• It’s unethical, cruel, even.

    He had run a fading, skeleton of a finger through his salt-and-pepper hair; which, despite the best efforts of various topical chemicals, was ravaged by thirty years in office. Beady eyes narrowed slightly, spidery crow feet developing at the corners, as the sleek, silver form of an aircraft came into view.

    A final sweeping glance around undermined the massive solar panel, a suspended tyrant of bulletproof glass and metal, overshadowing the grimy urban sprawl below. A metacity consumed billions in its creation, he thought smugly.

    It’s a shame to lose it.

    The aide at his side was pallid-faced; a disturbed, terrified expression surfacing, as he turned to face him, slowing down to a nervous, jerking pace. “Governor.”

    His superior narrowed his eyes, and the assistant flinched, as if expecting him to lash out, before finally blurting out his thoughts. “Is this really what we want? I mean…” He cast his eyes to the smooth obsidian ground. Overhead, the intangible swathe of sickly, caustic gray sky swayed ominously.

    Governor Lorr Aurelius relaxed, smoothing out the dark folds of his expensive suit; continuing at a leisurely pace. He chuckled lightly.

    “Of course; this finale is much preferable to that one.” He gestured behind them, to the shimmering peaks of a second city, isolated by the vast, endless expanse of manmade creation. They could just barely glimpse faint, vicious movement swarming within it. Aurelius could almost visualize the scene; armed radicals, signs emblazoned with complaints of human rights.“I’m sure they have E.N.Ds,” he added nonchalantly. “Once they’re in a mile or so of us, we’ll be nothing but puddles.”

    His aide shivered at the thought, so the governor seized the chance. “Of course; if you are so sympathetic to their cause, why don’t I leave you here to join them, eh?” The blurs of color manifesting on the horizon were darkening as he spoke.

    The young man had gone completely pale now; beads of sweat rolling across his forehead as he stole another glance behind them, to where the rebels were inevitably catching up.

    “No; I’ll change my mind now! I’ll go!” The stammered remark betrayed the slightest bit of a wheeze. Lorr smiled; the hatch of the plane before them whirring open to reveal a gaping maw of an entrance.

    “Good boy.”

    --
    The great alloy eagle of an aircraft rumbled into the sky, borne on splintered silver wings; the syringe at the head stabbing relentlessly into the clouded arabesque. Sending its piercing cry rolling into the heavens, the plane circled leisurely, out of the reach of crystalline skyscrapers. Enclosed within the cramped quarters of the cockpit, the smiling governor issued one final command, in velvet tones, to the deathly cold ears of the radio transmitter.

    --

    The sky was shivering. She could tell by the faint glimmers of color that fled across its obsidian girth; the rumbling groan that rose above the thunderous conversation of the city. Though, adults always told her that above was not called ‘sky,’ it was called ‘solar panel.’

    That had always struck her as confusing; in school they said that the sky was up, and if this wasn’t the sky, what was it? Curled up in her self-claimed realm, a relic of the past, rust-eaten shell of a ballistic missile embedded in the ground, she contemplated this thoughtfully; fiddling with her ragged shirt.

    She wanted to live above the sky someday. She had seen pictures of it; shimmering, pristine buildings set upon smooth black plains, unlike the often filthy conditions down here. There was a sky above the sky too. It was blue. Her favorite color was blue.

    She wanted to live above the sky.

    c***k

    The sonorous chime aroused her from her daydream, and the little girl sat up in surprise, watching as a crystalline shard clattered to the ground a few yards away. Another pained shriek; and more shimmering, radiant particles dusted the war-torn earth. She paused, mouth forming into a naïve smile as she reached out to catch the shards raining from the sky. A long-forgotten word, weather, raced into her mind; she stood up, whirling and dancing in the shower, a joyous proclamation bubbling up from within her.

    “It’s snowing. It’s finally…snowing.”

    --

    The vibrations had intensified; the panel shuddering violently, its glass underbelly cracking and chipping with its spasms. And, with a final piercing scream, the spidery rods that branched out from underneath it, supporting its immense weight, shattered.

    And all over the lower city, from the businessmen briskly weaving through the crowds, to the lovers locked in embrace beneath the streetlamps, the hackers entangled in their dreams of glory, the children laughing as they played war games, the dogs begging for scraps in the street, to the homeless huddled in their makeshift dens, all stopped and looked up.

    Pupils dilated, fingers pointed, screaming, shoving; futile gestures.

    A wineglass, forgotten on a windowsill through which the sky-above-the-sky could be seen, inched toward the edge and shattered on the floor, staining the carpet with crimson. With a scream, several men, finding the world tilting, flailed as they slid down the panel to a thousand-foot drop to the city below. A final roar, and everything…everything…




    spiraled



    into




    oblivion.


    A great golden cloud raged across the desert, ravenous in its passing; the corona rolling away from the shattered ebony carcass of the city. There was silence, as when it had finally fell to earth, it made no sound. There was no one around to hear it, you see.

    Everyone had gone to live above the sky.

    --

    The newswoman was a prim, unfriendly young woman, a badly-concealed expression of sullen boredom fixated on her face as she addressed the camera. She possessed a chiseled, ochre painted porcelain doll face, lips permanently twisted into an exasperated smile. That expression was even easier to see upon the large wired screen mounted in the square.

    The crowd that gathered around it was rag-tag and anxious, faces upturned, clutching whining children and briefcases and other commodities. Pigeons fluttered like drab ghosts, whispers above their heads.

    At the frayed edges, a teenager by the name of Kami shifted footing nervously, both hands resting on the tip of her E.N.D’s handle. The weapon had been driven into the earth point-first; people passing by eyed its slotted edge and glinting trigger with ill ease.

    She scanned the square nonchalantly, mercury colored eyes glassy and far-off. Her hair was cut and spiked up in short, boyish fashion, and dyed an odd azure hue, occasional unattended locks spilling down her shoulders. Despite the agreeable temperature, she wore a loose-fitting, off white sweatshirt; the logo of Nephilim spiraling down the front in black, spidery lines. A sheath for the E.N.D hung at her side, against her worn jeans.

    The square was white. Everything was, from the painted walls to the frosted glass of windows. It was a sickening white; it reminded her of hospitals and asylums, the white of death.

    Then the newswoman began to speak, and she shifted her attention to the screen, the clipped tone resounding over the hushed mob. “A grave and horrifying tragedy has taken place today; one that all metacities are affected by.” She paused for dramatic effect, as the screen behind her displayed the ruins of a city, cloaked in swirling sand.

    “The metacity Edin was completely destroyed when the supporting structure of the solar panel collapsed, sending the enormous device crashing down upon an unsuspecting 800,000 citizens.”

    Everyone in the crowd, including the Kami, glanced nervously up at the black shape that blotted out the heavens, five thousand feet above; glinting lights studding its underside.

    “The metacity is a system born from the energy conservation crisis; a suspended solar panel, miles in length, fulfills the basic needs of the city. This solar panel is able to support life atop its structure, as well as underneath it. However, this system is flawed; millions of people die each year due to the bullet proof glass underneath it shattering; sending glass shard hurtling down to the city.

    “Firemen are working around the clock, sifting through the rubble in hopes of finding survivors. It is not very likely that they will find survivors from the lower city; as such, they have focused their efforts on the upper city’s ruin. However, due to the extreme shock the upper city was subjected to, there is little hope of anything still alive in Edin.

    “For Lorr Aurelius, the governor, his body has yet to be found. There is no evidence so far as to what triggered the collapse, though we assume it was a terrorist attack.” The screen behind her then began to flash images of destruction; warped, unrecognizable structures, covered bodies strewn across fractured roads, the solar panel, jagged pieces the size of stadiums littering the city.

    At this moment, the E.N.D the girl held beeped softly; red lights erupted into being along its edge. A tiny, off key voice, stressing syllables in bizarre places, whispered gently in her ear, “Kami, it is now 6:05 p.m.” The mercenary exhaled sharply, her eyes still locked on the screen, as she spoke. “We should get going. Are you ready, Ki?” She yanked the weapon out of the ground roughly.

    “Yes. All systems initiated.”

    The image of Kami flickered and sparked out of view; and the crowd moved and filled in the empty place she had been, as if she had never existed.