The rain slaps against the glass of this tower like it hated what we were doing here. The wind is raging tonight. I look at my watch. 11:53, it reads. We have only seven minutes to complete this projection before it lapses into the next day’s set. 

I can’t believe how far we’ve come. Three years and already we’ve claimed so much of the market share. Our enterprising mindset got us here, the development of which was helped by an uncanny kind of comradery. And a lot of it, too, I have to admit, was due to Garrett’s inexhaustible work ethic. I hide my envy, my awe. The guy knows no ends, gave up everything to be at the top of this…well…what would we call it? New frontier, I suppose. Honestly, it’s hard to put any of this into a category. We’ve been breaking new ground for the last three years, trying to answer that very question the whole time. No clear answer still, but we still believe, still believe that we’ll have it all. We’ll never ask for permission. 

I talked to Garrett briefly before he left the tower tonight, actually. Every day, I’ve watched his boldness grow, and I wasn’t certain that that was what I’d been observing in him until tonight. His eyes, darker than ever. I’m terrified he’s seen my moments of humor and has come to doubt my loyalty as a result. He shouldn’t, but I dare not place his judgment under scrutiny. He’s earned a reputation here, one that nobody has any reason to question, and I wouldn’t stand a chance if he ever saw me as a liability. 

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His quiet stare at the city below was what prompted my attempt at conversation. 

“Is this how you spend your free moments?” I chuckled from behind the man. He said nothing. I stopped my approach, sensing I’d made an affront. 

“Nothing will be the same.” His stonewall pose didn’t quiver in the slightest as he uttered the phrase, and any humor within me retreated. Then I wasn’t sure what to say. I walked toward him anyway, arriving at the row of glass. 

“All of this,” he continued. 

“Every last bit.” I turned toward him, grinning, then back at the huge window before me. That view was truly impossible to resist for long. There was pain, too, in the realization of our shared responsibility to take this journey to its conclusion, to not halt our efforts, despite all that had obstructed our path forward, all that was sure still to come. And I knew that that was what Garrett was really seeing when he looked down at all of those lights and slow-moving skidders. Just a bunch of things still in the way. At least, that’s what I imagined he saw.