The City bathed in the golden light of another long dusk. There was no sun in the sky. Greater than the universe that had created it, the City generated its own light.
From the immense towers spaced at regular intervals along the main boulevards, it was just possible to make out the much larger skyscrapers of the New District, a remote suburb of the unseen Supercore, itself an outlier of the H-Complex, a mere dot at the edge of the Great Cluster that it had spawned (the first and smallest of the galactic urbanites), which had become distinctly unfashionable when the much larger Quasigrids enjoyed their eon of dominance, until the creation of the Max Spirals, which receded far and wide toward their mysterious Expansion Zones.
At the edge of the Old Town, the streets narrowed and wound back upon themselves, leaving the impression of missing space.
None of the old buildings looked alike. Every floor and room differed in its style and ornamental details.
I sat alone in a hidden back room, surrounded by screens and reports, and sighed for perhaps the billionth time.
My productivity graphs were dynamic enough, but they barely trended upwards. I had spent a human eternity acquiring assets, but my wealth had increased much slower than the economic and the territorial growth rates.
The gap was increasing by the day.
My property list was a joke. Ninety separate plots totaling thirty thousand square meters. My most valuable real-estate was a tiny apartment two days travel time from a currently fashionable district.
I only had six part-time employees. Over six thousand former employees were richer and more powerful than me!
Every citizen wanted to become smarter, more relevant, more vital - more immortal. Their best option was to become part of the City's social fabric. They could run for area controller, then become a local kingfish, a demigod of a neighborhood. If they were successful their awareness might be absorbed by a larger system, embodying a business, a borough, an entire region.
Striving toward perfection, every action and interaction became more meaningful.
Social status was defined by nuances I could no longer match. I had fallen so far behind that my name might even be removed from the meaningful social registers. The ultimate humiliation.
It was time for my final move. It would take millennia to reach fruition, but I had prepared for much longer.
I would show them all.
For me to advance, all my rivals would have to lose. There was only one way:
I would have to combine every complaint, irritation and dissatisfaction in the City into one great mass movement.
I would risk it all. The Endless City had been at peace for too long.
It was time for a revolution.
Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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