TED MAHSUN
The communal announcement from the Secular Authorities blared over the speakers and echoed between the buildings: “Strictly no littering at all times. Perpetrators can be charged with the maximum penalty of eternal exile to the penal levels.”
I never understood why the Secular Authorities took littering so seriously, especially when nobody had even so much as dropped a tissue in public in the last eighty years or so. Special recycling chutes were set up in every building and public space, and people knew to put them to proper use.
As usual, I tuned out the announcement and concentrated on calibrating windows. I couldn’t see inside of course, because from where I stood all I could see was the dark carbon shade of the circuit board that coated the reverse side of the windows up there on level twenty, but even through the blaring din of the announcement I could hear a rhythmic tapping focused on the center of the panel closest to me. Someone inside was trying to reach out to me.
I sighed, placed my tools on the platform, and wiped the grease off my hands on the cloth around my neck. I reached out to the small access node and touched my finger on its sensor panel. The panel lit green, indicating it was ready to receive data. Using my neural processor, I gave it the sudo command to open the window.
The window popped open with a metallic gasp, then slid up, revealing the figure of a man looking anxiously back at me. He looked to be in his fifties, garbed in a blue-striped long-sleeved shirt, a brown pair of slacks, and wore a locater/partnering band on the fourth finger of his left hand. The band’s blue light wasn’t blinking.
I pulled the goggles up from my eyes so that they rested on my forehead. Then I gripped the guard rail on the platform and balanced my weight with my arms. “Yes?” I said, in a not-too-friendly tone. I needed to get back to work and these windows weren’t going to recalibrate themselves.
The man looked behind him as if to make sure his room was truly empty of any other occupants, then peered out the window and took a look above and below him. Then he turned his attention back to me.
“Hey, miss,” he said. “You the window cleaner?”
I tried not to roll my eyes.
“Window programmer,” I said. “Yes, I am. How did you know I was here?”
“Oh, I switched the window view opacity to fifty percent so I could see what’s going on outside as well.”
“Well, it’s just me out here,” I said. “How can I help you, sir?”
“I, ah, I... can I ask you a question?” the man asked, rubbing his palms together.
“Sir, if you could just hurry it along...”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’m sorry. Look, a friend suggested I talk to you regarding the windows.”
And here it came.
“Would it be possible if you could pull some strings, push some buttons and give an upgrade on my view subscription? I’m a little tired of seeing the same old skyscrapers, the same old buildings. You know, something other than the Petronas Twin Towers, the Menara KL, the Dayabumi, the Maybank Tower. I need to see something new when I look out of this office while I work. Think you could do something?”
“You mean...” I paused a short moment so that he would have a chance to rethink what he had actually requested of me. “You want free extra views?”
“If... if that would be all right,” he stammered. “All right by you, I mean.”
“It’s not all right by me. It’s illegal.” I pulled the goggles back over my eyes. “Not too keen on having the Secular Authorities paying me a visit. Have a good day, sir.” I reached for the access node.
“No, wait. Wait!” the man pleaded. “I might have something to offer you in return! Don’t you want to know what I have?”
“Don’t think so, sir. I get paid well enough for this job. Enough that I am happy not to accept bribes.”
“Bribes? No, no, no. Who said anything about bribes? This is a gift...” He ran over to the desk in the middle of his office and swiped up a bright blue solidstate and waved it in my direction.
Even through the filtered lens of the goggles, I recognized the unique shade of blue. “Tickets to the Sky Dome,” I said.
“That’s right,” the man said. “Ringgit can’t buy everything. Only lottery winners get to view the sky.”
“How do you know I want to view the sky?” I asked.
“Everybody wants to view the sky. Everybody. Even window cleaners.”
“Programmers. Well, don’t you want to view the sky?”
“I’ve already been. Wife won the last round and we went to see it together. This round it was me who won.”
“Don’t you want to go again? Doesn’t your wife?”
The man cleared his throat and threw a quick glance at his locating/partnering band. “I, ah, I, well, I doubt she wants to again. I wouldn’t want to go to the Sky Dome alone. So you can have these tickets instead. Go ahead and bring along a loved one or something.”
I looked at the tickets. The date was for some time next month, the numbers flashed alluringly on the smooth blue surface. Lottery tickets were ridiculously ringgit-heavy to get ahold of. I’d always dreamed of viewing the sky from the Sky Dome, the only place in all the malls that was accessible for the public to enjoy the natural blueness of the actual sky.
Working as a window programmer who works on the side of skyscrapers meant that I never got to see anything other than other skyscrapers and of course that great climate controlling ceiling that covered the whole city, turning it into one mega city-spanning shopping mall which, in turn, was made by combining several other giant shopping malls. Always other buildings, never the real, actual sky.
“I couldn’t possibly,” I said.
The man shoved the blue wafer into my hand. “Sure you can. In return... well, my windows do need a subscription upgrade.” He winked.
×××
The next month I was scheduled to perform maintenance checks on the building with the windows where I had met the man who gave me the Sky Dome tickets. I reached the window where the man’s office was located. Sure enough, there came the tap-tapping to signal me to open it.
I thumbed the access panel and the window gasped open once more.
“So? How was the—”
I motioned him to be quiet. I sudoed a disable command to my internal communications networks so my superiors wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on our conversation.
“It’s okay to talk now,” I said.
“Sorry, forgot about your comms. Anyway, just wanted to ask you how the Sky Dome was. You went last week right? Who was your plus one?”
“I brought along my andromaid.”
“Your andromaid!” he said, throwing his arms in the air. “Aw! I told you to bring a loved one or something.”
“Yes, and I brought something.”
“Well, what did you think?”
“Think about what?”
“Think about what? The sky! What did you think about the sky!”
I didn’t know what to say, so I told him the truth. “It was a little underwhelming.”
“Underwhelming?” As I expected, he looked surprised, and even a little hurt, as if I had made a personal insult.
“I don’t understand how such a splendid thing like the sky itself could be underwhelming!”
“Was it even the real sky? It didn’t look real.”
“Didn’t look real? Of course it’s real. You were on the very top of all the malls combined, the very peak of the city! How much more real can the sky get at that level?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you’d take this personally.”
“Of course I’m taking this personally. Those were my tickets.”
“Which you gave in exchange for new window views. Which, let me remind you, are illegal by the way. If ever the Secular Authorities find out your window is tuned to display a view of the Merlion Park—”
“Yeah, about that...”
“—without the proper permit and subscription they’d... wait. What? I gave you what you wanted, didn’t I?”
“The new views you gave me,” the man said, “didn’t really captivate me as much as I thought they would.”
“Why? What’s wrong with them?”
“All those buildings, those vistas. I don’t know. They just look fake.”
I slammed my fist on the guard rail. “They don’t! They’re as real as they come. I programmed, modeled, textured, and shaded them myself! I can’t believe you’re saying they’re fake.”
“I can’t believe you said the sky was fake.”
“I said it looked fake.”
We stood there, half way up the building, me on my window programmer’s platform and him leaning out the window, glaring at each other. Eventually, he said, “Seems we’ve come to a stalemate.”
“Yes.” I sighed and shrugged. “Look, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”
“It’s okay. You really think the view of the sky in the Sky Dome looks fake? I mean, you’re in the window business. You’d know. You think the Secular Authorities could’ve faked the whole thing?”
I gave some thought to it. The technology was definitely there. They could certainly simulate a window to the sky with the same kind of technology that we placed on our skyscrapers. It would have cost billions just because of the size and engineering involved to create the multiple curved panels for the Sky Dome, but sure, it was possible. “I suppose they could.”
“Damn. How many more things do you think they’re hiding from us? Do you think the sky even exists?”
My palms were clammy with sweat from gripping the guard rail too tight. So tight, my knuckles had lost their color. “You’d better watch what you’re saying,” I said. “Those words are clearly approaching sedition if you ask me. We’re already in big enough trouble if they ever find out you have access to restricted, unapproved views. No need to add fuel to the fire!” I looked around. Nothing but the wind and other buildings and lots of windows up here. For now, at least.
“I suppose you’re right,” the man said. “Best you continue with your window work. Thanks for the... well, you know what.”
“Yes, and thank you for the tickets.”
×××
It was a few weeks later when the subject of simulating skies in windows came up again, though this time from a surprising source. The rest of the crew were already on duty and had left. I held back; not wanting to get stuck in the rush when everybody else was leaving at the same time.
I was at the digital Kanban screen noting what needed to be done for the day when I noticed the notification panel blink red. A new memo had come in. I swiped it open and read: “Anyone good at sky modeling? Report to R&D Unit 12 immediately.”
I scratched my head. Why would they want sky modelers? The R&D guys knew we just reused the shared assets if we needed a sky background. Most of the other window programmers just filled the background with more skyscrapers. To us lot, the skyscrapers are the sky.
I was curious about the memo though. I considered myself able to draw a cloud or two, and I often did in my spare time. I looked at all the tasks that needed to be done on the Kanban screen.
There were quite a lot.
I shrugged.
I suppose all those windows could wait a few more hours or so.
The elevator deposited me on the forty-fifth floor and I made my way down a stark white corridor lined with reinforced aluminum screens, which were at the moment set to opaque so that passersby would not be able to see what was going on inside the laboratories that occupied this floor. No one else was around, and the soundproofing must have been set to max, because all I could hear was the hum of the air-conditioning and my own controlled breathing.
The corridor took several turns as it followed the angles of the building. I kept on walking down the long corridor, hoping to see a sign or digital signal that would tell me where R&D Unit 12 was, but there were none. I passed several doors, but all of them were inaccessible, except for the last. The door lit green as I approached, and slid open. An andromaid, one of the newer models with a blank featureless globe upon its neck, stepped out. It stopped when it sensed me, but then quickly approached.
“Yes, are you lost?” the andromaid asked.
“I’m looking for R&D Unit 12,” I said.
“I see. This is regarding the memo. Follow me.”
The andromaid took me back through the door and I entered a large laboratory, filled with computers and instruments of all kinds, with monitors filled with streaming data covering all the walls. In the middle of the lab were tables with more instruments and miscellaneous electronics laid out on top. At the other end of the lab was a desk, stacked with strange slab-shaped items I couldn’t recognize. As I approached I eyed them carefully because on the thinner sides were printed certain topics that piqued my interest.
Topics like, “The Art of Design”, “Modeling 3D Architecture”, “The Beauty of Landscaping” and other related subjects.
Behind the desk sat a bald man, hunched over, with skin wrinkled like a dried orange. Colored almost like one too. He looked up and saw me looking at the pile of items I didn’t recognize.
“Ah, I see my books have gained your attention, kid,” the man said.
I tried to restrain myself from showing surprise. They certainly did not look like any books I knew. They looked too fragile to store any kind of information in them.
“She’s here regarding the memo,” the andromaid said.
“Of course she is,” the man snapped. “She wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t sent the memo. Wouldn’t even been able to pass elevator security protocols.”
“Yes, Dr. Munawar.” The andromaid’s globe for a head glowed pink, which slowly changed shade until it became red.
Dr. Munawar laughed. “You’re a sensitive little thing, aren’t you? Be off with you! Go do something useful for a change, rather than mope around every time I snark at you.”
“Yes, Dr. Munawar.” The andromaid slouched off, its globe now glowing positively crimson.
Once the andromaid had left the lab, Dr. Munawar turned his attention back to me. “No idea why they assigned one of those to my unit. Who the hell needs an andromaid that can have moods?” He shook his head.
I held out my hand. “Sir, hello. I’m—”
“Yes, yes, you’re here because you think you can model skies,” the man croaked. He stood up and walked around the desk toward me and wagged a finger. “Well, kid, I’ll be the judge of that.”
“I hope I can prove myself worthy of your standards, sir,” I said.
“Show me some samples,” Dr. Munawar said, pointing to an access node on one of the tables. I walked over and stamped my finger to the node. The monitors that lined the walls flashed, and the streams of data that had occupied them were replaced with my hours-long creative efforts at modeling realistic clouds in the sky. The fluffy digital clouds floated serenely against a brilliant cerulean sky. All of it of my making.
The man walked around the lab, hands behind his back. His eyes focused intently on the screens, studying my work, looking at every detail I had carved into those digital sculptures. After what seemed like forever, he shambled up to me and looked me in the eye. “Let me ask you something,” he said, slowly, as if he was choosing his words carefully. “You’ve never seen the actual sky, have you? I mean the real sky, with your own eyes. Not from pictures or videos or 3D recreations made by other people.”
“Of course I have,” I said. “I just went to the Sky Dome last week.”
The man’s eyes widened and he grinned from ear to ear. “Interesting that you mention the Sky Dome! But we shall get back to that. For now, let’s get to the matter at hand. You have never truly seen the sky.”
“I apologize sir, but I did just say—”
“Yes, yes, I heard you. You went to the Sky Dome and you thought you saw the sky. But of course you haven’t. Sometimes you sit in an enclosed space like this lab for so long, you tend to not notice the passage of time. I failed to realize how young you are. How young everybody else outside must be.” He sighed.
“So it’s true then, sir? The sky I saw at the Sky Dome was fake.”
“You had your suspicions, eh? Observant, aren’t you?”
“It’s because I work with windows, sir. I know what makes a good model and what doesn’t. And the clouds in the Sky Dome looked subpar at best.”
The man scoffed. “Indeed. Yes, that echoes the feedback we’ve been getting. And so we come to the problem that has brought you here. We’ve had an increasing number of people complaining that the sky in the Sky Dome doesn’t look real. Considering how difficult it is to get tickets, it’s understandable they’re upset.”
“Why didn’t you get some good modelers to do it before?” I asked. “Forgive me sir if I’m out of line, but you’re only starting to worry about authenticity now?”
Dr. Munawar gave a resigned sigh and smiled at me. “You poor kid,” he said. “Come on, let’s go for a ride.”
“May I ask where we’re going, sir? I do need to get back to my duties. I’ve got a lot of windows to calibrate today.”
“Oh, no need to worry about all that,” Dr. Munawar said as he walked toward the door. “As of this moment, you’ve been reassigned to R&D Unit 12. You report directly to me now.”
×××
Dr. Munawar called up a trishaw and we took the tubular transport to a familiar place.
“The Sky Dome,” I said, a bit flustered. “What are we doing here?”
“I’m going to show you something no one but a few select people have seen,” Dr. Munawar said. “Come on, we’ll go round the back. No need to go in through the front entrance. I hate it when the andromaid staff make a big deal when I show up.”
We walked around the circular building until we reached an inconspicuous door. Dr. Munawar palmed the old-fashioned scanner by the side and the door slid open.
When we entered we found ourselves in a hall filled with desks and empty shelves, caked with dust. The lights were not activated by our presence and Dr. Munawar actually had to announce the word ‘lights’ before they came on. Even then they flickered slowly to life, buzzing loudly as they did. At the far end were windows – the old kind, the ones made with that fragile material, glass – that looked out onto nothing because a metal curtain was pulled down to block the view.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Welcome to the old operations room of the Sky Dome. Before we had vat clones like you, before we had andromaids, everything had to be run manually and this was where it all happened. Of course, this was a very long time ago. Everything’s automated now.”
He led me to a corner of the hall where stairs led the way up. It felt weird at first climbing stairs that did not move, but it didn’t take long to get used to it.
“These stairs wind around the Sky Dome building right up to the top,” Dr. Munawar said. “There are about two hundred and seventy steps altogether. Are you up to the climb?”
“I think so,” I said. “But are you?”
“Don’t worry about me kid,” he replied. “I got these replaced years ago.” He tapped his legs and the metallic sound reverberated throughout the long stairway up.
Half an hour later we were at the top, and I was panting and heaving, my lungs scorched and tortured.
Dr. Munawar grinned. “Yes, it’s usually the most difficult on the first climb. You’ll get used to it in time. Here, drink some water.”
When my lungs calmed down, I started to look around me, and the first thing I noticed was how much junk and litter there was strewn about. Obviously the Secular Authorities hadn’t been up here in a while. If they had been they’d have thrown a fit. There was also something odd about the air. Didn’t the climate control work up here? It was musty and there was a faint hint of something left to rot for a long time.
Then I noticed the one big thing that my new boss had wanted me to see all along. It was hard to miss because it was the biggest thing up there, looming as it did over me like a dark ominous shadow. It was in the shape of an overturned bowl, and covering its surface were massive arrays of electronics and machines, protected by thick, strong grilles. A discernible hum emanated from the electronics, occasionally punctuated with a buzz, or a crackle or two.
Slowly it dawned on me what the giant apparatus in front of me was.
“Welcome to the reverse side of the Sky Dome!” Dr. Munawar cried, his arms raised dramatically. “Something I am proud to announce I invented and have maintained these past years.”
“The sky in the Sky Dome is simulated by all... this?” I waved toward the upside-down bowl.
Dr. Munawar laughed. “Yes! Look, I know they look massive in comparison to the window panes we now use to coat our buildings but this technology is close to being ninety years old now. It’s the predecessor to the modern window pane.
“Back then we didn’t even have proper 3D imaging panes. We had to simulate the sky using good old-fashioned techniques like parallax scrolling and transparent planes. Positively ancient compared to modern 3D modeling techniques.
“Unfortunately that meant the electronics required were too thick and unwieldy to enable us a proper depth of field realistic enough for people to actually believe that it was the real thing. It’s a wonder we ever made it all work with the curvature of a dome, of all things.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why go through all that effort just to show a simulated sky? Why didn’t you just show the real sky?”
“Look up,” Dr. Munawar said. “What do you see?”
“Nothing. It’s the ceiling,” I said. “It’s the ceiling of this level, but the bottom of the first floor of the next mall above us. You could have just built the Sky Dome on the top-most mall where they can see the sky.”
“Ah. Unfortunately, that’s not the case at all,” Dr. Munawar said, sighing. “Let me tell you a story. Long ago, several centuries ago now, there used to be a great city called Kuala Lumpur that existed under us. They produced more garbage than they could get rid of, and so before they were buried underneath it, they decided to shoot their garbage into outer space, despite the protestations of their neighbors. Meanwhile, space down on Earth was getting scarce, and so we built malls on top of malls on top of malls just to create more space for people to live and work in.
“Then, about a century later, the garbage began falling back to Earth, threatening to bury us underneath it again. This time it was worse because the garbage fell to Earth as fiery meteorites, posing considerable danger to our increasingly towering malls.
“It’s funny, because there’s this quote I like from an old book, long ago banned by the Secular Authorities of course. It goes like this: ‘He Who made the Earth a resting-place for you and the heavens your canopy...’. It implies the sky is a canopy that protects us down here on Earth, and yet now it is the heavens themselves that pose the danger.”
“Or to quote an old Malay proverb,” I said, “we depend on the fence, but it is the fence that ends up eating the grain.”
Dr. Munawar nodded. “You’re more knowledgeable than I thought. So anyway, the Secular Authorities decided to build a great roof that covered the whole area to protect the malls and that’s what you see above us right now. There’s no more mall above us. This is the very top. And all this junk lying about? That’s all garbage that fell from space before the roof was finished. You ever wondered why the Secular Authorities take littering extremely seriously? This is why.”
“So the real sky has been blocked out for almost a century?” I asked. “Has anyone ever seen the sky since?”
“Not as far as I know,” Dr. Munawar said. “I don’t think anyone’s gone to the other side in a long while.”
“People still longed to see the sky,” I said. “So you built the Sky Dome with the technology you had available. And given time, the people forgot that the sky wasn’t even real.”
Dr. Munawar nodded. “And in that time, the Secular Authorities learned that it was yet another weapon in their arsenal to control the masses. To control them by giving them another carrot to chase after.”
“I suppose people didn’t complain about the sky looking fake at the time because they knew the limitations of the technology then?”
“On the contrary, kid,” Dr. Munawar said. “Me and my team were congratulated for creating such a realistic-looking sky. We actually recorded three-dimensional footage of the real sky before it was ultimately closed off forever and we used that to build the display that runs over the Sky Dome.”
“You mean that’s what the real sky actually looks like?” I said. “But it looks so... so unimpressive.”
Dr. Munawar scoffed. “And therein lies the problem. You young kids are so desensitized to hyper-realistic imagery and visual stimulation that when you see the actual sky it looks plain and boring. Less than ordinary even. You need to see something flashy and bright.”
The realization dawned upon me like a falling brick. “So you need me to rebuild the sky for a new generation. Something that’s hyper-real. Something that’s more real than real because it’s what our generation is used to and what we have come to expect.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Munawar said. “I’ve resisted the calls to upgrade the sky footage on the Sky Dome for years but this year had the most complaints we’ve received so far. I was, let us say, compelled, to do something. And that something is getting you on board. It means losing what we have left of the real sky forever but that’s not what people want anymore. I suppose it’s time for me to let go.”
×××
I was having lunch in the plaza outside the Sky Dome, near the fountains which jetted classic plays, written by the twentieth century Malaysian playwright, Syed Alwi, in the form of spouting water.
The fountain was performing the second act of Alang Rentak Seribu, when I met him again.
“Hey, it’s the window cleaner! It’s so good to see you again. How are you doing?”
I looked up and saw the very same man who had stood at his window and asked me for illegal extra views. “Oh! What a pleasant surprise,” I said. And it was. “It’s window programmer by the way, though that’s not really what I do anymore.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I haven’t seen you at the windows in a while. What have you been up to?”
“I’ve been transferred elsewhere. Doing something much, much better now. And what about you? Did you just come out of the Sky Dome?”
The man smiled. “Yes, I did. A bit of a surprise that. I met someone new. And this time, she won the lottery.” He fingered his locater/partnering band. It was blinking blue this time.
“I’m so happy for you,” I said. “You must be the luckiest man around, being able to view the skies so many times. What are the chances of that happening, huh?”
“I know! It’s... well, I guess I’m just lucky.”
“So, what did you think of the sky this time?”
“Ah, about that. Remember our conversation last year, when you said it didn’t look real? I swear, they must have done something about it. I mean, I had no complaints, but it looks so much more real than ever before. I... I don’t know how to describe it but it just looks so damn realistic!”
I smiled. I couldn’t say anything of course. Couldn’t tell him it was me who modeled the new sky, rebuilt the arrays and the screens from scratch. The Secular Authorities had made sure I’d been sworn to secrecy.
“Yes, it is realistic, isn’t it?” I said.
He gave me a long, hard questioning look. Then he nodded. “Ah, I think I understand.” He winked and gave me a smile. “Good on you! Good on you!”
I was about to say something when I saw someone walking across the plaza toward us.
“Well, I’ve got to go,” he said. “I see my wife approaching. Enjoy the fountain play, my friend.” He waved a goodbye and I saw him embrace the newfound love of his life. They walked away and I never saw the man again.