Confidence in Tomorrow

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At 19:42 the westbound lanes over Aster Plaza thickened; Kellan Marr swore
because a city that moved ten million people without touching ground had made him
late for dinner. His car slid between towers, blue guidance fire running beneath the
chassis. Far below, the old river cut through gardens planted on land worth more
than some twentieth-century nations. Nobody had forced the gardens there, or the
flowers on transit pylons, or trees on pedestrian bridges, or a restaurant hung over
empty air for the view. The city had money, room, power, time—and had developed
expensive opinions about beauty.

Above it, the sky was behaving outrageously. A violet nebula burned across half the
dark. Two moons hung beyond the financial district, while the nearest planet silvered
the towers. A passenger liner eased through the skyline like a bus arriving
downtown. Nobody stopped. They had reservations. Lovers were late. Children
needed collecting. A concert had started while thousands still fought traffic. Kellan
changed lanes, saw three cars make the same decision, and cursed three drivers
who could not hear him.

The old histories had worshiped firsts: first fusion fire, first orbital city, first colony,
first machine that raised a kilometer of structure before weather stained the lower
floors. The harder achievement came later, when miracles became zoning problems.
The city built high because people liked height. It buried freight to keep trucks out of
gardens. It spent structural mass on curves and prime roof area on trees. Bridges
were given three-hundred-year service lives and then made beautiful because three
centuries was too long to look at ugly. Nobody whispered about decline while signing
the plans. They built as though descendants were coming to collect.

Kellan’s lane opened and the car lunged forward. Towers peeled past in white,
chrome and blue glass. A wedding party had taken over a terrace under violet trees.
Teenagers raced rented skimmers beneath a sign forbidding exactly that.
Maintenance crews had opened a guideway and argued like people who expected it
fixed by morning. Fireworks burst early over the eastern towers and smeared green
across a thousand windows. His daughter called. “You’re late.” Kellan said, “I can
see the building.” “You said that six minutes ago.” “It was true then too.” She cut the
connection. He grinned and pushed the car harder.

The restaurant tower rose ahead, slender enough to look insolent, blazing over the
boulevard. Beneath it the city ran at full appetite: trains arriving, doors opening,
music leaking from terraces, kitchens firing, deals souring, strangers meeting,
children refusing bedtime, someone proposing too soon, someone saying yes
anyway. The nebula burned. The moons climbed. Nobody had gathered to admire
the future. They were busy using it.

It was Saturday night.