Hands Across the Skyrails

The east wind pulled a thin silver across the city’s vertical lines, making the skyrails hum like a stringed instrument tuned by a ghost. Jalen liked that sound. It let him believe the wires answered when he spoke to them, which was a habit that served him better than most of the protocols from the Control decks. He crouched on the maintenance catwalk and ran his gloved palm along the cable, feeling the faint, living give under his fingers. The sheath had been polished by his hands more often than by the automated splices - a fact he both wore and defended. A gull—synthetic, painted to look older than its processors—clipped by with a vendor tag in its beak. "Sky-buns," the tag read, and for a second the city seemed like a breakfast menu.

Sera nudged him with an elbow, her harness jangling. She always nudged, like a human version of a safety latch. "You’re talking to the rail again," she said, half teasing, half reproach. She was younger, quick with sensor reads and impatient with the slow craft he insisted on preserving. Her utility belt was neat, a compact library of modern tools, each labeled in tiny neat script. "Control says Tram Fourteen is drifting at node F-9. Ion bloom on the outer flank. They'll reroute a recovery rig but it's not until the sweep clears."

Jalen spat a line of curved humor without smiling. "They also said my breakfast would be on time," he muttered, and tapped a small thermotube at his belt. It clicked open with a perfunctory hiss; the coffee was bitter, the way he liked it. Around them the city unfolded in tiers: terraces that grew vine-squash, cafés with bell‑crank shutters that opened and closed in a polite mechanical sigh, a market where stallkeepers hung citrus that glowed faintly under the morning mist. None of that had anything to do with his immediate concern, but it reminded him that life kept pulsing under the rails.

Sera crouched opposite him and flipped her tablet. Numbers pulsed in pale greens and violets. "Manifest shows a full load—early shift commuters, a cargo crate flagged hazardous for atmospheric vinegar. One passenger name flagged for emergency contact: Maya Tso."

His hand stopped moving. The cable's vibration filled the quiet where his voice had been. Maya's name sat on the manifest like a brass tile.

He kept his face neutral. That was another habit. Years of high spans and long ropes taught the value of a neutral face. "Control will hold the rig’s ETA at thirty-two minutes," he said. "They'll be late if the bloom shifts."

Sera studied him for a breath. The morning air tightened. "You okay?"

He shoved the glove into the palm of his hand and flexed his fingers until the knuckles complained. Actions steadied him. "I'll take a look."

The radio coughed to life then, Harlow's voice precise and procedural. "SpanPilot Tso, out of hours ops are engaged. Wait for retrieval. It's protocol. Repeat: wait."

Jalen's jaw worked. Protocol sat like a ledger in Control's hands; it measured risk the way an accountant tallies columns. But there was a thing his hands knew that no ledger could sum-up, a feel for slack and heat and sudden fray. He stood up, harness whispering over metal. His decision folded into motion: he clipped a secondary tether, slung the spool over his shoulder and moved for the small pod tucked on the spine of the rail. He was not making a speech. He was loading tools.