SENALL

27 Dorie Senall woke, and after a quick glance, she knew where she was. The muted light of morning made the dome of New Venasaille seem translucent. In its way, it was a beautiful image, one she’d always loved, knowing there were few other views like it in the Union.

She was in a cold room she recognized at once. A famous Ribon landmark from before the Coral Moon disaster.

The Tempest Tower.

Well. Not exactly the Tempest Tower. A section of it had survived after the disaster, then engineers preserved it, and it was due to her efforts as president of New Venasaille that the council approved her idea to commemorate the loss of the original Venasaille. A visual reminder—a memorial—of what had come before the first dome and the new city.

But it never came to fruition. Funding dried up, excitement waned, and it was abandoned.

“Room” was an understatement. Tempest Tower boasted luxurious suites during its heyday. Now, under the dome, it was just a neglected eyesore. The Tower had once been over a hundred floors high. The disaster had damaged it badly, particularly the lower floors and foundation, so because dome construction required removal of most of it, the mostly undamaged upper section underwent a delicate removal process—nearly fifteen floors’ worth. The rest of the Tempest Tower was scrapped, a foundation rebuilt, and the intact floors set down, the process itself a marvelous technological achievement.

By the time work stopped on the project, most of the remaining suites remained uninhabitable and the building, and particularly the most damaged suites, were designated off-limits, surrounded by yellow flashpaper that scrolled Do Not Enter across its surface.

Dorie knew this suite due to its layout. After all, she had personally spearheaded the project and diligently inspected each suite.

She had lived here. Before the Ultras. Before Terl was copied, before he was lost at the Rock Dome, before Terl Plenko the Movement leader moved in to the suite with her own copy.

This suite was not safe. At least not enough for anyone to spend significant time inside. Flashpaper warning tape across the door most assuredly. It had no furniture. Dust coated most of the surfaces. The walls were gray with grime that was never cleaned up after the Coral Moon disaster. Too far down the project’s “to-do” list. She recognized the white couch—now gray—where her copy had proposed the idea of Plenko’s terrorist Movement to Jennifer Lisle. Blood spots lost in the neglect. There’d been a wall vid, but it was gone. Paintings and wall hangings gone. A few overturned chairs. A table still upright in a corner.

The entrance to the most sought-after amenity of the original Tempest Tower suites—a spacious balcony with state-of-the-art electromagnetic shielding—was marred by ruined French doors off its hinges, debris littering the floor. Beyond the doors was the damaged balcony; all that remained of it was a half-moon section just beyond the door for anyone crazy enough to test its limits.

She knew this suite.

The uppermost floor of Tempest Tower. The 100^th floor. The suite of one Dorie Senall, the copy who fell to her death rather than give up the whereabouts of her lover, the interstellar terrorist known as Terl Plenko.

Not my Plenko.

She stood and stared at the broken French doors. The missing balcony. She knew why the card had brought her here. She was connected to this suite. Through Terl Plenko. A place of beginnings and endings.

The end of her old life—a life of RuBy addiction—and the start of the new: leader of a new Venasaille. She’d had a taste of the old life recently, succumbing to the machinations of Tom Sakson, falling prey once again to the old drug. Back when she’d decided to get clean, however, she’d chosen this suite as a symbol of her new life.

She ditched the RuBy here.

Ditched it and, although she had never pretended to have forgotten where it was, hid the RuBy in the suite, on the remaining section of the balcony.

Dorie took several tentative steps toward the balcony. The RuBy would be out there. She doubted it had been disturbed all this time. She believed this was why her Tarot card had brought her to this spot. It was as if the card could sense the RuBy that still connected her to Ribon’s past, like a chain. Like RuBy-infused Tarot cards, silvery lines of force embedded in the card tuned to the DNA of its owner, as if it were a niche-holo tracker. Like the echoes of her copy’s voice from the infamous holo-recording captured by the NIO’s marble camera.

A few more steps and she was at the threshold, looking out at the remaining balcony. No electromagnetic shield would protect her if she walked out there.

I’m going to lower the shield.

She stepped outside. The good news was that the suite was no longer a hundred floors up. Fifteen floors now. It was still a long way down, and she inched closer to the edge of the half-moon platform, conscious of that fact. The balcony wall that used to give occupants a little protection had disappeared, except for a section about the width of a U-ONE vista screen. Dorie aimed for it, knowing her secret stash was there, crammed into the inset panel that used to house the sensor for the electromagnetic shield.

Jesus, be careful.

Finally, having reached the wall, she put her hand into the panel housing. Back, left, and up. Behind the touch plate itself, in a space she’d hollowed out herself by gutting the sensor’s dead and useless control mechanisms, she found the package. It was slippery to the touch, but it was just the covering she’d use to wrap the RuBy. She had only needed to keep the squares bundled together, not protect them from the elements. Not here under the dome, where the so-called weather conditions were programmed for comfort.

There you are. She withdrew the package, removed the protective layer, and the cinnamon smell was as strong as ever.

Okay, Dorie, you’re home.

Sort of. Take a moment and relax.

She left the partial balcony and reentered the suite. She took one square of Ruby—just one—and rolled it. The temptation was too strong. It’d gnawed at her the moment she woke in the suite. You never got the goddamn drug out of your system. You could only hope to dry up and stay away from it. She should stay away from it.

Getting Rubed out, she believed, might feed her need, but it might also give her fleeting clarity—amidst the pure rush of the high—suggesting a path forward from here. She believed she might experience an instant of foresight and a flashpaper-thin wisdom to guide her through the problems she faced ahead. With her eyes closed, she thought about the choice she couldn’t make, knowing Adi and others would be disappointed in her, but as much as she dwelled on the ramifications, the more she lost control of her will power.

She deserved this time.

This inevitable, insightful moment.

The release.

The high.

She placed the RuBy on her tongue, almost reverently, taking her time, letting it linger there. Clarity. Insight.

Spit it out.

Then she closed her mouth and waited. She felt the kick. Shudders rippled through her. She tensed, realized she shouldn’t be standing right now. The floor was still carpeted in places, and she lay down on a good-sized patch.

The echoes were strong and loud here in her suite. They weren’t insightful solutions.

You don’t know who I am, do you?

“Get out of my head, Dorie,” she mumbled.

This room wasn’t safe, but it didn’t matter. Here, the echoes intensified, as if the RuBy itself acted as a conduit to the past. She thought she might hear the gruff voice of Terl himself, her Plenko, wherever or whenever he was. She thought she might even hear the whispers of Dave, far away in the Ultra universe—if he’d even managed to cross over.

I want to share something with you.

“I don’t want it.”

I’m talking about the fucking Movement!

“That’s in the past. Plenko’s Movement fizzled. It didn’t hold.”

How would you like to be someone? Someone with a hand in shaping the future of sentient life?

They didn’t win. The Ultras didn’t win. We are who we are. We’re not copies. We’re not hybrids.

That’s some good shit.

Tell me about it.