THE BRIGHT-BLUE SKY above the clouds is blinding. At least in the few milliseconds it takes for the photosensitive glass in my visor to react. I should be grateful, here in the heavens, to be free from the NBD, to not be hounded by the scum that scurries around in the crumbling city below.

Scuffing the floor with the soles of my boots, I follow Nikolaj across our lillipad—a gargantuan erection protruding from the old city below. Beneath us, its long thin stem reaches from the polluted ground to eight kilometers up into the atmosphere, then opens out into a circular podium nearly five kilometers wide. At its center, a huge lotus-flower-inspired building—the Pistil.

It’s hard not to admire the Pistil’s architectural magnificence. A metallic blossom fabricated of silvered glass, protecting me and my neighbors. The outer petals are formed of colossal solar panels. They fuel more than seventy percent of our needs: heating, lighting, and some hydroponics. But most of all, our work in the labs, think tanks, and schools.

A cold wind whips by and I shiver, hugging my body with padded arms. Enveloped in this hazmat pressure suit from head to toe, breathing apparatus pumping conveniently warmed air into my lungs, it’s toasty. But watching the gust gather debris and fling it across the lillipad makes my skin prickle.

“Stop lagging, Mitya. C’mon.” The voice crackles in my headset.

“I’m just enjoying the view. The lillipads are pretty, don’t you think?” I lie to him for the second time today. Perhaps I lie to him too much. Perhaps I lie to everyone too much.

Quit whining, zalupa. You’re such a kozel, Vedmak jibes.

“What are you, a youngling? It’s a HAP, Mitya, not a lillipad. A habitable aerial platform. You’re a scientist; act like one.” Nikolaj huffs and stomps ahead.

We pound across the sun-bleached tarmac, stepping over the fissures and cracks that seem to multiply every year. These structures were never meant for the purposes they now perform. Constant heating from the sun, poor protection from the thin ozone, and rapid cooling at night stresses the aging materials. The other lillipads come into view, glinting in the rays of the ever-climbing sun. At least the Pistils do. Just like my HAP, the others have gray tarmac surfaces. They were supposed to be stunning—sprawling gardens of green and brightly colored flowers. Nineteen lillipads spread out over more than 240 square kilometers.

As we approach the dock, the enormous helium-filled foil balloons sitting under Lillipad Three can be seen, sparkling an orangey, crinkled gold. This high up, the stem structures are flimsy, swaying from side to side. The balloons offer stability, and a safety feature—should a stem ever break, the lillipad won’t fall and crash into the slums below. An elegant solution borrowed from the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept, a space program designed in the early twenty-first century. A time when we looked to the stars and planets, and wondered. Perhaps we should have been paying more attention to what was going on here on Earth.

Nikolaj glares through his visor. At least I think he does, but the photosensitive glass has transformed to an inky black. “For the Leader’s sake, c’mon. I’m not getting any more demerit points on my license for being late because of you.” The voice in my headset is garbled with snapping and crackling, solar radiation interfering with the signal.

Nikolaj turns and tramps to the edge of the lillipad, peering over the side.

Push him off. No one will know. See if the boring kozel is late then.

It’s hard to remove the smirk from my face.

We wait at the dock for the cable car to come back from its first journey of the day. While I wish it would take hours, in almost no time it has already squealed and clanged into the station, the doors sliding back automatically, inviting us in. We used to have VTVs, vertical takeoff vehicles, but they weren’t considered fuel efficient. At least for civilians. Now only the Creed use them—our peacekeepers. So every day we risk our lives on the swaying cable car at the edge of my HAP, held on a twisted steel rope by a single arm.

Peering down between the three-inch gap that separates the platform from the car, it’s hard not to wonder what lies below the cloud line. What are the strange little Robusts doing down there—scurrying around in the dirt? Probably fighting or thieving, or pretending they’re like us. Despite their inferior brains and physical stature, they still manage to do their best to emulate Graciles. Dodgy surgeries yielding crappy modifications. Still, Robusts do one thing well—narcotics.

My stomach knots. Dammit. Need some DBS—dvoyuridnyy brat smert’, “cousin of death.” Though Evgeniy, my dealer, calls it krokodil. He says the skin of the Robusts who use it, due to their inferior genetics, becomes scaly and putrid. For me, it’s something to shut Vedmak up for a while.

Patting my chest pocket, I can feel one capsule left through my thick gloves. I’ll be able to take it when I’m safe in the lab, but I need to take a trip to see Evgeniy.

You won’t silence me forever. Can’t outrun your shadow, little boy. Vedmak’s tone is low and menacing.

Nikolaj shoves his palm between my shoulder blades. I lurch forward, falling over the gap into the empty cable car.

“Dammit, Nikolaj.”

“Get a move on, Mitya. Bljyat'. You’re always in a trance. Snap out of it. The Leader is making inspections this week; it could be our lab next, and I want to impress him.” Nikolaj’s expression is hidden from me, but it’s a good bet he’s glowering.

I straighten my suit, stand as far away from the door as possible, and hold the handrail. My brother presses the button to close the door, then taps his finger on his leg impatiently as the cable car lifts away from the platform. As it sways in the thin atmosphere, we don’t speak. Conversation has become harder and harder between us.

He’s your brother, isn’t he? Spit something from your lips.

With my head lowered, I whisper into my helmet. “He’s a neo-brother, Vedmak. We came from the same genetic batch and were incubated in the same neo-womb, but that’s it.”

Vedmak laughs. Just grow some yaichki and talk to him. Talk, or kill him. Actually, just kill him. I like that choice.

“What do I ask him?”

Perhaps how it comes to be that you puppets do the work of a man who lives in his own palace, with private security, yet you have no idea why. Little Gracile puppets. Strutting around like a bunch of brain-dead peacocks. Do you even know what the other peacocks are doing up here? How their work is even related to your own pathetic little project? You’re such a wretched little kozel, even for a Gracile.

“I don’t know,” I whisper as harshly as possible. “We just do as we’re commanded. It’s served us well. We’re alive because of the Leader.”

Hah. Afraid to ask him? Just ask him, little peacock. Ask him. Ask.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?” Nikolaj is turned toward me.

A cold sweat breaks across my brow. My stomach aches. “Ever ... ever wonder what the other labs are doing? I mean, they keep our work pretty separate. I wonder how it all fits together.”

Nikolaj grunts. “Why would you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Wonder? It’s the Leader’s instruction. We don’t need to know the greater plan. We get paid well, our mods are discounted, and we’re on a fast track to be on the council when we reach the designated age, rather than be recycled.”

“You mean Ax’d.” The thought makes my stomach hurt even more.

His helmet shakes, his index finger wagging. “I mean recycled, for the good of our people. Living beyond a certain age is just detrimental to our society and resources. Unless your wisdom and experience are great enough to lead the upcoming generations. And ours will be. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

“Sure, I know. Just, with resources limited, don’t you ever wonder why we put so much effort into our appearance and these experiments, but not much else?”

“Nope. And neither should you. Just be grateful. You could be living in the filth of the old city below, walking around in a pool of bacteria.”

Of course I’m glad not to be trapped down in old Norilsk. A city at the edge of the world, dilapidated and broken even before the NBD. Grown and cultivated in crime and violence.

That was no answer. He twirls his tongue as the cow twirls its tail.

Damn, I wish he’d shut up. Need my DBS.

I nod at Nikolaj and peer out of the square glass window of the cable car at the sky. Sandwiched between cirrocumulus and cirrus, our city in the clouds is surreal. Nineteen sparkling lillipads arranged in a spiral, Lillipad One at the center, larger and brighter than the rest. Yet something is wrong ...

A boom. In the distance. Deep and reverberating. What the hell? A second boom, this time louder. The cable car swings in the aftershock. Gripping the rail, I hold my breath and peer out at smoke—a cloud of black ash billowing from a Pistil in the distance.