I came to the tower and unlocked the thick metal doors that led to the rooftop stairwell, then unlatched the silver mesh behind them. There was enough shifter in my blood that my skin tingled as I touched it, but it wasn’t as deadly to me as it would have been to a full-blood. I slipped through the mesh and ran up the old concrete stairs, breathing air that was thick with disuse and age. Visitors wanting to see the ancient solar technology did so from the special observation platform that had been built to one side of the tower rather than accessing the panels through the tower itself, simply because the old tower was considered too dangerous. For the last couple of years there’d been talk of tearing it down before it actually fell, but, so far, nothing had actually happened. I hoped it never did. I wasn’t entirely sure what I would do if it was knocked down and I was left with only the decaying generators to power my underground systems.

We reached the metal exit plate at the top of the stairs. It was also silver, but it was so scarred with heat and blast damage that it no longer looked it. I drew back the bolts and pushed the plate open.

The children flung themselves into the glorious sunset, and that alone told me there was nothing dangerous nearby. But there was no shaking the years of training, even though the need for such measures had long since passed. I drew in a deep breath and sorted through the various scents, looking for anything unusual or out of place. There was nothing. As I climbed out of the stairwell, a slight breeze tugged at my short hair, and I looked up to see the dome’s panels had fissured yet again. It was an odd fact that this section of dome failed regularly. It was almost as if the old tower wanted to feel the wind and the rain on its fading bones. It just might get that wish tonight, because the heaviness of the clouds so tinted by the sun’s last dance of the day suggested it wasn’t going to be a good night to be out on the streets.

Not that there was ever a good night to be out on them.

I zipped up my jacket and walked through the banks of solar panels to the old metal railing that lined the rooftop. The walls of Central City rose before me, and, beyond them, a sea of glass and metal that shone brightly under the strengthening glow of the UV light towers perched on top of the massive metal D-shaped curtain wall. There were also floodlights on the rooftops of the many high-rises, all of them aimed at the streets in an effort to erase any shadows created by either the buildings or the wall itself.