《Project Babylon, or: The Curious Case of Tower City》 01 - Ticket to Tower City, Please days are pages are universes the sky runs black ascend babylon the final test days are pages are- Emily¡¯s car almost swerved off the road before she snapped out of her daydream and back to reality. She had only had a glimpse of it for a moment from atop a hill before the interstate dipped back into the next valley, but that was enough for the voice to briefly return. Emily didn¡¯t believe that it was in an attempt to do her harm and make her lose control of the car, it was more likely just a case of unfortunate timing. That, and perhaps the entity calling her was getting impatient. She had dragged her feet. Her first dream involving the voice had happened months ago. Before she could think too deeply about it, the road rose. As Emily approached the crest of the next hill, she slowed down until she parked her rental Honda Accord by the roadside. With the lack of traffic around her destination she could¡¯ve stopped it dead in the fast lane and would¡¯ve been fine, but habits were powerful beasts. What Emily braced for as Tower City came into view didn¡¯t happen. Her head was silent apart from the thoughts swirling around in it even as she looked directly at the distant buildings that weren¡¯t quite on the horizon anymore but also still too far for her to be able to make out details. After nothing happened for another few minutes Emily continued her journey to the station. She wasn¡¯t going to find answers to her dreams by sitting still until the dawn of the next millennium. The outer Tower City station was a utilitarian block of bricks. It was a construction rather unceremoniously put in place in 1987, after the government faced enough lawsuits of people determined to get into the quarantine zone that it became too annoying to resist any longer. After The Loss had happened, nothing dangerous had come out of the city, and this additional train station - which had the added benefit of not being connected to any actual railway network - hadn¡¯t changed that, so now, a decade later, it was still in operation. Emily was almost disappointed by how mundane it felt when she pulled up to it. After the warning signs that told visitors to stay away and that there was so much to live for that she¡¯d passed by and ignored completely she had expected something more dramatic. But no. Other than the parking lot which she left the car in, and the building itself, there was only the train waiting by the fenced-in platform on the other side. Emily¡¯s rental was the only vehicle in the entire parking lot. The inside of the station kept what the outside promised. Tiled floor, flickering neon tubes on the ceiling, and a few vending machines for snacks. The ensemble was rounded off by a plain clock on the wall ticking the minutes away. A faint mixed smell of cleaning agent and dust hung in the air. There was one person other than Emily there, a young man barely beyond his teenage years and with an expression telling anybody who cared to look that he was bored out of his mind manning the ticket desk. At the same time he also didn¡¯t seem particularly interested in starting the inevitable conversation with Emily now that she was here. She tried positivity. ¡°Hey there, hello!¡± ¡°Name?¡± The flatness of his answer and voice alike were all she needed to hear to know she¡¯d failed. ¡°Why are you asking?¡± He rolled his eyes. ¡°For the obituary.¡± ¡°Excuse me?¡± ¡°You want to buy a ticket to Tower City.¡± It wasn¡¯t really a question, but Emily answered it anyway. ¡°Yes.¡± She was suddenly aware of how much of an unpleasant echo the barren walls of the barely decorated station building caused. ¡°Then I need your name. For the ticket.¡± Right. ¡°Of course, I¡¯m sorry. Emily. Emily Wright.¡± He muttered her name as he typed it into his computer. Then came the part Emily had dreaded. ¡°I am legally obligated to inform you that the Tower City Railway Service is automated and neither it nor its parent company take any responsibility for what happens to its passengers once they embark at the central station.¡± ¡°Can we skip this part? I looked it up before, you know.¡± The man shook his head, and continued his spiel. ¡°I am legally obligated.¡± He pointed to the CCTV camera mounted in a corner of the room and pointed square at where he stood. ¡°That means I have to inform you as a future passenger of the TCRS that you will carry any and all consequences of the journey yourself, and your death or untimely disappearance cannot be used to hold me or the company I represent accountable, or for you or your next of kin or anybody who has a personal or professional relationship with you to press charges or demand reparations of any kind. Your ticket covers maintenance or operating costs of the TCRS, but you or your next of kin or legal representative will be billed for any damage you may cause to the train. Do you understand and agree with these conditions?¡± It wasn¡¯t as if Emily hadn¡¯t read through those same legal disclaimers before she¡¯d made her way here, and if she had to be honest she had made that text sound more interesting in her head. She nodded. ¡°Yes.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Excellent. So a one-way ticket to Tower City?¡± ¡°No. Return, please.¡± A sigh. ¡°Then I am also legally obligated to inform you that nobody who has purchased a ticket and boarded the train to Tower City has ever returned, alive or otherwise. Regardless of the ticket purchased.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t you supposed to upsell me, if anything? I feel like you¡¯re trying to talk yourself out of profit here.¡± A shrug. ¡°In a moment,¡± he just said without the slightest hint of sarcasm. ¡°Right now I need you to confirm that you understand what I said before.¡± Now he actually started to sound a bit sincere for the first time, as he leaned forward and stared at her with pale eyes. ¡°Nobody omes back. Except for the safety inspector, and those vanished as well until we started cuffing them to their seats while keeping the key here. You¡¯ll get your ticket, I can¡¯t and won¡¯t stop you, but I need you to tell me that you actually understand this. Got it?¡± Emily listened to and heard only the last two words of what he said. ¡°What? Yes, of course!¡± He stared at her for a moment. Then he shrugged. ¡°So one return trip to and from Tower City?¡± She confirmed, and resisted a flinch as he named the price. She just paid the full sum in cash. ¡°Would you like travel insurance?¡± ¡°Is this the part where you try and upsell me?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Save your breath. When does the train depart?¡± ¡°Noon.¡± He pointed at the clock. It was 11:34 a.m.. She nodded. That wasn¡¯t too much time to kill in the grand scheme of things. Before she could turn and head to the platform, he called her back. ¡°Two more things. The train remains at the central station for two hours, and then returns automatically. If you aren¡¯t on the train when it comes back here, we won¡¯t file a missing person report. It will be noted that you are in Tower City, and if you do not return within six months your possessions will be split up according to either your will or¡­ what¡¯d they call it¡­ whatever they do if you haven¡¯t made your last will yet.¡± Emily fidgeted with the ticket in her hands. ¡°So I¡¯ll be declared dead?¡± ¡°Officially? No. Practically, yes.¡± She had to process that for a while. ¡°Ma¡¯am?¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°You should get on the train if you want to head to Tower City today.¡± It was 11:49 a.m.. Emily decided that she didn¡¯t like the way time passed in this place. The train was electric. That was unusual, but also unremarkable. Had Emily been interested in trains she may have noticed that it was in fact a unique piece of railway equipment. What Emily noticed right away was that it looked too clean on the inside. The sunlight falling in through the large windows illuminated some specks of dust whirling about, but other than that it was dead silent. The entire train was empty. It was a single compartment with row after row of seats on both sides. They were all empty. Emily was alone. Every step she did was loud as thunder to her, and she even heard her own breath with obnoxious volume. Unfortunately holding her breath also didn¡¯t help because eventually she had to gasp for air again, which was even louder. Anybody who witnessed her walk down the length of the train back to front and back again would have had to think she had lost her mind. But that was the whole point. Emily was alone. She almost lost her balance when the train started moving. And now, finally, there was more noise. The entire vehicle came to life at once, and now there was the rumbling of wheels on rails, the rush of air from the air conditioning units, and a deep hum from what was presumably some kind of engine. The air smelled like dust. Through all of this noise Emily felt even smaller, more alone. She stood in the middle of the compartment for a moment longer before she gingerly sat down in one of the seats, and placed her backpack next to her. Emily froze. When had she grabbed her backpack? She couldn¡¯t remember taking it out of the car. Nor did she remember carrying it around¡­ but then again, if she hadn¡¯t had it, where would she have taken her wallet from to pay for the ticket earlier? Her backpack, that¡¯s where she always kept it. She forced herself to take a deep breath. The day was far from over, she couldn¡¯t afford to lose her mind here. It was still too early for that. Another minute passed, or maybe ten. Time was a bit flexible aboard the train. Nobody was around to keep score either. Then the lights flickered for a moment. There were no lights turned on inside the train, it was the middle of the day. The sun. It was the sun that had briefly flickered as if it was low on batteries. When Emily looked out the window to check, everything was still normal. But now she wasn¡¯t passing empty wilderness. Now she was being carried past abandoned buildings that looked as if they¡¯d never been abandoned. From here she could even convince herself that it was all a big laugh. She was in Tower City, and clearly she hadn¡¯t vanished yet. Chances were there was no mystery to solve. Maybe the city had just turned into an amusement park, and whoever went there went quiet as part of the marketing. With some luck she¡¯d get to see a reenactment of the victory parade when the eponymous tower had- universes the sky runs black ascend babylon the final test days are pages are universes the sky runs- Emily looked outside again to drown out the voice. Now that she paid attention it was obvious that this wasn''t an amusement park. There were too many empty cars stopped haphazardly in the streets for that. She wasn''t sure why it was that detail out of all of the ones that were out of place that broke through her last-minute denial, but much like the Loss itself she wasn''t really here to get an answer to that. She just wanted to take a look. The train stopped at its terminus after rolling into the central station, thanks to the roof of which Emily''s surroundings were plunged into relative darkness as the sun was blotted out. Emily was alone, she was in Tower City, and the doors all opened with a soft hiss. In two hours the train would return to safety. 02 - Do Not Exit Emily didn¡¯t move. She didn¡¯t know what she had expected to see out there. A gruesome display of something too awful to describe in words, perhaps. Maybe monsters that were just waiting to jump her the moment the train stopped. Instead, Tower City¡¯s central station was devoid of any movement, and its platforms looked as if they¡¯d last cleaned the day before, not almost three decades ago. A freight train sat some distance away, equally untouched by time and instead looking like it was ready to head out on its next cargo run any minute now. That was never going to happen. All railway connections and all roads had been demolished in the initial panic, so now the only point of access was the lone line in service of feeding those who were curious enough into the city. Emily still didn¡¯t move. Her heart was racing, and so was her mind. To not get out was also an option. She was free to remain seated for two hours, and then let herself be carried back to safety. After all, what she saw here was what she was most likely going to see wherever she checked. Empty spaces strangely untouched by the passage of years. On top of that, nothing compelled her to go out and explore. There was no voice now, and no dreamlike visions of a tempting paradise, there was just an empty train station. Her fingernails dug into the palms of her hand and left tiny red marks. Her curiosity was sated, right? The mystery of Tower City, she¡¯d got her answer. It was empty. The End. There may be some grand solution that would restore everything back to normal if somebody only turned over every last pebble, but Emily Wright wasn¡¯t the kind of person who would turn into the heroine this city needed while most likely just pointlessly risking her life in the process. She knew that much about herself. No, she was going to stay right here on the train. It would bring her back to the outer station, she¡¯d return the rental car at the dealership, and then settle into a mundane life unplagued by thoughts about Tower City. As a bonus she¡¯d have the opportunity to brag about being the first and only person to feel the call here and return to tell the tale! Emily stepped off the train and set foot on the platform. Fine, she didn¡¯t feel like staying seated for two hours. It was more than enough time for her to stretch her legs and confirm to herself that the station building was as empty as the platform. Maybe even the street outside, but certainly no further than that. The air carried the nostalgic scent of solitary summers. It was a combination that was hard to describe, heated stones mixed with dry grass and memories long forgotten. All of it was distant, and in this dead and empty and quiet place just felt utterly wrong. She was so lost in the sensations both mundane and bizarre to her that she didn¡¯t even notice how her legs carried her to the doors of the station building. By the time Emily was in the present again she¡¯d already crossed. All the windows were the same. Frosted glass that broke the sharpness of daylight before it could touch the interior hall and converted it into a matted cover of light that robbed the room of both clear shadow and light. Only a vague approximation of brightness remained through which Emily trudged. The air was clean, it felt dusty though. There was nothing here either, only empty benches, empty concession stands that felt too clinical in a train station like this, and a train schedule frozen on meaningless arrivals and departures dated decades in the past. Emily walked past a bench with a cup of coffee sitting on it, and was halfway to the front doors when she stopped dead in her tracks. She already knew what she was going to see when she turned her head. She just really didn¡¯t want to confront it. The door was right there. If she walked through it she¡¯d get to see the empty streets and ¡ª in the distance. Emily shook her head no. Her hand snaked its way into her backpack and drew a card. ¡°Huh.¡± The sound of her momentary confusion carried far and bounced off the walls to make its way back to her. She wasn¡¯t sure what to make of what she¡¯d drawn. Not that she¡¯d done it in the proper way anyway, but she found that no matter the exact ritual she usually got at least something useful out of it. Something that helped her clear her mind. This time the only sense she got was that whatever she chose, she wasn¡¯t about to find closure. Whatever she did now, this wasn¡¯t the end of her search. Which, given that she had only two hours to satisfy her increasingly worrying curiosity, didn¡¯t reassure her at all. That was why, after Emily slipped Death back into her other cards, she turned back. It had cooled down slightly in the minutes she spent deliberating, but there was no doubt. Steam rose in lazy curls from the cup of coffee. The walls had eyes. The walls had eyes. Emily couldn¡¯t see them, but she knew it deep down. Somebody was watching her? Cameras? No. The pursuer would have to be around personally. But why would they leave something so obviously visible for her to find? Emily found herself jumping and turning around without even thinking. It had to be a distraction, it couldn¡¯t be anything else. But the hall behind her was just as empty as everything else had been. Nobody waited to jump her. She was facing the front entrance of the station hall again, so she could only hear the quiet sounds of the door leading out to the platform moving. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Curls of her hair flew around her head as she looked over her shoulder, only to witness the first movement other than rising steam here that hadn¡¯t been caused by herself. The door she¡¯d heard fell back to its closed position with elegant evenness, and as it shut entirely it did so with a quiet clicking noise that rivaled the volume of an exploding sun. Emily ran. Not towards the platforms, no. Even without seeing who - or what had passed her by, the distant presence made her listen to her oldest instinct. It was this instinct that screamed at her to run away. Her walking boots, and they were good boots, solid work, why was she thinking about those anyway, right, they hammered on the floor of the station hall with more noise than she¡¯d dared to make at all until now. As Emily ran up against the front doors she was worried for a moment they may be locked, that she may be stuck in here with a monster or murderer or person or- Emily should have been worried about the doors not being unlocked. They swung wide open as she crashed into them shoulder first. Pure sunlight pierced into the station hall for the first time in a long time, and Emily herself found herself unable to stop or find her footing before she crashed into the stairs leading down from the station building to the main road in front of. She hit the steps, covered her head with her arms, and kept rolling. It was likely she stopped long before the pain faded, but she didn¡¯t dare look to find out. When she felt sure that she wasn¡¯t falling anymore, Emily opened her eyes. She saw darkness. As her view wasn¡¯t interesting she took the opportunity to let out a pained groan. At least it didn¡¯t feel like any bones were broken. That would¡¯ve been a sorry end to her exploration. A few wiggles back and forth confirmed that nothing major was injured, although she already knew she was going to feel the bruises of her short flight for a while to come. Her motions also confirmed what her nose had already picked up. She was face-down on the ground, and looking at the tarmac from right up close. It smelled like road, looked like road, and she didn¡¯t feel like tasting it to make absolutely sure that it was road. ¡°No. Stop.¡± She hissed out those words to herself. This wasn¡¯t the time to make light of the situation. While she was busy joking to herself, she could still feel how her heart hammered. Much like her boots had earlier. If she stayed here she was an easy target. For what? Whatever it had been that had shared the station building with her without her even consciously noticing, she just knew it was dangerous. What Emily didn¡¯t know, couldn¡¯t know, - and she was acutely aware of her inability to know this - was whether or not that one entity had been alone. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, wincing as her beaten arms protested and the shifting weight of her backpack made her entire body cry out in pain. At least then, and after the pain subsided, she could take in her situation and confirm to herself that what had been true at the beginning was still true now after all. Emily was alone. She clenched one fist, held it for a moment, then forced herself to relax. The loneliness was more layered now. Because it wasn¡¯t entirely true anymore. She wasn¡¯t alone in Tower City. Something or someone was here. Which in turn was the reason why her present state of being alone was a comfort. For as long as she was alone like this, she could push away thoughts about what to do once she ended up in confrontation. That confrontation wasn¡¯t going to happen, either, Emily decided. She stood up. The road was empty. No car wrecks, no traces of disaster, and obviously no traffic. There was nothing keeping her here. So the course was clear to her. She walked back up the stairs, far slower than she¡¯d fallen down them, and re-entered the station hall. It was quiet, it was empty, and as the double doors of the entrance fell shut, it was once again a realm of half-light. Emily wished she had a weapon on her. Not to use it, she barely would¡¯ve known how probably, but just for the feeling of safety. She felt herself slow down as the door to the platform approached. With a trembling hand she pushed it open. The platform was empty. There was no eerie presence, either. The familiarity of the sunlight and the empty view in front of her felt so alien now. At least her train was still there. Everything could still be okay. But the reassuring sight also made something dawn on Emily. It wasn¡¯t something she could put into words, though. Not yet. The moment she could put her dawning realization into words was the moment when the doors to the train slammed shut in front of her after she hesitated for a moment too long. She hesitated for a moment too long because something made alarms go off in her head. So the doors slammed shut before she could enter. And in that moment, followed by the view of the train slowly pulling out of the station again, made her finally understand. She was too stunned to try and somehow hold on to the outside of the train, which may have been her last chance of ever leaving Tower City. Because now she understood that whatever had distracted and frightened her so had no interest in keeping her in the city. It had wanted to get out. 03 - Project Babylon Neil found himself both impressed and confused as the train returned to the outer station. He¡¯d told the latest passenger, what was her name, ah, Wright, Emily Wright, about the dangers, yes. But he hadn¡¯t told her about the emergency releases. The ones that would send the train back ahead of time. Nobody had ever used it anyway, so now that the train returned ahead of schedule it seemed like she¡¯d found it herself. He smiled. While learning the job, it had been imperative to distance himself from the customers. They didn¡¯t return, his manager had told him, so it was pointless to try and get attached to any of them. Neil pretended to learn this lesson, even as his manager bought their ticket. But every now and then he still failed. Like today, when passenger Wright had shown up. He¡¯d noticed that there was something important about her, even though he did his best to just do his job. Which had resulted in him forgetting some very important information. Luckily it didn¡¯t seem like any harm had come out of that, and his intuition had been right. Wright was the first to come back, she was important. Neil found himself standing on the platform as the train came to a stop. Not like he needed to service anybody else, a single customer these days was already above average, and the train only left once per day. How strange though, the lights inside the train car were off. There was no real protocol for returning passengers, so Neil just straightened his work uniform and stood at what he imagined was attention while he waited for the train¡¯s doors to open. The seconds stretched like old chewing gum, which to him felt like the unpleasant sensation of being drunk. In retrospect this came across as a warning to heed. But in the present it was nothing except confusing to him, so he just shuddered and waited for the moment to pass. When the doors opened, it was dark on the inside. No, that wasn¡¯t it. There was nothing on the inside. The inside of the train car was a blank, featureless void, and Neil¡¯s mind almost fell apart as it tried to comprehend the pure absence of anything that its sensory organs fed it a lack of information about. In the end he decided that what he saw was darkness, only less so. That was it, the inside of the train car was perfect darkness. Had somebody asked, Neil would have confidently told them in this moment that he looked through the doors and from that could tell that the train car didn¡¯t have an inside. Just the darkness, but not even that really. Neil took half a step backwards. Nothing slowly oozed out, towards him and into the rest of the world. The first fact everybody learned about Tower City was that it wasn¡¯t one. Or at least, not initially. In the beginning stood a colossal construction site designed to create the ultimate skyscraper. Initially planned to reach a full mile in height, actual engineers had managed to convince politicians and planners to settle for a kilometer instead, which took years off the estimated construction time and added them right back to the lifespan of people who actually understood the limitations of terrestrial construction materials. Some people still suggested that perhaps an attempt to reach the Moon first was more feasible, but even if it was it would¡¯ve reeked of surrender to switch competitions while already in the middle of the first. People suggesting a space race therefore were often laughed out of conference rooms. As was the case so often with grand projects set in the middle of nowhere, logistics were an issue. Wyoming was ideal because while there was a lot of space available it didn¡¯t offer any distractions other than a slumbering supervolcano in the opposite corner of the state. It also didn¡¯t offer much entertainment. Or accommodation for workers. As there was a strict schedule to keep, accommodation was built. Followed by entertainment. Workers who stayed on-site for long periods of time had their families join them. By the time Project Babylon was halfway complete, Tower City was officially named and sported a healthy population. That was in 1967. The Tower was finished on July 20th, 1969. The media was exhilarated. Politicians from all over the world arrived by July 22nd 1969. Pictures were taken, the loss conceded while the USA graciously broadcast their victory to the entire world that could tune in to their television sets. By the middle of August interest slowly waned. There was a sense of normalcy coming to Tower City, at the heart of which proudly stood the spire that had started it all. Everything was fine on September 24th, 1969. Everybody was gone on September 25th, 1969. Emily stared at her cards. Were they broken? Something was up. Which was the opposite of her problem, for everything she drew was upside down. She thought about guidance to where to go, all cards came out reversed. She shuffled and flipped cards and went through every trick she knew to randomize what she could, but no matter what she did, every time she drew honestly she drew nothing but reversed cards. The Hanged Man showed up often, which she appreciated to a degree. ¡°No sacrificing myself to the Greater Good, got it,¡± she caught herself mumbling to nobody in particular. She had one card left to complete the reading, and when she drew it she froze. The one card to come out right side up loomed not far from the station as well. The Tower. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Enough was enough, these past few hours were already not coming back and now spending more time trying to figure out something with a deck this uncooperative was only going to waste more. She shoved her cards back in her backpack. Then she sat down. There was no way she was going to leave the station building for now. Tomorrow the next train would arrive. Emily didn¡¯t intend to miss it. Nor did she feel like stepping out into the street again. Something might wait for her there. Plus, here she had food. There was plenty left after all, in the backrooms of concession stands. A lot of it was packed in tin cans that dated back to the late ¡®60s. Not much of a surprise, and neither was the fact that it was still edible. She also did a good job at ignoring the fresh fruit that also looked untouched. It remained untouched, because Emily stuck to the cans she could have some rational trust in. The canned food was cold, bland, and not particularly mood-lifting in its cold state, but it was at least possible they just remained preserved the regular way, right? Day turned to night, Emily found an acceptably comfortable sleeping spot on a bench, and as night turned today the universe turned a page. A new one awaited as Emily awoke. She found herself feeling optimistic. Not much longer now until she had a way out. Something caught her eye and occupied her mind for a moment. The cup of coffee was still where she¡¯d found it, but it was cold now. When she¡¯d first seen it she had assumed that it was fresh, and used it as a warning. But now that she thought about it, an unseen something making a cup of coffee and then just leaving it didn¡¯t make sense. Not to mention, the fresh food she had found in storage that at this point had to be almost thirty years old was still in perfect condition. Emily pushed all these thoughts away. It didn¡¯t matter, she was on her way out of this place. She drank another can of cold soup and got out to the platforms to wait until the train was there. The train didn¡¯t come. Of course there weren¡¯t going to be trains every day, she thought to herself. But as she looked to the shapeless area at the horizon that completely eluded her mind¡¯s ability to make sense of it, she was filled with the growing feeling that no train was going to come ever again. After an amount of time had passed that sufficed to lengthen the shadows from the passage of the sun across the cloudless sky, Emily tore her gaze away from the swirl of absolute nothingness and headed back inside. The migraine that set in over the course of the next hour prevented her from doing anything else on that day. Eventually she fell asleep. Day turned to night turned to day. Another page was turned. Emily awoke on day three. She had canned soup, then headed out to the platforms. One look towards the horizon showed her that the ungraspable void had expanded slightly. She made a mental note to never look that way again, and once she was back inside she decided to head out the front door. After the distant void and the confusing lighting conditions in here, she needed something to distract herself with. Better yet. It was time for her to find a way out of this situation. The street outside was as empty as it had been two days ago. Other than the complete absence of motion, it looked as ordinary as a major street could. As Emily walked down the stairs towards the street level she could feel sudden goosebumps on her arms and a shudder running down her back. There was nothing here, she just had to be safe. Her boots set down on the pavement. Now she was fully exposed, and the stairs meant she had no easy way to get back to safety. There wasn¡¯t a cloud in the sky, and so the sun¡¯s harsh light hit her and everything around her unfiltered, but the bright light only served to deepen the shadows that existed, and turned doorways and windows into rectangular cut-outs of void. Strangely, smells one would expect from heated stones and roads were completely absent today. Every step thundered in her ears as she crossed the abandoned street. She half expected to see a doppelganger of hers step out of a building on the other side. Of course nobody came, but it didn¡¯t stop her from scanning every window she saw for movement that just didn¡¯t happen. She found some solace in a less wide open alleyway between the office blocks. Finally she had shade. Emily leaned against a wall once it occurred to her that she didn¡¯t have a goal. Ambling about aimlessly was a sure way to eventually find something she didn¡¯t want to find and be unprepared to deal with it. What were the destinations she knew in this city? Pushing a certain something all the way to the back of her mind, there wasn¡¯t much. From her cursory research before making her way here, she remembered the vague direction to a hospital. There was also a hotel, which was probably closer. That would also make for a more comfortable base of operations. She could always get any supplies she needed in exchange for not spending more time than absolutely necessary in the abandoned hospital of an empty city. Once she exited the alleyway on the opposite side, the aptly named Peak View Hotel was already insight. And unfortunately for Emily, so was its namesake. Babylon Tower didn¡¯t feature on the skyline. By its very nature it dominated, even completely overshadowed any skyline of any city it would be placed within. The base alone took up what would otherwise have been multiple city blocks. Foundations below that clasped into bedrock, invisible from the surface. Both were more than necessary. A building, that was the stipulation. Creating a pole one kilometer tall wouldn¡¯t have done it. All the way, until it reached the kilometer above ground level, the building required an interior and floors that one could access. From its base, the Tower first narrowed slowly, but close to the top there was a ring-shaped section enlarged and fortified. This also took the view of the peak away from anybody who stood underneath, but this laboratory space had been granted in exchange for generous financial backing for the entire project. Emily knew some of this, but at this point in time she didn¡¯t care. Her eyes were wide open as she stared up past Project Babylon, into where the sky should have been. Her brain refused to process the signals the eyes sent it, because they just didn¡¯t make any sense at all. Her hands grasped a nearby streetlight for support, which was good, because that was the moment that reality fully snapped, wiping out any sense of gravity along with it.