departures:d5fr

The stair on the right is narrower than it first appears, its treads cut into the side of a pale structural rib. It climbs above the citrus canopy to a catwalk just beneath the glass roof, where the air is cooler and the garden below becomes a layered map of paths, pools, lights, and terraces. The catwalk follows the curve of the roof. To one side is the immense interior garden; to the other, beyond the glass, the stars and the blue-white planet slide slowly across the field of view as the structure turns. Small maintenance stations interrupt the walkway at intervals: folded ladders, sealed cabinets, brass gauges with needles moving too slowly to notice directly. One gauge is labeled only by seven colored arcs. Its needle rests in the fifth. Ahead, the catwalk reaches a junction where one branch continues along the roof toward a bank of darker glass. Another rises by a short ladder to a tiny exterior-looking platform enclosed entirely in clear panels. From below, someone has placed a single chair there facing the planet. Far beneath, the circular table in the citrus grove appears occupied for several seconds by three dark figures. When looked at again, the chairs are empty.

From city records