Kim Robinson - New York 2140

“It’s always been that way.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. In fact I hate it.”

Gen nodded as she regarded Charlotte. She was on the watch for any signs of dissembling, because Charlotte had connections with the missing men in more ways than one, so there was reason to be attentive. And she was a woman of strong opinions. Gen was beginning to see why her youthful marriage might have failed: a financier and a social worker walk into a bar…

But in fact Gen saw no signs of dissembling. On the contrary, Charlotte seemed very open and frank. Although it was true that being forthcoming in one area could be used to disguise withholding in other areas. So she wasn’t sure yet.

“So you’d like to stop this bid on the building?”

“Hell yes I would. Like I just said, I don’t like what it means. And I like this place. I don’t want to move.”

“I think that will be the majority opinion,” Gen said reassuringly. Then she shifted gears fast, a habit of hers; pop a surprise and see if it caused a startle: “What about our super? Could he be involved in this?”

“In the disappearance?” Definitely surprised. “Why would he be?”

“I don’t know. But he has access to the building’s security systems, and the cameras went out right when they went missing. I don’t think that could be a coincidence. So there’s that. Then also, if this hostile takeover bid wanted inside help, they might offer some people here a better deal if they took over.”

Charlotte was shaking her head through most of what Gen had said. “Vlade is this building. I don’t think he would react well to anyone trying to fuck with it in any way.”

“Well, okay. But money can make people think they’re helping when they aren’t, know what I mean?”

“I do. But he would see anything like that as a bribe, I think, and then people would be lucky to get away without getting thrown in the canal. No, Vlade loves this place, I know that.”

“He’s been here a long time?”

“Yes. He came here about fifteen years ago, after some bad stuff happened.”

“Meaning trouble with the law?”

“No. He was married, and their child died in an accident, and after that the marriage fell apart, and that’s about when we hired him.”

“You were on the board even then?”

“Yes,” Charlotte replied heavily. “Even then.”

“So you don’t think he could be involved with any of this.”

“That’s right.”

Now they were both done eating, coffees emptied, and they knew the urns would be empty too. Never enough coffee in the Met. And Gen could tell she had managed to irritate Charlotte more than once. She had done it on purpose, but enough was enough. For now, anyway.

“Tell you what,” she said, “I’ll keep looking for these guys. As for the building, I’ll start coming to the member meetings, and I’ll talk to the people in the building I know, about holding on to what we’ve got.”

This came down to just a few next-door neighbors, but she hoped just saying it would pour some oil on the waters.

“Thanks,” Charlotte said. “There’ll always be meetings.”

“Mayday,” the Met said from Vlade’s wall monitor. He had chosen a woman’s voice for the building, and now he found himself sitting up in bed reaching for the light and then his clothes. “What’s up?” he asked. “Report.”

“Water in the sub-basement.”

“Shit.” He leaped up and threw on his Carhartts. “How much how fast, and where?”

“I have reported the first sensing of moisture. Speed of inflow not established. Room B201.”

“Okay, tell me the speed of inflow when you have one.”

“Will do.”

Vlade clumped downstairs to the sub-basement and the lights came on ahead of him as he moved. The sub-basement was not only below the waterline, it was below the rockline as well, as it had been cut into bedrock at the time of the building’s construction, in the first years of the twentieth century. Every part of the building but the tower had been replaced in 1999, when the foundation had been dug deeper still. No one then worried about waterproofing, and the bedrock had cracks in it, as all rock did. When the island had been dry land that hadn’t mattered, but now it did, as water from the canals seeped slowly but inexorably down cracks in the rock. The concrete cladding the walls of the sub-basement was therefore harder to seal than on the floors above, because you could get to the outsides of those higher parts of the wall, either by diving to them or by caissoning the canals. Access was all, and given the lack of access he could only seal the sub-basement on the inside surfaces of its walls. This was profoundly unsatisfactory, as it left the concrete of the walls and floor exposed to seep, and thus getting degraded in the usual ways: corrosion, melting, slumping, disintegration. But there was nothing to be done about it.

Because of this unsolvable problem he kept the sub-basement empty, its floor and walls entirely clear. Some people on the board complained that this was a waste of space, but he was adamant. He had to be able to see what was happening. It was one of the worst vulnerabilities in the whole building.

So when he hurried into room B201, he could see all of it immediately. A big bright space, looking wet everywhere because the lights reflected off the so-called diamond sheeting that covered every surface. It was actually a graphenated composite, but as it was transparent and shiny, Vlade like everyone else called it diamond. It was not quite as hard as diamond, but it was more flexible and could be applied as a spray. Really the new composites were simply wonderful when it came to strength, flexibility, weight, everything you wanted out of building materials. They made submarine living possible.

The floor was slightly knobbled to create better footing; the walls were smoother but brushed like brushed aluminum, precisely to reduce the glare of reflected light. What it meant was a glitter instead of a glare, a glitter as if everything were damp and sparkling with dew. It was enough to give him a little startle of dismay, even though it always looked this way.

That being the case, he had to search around to find the leak. The building had indeed reported the first sign of moisture; he only found it by deploying his humidity sensor wand. The damp spot was in the far corner, where the north wall, east wall, and floor met. Which was odd, as a point like that was precisely where the sheeting got sprayed thicker than usual. Still, this was where the wand was pinging. He sat down on the cool knobbled floor, brushed his hand over it. Yep, wet. He smelled the damp, got nothing. Took his flashlight from his tool belt and aimed the strongest beam at the corner. It took some moving of his head back and forth to find the right focus for his old eyes, but finally he spotted it: fracture. Microfracture.

But this made no sense. He whipped out his pocket lens, leaned over on his knees and held the flashlight at an angle, moved the lens in and out. Blurry big view of the blob of diamond spray that had congealed or dried or what-have-you in the corner. Fracture, yes. Welling water in the crack grew till the surface tension on it broke and it slid onto the floor, just as it would have at larger scales. But fuck if the hole didn’t look drilled.