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.
Nicanor Abbott 