Chapter 1
Hayden finds himself staring up at the black skyscraper that juts from concrete. Its peak is hidden somewhere, God knows how far up. The sky is white and the clouds look ready to bear rain.
“Quite a marvel, isn’t she?” Houston says, snapping Hayden out of his trance while knocking on the black steel walls.
“She?”
“You’ll see what I mean. Come on.”
They enter the lobby––flashes of gold and black, elegant statues rich with detail and style––they all hit Hayden too fast for him to react. Looking down at the black carpet, he finds that his feet are a blur. Archaic jazz plays softly in the halls as they stride together towards the elevators. Inside the elevator, Hayden stares at the absurd amount of floors, represented by tiny buttons. They look almost like bumps of acne, staining the cold steel panel they’re growing out of with flesh and pus.
“Do you want to see what the tourists see or what I see?” Houston asks.
“…Both. Both.”
“Which one first?”
“I guess… your place?”
“Smart choice. You’ll be underwhelmed when we go down a couple floors, though.”
The elevator flies up and up, speeding through its pathway with an intensity only felt as a faint humming beneath the two men’s feet. When it finally opens after four minutes, Hayden is unsure of what to think. Houston’s apartment is decidedly massive––it needs to be lit by no less than ten lamps, each of which is stationed neatly at one of the many chairs and tables and sofas and cabinets and walls and kitchens and rooms and rooms and rooms––it’s also decidedly grotesque. A spewing of furniture and massive windows without blinds and modern décor. The view, though, is vertigo-inducing. The clouds of rain occasionally part, and Hayden can see straight through them, down to the green and grey blur that’s supposed to be Central Park.
“Impressive, isn’t it? You get used to it, after a while.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“This is insane. Absolutely insane. Is it… Is it safe? To live like this?”
“Absolutely. There isn’t a single thing that hasn’t been accounted for. This place is safer than most of the little holes people dig out for themselves down below, Hayden.”
“You mean around Columbus Circle?”
“Of course. There’s no crime in the tower. No robbery. No murder. No rape. Just people who can afford it and visitors who know better than to get nosey.”
Houston, realizing how long he’s been staring at the window, turns to Hayden.
“Listen. You care about me, right? We’re good friends, right?”
“Sure?”
“Good. Then, I can trust you with the more… gnarly… side of things, can’t I?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see what I mean. Just answer the question.”
“Maybe. It depends, I mean––yeah. It depends. Unless you’ve done something wrong, I can keep a secret.”
“I appreciate your honesty. I guess I’ll show it to you, then. Just don’t forget that I warned you.”
The two men walk to the back of Houston’s apartment. The air seems colder here. Or maybe warmer. Hayden can’t tell the difference anymore. Houston opens a black metal door, ornamented by a red metal sign with white Chinese, English, Russian, Japanese, and Arabic lettering on it. The door slowly opens into darkness. Then the lights turn on. Scarlet viscera shines, wet and hot and dimpled by black wires and metal bolts. What Hayden’s looking at is a hollow shaft of flesh, about the size of an elevator. No floor. There is only the tunnel.
“Houston… Oh…” Hayden can feel his stomach and throat tightening.
The walls of the shaft breathe. Slowly. Moving around the machinery implanted deep, deep into it. Like an octopus, writhing around a metal prod inserted into its face.
“They said that making a self-sustaining building that created its own energy was impossible. They, luckily, were wrong. She’s powering everything. All on her own.
Seeing that Hayden doesn’t object to watching the entrails and membranes squirm and twist around themselves, Houston smiles and continues to talk. “I say she, because she’ll be able to give birth.”
Hayden, barely awake from shock, dry-retches.
“Not here, of course. Her offspring could flatten a small mountain. Deep in the roots of the building, we’ll send some men to extract the child before it is ready to be born. While it’s still soft and small. Then we’ll raise it and plant it where we please. We can even customize what color the interiors will be before it’s born. Isn’t that fascinating?”
Hayden finally vomits, keeling over and letting his knees get covered by it.
“Come on, you’re ruining the carpet. I paid a lot of money for that, God damn it. Listen, this is the future of engineering, architecture, biology, everything. A couple more of these buildings and we’ll have a future that’s pristine and gorgeous. We’ll have our sky-rises and immaculate works of art, the people who aren’t willing to work hard enough get to visit them and generate more money for the programs that made these buildings to keep going. You know you want that, right?”
Hayden continues to vomit. At this point all that’s coming out is yellow fluid.
Thirty minutes, they go back down a couple floors. Houston was right––the touristy view WAS underwhelming.
