A Chance Encounter

“Well, what do you think, guys?” Ken asked, turning his head to look over his shoulder. His daughters flanked him on either side. Alice walked happily behind, oohing and aahing at the buildings as they passed. May looked completely disinterested; her eyes were glazed over, turned idly to the street to watch car after car whizz past.

Her face was a mix of resignedness and the kind of fatigue that arises when someone deeply obsessed is forced to stop their work—a kind of mental exhaustion stemming, ironically, from a lack of satisfying exertion.

Regardless of either of their feelings, they were all here together.

Well, besides Irina, of course.

As he’d promised Alice, they were visiting Opal Tower, deep in the heart of the city. It was home to a number of restaurants, shops, and attractions, and was generally available to the public. However, Alice’s fascination with the building began and ended with the observatory on its top floor.

Honestly, he thanked the universe for turning him away from that grueling work—at least for the time being. The moment he’d left, a crushing weight had just lifted from his shoulders.

He hadn’t realized how much the work had been weighing on him, but… even just over the course of the weekend leading up to that Monday, he’d felt more and more like he needed to be there, working on it. Like the work couldn’t be finished otherwise.

“Dad, how tall is that building?” Alice asked him, running up to be at his side.

Ken glanced over his shoulder before responding. May was typing on her phone. Completely taken away from the situation.

He looked back at Alice, slowing down a bit. “I’m not too sure.” His gaze turned up to the top of it. “How tall do you think?”

“Hmm…” She also turned her eyes to the top of it, craning her neck as far back as it would go. “...A mile!”

Ken laughed and ruffled her hair. She giggled, patting it back into place as he retracted his hand. “Could be!”

“How tall d’you think it is, May?” Alice asked, turning to her sister, who had slowed her pace to match theirs.

For a minute, she didn’t respond. But eventually she looked up from her phone. “What?”

“How tall d’you think?” Alice asked again, pointing up at the tower.

“I dunno.” She shook her head, looking back down at her phone screen.

Ken could understand some frustration from her. But this level of aloofness…

Alice just blinked a couple times, confused. “What do you think, Dad?”

“Hmm… Looks like it’s about a hundred stories, so maybe… a thousand feet?”

“Wow,” Alice whispered. “Not even a mile?”

Ken couldn’t help but have a broad smile on his face when they approached the tower. It seemed to climb even higher above than it had before as they got closer. The entrance gleamed in the early afternoon light, lightening the shadows cast by the overhanging entranceway.

The lobby was relatively ornate, with floor-to-ceiling columns that looked to be propping up the entire rest of the building. Ken slowed to admire the architecture. It was quite the marvel, by his estimation—some feat of engineering, artistry, and artisanry, based on that he knew it to be built some 60 years prior.

But the girls had other plans: Alice tugged on his sleeve as May, nose buried in her phone, walked absentmindedly over to the elevators, hailing one via a button panel.

Ken relented after a moment more of admiring the state of the lobby. He followed Alice’s pulling, turning toward the elevators—

Standing with May was someone he recognized. A girl…

He stopped in his tracks, instinctually retreating behind a column framing the shallow hallway to the elevators. He pulled Alice by her hand to be behind it too, shushing her and nodding, and then praying she got his meaning.

It seemed she did, because for a time, at least, she was completely quiet, eyes flicking between him and her sister.

It was that same slender but powerful girl; slightly uncanny, as ever, but she seemed pleased to be speaking with May, much to his surprise. The hard, all-business demeanor she’d cultivated with him was gone now. Or perhaps, just buried beneath the surface.

Regardless of which was her true nature, he watched in secret. And though he couldn’t hear their conversation, it led to May stowing her phone in her pocket, and being truly engaged. He wondered if she’d orchestrated this meeting with her friend, that perhaps being the reason she was on her phone the whole day so far.

“Dad,” Alice finally said, tugging on his sleeve again. As much as he was loath to, he turned his eyes away from them, to Alice beneath him. He leaned his ear down to her mouth, prompting her to whisper into it. “What’s going on?” she asked, somewhere between a whisper and normal speech. “People are looking at us weird.”

He pursed his lips briefly and looked around. Sure enough, a handful of staff stared at them, curious about their decision to stand behind a random pillar, peering in from hiding at a pair of young girls. He internally smacked his forehead, realizing that Alice, who still held his sleeve, was the only reason he wasn’t regarded as a pervert in that moment.

He held up a finger to Alice, poking his head out from the corner again—

May and the other girl were gone from sight completely. His eyes opened wide, and he half dragged, half carried Alice out from behind the pillar. Luckily, she seemed to enjoy it enough, laughing as he pulled her around the bend into the elevator lobby.

He mashed the button, staring at the ever-increasing floor number for the elevator that he had to assume May and the strange girl had taken.

Finally, after a few moments of waiting, a different elevator dinged, having reached their floor. He clamored aboard with Alice in tow, holding the button to close the door behind him.

———

“Wait, I still… Why are you here, again?” May asked. She turned to the other person in the elevator with her: Bianca.

“I have some business to attend to in the observatory.” Bianca smiled at her, crossing hands clasped in front of her as she stood in wait.

“Well, whatever you say. It’s just a funny coincidence, meeting you here. That’s all.”

“Yes, well… What brought you here?”

“My little sister. She wanted to come spend the afternoon here. She… likes the observatory, I think.”

“Yes, right. That makes sense for a child her age.”

May nodded, but remained silent afterward.

As the remaining few floors moved past, the elevator slowed to a crawl, finally jerking to a halt at the topmost accessible floor: the observatory. The elevator doors opened to a flood of natural light. The space before them was completely open, every direction featuring full-height glass panels all the way around the building’s perimeter. A handful of coin-operated binoculars were fixed at points around the observatory, but most of it was just… open.

The warmth of the afternoon sun radiated into the observatory from all directions, reflected off of every building in the city to this point—or so it felt, anyway. A sea of glittering windows lit up with the white glow of the vaguely failing daylight like a sea of gemstones, extending as far as the eye could see in every direction.

“Even more beautiful than usual,” Bianca noted, stepping forward. “The higher humidity in the air today gives the light even more color.”

“Right…” May muttered, also stepping forward.

It was surprisingly empty, given the incredible view: two couples stood at opposite sides from each other, each pair leaning against one another as they looked down on the rest of the city, save for a couple buildings here and there that extended even higher.

“It reminds me of… an extirpation,” Bianca muttered, still smiling. “Doesn’t it?”

May’s eyes narrowed. “I guess… You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“Yes…” She stared wistfully at the sea of tiling color out the window.

“And what does that mean?”

“Well, you must admit they’re beautiful.”

“How would I know that?”

Bianca blinked a few times as she turned back to May. “Because you’ve seen one close up, haven’t you?”

May’s head was spinning. She racked her memory. Of course, she recalled the near-extirpation from a couple months prior.

But she’d never mentioned that to anyone after the rejection she’d suffered at her father’s words. Least of all, to Bianca, whom she’d always felt was… strange. And, though she trusted her more than most people, she was still sure: she’d never mentioned the incident to her.

Bianca’s question sobered her from the miasma that had been clouding her mind since being brought out of the house by her family. “I never told you about that,” she simply said.

“Didn’t you?” Bianca asked. “Why, just the other day you mentioned—in passing—your experience with them; that one in particular.”

“No… I don’t think I did.”

“You really don’t remember? I mean, it was just last week…”

“No, I… I’m sure…”

But Bianca’s expression, that smile, disarmingly yet unsettlingly naive in appearance, somehow wormed its way in-between her memories. She felt in her brain as though she recalled what Bianca was talking about, but her heart—her soul—knew that it wasn’t real.

But… maybe she had mentioned it?

“Bianca, what the hell is your deal?” May suddenly burst, throwing up her hands in front of her with a frustrated shrug. “I’ve kept coming to you because you know more than anyone else. But even as we’ve grown closer, you’ve never even explained why you know anything you know! You just… dodge and dodge and dodge and dodge every single question!”

Bianca’s smile faded from her face. But before she could respond, the elevator behind May dinged. It had reached the observatory. May turned, having forgotten her family was likely following her up.

And as the door opened, May heard no response from her companion. She turned to look over her shoulder.

Bianca had vanished.

“Bianca?” she asked, turning around fully, head and eyes looking for anywhere she could have gone.

“May!” her father’s voice exclaimed from behind her. “What’s going on with you? And where is that girl?”

May didn’t respond, her eyes instead finally settling on the answer: a door was hissing shut at the far side of the observatory. It made one of the few narrow gaps in the otherwise constant glass panes circling the room. That must have been where she went.

So without a word to her father, or her sister, May took off after her "acquaintance", barreling through the door and into the stairwell.