Glass Sky (11 page)

Rajit unbuckled his seatbelt, a wild grin on his face. Sally and Isabel radiated excitement. “Sit the first one out, Jie,” warned Sharon. “Just get used to the sensation.”

Two long beeps. On the third, a sickening feeling, like a neverending rollercoaster plunge. Jie clutched the arms of his chair, fighting the wave of dizziness as blood flooded into his head. His stomach staggered around in his abdomen like a latenight drunk. He closed his eyes, teeth clenched. The rest of the astronauts spilled out of their seats, bounding around the cabin in graceful, gliding steps. The wall clock counted. 25. 24…

Jie fought his clenched fingers loose from the armrests. He raised a hand. It felt insubstantial, as if some invisible force were aiding his every movement. The mesh bag dangling from his seat held a water bottle, and he pulled it out, light as a balloon, yet solid. He tried to toss it from his left hand to his right, but failed to compensate for the flattened arc; it skipped over his outstretched fingers, clattering into the wall.
Ooops.

“Five secbzzz.”

The astronauts grabbed the floor straps; no sense wasting time on musical chairs each circuit. With a scream of engines, the plane shuddered as it fought to reverse a five-kilometer plummet. Blood rushed from Jie’s head, and the water bottle clattered into the plane’s tail. Jie looked around at the grinning faces.
I’m training with astronauts!
He snuck his omni out of his coveralls and fired a quick video to Cheng.

Jie left his seat on the next loop. It was one of the weirdest experiences he’d ever had, a cross between floating in water and being on a trampoline. Sharon tutored him on his first baby steps. “If you walk normally, you’ll bounce. Small movements. Paddle the ground.”

It felt exhilarating. Freeing. They flew five more loops, and Jie imagined himself bounding across the lunar surface, puffs of dust rising from his feet. The moon seemed a shade less fearsome.

At Sharon’s insistence, Jie returned to his seat for the first zero gravity loop. Another series of beeps, then a disorienting endless fall. Sally drifted to the ceiling, rolling upside down. Rajit’s and Isabel’s hair fountained from their heads, making them look like mad scientists at a Tesla coil. With no stable sensations to latch onto, a million-year-old instinct from Jie’s reptile brain took over. It associated sensory disturbances with poison, and ordered him to empty his stomach. He dammed his lips, fumbling the airsickness bag out of the seat pocket.

BLLLAAARRRGGHHHH!

Droplets of escaped puke formed a lazy cloud.
When did I eat carrots?
He tried to clean the air with the napkin, but the swirling mess wafted away.

“That’s disgusting,” said Isabel. “Please don’t do that in the lunar capsule.”

ENEWS: FEBRUARY 28, 2050

THERE are reports that the Peruvian President has fled to Brazil after refugees broke through the military cordon surrounding Lima and stormed government offices. Peru gets 90% of its drinking water from 18 massive dams that were built when the last of the Andean glaciers melted. The dams were supposed to capture spring runoff, but extended droughts have left 11 of those dams dry, forcing 600,000 refugees to swarm into Lima, overwhelming basic services.

“Without a source of water, the mountains are no longer habitable,” says former Cuzco mayor Jorge Perez, a refugee spokesman. “If federal soldiers won’t let us into the city, what are we to do? Die of thirst?” So far there are no signs of the violence spreading into neighboring countries, but in a region beset by environmental catastrophes, analysts fear it’s only a matter of time.

***

Tom Lane, head of UNBio accounting, wheezed as he shifted his enormous bulk. “I can’t get that information right now, Tania.” Droplets of moisture ran down his doughy face, and his hands fidgeted with the engraved scroll quiver on his desk.
Engraved? On a civil service salary? I wish I could play poker with this guy.

“I see,” said Tania. “And nobody else in your department can help?”

“No.” Tom swallowed.

Tania stood up. “Mind if
I
ask them?”

The blood drained from Tom’s face and his eyes darted, avoiding contact with Tania’s. “I’ll ask for you,” he sputtered. “I’m sure you’re busy.”

Tania smiled her best smile at him. “The Nanoglass decision has been made. It’s all up to the engineers now. So my new top concern is how we spend our preserve budget. It’s no problem for me to talk to your staff.”

She stepped out of his office, a walled-off corner in the accounting cubicle farm. A dozen heads turned in unison, snapping back to their computers, pretending not to watch.

“I’m trying to find detailed preserve expenditures,” Tania announced. “Any of you happen to have the information handy?” She looked around the room, matching the faces to HR photos she’d studied earlier, picking a victim at random. “Morry?”

“Sorry, Doctor Black, but I don’t,” Morry said to the floor. Tania shifted her gaze from face to face.

Can’t blame them. Tom signs the paychecks. But I still don’t get the big picture? How does it all fit together?

And then the pieces slid into place. The aversion to audits. The obvious signs of UNBio preserve funds being stolen. Clearly corruption had been widespread. But the problem with stealing money intended to protect the preserves was that eventually, somebody new would come along and look at what that money had actually bought.

James Wong had been brilliant, really. What better way to cover their tracks than diverting preserve funds to the disk array? The preserves would collapse. Harvest crews would sweep through. And any evidence of past neglect would be lost. And who would dare tell on him? Whistle blowers hadn’t fared well in the last few years. Sometimes it seemed that the laws designed to protect them were more like traps to lure them into the open where they could be dealt with more harshly.

She looked around the room again.
How many people were in on this? Who can I trust?

It was time to act.

***

The next day, at 13:50, Tania stepped into the IT office. A young man with a stubbly black beard slouched in front of a bank of monitors, keyboard bouncing on his lap to the music from his headphones. He jerked his feet off the desk, wobbling for balance.

“Yikes, don’t kill yourself,” laughed Tania.

“Doctor Black? What can I do for you?”

“Can you lock down all our files? Revoke all digital keys?” Like any large organization, UN-Bio kept all important documents encrypted on the cloud, accessible, but not downloadable to local devices.

The admin looked at her, wideeyed. “This is going to be some staff meeting, eh?”

“Long overdue,” said Tania.

She continued to the lunchroom. The chairs were packed to capacity and some 50 people leaned against the glass exterior wall. Eyes followed her, a mixture of curiosity, nervousness, distrust, and anger.
My team.
The HR records reported 154 permanent staff, plus an army of independent researchers and consultants. Tania had been so busy with the Nanoglass risk analysis that she’d met only a handful.

Her hands felt clammy. Her pulse pounded.
I stood up to the Climate Council. This should be a cakewalk.
She stepped onto the podium. “As most of you know, I’m Tania Black,” she said. “Or Nature’s Pit Bull, if you believe the news. Kind of a weird image, don’t you think? Nature having a manmade creature like a pit bull as a pet.” Nervous giggles.

“These are exciting times. China and America have announced the Nanoglass shield, a bold new geoengineering project that gives us one last chance of regaining balance with our home. And we – the people in this room – are the guardians of what remains of Earth’s wilderness. If you haven’t looked at the UNBio charter recently, you should read it again. UNBio was set up 20 years ago, a decade before the Climate Council was created. We provide objective scientific advice to the UN, and we use money from carbon taxes to protect our natural heritage. UNBio preserves are our generation’s gift to the future, little pockets of wilderness from which we can restore our world when we get back in harmony with nature. It’s a beautiful dream. A dream worth fighting for.”

She stopped, giving people a chance to absorb what she’d said, taking the room’s temperature. Gordon nodded from the front row. In the back, by the Coke machines, Tom Lane tapped on his omni with obvious frustration.

“We have a tremendous responsibility,” Tania continued. “The Nanoglass shield will work best as part of a greater plan: a plan that ensures people are cared for during the construction. A plan that preserves natural areas. A plan that creates wildlife corridors. It’s our job to pave the way for that plan: through impeccable science, through careful management of the natural treasures we have been entrusted with.”

Her words traveled through the crowd like a breeze. There was a rustle of shifting bodies. Tania made contact with as many eyes as would meet hers.

“I’ll be blunt,” said Tania. “Right now, we are failing.” She allowed a hint of anger into her rising voice. A woman in the third row shifted, sensing a storm building in the room but not sure of its target. “UNBio has lost its way. Corruption. Bribes. Forged audits. That changes. Today.” Tom Lane wiped sweat off his bald forehead.

“I’m offering a two-hour amnesty,” Tania said. “Anyone who wants to leave UNBio is free to do so. I’ll ask no questions. I’ll press no charges. I’ll even pay severance. The earth’s problems are too pressing for us to be distracted by internal witch hunts. But if you’re still here tomorrow and I learn that you were involved… and you know if you were involved, and not just a victim in this.” Tania raised her voice above the growing hubbub. “Do
not
make the mistake of fucking with me.”

A wave of excitement bubbled through the crowd. Tom, Katherine and a third man bent over Tom’s omni. “Don’t bother trying to get to the network,” said Tania. “I’ve shut it down until tomorrow. I didn’t want any last-minute revisions.”

“How dare you come in here and slander us like this!” Katherine Dunn spat out the words, her face blotched with anger. “We were only doing what was necessary. The world is not the neat place you believe it to be. I cannot – I will not work in such a poisonous environment.” She wheeled, and with Tom Lane waddling at her heels like jelly on legs, she strode out of the cafeteria. “Two weeks,” she screamed. “Two weeks before they fire you, bitch!” She slammed the glass door into a spider web of cracks.

Stunned silence.

Then an older man in the front row began to clap.

TANIA’S PURGE CLAIMED 20, including 8 managers. Worse than she’d hoped. Better than she’d feared. In the days following, Tania’s office became a confessional for a steady stream of staff, each shining a light on their own small corner of the darkness, as if Tania might grant them redemption. Tania took no notes.
We can’t afford the distraction of an investigation. Not now.
Besides, she had her own dark knowledge of James Wong’s murder. So she listened, allowing her staff to vent anger and guilt.

The young man from the accounting department got up. “Thanks, Dr. B. It was good to talk to you about this.”

“You’re welcome,” said Tania. She closed the door behind him.
God. I’m a scientist, not a counselor. I should be planning preserve restorations. Something I’m good at.

Two junior staff walked by in the hallway, lowering their voices as they passed. The switch to Nanoglass had left the Climate Council in turmoil, and the Europeans were still calling for Tania’s job. Just politics, according to Tengri. But that didn’t make it any easier to hear herself slandered on TV. Or to see her staff gossiping, wondering how long she’d last.
They say she’s unqualified. That she’s over her head.
Tania shut the hallway blinds.

Sunshine beckoned through the window. It was the thin side of March, but spring had arrived with force. In fact, one might argue that they’d skipped straight to summer. Denver was supposed to hit 92 that afternoon, shattering the record. Even here, closer to the mountains, it would be hot.
I need to get outside. Before stress eats my soul.

But the thought of going alone made her feel hollow. She needed to talk to somebody, nearly as much as she needed the fresh air and sunshine. Somebody who wasn’t frightened of her.

Tania opened the top drawer of her desk and rummaged around in the growing pile of papers.
How have I managed to collect so many dead trees in a paperless office?
She found it, stuck in a corner, a plain white business card on slick plastic. A single word. “Ruth.” And a phone number. Ruth who had saved her. Ruth with the wild climbing stories. Ruth who’d gone traveling because she refused to brainwash children.

This isn’t a good idea. But I’m done caring.

She tapped the card to her omni.

***

“Tania?” Ruth’s face appeared, red hair in a ponytail, an untidy house behind. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you again. I don’t know what I was thinking, showing up at your place like that. I’m sure it seemed a little… odd.”

“And I was incredibly rude. Throwing you out. How about we call it even?”

“So you can be seen with me now?” Ruth asked.

“Umm… well…” Tania fumbled for a tactful reply, but Ruth cut her off with a burst of laughter.

“I’m kidding. I’ve seen the news. You’d be meat for the ‘Fire Tania Black’ vultures. Discretion is my middle name.”

Tania flipped Ruth’s card in her fingers. “Do you have a last name?”

“It’s also Discretion. Ruth Discretion Discretion.”

Tania’s spirits lifted.

“This is going to seem a little strange since we don’t know each other. But my friends are in Seattle and my coworkers are still scared of me. It’s beautiful outside. Are you free for a bike ride?”

“What? Now?”

“Assuming you’re even in town… Maybe it’s not such a…”

“I’d love to,” Ruth interrupted, her voice rising with enthusiasm. “My flight isn’t until tomorrow. But it would take too long to bike to your office from here. Are there community bikes in the rack?”

“I’ll check.” Tania walked to the window. “We’re at the top of a big hill, so we’ve got lots of gravity vampires. I’m one of the few that ride both ways.”

***

Ruth was waiting at the bend in the road, hair tucked into a helmet, bunny-hopping a yellow community bike on and off the curb. She rolled backwards onto the street, raised a hand, and pivoted on one wheel to face Tania.

How’s that even possible on a rental?
“I’m going to get my ass handed to me aren’t I?” said Tania. Her bike hadn’t left the pavement in the year since she’d bought it. She could almost sense its fear.

“Nah, I haven’t raced competitively in months,” said Ruth. A pair of road bikers flashed past in their shiny airflow suits, tucked low over their handlebars. A bubbly blue grid car hummed up the hill.

“Thanks for making the time,” said Tania. “It seems like we make all our friends in college, then spend the rest of our lives losing track of them. It’s so hard to meet people in a new city.”

“There’s dating,” Ruth suggested. “Or boffing. You’re cute. You could find somebody in 5 minutes on quickboff.com.”

“No way,” said Tania, a bit abruptly maybe, because Ruth’s smile flickered behind her wrap-around glasses. “Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the occasional boff. But I left someone in Seattle. It’s too fresh.”

Ruth shrugged. “Boffing is how I get over my breakups. But to each their own. Ready?”

They biked along the hillside, gradually rising ever higher above the prairies. In a few places patches of sickly pines still clung to life, scenting the air and providing welcome shade from the day’s heat, but most of the forest had vanished to tamarisks and grasses. An hour passed, and the knots in Tania’s shoulders loosened despite her grip on the handlebars. Ruth plowed ahead like a machine.

“Mercy,” gasped Tania finally. “I thought I was in shape.”

Ruth hopped off her bike and sipped from her water bag. They sat down next to each other on a fallen log, facing back towards the city, damp with sweat. Tania poked at some shoots that had pushed their way out of the soil, stretching for sunlight. She plucked one and held it to the sky. “An invasive, I bet. From some place with a longer growing season.”

“Sulfuring didn’t help much, did it?” commented Ruth.

“It slowed the melting of Greenland and Antarctica,” said Tania. “It kept methane locked in the permafrost. But a three-degree-Celsius temperature increase is still huge, especially considering that it’s an average. Here, inland, in a northern climate, we’re up by ten degrees some months.” She noticed Ruth rolling her eyes. “Sorry. You know all that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Ruth. “Unlike a lot of social media types, I find that if I’m going to get arrested for an issue, it’s worth taking the time to understand it.” She winked. “You’re cute when you get all professorial though.”

Tania whacked at the shoots with a twig. “We could sure use a good frost.”

“Or a giant science fiction space shield,” said Ruth.

***

A few cardboard boxes from Seattle still sat in the corner of Tania’s living room, odds and ends that defied easy categorization but seemed too important to throw out. Every time Tania moved she ended up with more of these stragglers.

“So Percy didn’t want to come with you?” asked Ruth.

“Mmmphh.” Tania worked at her mouthful of pizza. “We’d only been dating six months. We weren’t even sure if we’re going to do the whole monogamy thing. And he has his life there. The roots of the relationship weren’t deep enough to transplant.”

“It wasn’t worth trying?”

“I learn from my mistakes,” said Tania.
Rob. Yelling. I hate Chengdu. I hate you. I should never have come
. Tania chewed the memory away. “What about you, Ruth? Anyone special?”

“Nobody serious,” said Ruth. Instead of elaborating, she switched the topic. “How’s UNBio? I heard you fired a bunch of staff. That must have been hard. How are you holding up?”

“Fine,” said Tania. The automatic reply dropped into the room, where it sat, awkward.

Do I really want to do this alone? Because if not, I’m going to have to take some chances and trust somebody.

Ruth sipped her wine, studying Tania over the rim of the glass. “Fine, eh?” Another awkward silence.

“Actually, it’s been tough,” admitted Tania finally. “Pushing Nanoglass was a gamble, and it’s caused a lot of dissent at the UN. If things go wrong, we could end up in an even worse situation than with the disk array. And the UNBio preserves have been so badly neglected that I’ll almost certainly have to bio-harvest many of them. But how can I do that…?” She trailed off.
How do I explain Rwanda? The horror of abandoning an entire ecosystem.
She glared at her wine. “I’m talking too much.”

Ruth gave a mock-affronted look. “Like it’s some big secret that UNBio has issues. Jimmy Wong owned four houses. Everyone knew he was stealing money and forging audits. We just couldn’t do anything.” She took the plates into the kitchen, talking over her shoulder. “A lot of people have given up on the environment, Tania. You’ll have to be careful when you come clean about our current situation, or you’ll end up with a public relations disaster.” She opened the bottle of wine that Tania had said they wouldn’t need.

“So what does your political psychology wisdom suggest I say?” asked Tania. She held out her glass.
Regrets are for the morning.

“Be positive. Stop talking about deaths and statistics. Instead, present an aspirational vision for the future,” said Ruth. “Paint a future in which environmental changes are driven by social improvements, like you did in Chengdu and Guatemala. Explain that bio-harvests are part of a larger plan to make the planet viable again.”

“And how am I supposed to communicate that, Ruth? I’ve given six press conferences in the last week and all that gets broadcast are ten-second sound bites about the Nanoglass shield, mixed with snippets of angry politicians calling for my head for pushing an option that’s too risky.”

“Go on the Witty Show,” said Ruth. “Bill’s got a worldwide audience. People respect him. And despite his jokes, he’ll give you time to make your point.”

Tania laughed. “Great idea. I’ll message him tomorrow. Come on Ruth. Be serious, please. I can’t just invite myself on the Witty Show. He’s bigger than the President.”

Ruth leaned back, smirking, feet on the coffee table. “Do you want me to call him?”

“Sure,” laughed Tania, “when the wine’s out of your system. Now enough of the shop talk. Tell me, how did you learn to ride a bike like that?”

***

Tania’s head pounded. Somehow she and Ruth had found a third bottle of wine. Madness. It reminded her of college party days, except she’d woken in her own bed. Alone. She slouched in her office chair, closing the windows against the migraine sunshine.
Ouuchh.
Her omni chirped. Ruth most likely. She’d been passed out face down on the couch when Tania left; Ruth’s flight wasn’t until the afternoon, and she’d insisted there was no danger of missing it.

To her surprise, the caller was a pale, elegant woman in a ruffled green blouse. On each side of her head dangled an enormous silver globe. Christmas ornaments? Tania had never been one to follow fashion.

“I'm Jane Penny from the Witty Show,” the caller said, brandishing her cheekbones. “Mr. Witty asked if you would be available to make an appearance on the show on March 25th.”

What? Tania looked at her omni, but the routing information was blocked.
Is this a joke? A friend of Ruth’s, dressed in some outrageous costume?

“Well?” asked Jane Penny.

An inner voice reached through the fog of Tania’s hangover and saved her from making a terrible
faux pas
. She trusted her omni’s filters. It would be very hard for an imposter to get through.

“Of… of course,” Tania stumbled. “I’d love to come.”

Was it the screen, or was that Penny’s smile that just flickered? “Great. You’ll be sharing the show with another guest of course. We’ll find somebody interesting to salvage the ratings.”

“Wow, I…”

Penny peered at Tania, head swaying back and forth like a cobra’s. “I know you must be terribly worried about your wardrobe,” she said. “Don’t bother trying to fix it. We’ll take care of it for you. And we’ll also do something about your poor hair. We have some brilliant fashion designers on staff. Make sure you show up three hours early.”

Later, in the bathroom, Tania found herself staring into the mirror.
The woman dresses like a Christmas tree. I don’t care what she thinks about my hair.