restrict themselves for a whole month. Since Friday they have been moving in and out of this karaoke room, the rooftop dance floor, and a huge club next door. Some of them have been here since Wednesday, some went to work at eight and returned after five, some called in sick, some forgot they had jobs.
The two guys dancing on the coffee table know Patar from work, the guy passed out in the bed, in the concealed bedroom behind the bathroom, knows him from some party, Adisti and Risa have known him since high school. Patar is the glue holding all the people in the room together. He walks out of the bathroom, having showered and wearing fresh clothes, and announces that he has to leave the party and take his girlfriend to a movie. Whines and objections spiral up from around the room.
“Tar, you can’t leave. This is your thing.”
“Just tell her you’re sick.”
Everyone knows better than to suggest that Patar bring Yeni, his girlfriend of six years, to the party. They understand Patar goes to her whenever he wants to be ‘good,’ and to the people in this room whenever he wants to be ‘bad.’ Adisti and Risa have slept with Patar on separate occasions – it is much safer to explore your desires with the people you trust – and whenever they meet Yeni at weddings or outings, they chat lightly about fashion or the news.
“How the fuck are you gonna go to her and look sober?” asks Risa. The inside of her lips are bleeding, but she cannot feel it. She’s been grinding her teeth since Friday night, and she’s been out of chewing gum since this afternoon.
Patar isn’t worried. “Listen, I promised to take her out tonight before you all asked me to arrange this party. I’ve never canceled on her before. I’ll take her to the movies, drive her home, and come straight back here. All right?”
Adisti grabs his hand. “You can’t leave me here.”
“Ferdian’s still here,” says Patar, pointing to him. “He’ll watch out for you.”
Adisti isn’t really concerned, was just trying to make Patar stay. Three out of the five girls in the room have their boyfriends with them, so only she and Risa are theoretically available to be hit on – but Adisti trusts that no one in the room would dare bother her because she is a close friend of Patar and Ferdian.
With strong jawline, long sideburns, and fierce wide eyes, Patar radiates the charisma needed to be the leader of their group. His next-in-command, Ferdian, is tall, although a bit chu
bby, with a round and clean-shaven face. Girls like him for his fair skin, unintimidating boyish look, and overall happy-go-lucky attitude about life. Adisti looks comfortable in a loose golden dress, accessorized with a black choker necklace and a rhinestone bracelet. She likes to paint and doesn’t like to think too much about her clothes, but she wants to look nice all the time, so she wears dresses everywhere. Risa, on the contrary, looks painfully immaculate in a tight-fitting black tube dress. Her face is made up as if she were going to a wedding, her hair falls in curls around her bare shoulders. She is an intern at a national newspaper, and she always struggles with deadlines. Usually she joins Patar’s parties only for a few hours. Adisti is surprised Risa has stayed for two days this time. Earlier, Adisti saw her talking to the club’s bathroom attendant, and security guard. She wonders if Risa is working on an assignment.
Adisti closes her eyes, and a shadow of a man drifts to her. Ikhsan. The last time she entered the club next door with him, a host of high-school-aged prostitutes flocked to him. The girls blocked their way before they even made it to the bar and started whispering in his ears. Ikhsan reached out to Adisti and brushed the length of her arm while apologizing to the girls. One of them pushed ahead and approached her.
“Excuse me, Miss, is he your boyfriend?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Sorry, we didn’t know,” the girl said, and led her friends away.
That was November last year. He left her in February. It is now September. Adisti still reaches for the memories of their times together whenever she needs something to make her smile. As she loses herself, he is with her again, and the time long gone becomes now again.
×××
Risa first asked to come to one of Patar’s parties in their junior year in college. Patar scanned her ankle-length skirt and round glasses and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
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