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...
A blizzard struck Invernali just before the guests arrived, and the tower was quickly snowed in, including the rooftop patio.
I arrived at the party on the forty-seventh floor at the same time as a thousand guests. Potestas Tower was snowed in. One of the staff told me the roof was an inhospitable frozen tundra and directed me to take the elevator down from the floating penthouse into the main building to the bar and lounge.
An entire floor of the company building was a night club and billiards room, already packed like a concert venue, and every seat was taken. I couldn't believe how crowded it was. It was just after hora octava. Cristo had promised the entire empire would want to squeeze into one room, but damn. Stars damn. It was packed.
The buzz of gossip got louder, so the band played louder, so everyone shouted, so the band played louder.
An idea struck me as I pushed out of the elevator and I squished through the uncomfortable early birds to make it happen. "Give them the run of the building," I told security. "Open links to the other floors." The random security guard I had ordered put a hand to her ear and relayed what I had said.
Sixty seconds later, the seats remained occupied, but there was space to move between the bar and lounge space to the windows past which white snowflakes blurred the view. There was even room to stand in front of the three fireplaces and some of the dozen small fire pits, but, feeling like I already made a huge contribution to Sunyin Aura's campaign, I headed to the bar first for a drink.
I wasn't going to drink it.
Well, maybe a few sips. An estimated six thousand liquor bottles looked down on me from the bar that ran the span of the building. I just wanted a beer in my hand for when I had to talk to people.
I asked for a pilsner when there were four different ones on tap, but the bartender didn't argue follow up questions with an Aurelian; he just brought me a draft.
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Leander continued to marvel in frustration at the Solari. He monitored arrivals in the lobby of Potestas Tower with melted snow on the floor slowly pooling deeper around his brogues. "This way please," he directed guest after guest stepping out of links, pointing them to the security staff who actually had the capability to check for weapons.
He still didn't see why he couldn't just pat the guests down, but apparently the most powerful Soliari would find it barbaric to have a security guard feel up and down their bodies with his or her hands.
Three security guards in three lines scanned a hundred guests for guns, but each test was over in seconds. Three orderly queues passed security with no complaint and gathered into a mass to wait for the elevators to the lounge on the antepenultimate floor of the main building.
