Skypiercers
By J. L. Young

The automatic shutters opened and let light into my small temporary apartment. The aromatic odor of golden milk found my nostrils and pulled me from my slumber. I rubbed the night’s final grip from my eyes and pulled myself from my bed.

A sweet voice filled the space around me, “Close the shutters and come back to bed. Work will be there tomorrow.”

“I can’t, Keira. We can’t. You know we have a deadline,” I replied as I made my way to the sink to wash my face.

“Saving humanity,” I can see her expressing with her hands despite my being hunched over at the sink. “For what we did to this planet, would it be ethical to save ourselves?”

“Keira, please!”

“I’m just saying.”

“How can we learn if we’re extinct?” I said as I toweled off my face, inserted the auto-toothbrush, and stepped into the dry-shower.

I covered my face and engaged the fine media sprayer. Millions of particulates bombarded my body and cleaned away the eschar and bacteria. I emerged renewed for the day’s work ahead. “I should be in tower 1095. The team will be finishing out levels ninety through ninety-three,” I said as I pulled my shoulders into a clean pair of coveralls

Keira kissed my cheek and “Work safe, my love.”

“You too.”

I collected the days worth of breather mask filters from the dispenser at the door. It allotted me four small old quarter-sized disks. I tucked them into my pack along with my ration of water and human-fuel.

After descending eight flights of stairs to the ground, I took my place in line for the airlock. Twenty minutes passed and I reached the front of the line. I affixed my mask and took a deep breath through the re-used filters. If I’m ever caught by an OSHA rep for not using new filters, I could be docked an hour’s pay.

Into the airlock and out into the world. Large skyscrapers filled the landscape of what used to be Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, as well as Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. Each kilometer x kilometer block housed 6,000 people.

Metal from the major cities is reused to build these awesome structures. All unused space was given to monuments, museums, and libraries so we don’t forget our past. These apartments will house nearly ten billion people when we’re done. But, the reality of it is, we have a deadline.

Due to the industrial contaminants in the air and soil, food could not be cultivated by traditional means. Therefore, it must be grown within the airtight compartments built into every structure while the remainder are constructed.

Six years into this endeavor and we’re nearing completion. Each of the great skypiercers will take their place in a massive armada to leave Earth behind to correct itself. Humans may never again witness the beauty of this once idyllic world.