#dxmd

The city emerged from the khaki haze of the desert like a mirage, its still-unfinished towers wavering and dissolving in shimmers of heat before snapping into solidity again in pallid splendor. As they drew nearer and Malik throttled back, tier after sinuous tier emerged from the sands at the towers’ bases, an incongruous confection of white trimmed in pale tan and living green. The gathering dusk shaded the lower levels as the sun gilded the towers in a riot of rose and gold.

“‘Start a huge, foolish project…’” Malik murmured.

Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Brecht? Doesn’t sound like him—not that I’d know,” he amended hastily.

“Rumi, actually.”

“Hmm. Hope this huge, foolish project goes better than Útulek.” Other than a thin ribbon of highway paralleling their course, there was no sign of any other works of man. Just rippled dunes stitched with sinuous lines of scrubby bushes, traces of occasional watercourses plunging from the low, rocky crags in the distance.

“Me too.” She thumbed a button and dropped into her radio cadence. “Rabi’ah Tower, this is Rheinflücht Five-One-Seven-One-Romeo, three kay north-northwest at eight, inbound for landing with two sierra.”

Jensen winced at her pronunciation. “That poor umlaut had a family, you know.” He wondered how Wörthmüller was doing, back in his psych ward. Hopefully the teddies were looking out for him.

“Hey, it’s a manufacturer they won’t see a lot of here. I gotta keep it quiet, or people will recognize the custom work. Which we stole from the richest man on the planet, remember.”

The air traffic controller cut off Jensen’s response, that he remembered the whole affair vividly, on account of almost dying face-down in a stream and then realizing how bad he had it for her.

“Rheinflücht Seven-One-Romeo, this is Rabi’ah Tower. Squawk eighteen-hundred and ident.” Jensen had no idea what an Omani accent sounded like, but surely not this—it was closer to Brooklyn.

Malik tapped at a console. “Squawk eighteen-hundred, Seven-One-Romeo.”

“Seven-One-Romeo, radar contact, fly heading one-eighty, descend and maintain two kay until level with the field. Come in heading ninety at two-fifty, VFR to pad seven. We’ll light it up.”

“Heading one-eighty at two thousand, come ninety with the field on the left wing, two-fifty and VFR to pad seven, squawk on the pad confirmed. You do turn-down service, too?” She banked the Merlin slightly. On the false-vision screen, a few pixels in the distance flickered an inviting teal.

“All part of the Santeau experience, Seven-One-Romeo. Welcome to Rabi’ah.”

“Show-offs,” Malik said, clicking off the radio. “Can’t blame them, though. Transponders for every pad is crazy overkill for a field this quiet, but if Brown ever finishes the place up, they’ll want it for sure. And it makes my life easy.”

She brought them past the city’s sprawling limits and banked again. The mass of gleaming towers resolved into a collection of massive bowls like terraced craters, or amphitheaters, each unevenly centered on a skeletal armature and studded around the rim with the stubby teeth of the unfinished towers. They were highest around the central bowl, lowest around the ones at the edges, and one machine sketched pale white lines on a level patch of bare sand. The floor of the bowls had been cut—grown?—into meandering avenues that split fractally like watercourses as they filtered back among the buildings. Few vehicles moved on the broad boulevards, but they were limned in shadows in which specks of humanity teemed and swarmed. “Looks like people are mostly walking.”

“There’s a transit system, too, I saw. Maglev subway. When the city gets as big as NYC, maybe they’ll actually need it. Hey, look at that.” He pointed at the side of the wraparound cockpit screen, towards a pylon jutting from an array of reflective panels just outside the city. “Never seen one of those before.”

“Me neither—read about them, though. Solar collector, right? I guess this is the place for it. You could even use sand instead of molten salt for the thermal fluid.”

“Cool idea. Wonder how it’s working for them.”

“Guess we’ll see.” Their vector toward the teal-bordered pad was gentler than Malik’s usual plummet, but she took it fast, and the seat compressed under his ass when the engines flared and they leveled out. “Pretty low approach. Guess they don’t mind a little noise.”

“Or the soundproofing in the towers is good.” They dropped, spun, and kissed the pad so lightly Jensen wasn’t sure they were down until the engines died. “Smooth as always.”

“Flatterer.” She smiled and gestured at the panoramic screen. “Well, welcome to Oman!”

The city emerged from the khaki haze of the desert like a mirage, its still-unfinished towers wavering and dissolving in shimmers of heat before snapping into solidity again in pallid splendor. As they drew nearer and Malik throttled back, tier after sinuous tier emerged from the sands at the towers’ bases, an incongruous confection of white trimmed in pale tan and living green. The gathering dusk shaded the lower levels as the sun gilded the towers in a riot of rose and gold.

“‘Start a huge, foolish project…’” Malik murmured.

Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Brecht? Doesn’t sound like him—not that I’d know,” he amended hastily.

“Rumi, actually.”

“Hmm. Hope this huge, foolish project goes better than Útulek.” Other than a thin ribbon of highway paralleling their course, there was no sign of any other works of man. Just rippled dunes stitched with sinuous lines of scrubby bushes, traces of occasional watercourses plunging from the low, rocky crags in the distance.

“Me too.” She thumbed a button and dropped into her radio cadence. “Rabi’ah Tower, this is Rheinflücht Five-One-Seven-One-Romeo, three kay north-northwest at eight, inbound for landing with two sierra.”

Jensen winced at her pronunciation. “That poor umlaut had a family, you know.” He wondered how Wörthmüller was doing, back in his psych ward. Hopefully the teddies were looking out for him.

“Hey, it’s a manufacturer they won’t see a lot of here. I gotta keep it quiet, or people will recognize the custom work. Which we stole from the richest man on the planet, remember.”

The air traffic controller cut off Jensen’s response, that he remembered the whole affair vividly, on account of almost dying face-down in a stream and then realizing how bad he had it for her. “Rheinflücht Seven-One-Romeo, this is Rabi’ah Tower. Squawk eighteen-hundred and ident.” Jensen had no idea what an Omani accent sounded like, but surely not this—it was closer to Brooklyn.

Malik tapped at a console. “Squawk eighteen-hundred, Rheinflücht Seven-One-Romeo.”

“Rheinflücht Seven-One-Romeo, radar contact, fly heading one-eighty, descend and maintain two kay until level with the field. Come in heading ninety at two-fifty, VFR to pad seven. We’ll light it up.”

“Heading one-eighty at two thousand, come ninety with the field on the left wing, two-fifty and VFR to pad seven, squawk on the pad confirmed. You do turn-down service, too?” She banked the Merlin slightly. On the false-vision screen, a few pixels in the distance flickered an inviting teal.

“All part of the Santeau experience, Seven-One-Romeo. Welcome to Rabi’ah.”

“Show-offs,” Malik said, clicking off the radio. “Can’t blame them, though. Transponders for every pad is crazy overkill for a field this quiet, but if Brown ever finishes the place up, they’ll want it for sure. And it makes my life easy.”

She brought them past the city’s sprawling limits and banked again. The mass of gleaming towers resolved into a collection of massive bowls like terraced craters, or amphitheaters, each unevenly centered on a skeletal armature and studded around the rim with the stubby teeth of the unfinished towers. They were highest around the central bowl, lowest around the ones at the edges, and one machine sketched pale white lines on a level patch of bare sand. The floor of the bowls had been cut—grown?—into meandering avenues that split fractally like watercourses as they filtered back among the buildings. Few vehicles moved on the broad boulevards, but they were limned in shadows in which specks of humanity teemed and swarmed. “Looks like people are mostly walking.”

“There’s a transit system, too, I saw. Maglev subway. When the city gets as big as NYC, maybe they’ll actually need it. Hey, look at that.” He pointed at the side of the wraparound cockpit screen, towards a pylon jutting from an array of reflective panels just outside the city. “Never seen one of those before.”

“Me neither—read about them, though. Solar collector, right? This sure is the place for it. You could even use sand instead of molten salt for the thermal fluid.”

“Cool idea. Wonder how it’s working for them.”

“Guess we’ll see.” Their vector toward the teal-bordered pad was gentler than Malik’s usual plummet, but she took it fast, and the seat compressed under his ass when the engines flared and they leveled out. “Pretty low approach. Guess they don’t mind a little noise.”

“Or the soundproofing in the towers is good.” They dropped, spun, and kissed the pad so lightly Jensen wasn’t sure they were down until the engines died. “Smooth as always.”

“Flatterer.” She smiled and gestured at the panoramic screen. “Well, welcome to Oman!”