Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
The sun was getting low and the sky from Potestas Tower was darkening. It had only risen five hours ago but it didn't care, a brief appearance was plenty. I watched at the boss's side outside the solarium, and Nova was there too.
No one spoke, which made it almost nice, or it would have been if so much weren't wrong.
Ilan was done berating me, and the colors of dusk over the skyline of architectural wonders, floating and otherwise, were stunning.
The boss was mad at me for letting Cristo escape with Lien Cassus, but he was done yelling.
The best part, which protected me from his hard words inside a protective bubble, was that Nova wasn't mad at all — if I had to guess she seemed pleased, although it was beyond my very limited intuition to divine why that was; the important thing was that she was in too good a mood to be disappointed and she even stood next to me, not the boss, to watch night descend.
When Cristo pulled the pistol on me on the detention level, I had headed straight for the boss at a run across the whole floor to the elevator, hit the button, waited for the door to open and got inside and then remembered I could open a link to the solarium where Father probably was.
I darted out of a link into the outdoor garden and arboretum, tore open the door to the solarium, and sprinted at my father. "Come quickly! Cristo's alone with the prisoners."
The boss had been sitting down to a chess game with — what was his name — Leander Prince? Ilan looked up with a rook in his hand as if annoyed at the interruption before he got a grip and dropped the piece onto the board and asked, "Why did you leave Cristo alone with the prisoners?" without getting up.
Leander Prince jolted up and even without saluting he was ready for orders.
"He said he'd kill me, he had a pistol," I said.
Finally the urgency caught on and the boss ordered Prince and six security guards through a link, then the boss and I followed. When we got to the cells the seven guards were standing around useless, investigating two occupied cells and one empty one.
"They just vanished," said Leander.
"You mean they went through a link," said the boss, because Cristo and Lien were just seconds gone.
For much of the past hour we had played guessing games. Why had Cristo saved the boss's life and then freed his assassin from imprisonment? If there was any doubt that Cristo's intentions were indubitably evil, the boss didn't tell his security that. He had called together all the officers and told them to tell their squads, "If he draws his weapon, you may shoot to kill. I would prefer to take Cristo alive, but he threatened the life of my son, and if he threatens to take any of your lives, you may eliminate him."
When I learned that the boss had connected Cristo to the router, I suggested disconnecting him, but the boss's vote was a firm no. "He'll never come back here if we disconnect him. I want answers. Not at the risk of anyone's life, but I don't want to cut him off. I want to know what he's doing, and I'm usually a patient man but today I feel oddly hasty. I wonder why that is."
The afternoon died and Nova turned up and when she heard Cristo had released Lien Cassus she laughed and actually said, "I told you so," and that was what made the boss explode, blaming me for everything, but all the while Nova thought the whole thing was hilarious and she even patted my arm once or twice and shook her head with a glint in her eye that said not to take my dad seriously.
And for the first time in my adult life, I didn't.
Now that the sunset, which was perfectly normal in every sense except that it was hours early, was nearing completion, everyone on the roof was silent, even Nova had gotten her giggles under control and I felt the press of the tower's employees and staff moving closer to see too, although the security were too disciplined and currently bloodthirsty to move a millimeter from their posts. Several rows of an audience gathered behind me to watch the sunset.
There was no sound. They were all holding their breaths. Beyond the limits of the snow-covered city, the orange-white star was visible from the snowy horizon while it shrank but still lit the textured clouds, thick and thinning, ethereal pink, bright purple and a rich luminous dark indigo. It sank and, while darkness slunk over the light from the other end of the sky and snuffed out the colors with shadow, it vanished and was gone.
Shouts cracked the silence and I started as if electrocuted before I spun, only I couldn't see what was happening past the gathered crowd, which had also spun around, though they were now pressing me back against the edge of the roof.
"He's here," I made out from the voices yelling all blended into one another, and in only a matter of seconds the boss had pushed his way through the retreating huddled crowd of his employees, which didn't part for me or stay apart so I had to push through with equal if not more effort, and I could feel Nova behind me keeping close so she wouldn't have to fight through as well.
On the other side, once I emerged, the solarium was a tableau around Cristo, who had his bare hands up over his head and a ring of a dozen guards with their pistols trained on him.
The only person moving was the boss. Father parted the circle, pulled his own pistol out of the holster at his waist, and pointed it at Cristo. He said, "Stand down," to the guards, who all lowered their weapons but didn't holster them or break from the perimeter. I came closer so I could watch Cristo closely. His face was no more afraid now than it was when he had been the one holding the pistol telling me what to do.
"I can explain," he said. He looked perfectly comfortable. Even smug.
"I gave you that opportunity this morning," said the boss. "Funny how much can change in a few — very short — hours."
"So you're going to shoot me?" said Cristo, hands still in the air.
"Only if you reach for the pistol. I am going to disarm you," said the boss, and he gestured to Leander with a nod, and Leander eagerly passed his boss to enter the circle, and while the boss with his weapon still aimed at Cristo finished, "And then I'm going to imprison you," Leander opened Cristo's jacket and reached inside to take Cristo's pistol. Stephen saw the gun in Leander's hand.
"I'm sorry, Ilan, I really am," said Cristo, "but I don't have that kind of time."
And then he disappeared.
A gasp went up from every one of the disciplined security guards and Leander let out a yell. "It's gone!" he shouted. His hand was empty.
"He's gone," said the boss, running into the circle with his hands out as if to check Cristo wasn't still there only invisible.
"The gun is gone," said Leander.
They all stopped. All murmuring went quiet. Then among the crowd of Potestas Tower staff behind me whispers broke out again. There wasn't so much as a peep from those who were closest, though — those who had seen an unarmed man with his hands up, without creating a link and walking through it, disappear into thin air. No one spoke because what they all just saw wasn't possible.
Then I looked around, puzzled and grasping for puzzle pieces, and I was the first to speak. "Where's Nova?" I said. Because she was gone too.
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