Category Archives: The Underneath

Author’s Note: One of my readers asked if I was planning to revisit the world of “Nightwatch in the Underneath”. So I did.

Arbor Michael lacked the cachet of Sky City’s more central addresses. The cluster of five towers, each a phallus of steel, concrete, and glass capped in green-tinted mushrooming levels, did not have the views of its neighbors. A direct sunrise or sunset could only be seen in the winter, when the orb peeked at them from between the columns of more luxurious arbors: James to the east, Simon to the west. The north and south arbors, Judah and Salome, suffered a smilar fate as Michael in terms of the views, but had the advantage of being closer in along the City Transit route. The electric blue monorail system didn’t offer Arbor Michael residents a direct line to shopping or learning or government; instead, it wound a circuitous route through the neighboring arbors. Thus, no matter which way a rider went in the circuit, Arbor Michael was always the furthest stop.

Because it lacked the prestige afforded by proximity and scenery, Arbor Michael, like Sky City’s other similarly situated architectural kin, had become a lower rent district. Kate Balintine found that she could afford a one bedroom unit when she chipped in with only five others. 

Right now two of those others, Bryan and Maryanne, had exiled her from the bedroom so they could commit a few sins.

“Thanks, Kate. I really owe you,” Maryanne said as she thrust her roommate’s bedroll into her open arms. Maryanne’s blonde hair was already mussed from the foreplay Kate had interrupted during the effort to retrieve her mat, sheet, thin blanket, and pillow.

“Better give me Lyle’s as well.” Kate cracked her chewing gum and held out her free hand.

Bryan lay on his bedroll on the floor, naked from the waist up. When he saw Kate, he pulled the sheet up to cover his chest, but not before Kate noticed the lipstick print on his pec.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Kate smirked and batted her dark eyes.

“Not on me, you haven’t.”

“Like you’re anything special?”

Maryanne pushed the second roll at her, said thanks, and closed the door quickly.

Kate wandered through the galley kitchen to the living room, dropped Lyle’s bedroll on the chair, and spread hers so that she could look out the picture window. Arbor Michael’s “panoramic” views opened on other peoples’ lives. Kate would never admit to voyeurism; it sounded too illicit. She preferred to think of it as people watching.

As she neared dozing, the slide of a keycard, beep, and subsequent squeak of the door pulled Kate back from the edge of sleep. She looked up to see Clay open the cashbox that lived on the end table inside the door. 

“Adding or subtracting?” she mumbled.

“Adding.” Clay entered a new line on their digital record, shucked his coat and blue work coveralls, and flopped on the sofa in sweat-stained long underwear. “They at it again?”

“Off and on, based on the grunting and intermittent shrieks.”

“Lyle ain’t gonna like it if he can’t get in there.”

Kate waved at the chair. “That’s why I brought his roll with me.”

“You coulda brought mine.”

“It smells funny. Just like you.” She fanned in front of her nose. “Pew! You stink!”

“Thanks,” Clay replied morosely.

Kate thumped his leg with a gentle fist. “I’m kidding. Didn’t know you’d be home early is all.”

He looked at the galley doorway, as if expecting Maryanne or Bryan to emerge at any moment. “Yeah well, I decided to take a half day. Kinda needed it.”

Kate frowned in question.

Clay ran a dirty hand through his hair. “I should really talk to Leigh about this.”

Now Kate sat up, giving him full attention. He picked at the dirt under his fingernails.

“Something anthropological happen?” she asked. Leigh worked in the Sky City Anthropology Division.

“No, not a work thing…I think I watched a murder.”

Kate’s green eyes grew wide. “No way.”

Clay nodded. “When you’re picking up garbage, you just focus on garbage. Take out the bag. Load the cart. Replace the bag. Drive to the incinerator receptacle. Unload. Away it goes. End of story.”

Kate nodded.

“But there were protesters on my route today. Deviants.”

“What kind?”

“Pagans, I think. Hard to tell. Pagans are often queers. Queers are often socialists. Socialists are—”

“I get it.” She put a hand on his knee, uncertain if her action was meant to  silence or reassure him. Maybe both.

“Well, I wasn’t raised to hold to that type. Deviants were our downfall in the first place.”

“Uh huh.” Every young person learned Sky City history in catechism. Both Kate’s parents had taught in the school system, indoctrinating hundreds—including their daughter—into the Truth of God’s mercy, and His gift to the worthy: their home above the heathens, the unclean, the unworthy. Above the Deviants.

“So the Peacekeepers arrived and began arresting them. Some went quietly…”

He cracked his knuckles.

“But some fought back. Started chucking stuff at the Peacekeepers. Bottles. Food. Not much to throw, really. They dumped my garbage cans to find stuff.” He  chuckled mirthlessly. “One guy…a big guy. He could’ve—should’ve—been a Peacekeeper himself, all that size. But he was protesting. Carried a baseball bat. Can you believe it? A baseball bat.”

Beyond television, Kate had never seen a baseball bat anywhere except the simulators and the arena. It wasn’t a household item.

“Wonder how he got it?”

Clay shrugged. “Don’t matter. Peacekeepers decided he was the most dangerous. When he swung that bat… well, like I said, he was a big guy. Cracked some shields. Ever hear a bone break?”

Kate turned pale. She could see Clay reliving the experience from the look in his eyes.

“Well, it took six of them to bring him down.”

“Did they beat him to death right there?”

“Nope.” He retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and sat back down. Took a swig. Closed his eyes.

“They hauled him up to the nearest service gate, opened it, and threw him off the platform. When the crowd saw that, they fled.”

“Jesus.” Kate wrapped her arms around her knees. “Sounds horrifying.”

“Life up here must not be as bad as they claim, I guess. They scurried off, the cowards, instead of dying for their beliefs.” He sucked down half his water.

“I would think you’d be happy.” 

He shook his head. “I climbed up to an overlook to get clear and watch the chaos. Saw him go over. Watched him flail. It’s a thousand foot drop to the Underneath, you know? He hit…”

“And?”

Clay just stared at her. “I felt sick. He was the only brave one. The only righteous one. But misguided… maybe.”

Kate absorbed the story, resting her chin on her arms as she imagined what Clay saw. This is what it must feel like to be a therapist. “Maybe.”

“You pity them?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Where’s the compassion?”

Clay just shrugged.

Lyle and Leigh arrived home an hour later, rousing Kate and Clay from slumber. Lyle escorted Leigh to the last open seat in the living room.

“I’m better now,” she said, dropping her bag. “Really.”

Typically, Leigh was the most austere of the group. She didn’t wear any makeup, and kept her hair in an Oklahoma braid. She kept every inch of skin covered save her face and hands. Zippers, buttons, and snaps bound and buttoned her tightly, shielding everything inside from everything outside. But the dutiful daughter Kate had befriended seemed missing now. Her hair had been completely undone, wild, shoulder length chestnut locks tangled and astray. She wore smudged eyeshadow, at least, and left open a few buttons on her blouse. But the transformation wasn’t just physical. She pressed her legs tightly together, hips, knees, and toes. Cupped her elbows. Darted glances around the room. Her jacket sleeve had been torn. She looks violated.

“Were they that terrifying in the Underneath?” She hadn’t seen Leigh since before her last assignment. Even though each worked while the other slept, they at least crossed paths on shift changes. Well, we used to, Kate thought.

“Leigh?”

“Yeah?” Leigh looked startled.

A door opened down the hall and Bryan hollered.

“What the hell, man?” 

Clay bolted upright on the sofa. Kate seized the moment to claim the seat closest to Leigh and put a reassuring hand on her arm. Leigh offered a weak smile, eyes baggy.

“Have you slept since coming back from your interview?” Kate asked.

Leigh shook her head.

Lyle’s voice thundered. “Where’s my bedroll?”

“It’s out here, Lyle!” Kate called and turned to see him storming back into the room with Leigh’s bedroll under his arm. His wild mop of curly hair was plastered down under a white gauze wrap. Blood had seeped through.

“What happened to you two?” Clay wiped the sleep from his eyes and shook his head.

“Nothing.“ Lyle said. He put a hand on Leigh’s shoulder. “Ready to go?”

Kate stood up. “I don’t think you two should be going anywhere.”

Lyle shook his head.

Leigh put her hand over Lyle’s and looked up at Kate. “I have to go.”

“What’s your problem, Lyle?” Bryan had donned tee shirt and shorts. 

Maryanne stood behind him, pulling him back toward the bedroom by the elbow. “Leave him alone, Bryan.”

“No, we even set his roll out so he wouldn’t come barging in.” He finally gave Lyle a once over. “What happened to you?”

“Leigh and I are leaving.”

Clay shook his head. “No way. Your names are on the housing contract. You can’t leave. Is that blood?” He nodded to Lyle’s shirt collar.

“Yeah. My own. And the contract doesn’t matter.” He reached for Leigh’s arm.

“Now wait a minute.” Kate stopped him. “Maybe before you just vanish we all ought to sit down and talk this out?”

“Icarans,” Leigh whispered, and everyone stopped.

“What do you mean, ’Icarans’?” Kate knelt in front of her. 

“Icarans. We don’t wanna be Icarans.”

Kate worried her lip. “Lyle, what’s she talking about?”

He shrugged.

But Clay ran a hand over his face and frowned. “You two were at the protests. You’re Deviants.”

In a flash, Lyle had a handful of Clay’s shirt, his fist cocked. “Call me that one more time, asshole.”

Clay’s weight advantage was negated by both his seated position and his post-nap sluggishness. He grabbed Lyle’s more sinewy arm with both hands. Bryan worked to insert himself between them. “Easy, easy. Nobody’s calling anybody names.”

“Actually, Clay did,” Maryanne observed.

“Shut it,” Bryan barked. “Lyle, what happened?”

His girlfriend tossed her hair and pursed her lips. 

Lyle let go of Clay and stepped back. Sighed. “Leigh just showed up at my cubicle, begging for me to hide her.”

“Why?” Kate held Leigh’s hand. She wore a large ring on her thumb. That’s new.

“Because I don’t want to be an Icaran.”

“What’s an Icaran, Leigh?” Kate rubbed the back of her hand.

“They fly. The Cricaps pray. The Topsiders pay. The Icarans fly.”

Bryan crossed his arms. “From who, Lyle? Who did she want you to hide her from.”

Lyle pinched the bridge of his nose. “The Peacekeepers.”

Maryanne slipped back through the kitchen.

“Aw, no,” Clay moaned as he stood. “No, no, no. You got a wanted woman here.” He waved his arms in agitation. “You’re complicit. So now we’re all complicit. And the Peacekeepers? Did they bash you on the head?”

Lyle winced when he touched the delicate spot on his head. “No. I misjudged the shelf in the storage room where I hid her.”

“You’ve got to turn her in,” Clay said. “The both of you got to turn yourselves in or we’re all in trouble.”

“Where will you go?” Kate asked.

“Back to The Underneath.”

Everybody but Lyle stared at Leigh in shock. Then a flurry of movement followed.

Bryan stormed away, muttering about Neathers driving everyone mad. Clay grabbed his cell.

“I’ll report you myself.”

Lyle kicked the cell out of Clay’s hands. Something else crunched.

“Sonofabitch!” Clay shouted as he grabbed his fingers. He sucked in a lot of air and curled his hand, then pushed past them into the kitchen. 

“Let’s go,” Leigh ordered. She grabbed her bag and bolted.

Kate and Lyle followed, bedrolls abandoned.

Lyle kept glancing behind to see if anyone was following. Kate scurried along quickly to catch up with their wild-eyed friend. “Why do you think you’ll be fine in The Underneath?”

“I don’t,” Leigh said as they passed into the stairwell and started the long descent.

“But her tablet’s smashed and she’s wearing matching men’s rings on each thumb,” Lyle offered as he passed. “Whatever’s gone wrong with her, it started there.”

“And you’re helping her why?”

“Curiosity? Tired of my cubicle?”

Kate scoffed at his answer. “Clay said there were protests today—”

“Uh huh. She was there.” 

Leigh picked up speed, glancing out the window on every other landing as if the Peacekeepers would fly right up to arrest her.

“Lyle,” Kate huffed, “why didn’t you turn her in?”

Lyle never broke stride. “Would she have done that to me?”

A flight below, Leigh quickened her pace. Kate hurried to catch up.

Author’s Note: I wanted to tell a story about a polyamorous culture. I ended up starting a critique of societies that straitjacket identity while glamorizing consumerism.

Paulina paused in the open shed bay to watch The Topside come to life. The city seemed to float in the darkening sky: white spotlights trimmed the concrete platforms upon which each tower cluster stood. Topsiders illuminated their towers to suggest trees. Narrow bases in white transitioned to bright green at each bulbous top. Ties, struts, and walkways that bound them together had been trimmed in green like heavenly branches. The city transit system, a blue vein that tied the clusters together, carried topsiders from the trunks of some towers to the boughs of others. Every hour in alternation, the high speed rail streaked out of the northern or southern ranges, a yellow flash that stopped to expel its contents before pelting into the darkened ridges. LED advertising and flashing neon signs completed the garish display. Paulina expected that The Topside could be seen flashing and whoring itself from space.

By daytime, the mystique of The Topside disappeared. Each cluster of towers looked like ashen mushroom-headed pricks loosely stitched into a phallic nightmare. Each platform perched on a trio of pillars; each pillar was a hundred yards across and three times the height. No lighting had been spared for The Topside’s dirty gray underbelly. The only illumination to touch the earth were the thin white double lines of elevator shafts embedded in each. In its design and construction, The Topside transformed night into day each evening while casting the land beneath in perpetual deep shadow. 

Paulina hitched the cart to the ATV and unplugged it from the treadmills. The children ran the mills daily. What adults saw as work—what had been a torture long ago and far away—provided the clan with a venue for sport and games while tending to their energy needs, especially when their limited solar and wind options failed to produce.

Must’ve been a fun time, she thought. The gauge showed a full charge. She checked the meter on the house battery. The children had charged it as well.

She wrapped her long dark braid around her neck and covered her face with a hand-knitted green scarf. Then she set off to The Underneath, bouncing and jostling down the dirt road, past gardens and fields until she crossed into the shadow of the city. She pulled her hood up to ward off the cold. 

The anthropologist waited for her at Pillar Four. She wore a shiny parka and new boots that clearly indicated wealth. The tablet in her hand cast her face in a ghostly glow.

“Leigh Specter?” Paulina called as she slowed.

“Yeah. Paulina Crow?”

“Uh-huh.” Paulina stopped and watched as Specter finished with her tablet. Her gloves were designed for show. Paulina clucked in anticipation of impending complaints. 

“It’s cold.”

Paulina patted the seat behind her. “Here or the cart. Here’s better.”

Specter climbed on behind her. The ATV jolted forward; she grabbed Paulina’s coat with both hands. 

“You need to hold tighter than that, topsider,” Paulina warned.

Twenty minutes later the pair sat by a roaring campfire centered beneath the platform.

Paulina withdrew two helmets from the ATV sidecase and handed one to the anthropologist. Each had been fitted out with built-in binoculars that could be flipped up or down as needed.

“So tell me about ‘the nightwatch’?” Specter tested the helmet’s fit, adjusted it, wiped the lenses with a gloved finger, and tried again.

“It’s a job.” Paulina poured a mug of hot tea from her thermos. Specter looked as if she would take it, then dropped her hand as Paulina sipped. There was no second cup.

“That’s not the way it sounded when I spoke to Geo Evergreen.”

“What did he say?” Paulina dropped her lenses and scanned the platform perimeter.

“He made it sound like this was the most important work folks did.”

“Did he?” she sounded unimpressed.

Specter frowned. “He did. He also said you had been doing this the longest.”

“Twenty years.”

The anthropologist pulled out her tablet, flipped through some screens with her stylus, and looked to her subject expectantly.

Paulina motioned to the lenses still flipped up on Specter’s helmet. “You’ll never see a thing if you don’t put those down, Topsider.”

Specter frowned. “I thought we might talk first.”

“No.” Paulina still hadn’t stopped scanning.

“What am I looking for?” Specter asked as she flipped down her lenses.

No reply. Another minute passed.

“Geo said this is how you all collect your resources.”

“Some. Over there.” Paulina pointed to a place beyond Pillar Five. “A box of some kind. Paper fluttering everywhere.”

Specter focused her binoculars on the area; papers drifted, then swirled east, caught by the wind.

“Shouldn’t we gather them?” 

Paulina said nothing.

“You’re really not one for conversation. Geo said—”

“Geo talks too much.”

From the corner of her eye, Paulina watched the anthropologist shift uncomfortably in her folding chair. 

“You gonna rutch around all night?”

“What?” Firelight flickered across Specter’s face. Young, Paulina thought.

“Rutching. Means squirming in your seat, Topsider.” To demonstrate, Paulina wriggled around in her chair, which squeaked under the strain.

“I’ve never heard that word before.”

“It’s not a good enough word for your kind.”

Specter flipped up her lenses. “And what exactly is my kind?”

Paulina smiled. “Topsider.”

“I’m not a topsider. Not if you’re using it as a pejorative. I’ve studied your lingo.”

“Have you?” Paulina snorted and picked her teeth with one hand while scanning another point where the platform ended.

Specter clenched her jaw.

“One of you topsiders just heaved over something heavy.”

“I’m not a topsider,” Specter repeated. “Where?”

“Left of Pillar Six. About ten o’clock from your seat.”

Specter caught sight of the bag just as it hit the ground. A thud and cloud of dust followed. “I’m not a topsider, Ms. Crow. I’m a resident of Arbor Michael, Sky City.”

Paulina chuckled. “Doesn’t matter the address. You’re all the same. Cricaps. Topsiders. Icarans.”

“Oh, come on,” Specter whined. “I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I’m trying to learn from you. I’m trying to build a bridge between your culture and ours.”

Paulina ignored her. “You planning to go native?”

“What?” The surprise in Specter’s voice did not go unnoticed.

“Go native. Come down the shaft and never go back.”

“I know what it means.” She sounded indignant. “It’s an ethnographic term. We train to guard against it before they let us come down.”

“Oh.” 

Something small fluttered overhead. Specter followed the sound. “‘Oh’ what?”

“They train you,” Paulina laughed. “As if you can be trained.”

“You really don’t like us, do you?”

“No. I hate you.” Paulina said. “Oh dear.” She pointed to a pair of figures plummeting to earth.

“Jesus.”

Paulina pursed her lips. “So you’re a cricap…” She pointed to the dust cloud where the bodies had landed. “Those two? Icarans. Let’s go.”

They rumbled toward where the pair had hit.

“Aren’t you going to drive faster?”

Paulina said nothing.

“We should call a medic,” Specter pressed.

Now she whistled. “You’re really green, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

They stopped.

“Why are we stopping?”

Paulina pointed to a field of garbage within view of the headlights: plastic bottles, papers, and articles of clothing, mostly.

“Cleanup.”

“We should get over there.”

“Why? No one survives the drop. Most die of fright. Those who don’t get to feel regret and stupidity for a full nine seconds. I’ve timed it.”

Specter watched as Paulina gathered up rubbish. At one point, the ‘neather shuffled over, took out a shovel, and tossed it to her observer. Specter fumbled the catch, nearly dropping her tablet in the process. 

“Make yourself useful.” Paulina pointed to shattered pane glass. “Shovel that into the cart.”

Specter tried a different tack.

“So what do you do with it all?” She kept one eye on their destination, hoping for movement.

“Whatever we can.”

“You wear the clothes?” She glanced at the dirty blue hoodie they had recovered.

“If they fit.”

Specter resisted pointing out her opposition to such practices. She was trying to observe and learn, not point out her subject’s cultural deficiencies.

Underway once again, the headlights soon illuminated the bodies; light reflected back on buttons, straps, boot buckles, and other shiny bits.

Paulina pulled up alongside them, dropped the side of the cart, and unrolled a patchwork canvas sheet.

Specter took out her tablet, snapped a few photos, and began to write.

“Do you know them?” Paulina asked.

“We have a million people up there. What makes you think I would know them?”

Both were male. Younger. One had blue hair, the other blond. The leather, denims, and boots suggested counterculture. The jewelry, piercings, tattoos, and buttons suggested it as well.

Paulina watched Specter as she made her notes; the anthropologist seemed voyeuristic, unable to look away but increasingly horrified and pale with each glance.

“Pull their cells for me.”

Specter grimaced. “What makes you think they have cells?”

Paulina looked pityingly. “Cricap, you all have cells.”

“I am not a cricap. And I’m not paid enough to touch corpses!”

“Well, cricap, they are truly beneath you now.”

Paulina stomped around. Reached down to the broken bodies and retrieved the cells from each. She straightened the shattered and askew limbs. Then she paused at their hands. 

“Matching rings,” she said. “What do you make of that, Cricap?”

Specter slammed her tablet in the dirt.

“I am not a damned cricap! I was not raised Christian, and I am not a capitalist! I am not a topsider! I do not have money, I have never had money, and I do not have a superiority complex! For heaven’s sake, six of us share a single bedroom flat!” 

Paulina stood back, smiling thinly, arms crossed, as Specter ripped off her helmet and gestured with it. 

“And I am not an Icaran, whatever the hell you mean by that! I am just trying to learn about your culture so we can all find a way to live better! That’s all!”

Paulina watched as Specter scooped up her tablet, examining the shattered screen. It still worked.

“All done?” Paulina asked.

Specter nodded.

“All better?”

“No,” she sniffled. “This has been a disaster start to finish.”

“Hold these,” she said, thrusting the cells toward her. Specter hesitated.

“Leigh? Please.”

Leigh held the cells and watched as Paulina rolled the broken bodies onto the tarp and secured the last two corners to ropes. Next she used a pair of winches to pull the load aboard. Once the gate had been locked back in place, she unlatched one side of the canvas and finished retracting the ropes, rolling the bodies over as the canvas came free. Blue hair lay face down across blond’s chest. Blond stared blindly into the sky.

“You’re not the disaster,” Paulina said. “This is the disaster. These two. Had they not been trapped in your ways, they might have gone down the shaft, like you, and come to live with us. They would have known they were loved.”

“How do you know they weren’t?”

Paulina nodded to the bodies. “They’re here.”

They drove to the nearest pillar. Leigh followed Paulina into the elevator, where they were greeted by a warm burst of air and gentle synthesized music. A clear deposit box and small cabinet were embedded in the back wall. Paulina removed a pair of blank labels and a marker from the cabinet, wrote the word DECEASED and the date on each, and affixed the labels to the cells. Then she dropped them into the box. They thunked against a small collection amassed at the bottom.

“See that purple one?” she said, pointing to the collection. “I dropped that off a few days ago. Pretty girl. Such a shame.”

They returned to the campsite. Another log from the woodpile brought the fire back to a crackling roar.

“We need to take the bodies up.” Leigh sipped delicately when Paulina shared her mug.

“No.” 

“You mean you don’t return the bodies? I thought we cremated our dead?”

“You do. Have you ever looked off the easternmost platform?”

Leigh shook her head.

“Your ventilation system blows everything you incinerate, cremains included, out the eastside vents. Ash covers the land over there. We tried cultivating it years ago, and some crops took—but not for long. Little grows anymore. Go look sometime.”

“So what do you do with the bodies if you don’t return them?”

“We use them.”

She handed back the empty mug. Paulina screwed it on to the thermos.

“What do you use them for?” Leigh had pulled out her tablet and begun writing.

“Whatever we can. When I die, I asked my family to turn me into books, or perhaps a couple jackets.”

Leigh scowled. “What did they say to that?”

“Well, my husbands promised me they would turn me into books. My wife wants the jacket.” She chuckled. “I’ll let the tanner tell them what I can become.”

“Wait. You have three spouses?”

Paulina smiled. “Don’t you have five?”

Leigh fiddled with her stylus. “No. Each of us has our own lives. There’s nothing between us.” 

“All in that tiny flat of yours?” Paulina shook her head. “So much easier if you make a family. But your cricaps don’t allow that. God doesn’t like it. Business can’t make money off you unless you’re paired to that perfect one. I have three perfect ones. We’re considering adding another.”

Leigh scribbled furiously for a few minutes after that, and the conversation carried on another hour before Paulina shared the rest of the evening’s plan.

“We stay until dawn, collecting the bodies, and any garbage along the way. Then we go to the tannery and recycling. Then you go home.”

“Geo never said… nobody ever said this was how it worked.”

“What did they tell you?”

“Geo just said it would be illuminating.”

“Is it?”

Leigh nodded. “And nobody up there talks about it at all. None of my other interviews. None of my supervisors. Nobody  discusses the nightwatch.”

“But they do talk up there?” 

“Yeah, but not about this.”

The pair whiled away the rest of the evening and into the early morning hours. Leigh tried to keep the questions light as she scanned the platform edges, torn between not wanting to look and insisting on bearing witness.

“The Topside shuts down at midnight. We’ll be seeing a body or two soon. The next big rush is at five, when your city wakes up.”

“Our high traffic hours,” Leigh offered.

“Predictable as sunrise.”

“How many a night?”

“Three or four. Sometimes more. You had that cricap cult a few years back.”

“I remember.”

“This jacket came from one of them.”

Leigh stared at Paulina’s jacket several times during the rest of the night as if trying to find the body in it.

They collected another jumper: a male in a suit, his heavy necklace with its gold cross twisted around his neck. A note that read ‘sinner’ had been pinned to his coat. 

“Cricap,” Paulina said as she examined the body. “He had a narrow path for living ‘right’. So narrow not even he could walk it.”

“Earlier tonight you suggested I was such a person.”

Paulina read the observation as a challenge. 

“The cricaps sell everything, including their souls. They live on greed, then claim divine moral high ground they have no intention of following. Hypocrites.”

“Did I claim a moral high ground with you? Did I strike you as greedy?”

“Not quite, though you thought me too ignorant to know your field. But you did look down on those two dead boys. Too good to tend to them. Not paid enough. That’s Cricap. Your bias that somehow we can show you a better way to live—or that you can show us? That’s topsider. Somebody’ll take that knowledge and sell it. Know why we don’t come to study you?”

Leigh shook her head.

Paulina offered a pointed look, but didn’t provide an answer.

“So why do you do this?” Leigh asked later. An older woman had been added to their grotesque collection, and now, as sunlight cut through the eastern haze, they bounced away from Sky City toward a small collection of stone buildings in the distance.

“Do what?”

“Nightwatch.”

“Somebody has to.”

“What about the men?”

“Oh, some of them do.”

“But so do you.”

Paulina chuckled. “Is this men’s work? That’s Topsider. That’s Cricap. Too narrow. Among the four of us, we have a half dozen children. How would it be if our children—or my neighbors’ children—were the first to find topsider corpses dead in the dirt?”

Leigh said little as they dropped the bodies on the tannery dock.

“What about the clothes and other personal effects?” She studied one of the couples’ matching rings.

“Recycled,” Paulina said. “Upcycled. Sent to the smith and forged into something useful.”

Leigh asked if she could have the pair of rings. The tanner’s assistant nodded. With some effort and a pair of shears, he cut them from the swollen fingers, washed them, and handed them to her.

“Thank you,” she said. Paulina seemed to approve.

With the shift complete, they bounced and jostled back to Pillar Four.

“A story before you go,” Paulina began. “‘neathers used to leave the bodies in the elevators.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. More than once, somebody opened the elevator to descend, only to be greeted by the dead. Your people didn’t like it.”

“I can imagine.”

“I don’t have to,” Paulina said. “I was eighteen when it happened to me.”

Leigh was surprised. “You’re from up there, too?”

“Used to be. Maybe a bit of cricap in me. Bit of topsider.”

“So what made you go down the shaft?”

Paulina stared at the open elevator.

“Soon I wanted to be Icaran. Thought I could touch the sun. But the longer I stayed, the less I believed. Finally I knew: leave or die.”

“That couple…”

“…did not make the same choices as me. We would be richer here if they had.”

Leigh held the rings tightly in her fist. Paulina had not asked why she wanted to keep them, and even if she had, Leigh wasn’t sure she could answer. She considered the shattered glass of the functional tablet against the perfect rings of the dead and broken couple. The answers are here, I’m sure, she thought. Now she needed to learn the questions.