Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
I left my father and the star router and stepped through a link into sunny, summery Soliara.
Heading for a different tower, open to the sky like a crater blasted out of a wall. Dead lounge? No, Daedalus Lounge, it was called.
Out through my link and into the one politely provided by the proprietors. Out one hundred miles and up fifty floors in just four paces. Greeted by obnoxious smiling servers and even more obnoxious pulsating loud music (if you can call it music) and obnoxious dark ambiance infiltrated by pulsating, seizure-inducing light (strange place to meet a company exec) but the host thankfully leads the way outside to the rooftop patio crater knocked out of the wall, to relieving natural light and light breeze and light chatter, barely audible after that blaring (if you can call it) music.
There is Sunyin Aura, beaming at me. She closes her menu and stands up. Shakes my hand, firm grip. We sit.
"This place is great," I say. I'm not lying. Outside is great. The patio a hundred feet up over a commercial plaza and the day is perfect. "I haven't been here before."
"Try the spiced ice cider," she says. "Bit of a tongue twister." Exequi Aura's not as young as she looks, but Daedalus Lounge doesn't help her image. Accomplished speaker, famous engineer, they say she's inexperienced and unqualified because she's not a hundred yet.
I order the cider.
"No one likes to hear it," says Sunyin Aura, "but all I'm after is the natural progress we've been moving toward for generations. It's inevitable. I want it fully realized sooner rather than later. I know you know it's coming, but some deny it. They don't want it and they don't accept its inevitability. And some may feel content to crawl forward on all fours, but none of them know what your generation knows, am I right?"
I smile, and for the first time all day, I'm in company that's on my side. "Right," I say, but fear wells up. "But we're appeased because life is easy enough, we have enough to get by. We don't feel the need to fight because things aren't bad enough. How desperate does it have to get before we stand up for something? There's a long way to go."
The cider arrives and I drink it.
"I don't want to run Constellation Invernali," I say. Not exactly true. I don't want to want to run my father's satellite branch of the company.
"You have the power to make changes no one else will."
"No, not while my father lives," and he still lives. The assassins failed. "See how powerless this generation is, and will be, until our fathers die? What an unnatural thing to wish for, but there's nothing natural living forever. There's nothing natural about anything anymore." The stagnancy is suffocating, strangling me.
"Your power is not only in your father's role. He's the one who gets a vote, but you have a voice. Even if he won't listen, others will. You've already done so much for me. Even President Solin is listening, she's made changes in the direction we need her to."
I feel safe and unafraid with Sunyin Aura. I can tell her anything. "If my father had been killed yesterday, I would have voted for you today," I say.
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Thank you for reading Stars Rise. It's been a while since we've heard from Stephen, and this is a little glimpse of Sunyin Aura. If you enjoyed reading, please leave a star for me!
