IV: THE REVEL
Min sits perched in her bedroom, peering out a picture window at the city streets far below. From where she's sitting, the crowd looks like a swarm of buzzing insects. She places her hand against the glass of the window and can just barely feel the thrum of a pounding bass line.
Willow's warning loops through her memory, over and over again. Tonight's Revel will be this city's last. The Gleam is going to crash. She squeezes her eyes shut so tightly that she sees stars. I'm hallucinating. Hearing voices. I need to tell my parents.
But not on Blackout Night, she thinks ruefully. Mom and Dad were gone before I even got back from the Academy. For executives of her parents' stature, the Revel could be reduced to a procession of high-stakes social obligations. They wouldn't be back until the following morning. Neither would the family's security team. Or Min's army of nannies, who were enjoying a rare, legally mandated evening off.
She's still being looked after, of course—the building is fully equipped with automated entertainment and defense packages. But I can't tell them about Willow. And they can't hug me or calm me down.
Min's communicator chirps. It's Orren. She frowns at it for a moment, then taps its casing to accept the call.
"Hey." There's concern in his voice, but whether it's genuine or manufactured by his graftware is impossible to tell. "What was up with you in class today? Are you feeling okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just having a… weird day."
"That's one way of putting it," Orren sighs. "There are some things you just don't talk about, Min. We all know what the Revel's for, but to say it out loud like that…"
"I know, I know," Min grumbles. "I'll fix it tomorrow morning." She rubs the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "So… the Revel. How are you enjoying it? I can't see much from up here."
"Neither can I," Orren replies. "We come from two of the wealthiest families in the Gleam, you and me. And yet here we both are, hidden away like my mother's antiques."
"Our parents have invested a lot in us. Custom graftware is expensive." She remembers her father showing her the paperwork, as if he'd expected her to take pride in her body's ticket price. "The streets are too dangerous, even during the Revel."
"Too dangerous for me, maybe. Not for you."
"I'm smaller than you are, Orren."
"Like that matters," he scoffs. "Look, I could talk somebody down, maybe. Negotiate for my life. But those security grafts of yours won't let anything hurt you, ever. I bet they wouldn't even let you hurt yourself."
"And why would I want to do that?"
"I was speaking hypothetically." There's an awkward pause. "So, uh… look. My mom took my surrogate to the gala with her. You know… the NeuroSim drone."
"I still can't believe she bought you one of those."
"I never even use the thing," he confesses. "But we could drop in on the party with it, if you'd like. You should be able to piggyback off of my signal."
"Which gala is she at? The one under Tower 7?"
"She started at 7, but she's at Tower 12 now. Side-benefit of my graftware—I can always ping her location." Orren pauses, waiting for Min to respond, but she says nothing. "…It should be a better show from 12 anyway," he continues. "The Blackout's supposed to roll in from the east this year, and when the tower sparks up, she'll have the best seat in the house."
"I think my parents are at Tower 12." Min pauses a moment, considering. She isn't in the mood to celebrate, but sitting alone with her thoughts would be worse. Finally, she shrugs. "Go on, then. Let's see what it's like on the ground."
***
Min peers through the surrogate drone's eyes, taking in the sights and sounds of the Revel. It's a poor replacement for being there; the drone's senses are only a fraction as powerful as hers are, and they impart everything they broadcast with a queasy sense of the uncanny. Her peripheral vision shimmers and smears whenever the surrogate moves, and her other senses are so muted that it feels like her head has been wrapped in a weighted blanket.
But at least I can see that nothing bad is happening, Min tells herself. Right now, that's all that matters.
Even through the surrogate's watery vision, the Revel is an overwhelming spectacle—and nowhere more than here, in the tower's shadow. The monolithic, curiously organic structure looms over the assembled celebrants, who drink and dance and sing beneath the abstract curves of its chrome-plated shell. The golden resonator dome at the tower's crown crackles with crawling electricity.
"Wild, isn't it?" Orren breathes. "Being so close to it like this. And this crowd is just as crazy. Just look at it: corporate execs and hardened criminals, all drinking shoulder-to-shoulder like animals at a watering hole."
"You've never even seen an animal," Min teases. "Or a watering hole."
"Sure I have," Orren sniffs. "You know. Virtually."
A pair of young women with smooth, chrome-plated facial grafts stalk past the surrogate's cameras. Their mods are extensive enough to obliterate any semblance of individuality; one stands a head taller than the other, but otherwise they look identical, like mannequins come to life.
"Faceless," Min mutters darkly.
"That's quite a look. What are they, some kind of revolutionary group?"
"Nope. Graftjacking cartel." Memories of grisly holorecordings dance through Min's mind—one of her father's safety lessons, instructing her on the Arc's many dangers in graphic detail. She remembers the sound of screams. "They'll part you out for resale if they catch you," she continues somberly. "Your grafts will wind up in wetlabs and surgical parlors from Phospha Heights all the way to the Runners' Gate."
"I'm not sure they'd want me," Orren muses. "I don't think my vocal mod would go for much on the secondary market. Not a lot of board meetings on the street."
Min feels a sudden, irrational swell of anger at the flippancy of his response. "No. But I'll bet there are people right here in this crowd who'd kill to remember your childhood. The tower apartment, the lavish meals. The life with a mom who loves you." She pauses a moment to let the words sink in, just like her father does when he has a point to make. "There's always a market for used graftware, Orren. If not for the meat, then for the pieces of you that stick to it."
"That's awful, Min."
"The Arc can be an awful place."
Orren falls into a sullen silence, and Min feels a dull pang of guilt. He probably wasn't ready for that, she tells herself. I imagine most kids wouldn't be. The guilt slowly curdles into jealousy. Must be nice, not knowing who wants to kill you. I wonder what that's like.
Orren fiddles with the surrogate's controls, and the drone slowly pivots in place. A bustling crowd comes into view, all milling around a set of enormous holodisplays. Their telescopic cameras are aimed outward, pointed at the teeming camps and derelict sectors beyond the Gleam's perimeter.
"I can see your folks," Orren says quietly. "Along with their security team." Min spots them a moment later, glad-handing a visiting dignitary from Metropol 93. She halfheartedly calls out to them, but the surrogate's speakers are too weak to catch their attention over the white noise buzz of the crowd.
"That's probably to be expected," Orren mutters. "I don't think my mom heard us, either."
A sudden roar washes over the assembled masses. Distant points of light, far beyond the city limits, have begun to gutter out. The Blackout, spilling toward them in a rolling tide. A tsunami of darkness that will rock sector after sector before crashing against the Gleam's digital breakwater.
The crowd cheers as a faraway Metropol's lights go down, then gradually flicker back to life. The next sector isn't so lucky; as the darkness engulfs it, it visibly tilts on its axis. A series of muffled explosions follows, but the sound is drowned out by another roar from the crowd.
"Won't be long now," Orren says. Min can hear the excitement creeping back into his voice, probably in spite of himself. "It's different, watching it from this angle. Feels… I dunno, realer, somehow."
The wave of darkness rushes forward, faster and faster, extinguishing every light and shorting out every circuit it passes over. The crowd leans in, delirious with excitement, intoxicated by the anticipation of impact. Min forces her eyes to remain open. Forces herself to watch.
The ground shifts under her feet as the Blackout smashes into the Gleam's defenses. Milliseconds later, Tower 12's mighty resonator dome activates, spitting lightning into the sky like an angry god. In the distance, there's another burst of light, and then another. One by one, towers flare to life across the city, transforming the Gleam's skyline into a constellation of fulminating lights.
A tremendous roar fills the air as the city erupts into cheers, and Min's heart floods with relief. The towers held, just like they always have! It's all she can do to keep herself from whooping at the top of her lungs. And Willow isn't real! She's just in my—
A deafening electrical buzz splits Min's thought in two. It's followed by a whine so shrill that Min can feel it in her teeth, even through the surrogate's muted senses. Her jaw drops in horror as Tower 12 begins to shudder. Screaming partygoers stumble and fall to their knees, clutching their bleeding ears.
One by one, the towers begin to sputter, vomiting out gouts of electricity in incandescent bursts. Each is accompanied by a blast of incapacitating sound.
Panic engulfs the crowd, and violence swiftly follows. Min's vision lurches wildly as Orren's mother scrambles for cover and the surrogate struggles to keep pace. She catches sight of her own parents, surrounded by their security team, huddled under a nearby awning. Her father's security chief bashes the teeth out of a young man who draws too close.
With a terrible grinding sound, Tower 12 begins to tilt. Min watches in horror as the gargantuan structure sags, buckles, and then breaks apart. Fragments of debris the size of train cars rain down on the stricken crowd, reducing flailing bodies to smears of crimson gore. Min cries out as a section of the tower's dome obliterates her parents' hiding place, sending an avalanche of tortured metal down on top of them.
A final screech of feedback blasts Min's ears, and the feed cuts to static. She's in her room, alone. She can't hear Orren anymore. Can't hear anything. The line is dead.
There's a sickening pause. A city-wide intake of breath.
And then the lights go out.
