Sky Towers

Hello – I am Pegasus. And welcome to Sky Towers, a release from the polluted world outside. I will be your virtual assistant during your stay here. Just ask and it is yours. Your wish is my command. You are among the first to inhabit the way to the future. You are registered as John and Emily Toliver. Your suite is located in the north tower. It is on the 423rd floor. Sit down. Take the tram. It will take you to the nearest elevator to your suite.

Sky Towers provides everything you need to live a normal life. Clean air, fresh water, abundant food. You have free access to gyms, pools, theaters, and museums. Dining is provided without charge. While you do have the option of spending a private day with your loved ones, we do encourage community activities daily. Space is filling fast. One day, we will reach a max capacity of 2.5 million people. A true city indoors. Enjoy your stay. And may generations after you call Sky Towers home!

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The energy wars of 2035 nearly destroyed the world. While new green fuel was being added to the market every month, the oil market was falling apart. This caused those who made their trillions of dollars in oil to retaliate. They were not ready to give up all that money to new fuels made by farmers.

While they were burning crops, the farmers were burning oil rigs. The thick black smoke filled the sky. The resulting toxic rain poisoned the water. The resulting loss of food crippled the world. Planet earth was no longer a safe place to live.

There were many plans put into action on how we could colonize a new planet. Mars was the best option. It was known from the beginning that it would take decades to terraform the planet. But while that was happening, domed cities were being built. Trips to the red planet were being made for those with deep pockets. For the rest of mankind, they were left on earth to die by the situation created by those that were now leaving.

While all of this was going on, they paid no attention to an up-and-coming inventor named Gabe Marshal. He was the creator of the reverse fuel cell engine or RFC.

A hydrogen fuel cell uses hydrogen and oxygen to create energy. The exhaust is simply water. Mr. Marshal designed an engine that uses the water from the fuel cell engine to create energy. The exhaust is hydrogen and oxygen. This is then pumped back into the hydrogen fuel cell. An inexhaustible form of energy was created.

It was Gabe that designed Sky Towers. 4 towers, each 510 stories tall with an additional 50 stories underground. This was enough space to house over 2,500,000 people. It had doctor offices, schools, colleges, entertainment, anything and everything that a large city would have. Complete indoor living, away from the pollution outside. Powered completely by the RFC, everything anyone could need was provided. Open not only to the rich, but to anyone who needed to escape what was going on outside.

Sky Towers was very impressive to look at. At its base, it was 10 stories high and nearly 1 square mile wide. 4 towers built at each corner were over 1 mile high. The original design allowed for the tenets to have outdoor space on the 11th floor, on top of the base. (That was before the sky continued to darken.) That’s what drew my great-great-grandfather to Sky Towers. 5 generations later and we are still here. I’m Danny Toliver. My wife is Erma. My children are Greg and Donna. We all believe that this is the most beautiful place in the world. Although, I must admit that it is the only place in the world we’ve ever seen. But why would we want to leave.

We live in Sky Towers West on the 400th floor. We barely ever leave the floor. Our kids go to school on the 400th floor. Both my wife and I work on the 400th floor (If you call that work). The best dining halls are on the 400th floor. We have excellent transportation from one side to the other and from tower to tower. All right here on the 400th floor.

It’s not just this floor that’s wonderful. It’s everything about this building. That’s why nobody has stepped a single foot outside in nearly 100 years. Over 50 years ago, all of the windows were blacked out and replaced with display screens. Nobody wanted to see what it really looked like outside. Now, if you want to see a sunny day, just ask Pegasus. Want to see a rainbow, ask Pegasus. Want to see a gentle rain, just ask Pegasus.

Just the other day, I wanted to visit my cousin. She lives in the eastside tower. The time that it would take to walk there was too much. I called out to Pegasus and a transport cart was ready to take me there in moments. Decades ago, I would have had to wait for a driver to come. After eliminating the need for a driver, things happen much quicker.

Our anniversary is May 12th. The kids were spending the night at a friend’s place. I wanted everything to be set up to have a candlelight dinner ready for my wife. I asked Pegasus, in moments it was delivered. I didn’t even ask for anything specific. Pegasus sent everything I needed for chicken cacciatore served on top of a bed of garlicy spaghetti. On the side, buttery garlic bread and a bottle of pinot noir. Desert was a smooth chocolate mousse topped with fresh strawberries. It was all thought of by Pegasus, our friend.

I didn’t even have to cook. Pegasus did it all. Pegasus always did it all. Pegasus even cleaned up afterwards. There were no leftovers to collect. Pegasus always gave the correct portions. He knew exactly how much both of us would eat. He even picked the background music that he knew we would love. With Pegasus, we didn’t have to do anything. He did it all. The only thing Pegasus didn’t do was kids’ homework. It took school very seriously.

Now, when you live in a building that does everything for you, you end up not knowing how to do anything for yourself. For example, just 5 days after our beautiful candlelight dinner, Gabe Marshal the 6th took a vacation day from work. The top floor was designed to mimic the tropical islands of the past. That is, before the smoke and smog turned the sky black. Such beautiful scenery is where most people went to unwind. The Marshal family have been responsible for critical maintenance of Pegasus key systems since Sky Towers was first built. There was only one control room for all 4 towers. Without a single incident in over 100 years, who would expect anything to go wrong. But something did go wrong.

It started the moment he left. His partner was Miles Gomer. Although he watched Gabe work for years, he never really touched the system. There wasn’t a whole lot to do anyway. Mile walked into the office, sat in the big chair, propped his feet on the control panel and fell fast asleep. He never realized that he accidentally knocked something loose. Whatever it was, it disabled Pegasus cooling system. After a day or 2, residents started to notice that Pegasus started to slow down. He didn’t respond as quickly. By day 5, he didn’t respond at all. The fire in the control room went completely unnoticed. Miles had left as soon as he smelled the smallest hint of smoke.

With Pegasus out of the picture, the elevators were not working. Just imagine being on the 510th floor and being forced to take the stairs down. Although it’s best to take the stairs in a fire, nobody knew that the building was on fire. Without Pegasus, the fire alarm system didn’t work. Nobody knew what the alarm sounded like anyway. It hasn’t been tested in several decades.

Panic started as the smoke began to pour from the ventilation system of all 4 towers. Nobody knew what to do. The vast majority of people didn’t even know how to exit the building. Thousands ran to the elevators that did not move. They had to search for the stairs. They were never used.

Jackson Mandel was about 85 years old. He was about 15 years old when the doors to the stairs were covered. “Who needs stairs. The elevators take us where we need to go much quicker.” That’s what the people were told. He was a great help in taking down the boards that covered the stairs. Now imagine tens of thousands of people running down stair wells. Imagine hundreds of thousands of people emerging from stair wells into a single space. Imagine nearly 3.5 million people trying to escape a building that nobody has ever seen the exit. Imagine the number of people being trampled while they try to escape the smoke that is filling the area.

Greg and Donna were hanging out with friends when everyone started to flee. We had no idea where they were. We could not leave without them. Their last known location was on the 503rd floor of the west tower. Good. Great. With Pegasus off-line, walking to another tower would take too much time. Still, for the first time ever, we started walking up a flight of stairs. I never imagined how hard this could be. Make that 103 flights of stairs.

Going up proved to be completely impossible. The harder we tried the more the crowd pushed us back down. To our great surprise, our children were coming down. It seemed like it took hours to get down. When we exited the stairwell, we were not on the ground level. We were on the 11th floor. People began to pour outside. This was another first. Sunlight hit our skin. Real sunlight. Not the artificial stuff. Our lungs filled with air. Fresh air. The sky was blue, not black. Bright blue. Beautiful. The landscape was green.

For generations we were told that the Earth was desolated, unlivable, and beyond repair. Now we learn that it’s beautiful, wonderful, inhabitable. But there was a problem. So many of us were stuck on this ledge 10 stories up. A large crowd was still pouring out. There was no way to get back inside the building to finish going down. We were trapped. And the building was still burning.