Clear Skies

“Mi-ister Ward, you’re needed at the South stairwell.”

Zaron winced as his earpiece crackled. Feeling a tap on his right shoulder, he traded places with another bouncer guarding the crowded, holograph illuminated entrance to the night club.

“Talk to me, Charge.”

Earsplitting music pulsed and moved the hundreds of mutated and cyber-enhanced party-goers like a phantom puppeteer. Few paid the security guard cutting through the crowd any mind, and the rest knew better than to show it.

“Someone picked the lock to the stairs on the upper level.”

“Boss told you to change that lock.”

“Man, I did!”

“Security footage?”

“Same as last time.”

Zaron paused by the VIP elevator for a retinal scan before slipping inside the polished brass box. The door slid shut, offering a sweet reprieve from the midnight revelers. The man shook out his black suit jacket as if dispelling the stench of the people who hadn’t dared touch him in passing, and adjusted a cybernetic setting on his right wrist.

“Send it to me. I’ll message Evero after I check it out.”

“Give me a heads up if he decides to off me this time.”

“Relax, Charge. Nothing’s happened. Could just be a specter.”

“Uh-huh, ’cause ghosts make me feel real cozy in a dark security room.”

“Chicken.”

“Keep telling you, man. Chickens aren’t real.”

The elevator doors stopped at the top, the circle for floor 87 illuminating like it’d never been used before. Zaron watched the security footage play in a holo-display in his left eye as he stepped out into the chilly hall. The only thing on the footage was a faint bio-signal masked by a shimmer of holographic camouflage.

“Suck an Elf, it’s cold. When was the last time anyone was up here?”

“All maintenance from your floor to the roof is automated. Want backup?”

Zaron gave the small hall with a single glass door to the stairwell a suspicious look-over and ran a digital scan. “No. The door’s definitely unlocked, though.” He scuffed his toe against the faint arch of disturbed dust on the tile where the door had brushed over.

Silence fell over the com as Zaron slipped into the chilly, narrow stairwell. This high up the digital fog, cloud cover, and smog that eternally blanketed Seattle’s skies completely blocked any view to be had from the glass lined stairwell. Crackling swirls of energy and flashing lights from the dozens of surrounding skyscrapers swam through the dense murk as he skipped steps flight after flight.

“Charge, I got a heat signature up on the roof.”

A muffled response lost to the crackle of a bad signal caused Zaron to cringe and pull out his earbud.

“Great.”

Raking a hand through his hair, he glanced over the rail to the long decent below. The man frowned and continued up the final flight to a heavy windowless door. Though there were signs that it had been opened the handle didn’t budge.

“Better not be a damned jumper,” Zaron muttered. He squared off with the door and forced it open with a shove of his shoulder strong enough to offset the steel frame.

He rushed out onto the roof of the skyscraper at the sound of running feet. Whipping out his pistol a sudden flash of golden light caused him to stagger back then race forward to the ledge as a figure exploded out into the night like a shooting star.

His foot knocked something over. An empty slushy cup rolled on the cement and circled back to bump against his boot. Then Zaron looked up. His breath caught in his chest. The fleeing light had faded away, blending into the brilliant canopy of stars overhead. Five stories below the heavy Seattle overcast pooled like an oppressive lake, but here, for the first time in his life, Zaron looked up into the vastness of a clear night sky.