1. SKYLINE

Cass is late.

The alarm droned, piercing in monotone bursts, growing in intensity with each second that Cass K ignored it. She rolled over, holding the pillow tight over her head, so as that it covered her ears, and she screamed face down into her comfy new form-folding mattress. She could have sworn its form started shifting at the point she was yelling into it, because the force of her discomfort was just that intense.

But the droning went on, elevating in pitch and becoming ever so much more annoying. Defeated, she finally stood up, and stormed over to the manual clock, and bashed it with a downward thud of her fist.

Well it works, she considered, having gotten out of bed. That was why she bought the damned thing after all.

She winced at the time, which was nine thirty in the morning, and groaned. "Why did I set it so early?" She stormed over to the kitchen sink, and splashed water on her face, then stood at the edge of the sink and asked, "Why did I set it so late!? I have to get to Skyline in…" she held up her left hand, and projected the time out of her holo-implant, instead of relying on that so antiquated of technologies: the alarm clock.

The time projected nine thirty two, and she slapped herself out of spite. Of course the alarm clock is right. I set it, after all.

Cass splashed another couple rounds of water over her face, and then ran back to her bed, which also doubled as her dresser. Rummaging through the mess of sheets and comforter, she dug out a ratty grey tank top, and acid washed black denims with ripped knees that she couldn't remember whether she had bought them that way or not. 

Running to the door she waved her hands frantically at the empty coat rack, and then promptly scooped her windbreaker off of the ground, where she always managed to put it. She slipped out the door, and then slipped back in to grab her boots.

"What a fail," she said out loud, as she activated EYE-ris; the eye implant that lets users access virt's AR networks from the comfort of their left -- or sometimes right -- field of vision.

Storming down the hall to the elevator, Cass arranged for 'the fastest damned jet bike in the city' (her words in the search terms) to pick her up for a rideshare to Skyline. 

Predictably, she arrived to Skyline, LATE. Despite that she hadn't planned ahead, and arranged the rideshare at the last minute, she blamed the jet bike driver who insisted she hang on tighter, for falsely responding to her request when trying to hail 'the fastest damned jet bike in the city.'

"The fastest damned jet bike in the city," Cass grumbled, "my capital A, a*s." Trudging down the Skyline, cutting through the foot traffic of the main thoroughfare, she stopped short of approaching city hall entirely. Opening EYE-ris' telescopic vision enhancer, Cass scanned over a crowd gathered at the steps of city hall. She the moved her line of sight up the steps to the empty podium at the top, and exhaled with relief, "I'm not too late. It hasn't started."

"Get out of the way!" a screeching voice jolted her out of sorts. The woman, a wide and tall woman who likely had strong Nord genes in her Sol-heritage shoved past. "Get back to the Underlow where you people belong!" The shrill woman yelled back as she moved along.

Enraged, Cass quickly dug into her backdoor tool kit. "Be seeing you, Nora Strøm!"

Surprised at the awareness of her identity, Nora Strøm turned back on her heels and met Cass with at first a confused gaze, followed by a very angry glare. And then, Nora began walking back toward Cass.

"Uhoh…" Cass bolted through the crowd, trying to slip through the busy Skyliners whose numerous trips away from their office to get more fancy coffee, mattered more than anyone else's pointless sufferings. It wasn't hard for her to sneak around, because she was rather skinny and not particularly tall, and before long she had made it to the front steps of the viewing deck tower. Turning back, she saw Nora Strøm was somehow still in tow, and she burst through the sliding front doors to the tower.

Cass ran up to the elevator, looked at the summoning bell which indicated it was on the tenth floor and moving up, and pressed the button in several impatient clicks. She looked back and Nora Strøm was right behind her. S**t, she said internally, while quickly scanning Nora Strøm's… well, scanning her everything. She smirked, devilishly devious at what she found that would help her get out of this situation.

"Well, little street urchin," the woman rolled up her sleeves, revealing oddly masculine forearms. Nora Strøm stopped just short of Cass, towering in front of her; the biproduct of near impossible combination of Nordic genes, muscle stimulation therapy, and good old fashioned strength training, and grabbed Cass by her windbreaker collar.

"Be seeing you, Nora Strøm," Cass repeated, and Nora Strøm's face softened from furious bright red, to a calm pale that put even Cass to shame. Cass smirked, reaching above at the blond women's hair, weaved up in a bun, and pulled the singular pin that kept it all together. 

Nora Strøm's heavy hair flopped down, bouncing with naturally thick and strong locks, to rival the strongness of the woman whose head they were falling from. Nora Strøm fought to hide a smirk, and the elevator door dinged open. She heaved forward, lifting Cass off of her feet, and through the entry portal of the elevator, pressing her against the back wall of the carriage.

"DESTINATION," a robotic voice talked through a speaker.

"The top," Cass replied, and was in turn replied by an affirmative chime. Cass looked at Nora Strøm, parting her lips slightly, and with pleading eyes, "Show me what a bad girl I've been." Then the elevator doors slid shut.

At the top, Cass parted ways with Nora Strøm and immediately pulled a cig stick out, and ignited it. She smiled and looked at the time again, and her smile promptly dropped off her face. "D****t!"

She ran to the edge of the viewing deck, and stood beside an old man looking through analog binoculars. Sheesh, she thought, as she used EYE-ris to zoom into city hall with its impressive fractal white arches, and zoomed even further to the front steps, where the ceremony was taking place.

Cass sighed. Noticing that the mayor was just pinning a badge to the first CCG graduate -- a blue furred Kaval who looked to be uncomfortably hot in full uniform. The Kaval received the badge, and waved to an audience of onlookers, before moving aside to the right of the steps.

"That's my grandson," the old man spoke up.

Cass turned her attention to the man, who had an odd tint of orange skin, and long pointed ears. She chuckled and looked back down at the ceremony. "You're a neo-human, and you're telling me your grandson is kavalli?"

"Well," the man snickered with a disgruntled, low rasp. "He's adopted."

"Cool." Cass really didn't care, so she didn't say anything much after that.

However as more and more graduates accepted their badges, Cass felt more and more tense. She was panicking at the tension, but trying to hide it -- not from the old man, particularly, but from the universe. With each passing moment, her breaths grew deeper, more struggled, and irregular. Not now, Cass argued with herself. Of course now, genius, when else?

"Its okay girl," the grumpy voice of the old man butt in.

"What?" Cass looked over at him again, irritated.

"Look at it this way kiddo," the old neo-human started. "We've got all of this space between us and them. It's just you and me up here. I won't tell anyone you're here, as long as you keep that I'm here between you and me as well."

"Geez," Cass wiped her teary eyelids. "Can't believe this is how I'm meeting Old Spence." She turned her attention back to the podium where the mayor was greeting a girl of about Cass' age, with a similarly Toran background. The girl also had similarly short hair. And a similar face. In fact, they were so similar that if it weren't for the fact that Cass wasn't exactly a healthy weight, and this other girl weren't in peak athletic shape. If it weren't for Cass' malnourished skin, and this other girl's healthy glow. If Cass took care of herself more, ate somewhat close to a regular diet, and engaged in physical activity, the two would have been completely identical.

The mayor shook her hand, and placed the barge on her uniform. Cass heaved an uncontrollable sob, and began crying, despite herself. She slunk down to the edge of the viewing deck, and rested her cheek on both hands while she sobbed into then. 

Taken off guard, Old Spence looked back and forth between the girl beside him, and the one in his binoculars. "Oh," he consoled, and patted her back briefly, before recoiling. "Sorry, if you want to be left alone…."

"No," Cass cried in a drawn out exhale. "Tell me about your family?" Her voice was muffled in the sleeve of her windbreaker.

"Okay," Old Spence replied. "But only if you tell me about yours."

Reviews

[Wathanya.5KY3]

This seems to be an early draft; I saw quite a few typos and tiny mistakes, but I am not going to point all of them out. Story-wise, it's a good beginning of the next part of a story. I can pinpoint the time this story is happening from the CCG ceremony Erk attended, and it feels special. :D

The only issue (I guess) I noticed was how Nora Strøm is always called by her full name. I don't think it's that big of a problem; it is just different from how Cass K is only referred to as "Cass" and Nathaniel Spence is referred to as Old Spence.

Either way, I look forward to hearing about Cass' family history, which she almost spilled back when she was high on Maelstrom.