With that, Tom’s mind grew strangely quiet, taking in the planet that seemed to beat with life against the vast, star-studded universe beyond it. His eyes moved over the swirling white clouds of a storm, the shadow another pale curtain cast over the intense blue of the ocean. He ran his gaze down the jagged, stark green line of the East Coast of the United States where it cut into the Atlantic.

“Guys,” Tom said, “we’re actually in outer space.”

He saw the faint reflections in the window as his friends floated over to see. Vik’s gelatinized soup floated around them in globs as they all gazed at the Earth together.

“Look at the skyboards.” Wyatt pressed her finger to the window.

It took Tom a moment to see them. The skyboards below were like tiny fireflies sparking across the planet, sunlight dancing across their solar-paneled backs. It was strange how large and inescapable those images seemed from the Earth, but up here, the boards shrank to such insignificance, he imagined he could flick them away with a finger.

“Man, those are tiny from up here,” Vik said.

There was awe in Yuri’s voice. “Everything.”

And he was right. Everything was. Everything Tom had ever feared seemed to shrink for this instant as the universe expanded for him.

His heart seemed to swell, and he wished every single person on the planet could have this chance, just once, to see the horizon from above the skyboards rather than from below them. Maybe they’d all see that the universe didn’t end at the boundaries of the Coalition of Multinationals but rather that this incredible, infinite stretch of possibilities existed beyond them.

No wonder the sky had to be blotted out by advertisements. The stars drowned with lights. If everyone could see beyond Coalition horizons, perhaps they’d begin to see the titans of humanity for what they were: tiny creatures, smaller than insects, and in the scale of things, every bit as insignificant.

Maybe more people would be willing to look a thief like Reuben Lloyd in the eye and laugh right in his face.

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

SHORTLY AFTER THE meet and greets, things began malfunctioning around the Spire. Tom and Vik experienced their first malfunction the day Snowden’s group faced off with Karl’s. Karl chose the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was playing Richard III of England, and his army was ravaging Snowden’s forces—or at least, the future king Henry VII’s forces. Snowden hadn’t bothered to animate the Henry Tudor avatar, so Tom and Vik were free to do as they wanted.