Glass Sky by Niko Perren Read Free Book Online Page A

nanosparkle into the night air, dazzling the river of pedestrians with clouds of flickering stars. Jie took shallow breaths through his nostrils, trying to avoid the acrid smoke.
    A van darted out of the traffic, “Tian Jie” blinking behind the windshield’s grimy glass. Standing room only. With luck most of the passengers were heading to the train station and there wouldn’t be many stops. He shouldered his way inside and the doors squealed closed; they accelerated into traffic. The passengers ignored him, listening to music or watching movies on their omnis, as if each of them were traveling in a vehicle packed with warm mannequins. He clung onto the ceiling strap, steadying himself against the lurching.
    What do I know about Molari Industries? Will Molari reschedule if I miss the train? Maybe they’re testing my dependability.
    They traveled quickly, with few stops, and arrived at the massive bullet train terminal with ten minutes to spare. The uncorked passengers propelled Jie outside. Tonight’s crowds were even worse than usual, as if all of Beijing's 50 million people were pushing and shoving towards the bottleneck of the security gates.
    A gust of wind rolled waves of choking dust from the ruined Mongolian desert across the plaza, and the people around him transformed into faceless ghosts, mouths vanishing behind white masks, goggled eyes strange and lifeless. Shuffle forward. Wait. Shuffle forward. Jie pushed out an elbow to stop an elderly woman from worming ahead of him. She kicked him in the calf. Gāi sǐ dè lǎo tài tài. Finally, the gates. The wall clock showed two minutes to departure.
    The bullet was never late.
    Jie broke into a sprint, ignoring the protests of his long-neglected muscles. Up the stairs. To the access bridge stretching over the tracks. His heart chugged from the exertion. His lungs burned. A few exits away he could make out the last passengers boarding his train. He reached the escalator at a gallop and leaped down the steps two at a time, landing hard on his ankle. He stumbled, gasping, onto the platform. The train doors clapped shut in unison.
    On the empty platform a young Western tourist fought with a large backpack as a single door opened and shut, opened and shut, a toothless mouth chewing on her unwieldy pack. Jie staggered in behind her, knocking her backpack over, and learning some colorful new English in the process. The cabin attendants shook their heads at him.
    Jie leaned against a stranger’s back, gasping for breath. He slipped out his omni and read the consulting fee one more time.

Chapter 5
     
    EXCEPT FOR THE dust-free air and the skiff of snow on the ground Jie could have been anywhere in China. Urumchi shared the manic blandness common to all large Chinese cities: gleaming highrises, flashing billboards, the same chain stores selling the same goods to people in the same clothes. The mirrored windows at street level revealed nothing of the gray stone building above, but printed on the double doors in a neat Chinese font were the words ‹Molari Industries. Authorized visitors only.› The words were repeated in English.
    Jie sipped his tea and suppressed a yawn. He'd been up most of the night, studying in his bunk as 2000 kilometers of countryside flashed by. Then, just when he’d been ready to doze, the baby in the next cabin had started crying, an undulating wail that her parents had been powerless to silence. Jie had imagined gamescapes where he lobbed the infant to a dragon, but he’d suffered similar moments with Cheng. So he’d brought the parents green tea from the dining car.
    He drained his cup. Feeling optimistic after what he’d learned, he navigated the doorway weapons scan and identity verification, and strode into a gleaming marble lobby. An animatronic head and shoulders mounted on a pedestal between the elevator banks directed him to the fifteenth floor in a sultry female voice. When he exited the elevator, a wall-display pointed him down the