Tenline Residential Sector
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Level 10
“Good morning, Cassien. It is 6:30. On level 10 the temperature is 12 degrees Celsius. Your work shift begins in one hour and thirty minutes.”
The curtains began to slide open automatically, letting the gray level?10 morning spill into the room through the large window.
Cassien pried his eyes open and rubbed his face. He let one hand drop from the bed to the floor, groping blindly. His fingers brushed a stain of dried alcohol. Then an overturned glass. Finally, he found a small rectangular box.
He picked it up, and several pills spilled out. He squinted at the label. Some cheap hangover medicine. “Fuck…” he muttered.
Forcing himself to look down at the mess—more scattered boxes and glass ampoules—he found the one with the large label Professor’s Wittlingers Intelectual BOOM, and pulled out one of the last pills.
He swallowed it dry and immediately felt blood rush to his brain. His pupils contracted. His senses sharpened, and an invisible force kicked his body into motion.
He got out of bed. His whole body ached, but thanks to the pill he could at least stand. He left the bedroom and tapped the button on the implant in his forehead.
“YOU HAVE 1 MISSED CALL FROM: TIMOTHY CONSING,” the implant announced, and a hologram projected from his forehead.
Cassien tapped the play button on the hologram while trying to pull himself together.
“Hey, Cas! I’m just leaving the apartment. Nelly’s picking me up in ten minutes. Calling to remind you that Samuel wants that report on the attacks on our network today. You know which one. I hope my car’s okay!”
The recording ended.
Cassien rubbed his eyes. “The car…,” he murmured, confused, trying to recall the previous night.
A monorail whooshed past the double?hung windows, but thanks to the soundproofing he couldn’t hear it at all.
He pulled himself together, put on a black uniform?style suit with the Charmitage Cybernetics logo on the lapel, and placed a portfolio with the manila folder for Samuel into his briefcase—something he would’ve forgotten without Tim’s reminder. He left the apartment without breakfast, planning to grab something from a vending machine at work.
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In the elevator, packed with men in identical suits and women in the female version of the Charmitage Cybernetics uniform, Cassien kept thinking about Tim’s car and still couldn’t remember where he had parked it.
He stepped out of the building, his long coat fluttering in the weak wind. He hurried across the wide street filled with identically dressed people, all moving with mechanical precision toward the monorail stop or the roadway.
A commercial was playing through the street intercom, and on every citylight screen a woman with golden skin and golden hair blew shimmering kisses.
“…GLIDENS, THE PERFECTION YOU DESERVE.”
Then the citylights switched, and an enthusiastic voice began advertising v?cigarettes.
Cassien left the street and headed toward a small parking lot between the buildings.
Car, car, car…
He thought, fighting the headache, and stopped when he finally spotted Tim’s car.
The rear bumper was missing, one window was cracked, both mirrors were gone, and the paint on one side had been scraped off entirely.
“Shit,” he muttered.
He called the auto service, gave them the address and the car’s identification number, then rushed back—because now he’d have to take the train, and he didn’t even want to imagine what Tim would say.
“GEORG WITTLINGER, ERNESTIA MORI, ROGER COPP, ISAAC CUNNINGHAM, EMETT WANG, ARIUS ANDREJEV AND AUDREY CLENDON! THESE ARE THE MEMBERS OF THE WILLINGTON COUNCIL WHO LEAD OUR CITY WITH A STEADY HAND! THE BEST OF THE BEST! GENIUSES FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, UNMATCHED BY ANYONE…” the enthusiastic voice boomed from the intercom as the faces of the seven council members flashed across the citylights.
He merged into the crowd of identically dressed people with identical coats, identical hats, identical briefcases. A dense black swarm flowed toward the monorail platform above the roadway. They were like ants. In the morning, everyone had only one purpose. They moved in only one direction. The essence of people on level 10 lay in their mechanical nature. Soulless bodies without emotion, empathy, or moral compass. They simply followed orders. Office slaves.
At the stairs to the platform, a newsboy waved newspapers in the air: “Extra! Internationally known businessman Yuri Sokovoj returns to Willington!”
Cassien couldn’t even remember the last time he’d read a newspaper. All important news reached him at work anyway.
He boarded the monorail with the black?clad crowd as it arrived, and they all squeezed inside like sardines. In the packed train, movement was nearly impossible. Everyone stared blankly at holograms projected from their implants or read newspapers. Cassien simply pulled his hat lower and leaned against the wall by the window.
The monorail sped along the track between buildings and emerged from the dense row of apartment blocks. Cassien was greeted by the sight of the vast metropolis. In the distance, massive Art Deco skyscrapers rose so high it was impossible to see where they ended. All around the monorail track were rooftops and walls of colossal buildings, intertwined with elevated highway systems full of streamlined modern cars, while above them floated zeppelins and small blimps. Sunlight reflected off the glass and gold details of elegant structures, all wrapped in enormous billboards featuring glamorous celebrities, expensive hookers, hundreds of ads for v?cigarettes, dresses, casinos, cabarets, and film posters.
Sometimes Cassien couldn’t believe that humans had built something like this—and so much more. Willington looked like the masterpiece of some alien civilization. A perfect city, interconnected and stacked upon itself. He saw this view every morning on his way to work, yet it was never the same.
