Children of the Black by W J Long III
Author:W J Long III
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W J Long III
Published: 2023-03-21T00:00:00+00:00
Claude watched a hovercar similar in build to Zhara's shrink into the distance from the open-air balcony of her apartment. He did his best to estimate how far the Artemis building was from the apartment and why Zhara hadnât made it back yet.
Sheâd apparently left early, and he hadn't even noticed. He'd been exhausted from the events of the previous day, but that was no excuse. What kind of scout couldnât detect a woman slipping out of bed beside him and creeping out of the room?
"She's going to be fine," Vision said from the doorway behind him.
"I know," he said without conviction as the shimmering white vehicle disappeared from view.
"You need to relax, Claude. Not everyone needs your personal brand of overprotection," Vision chided.
She leaned on the railing beside him. Her sensors made her almost blind at the height they were standing. The apartment was easily sixty-seven stories above the ground, and besides the two sister towers across the sizable communal courtyard suspended between them, there weren't many things for her sensors to ping.
"Can I use your eyes?" Vision asked weakly.
Claude reached over and gently squeezed her hand.
"What are you going to do when I'm not around for you to mooch off?" he asked jokingly.
Vision sighed, "Hopefully, I'll have a better halo by then."
Claude smiled and looked back out over the city. It was morning, and the ion harvesters were nearing the end of their retraction cycles. What looked like wiry metal trees on the roofs of all the buildings in sight were folding in on themselves for protection against the planet's common barrages of high winds. They were the lifeblood of this world, but they were also frail enough to snap off at a moment's notice, and often they did just that.
The harvesters each cost somewhere near three and a half million credits, and while they needed to be extended during the nightly storms. Any other risks to them were to be strictly avoided. They justified their cost since a single week's worth of collecting could power an entire region for a month, but then they were too costly to have to keep replacing.
The excess charge was stored and converted into power cells used in everything from air filtration units to starships. While the corporations conducted a large amount of research on Minerva Prime, it was the harvesting of energy that justified nearly all of the interest in the planet.
Without the abundant ion storms, Minerva Prime was just an inhospitable bronze stone, no matter how hauntingly beautiful it could be at times.
The orange sun danced its way over the horizon, spraying its harsh, brilliant radiance across the skyline. The beams of morning light bounced endlessly off the reflective walls of towering structures throughout Cascade, giving much of the district at least a taste of what the upper floors were bathed in.
Morning here was different from Violet in many ways. Unlike Claude's home district, there was never an end or even a slowing of traffic in Cascade. People were apparently willing to pay exorbitant prices for their homes but seemed to never want to be in them.
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