20: Chloe – Planting Conspiracy Nuts

I watched a ballet of buildings interlace with one another, skyscrapers floating above the sky, slotting together like a Lego sculpture shattered on the surface of a pool, and someone had reversed the footage.

Whatever chemicals the Foundation had added to the glass reinforced it against the unfathomable mass of entire buildings bumping and grinding into position. The structures flexed more than their ceramic shells should have, and over the course of half a day, they locked together to form a ring around the planet. I didn’t peel my eyes away once.

Hours after they settled, I still stared. The engineering, the ingenuity, was far beyond anything I’d seen, even as the head of SmartBuilds. It wasn’t until my nose bumped into the window I realized I’d left my seat. Of course, window was a generous word. Transparent hull would’ve been a better term.

“We thought the world would keep spinning once gravity ceased.” James’ voice echoed behind me. “It seems its rotation was tied to its orbit.”

James Kinsley himself glided into the chamber. I ignored him to continue observing the self assembling megastructure.

“I thought you were sulking in your room.” I said.

“I owed you an apology.” He said. “And security says you haven’t left this level in several hours.”

I scratched the back of my neck. “It’s actually kinda embarrassing but I don’t know how.”

“The lifts work as normal. Just make sure you hold onto the railings.”

“They’re in the center of the room. I can’t get to them. I don’t even know how I got out of my seat.”

He drifted next to me and arrested his momentum with a push on the glass. “Of course, silly me. You weren’t trained to navigate low gravity. If you’ll permit me?”

He took my hand like a ballroom dancer and pushed off from the wall. We spiraled through the air slowly until we came to a stop by the elevator column. It took a moment before my brain caught up with the stop, dizzied and wondering where my puke would go if I hurled in zero-G. It didn’t help being trapped in a room shaped like a donut. The stairs and elevator shafts were a core that smoothly transitioned to ceiling to windows to under the floor and back to the core again, with no obvious breaks. Without the gravity, trying to orient was disorienting.

“Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.” James said, calling the elevator. He hooked his feet into ceiling rungs as soon as the doors opened. “You might want to secure yourself before the doors close.”

I quickly copied his stance. No sooner than I’d secured my feet into the ceiling and grabbed the waist high railing, the car hurtled hundreds of levels down. Or up. Possibly sideways. Seconds later, we sprung into a large room full of machinery. Technicians fixed parts to other parts in a coordinated flock, flying from surface to surface with ease. The wall in front of us was dotted with round windows.

“How’d you train for zero-G?” I gasped, mostly to distract myself from spewing.

“Underwater, mostly. It really isn’t that difficult once you let go. Just try not to overthink it.” Kinsley said. “Now, around you is the, um, PUSSY, and while I’m sure it’s a clever acronym for something, I won’t insult your intelligence by claiming it wasn’t named for its purpose, albeit crassly.”

The man was good at distractions.

He pointed forward. “If you look through the window in front of you, you’ll note it’s aligned with another window. That’s the coned roof of another skyscraper. Like ours, it has a pointed end called the, err, COCK, which inserted itself into our PUSSY during skyfall. We’re now all linked together as one big ring.”

“A ring, huh? And what do you call that, the ASSHOLE?”

He chuckled. “Maybe it is. I didn’t name them. But as you can see, each skyscraper inserts its COCK into the next one’s PUSSY, and round and round it goes, being tightened and sealed by our team of mechanics.”

You’re blushing, James Kinsley.”

He pretended not to hear me. “If you look into the windows, you may see a tunnel ascending through the solid glass tip. That’s the airlock between buildings.”

I breathed hard, but wrestled control of my stomach back. “So what, we can visit next door?”

“Not for a while. When the airlocks are fused, floor conversion starts next. I’m sure you’ve noticed our floors were built differently to the rest of our architecture.”

“Yeah, grill mesh. Kinda ruined your whole bouncy castle look when I noticed. If your hospital beds didn’t have those huge wheels, it would’ve been a bumpy ride to floor eighty”

“Precisely why we have them. And soon to be unnecessary. After today, these floors be reconfigured and fitted to the outside of our orbital ring. They’ll be converted into rails for our surface to space elevators on the earthside, and magnetic rails for orbital shots on the spaceside. All our technology was designed to be repurposed once we were up.”

“You also repurposed Armageddon.”

“Everything can be used as a resource, my dear, even the end of the world.”

“And me? What resource am I?”

Kinsley smiled. “You’re a reporter. I want you to document everything, and I want you to be completely unbiased. If you find corruption, report it. If you find anyone abusing power, even myself, report that, too. You think something needs clarifying, even just for yourself, you report that, blog it, chronicle this stage of human endeavor and do it all with an objective eye, Chloe.”

“No pressure at all, then. But what about the human touch? If I’m doing this, I’m doing it my way.”

“Good, which is why I brought you down here. Due to the design of the buildings, we have a large, empty space just above the, ugh, the PUSSY. I’ve commissioned it as your office. I believe it has a great view of Earth.”

He flew down the corridor. I half floated, half scrambled after him, cursing the smooth sides of the blobitecture tunnel network.

“You couldn’t have put handrails in the walls?” I shouted.

At the very base of the tower was a long, looped tunnel. It circumnavigated the entire outside of the basement.

“So you’re sticking me in the cellar where I can’t cause a fuss.” I said.

James patted my back. “Chloe, my dear, we’re in a loop. The basement of one building is the attic of the next. You can choose to see this as the bottom or you can choose to see it as the top. Personally, I like to see it as the current stop on a never-ending ride.”

Ascending into the chamber, we came across a continuous window of two meter thick glass that had indeed a magnificent view of the Earth on one side and outer space from the others. The room itself was a simple tunnel, wide, with equipment and amenities rigged to the interior between entry points. It seemed I had multiple doors, each acting as a boundary between different zones. An office, lounge, a kitchen, and…

“What the hell is that?” I said.

James opened the tubular contraption and lay down inside. “This, my dear, is your bed. I hope you’re not claustrophobic, but it will stop you floating who knows where while you sleep.”

He then showed me my office and buckled me into a rig. When he was sure I was secure, he pressed my palm to a large flat screen, which faded into life.

“Everything you need is here.” He said, sinking back through one of the holes. “There are a few classified files which you’ll have access to once your clearance has, well, cleared. However, it might not be a priority until we’ve settled in. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an ASSHOLE to run.”

“Wait, you’re just leaving me here?” I called, but there was no reply. “You’re the asshole, James!”

I tapped on the search bar and entered the word APOCALYPSE. Several hits rolled up but nothing explained what had caused gravity and the other universal forces to be affected. I combed through the data, lists of relics from Shipyard Island were held as museum pieces in the walls, now preserved in glass.

It had taken seventeen skyscrapers alone to curate and preserve the contents of the Smithsonian, and again as much for the Louvre. Every museum, everything people wanted preserved, everything that wasn’t a building bigger than one of the floors of a skyscraper, was preserved in detail within the walls of our new home. Earth’s history was our décor.

Reports filed in of satellites flying towards the orbital ring, piloted remotely and snared in magnetic nets. Then a chime signaled a personal message from Reece, asking me to visit his new cabin. I looked around and told him to visit mine instead.

One file in the virtual library was written by James Kinsley himself, a compilation of random thoughts and ideas or insights that gave his voice a mad edge.

“The secret to keeping a secret is not to keep it a secret.” He said in one recording. “Everything we did, we did publically. Everyone knows about it, there’s no conspiracy. That’s why I’m so fond of conspiracy theorists. They’re so busy looking for hidden secrets, especially sinister ones, they never see the good in front of them.”

I chuckled at his arrogant ass, and a chime signaled Reece had responded.

“Bottom level.” I said into my autodictation. “Like literally the very bottom.”

“There’s no designation down there.” His response came. “You’re not on the map.”

“Hold on.”

I found the map and entered my office’s designation as the Newsroom, but before I confirmed it, a mischievous thought bubbled up and I deleted the last four letters.

“A large space above a pussy?”

I retyped it. My new designation popped onto the map of the ring straight away, and I messaged Reece the address.

“Tower-Zero, Level Zero. Welcome to the NewsWOMB!”

Oh, so professional, Chloe.