The Man of Cloud 9

A Goodbye

"Few people know that when the solar flare burned the middle states, Niko nearly abandoned his dream. Imagine that for a moment. There would have been no NanoClouds, no hero bringing about an era of innovation, no one reminding our broken nation that it could heal. We would have stayed in the shadow of the past, instead of rising and casting our own." Phoebe took a steadying breath and smiled. The crowd waited patiently.

"I got to know Niko," she continued, "right after the Flare. He was so passionate about this vision he had. And each and every day he was urged by those in authority to drop it. His life would have been so much easier if he had, but he wouldn't, he couldn't. That's not... wasn't Niko." A sorrowful laugh escaped. "Not at all."

She gripped the sides of the old podium and stared out at the enormous crowd. There sat captains of industry, heads of startup companies, press, politicians, and friends. She still couldn't believe she'd been asked to give the first speech.

She pushed her long, curly black hair over her ears, revealing more of her beautiful square jaw and the sadness that soaked her from soul to her mocha-brown face.

She looked at the front row. She smiled at Tass, a younger woman with a topknot of dark hair. For so long, the two women had acted like rivals for Niko's attention. Why had it taken Niko's death for them to be able to find common ground?

Phoebe glanced at the silent camera-drones as they floated about, broadcasting the funeral to hundreds of millions of people around the world. She closed her eyes and took in a breath of the warm and welcoming summer air.

"For days, the news had been filled with stories about the raw power of the destruction, about those who had been evacuated from the coasts decades before or who had escaped the Great Quake of California, having once again lost everything. It didn't matter that the best minds had seen it coming over a year ahead of time and that everyone had been safely removed because it was yet another opportunity to tell tales of destruction and despair. It almost tipped Niko over the edge."

"But somehow," she said, glancing at the woman with the topknot, "he held on to his dream. It was a privilege to see it first hand in the early days, as that almost extinguished spark of innovation became a roaring fire. And then, to be there at the end, despite his broken body, to see his passion and fire still burning as brightly. There won't ever be another Niko Rafaelo." She shook, tears streaming down. "Thank you."