The Vertical City

1

The City was to be decorated for the visit of Edouard Lapierre, president of the French Republic of Paris. It had been well over three centuries since there had been registered international visits in any part of the world, and this was going to be a unique occasion that would perhaps take many generations to recur. The citizens would be mortified if the French president were to notice the acrid smells in the corridors, the complete darkness of the passageways, or the absence of ventilation in the majority of the buildings in Madrid. All the same, they had fallen on hard times and there was little they could do to make it better.

Antonio had heard that Paris spent fifteen years planning the visit to the Vertical City, so he deduced that, in reality, the trip had been the idea of the previous president. They had spent a real fortune in the making of a qualified air transport to be used for the path that led from old Paris to Madrid. It would move by propellers, electronically powered for take-off and landing, and was capable of self-charging using solar energy.

Edouard must be a true hero. There were rumors that he had managed to bring light to the lowest floors of Parisian society, almost down to levels twenty-five and twenty-six. To do this, he not only invested multi-million dollar sums, but also dusted off some old books from the National Library of Paris (for which he must have used some of the most distinguished divers to obtain), to learn some of the archaic mestizo superhuman technologies. Since the year 2569, the General Tribunal of New York had prohibited the use of the old energy formulas (such as coal and oil); no one had used these clearly inhumane techniques in ages. In truth, that same Tribunal had not met for centuries due to the new impossibility of such a long trip.

Antonio, like every other university student, had studied all of the international meetings of the Tribunal of New York. He thought they had not wasted any time in making and enforcing declarations, and while they were closing off each city and abolishing the right to mix among countries, everyone was so preoccupied that no one had time on hand to doubt any of the Tribunal’s pronouncements.

In any case, it was undeniable that the New Human Rights, celebrated by the video-mural recorded by Celestino Suárez and issued by the Grand Tribunal in 2572, were no more than a magna carta aimed at fulfilling the wishes of the High Families. In Antonio’s opinion, some of the new rights seemed more like duties or prohibitions than anything else. Article number 32.3 declared, The citizens of each state in the Organization of United Nations- at the time of the official count of countries that are still populated- have the irrevocable right to remain in their nation of origin, to walk freely, without prejudice, through any cities that make up said state, as long as conditions of security allow. Which was equal to saying that no one could cross the frontiers of the City, and the most one could hope to visit, at any time in their life, would be some of the top floors of their own urban area. As a result, almost every citizen who was not from one of the High Families would perish without ever seeing more than the dirty walls of their own neighborhood.

Madrid would present a much sadder visage than Paris, thought Antonio. He had heard that once, you could save images of places in the world, and even of people, and view them on a screen to evoke the beauty of memories. But the Grand Tribunal had also taken charge of distorting desires and dreams.  Under the excuse of removing temptation from the citizens, they had banned all instruments responsible for creating those images and had destroyed all existing ones, through both complicated viruses and more violent means.

Antonio had also heard, through a classmate from University, that before these images were viewed on screens, there were other images that were displayed on paper. Unfortunately, paper was something that was scarce enough to be absurdly expensive, like every other product created from a living thing. Antonio would have given an arm, sometimes both arms, just to be able to visualize places he’d never seen: the cities of the Orient, the real New York, even Barcelona or Paris; cities he knew about through his studies in high school, where the teachers spoke of them as mythical spaces created by the imaginations of man. He considered Edouard Lapierre vastly privileged, for he alone had the opportunity to know two Vertical Cities, to see them, to burn them in his memory.

He dreamed of catching a glimpse of some of the famous constructions in the most ancient civilizations, like those that some called the Pyramids: constructions of very short height in a three dimensional triangular shape; the cathedrals, with their rounded ceilings; the lakes, the oceans, the forests... His teachers spoke of these as symbols of impurity, disorder, and asymmetry: the blending of all. But to Antonio, all of these characteristics could only be beneficial, or at least they would be more than the bore of the tedious quadrangles of concrete blocks.

Many years ago, when he was only seven years old, he had managed to reach one of the top levels of one of the tallest buildings in the City. It was an office tower with more than two hundred floors, built by one of the most renowned architects, just before the famous Tribunal of 2569.

The year 2569 was so very different, thought Antonio, when, holding his father’s hand, he had gone up in that elevator so quickly. The building did not have much space for the ventilation ducts that allowed oxygen to flow through the area, so large pipes could be seen through the glass of the elevator. Those ducts ran parallel to the elevator shaft, and on each floor, another pipeline emerged perpendicular, in order to transport oxygen to the rest of the level.

The buildings constructed after the Tribunal were all prepared for self-sufficiency, so those ducts were not necessary, as they already produced their own air. However, young Antonio did not know this, and his father’s mind was occupied with other things at the moment. Samuel Perez, a boss of very high rank, had asked Ginés, Antonio’s father, to come to his office after lunch to discuss the possibility of a promotion.

Like the vast majority of citizens, Ginés worked for a company owned by the High Families, and although little Antonio did not know it, his father worked in the Security and Maintenance of buildings, which was a high responsibility job. Ginés had his office on one of the lowest floors, seventy-two, and the family lived on level eighteen, a little lower.

When the doors of the elevator opened, Antonio calculated that they should be on approximately floor two hundred, so they were on level six or seven, where only the state leaders lived and worked. The butler that accompanied them took dark glasses from a leather case that was in the drawer of a lampstand, gave them to father and son, and motioned that they should put them on.

Wait. He opened a door, through which they could only see another door, exactly the same as the first.

Antonio, don’t talk unless he asks you a question. Don’t leave my side, and... but he could not finish his sentence. The door opened again, and the butler appeared.

You can go in. Mr. Perez is waiting for you.

Ginés grabbed his son’s hand, put on the glasses, and went through the first door. He tried to open the second door, but it was locked. After a second attempt, sweating with nerves, he wondered if perhaps it was one of those doors that would only open when the other door was closed. He heard the metallic click of the first door closing, and automatically the wood of the door in front of them began to move. Afterward, they couldn’t see anything. An enormous light blinded them, despite the thick, dark glasses that covered their eyes.

No citizen lower than level fifteen had ever seen so much light, not even on a summer’s day in the cleanest area of the city. And certainly, neither Ginés nor Antonio had ever been in a place like this.

Pablo, please close those curtains. They heard out of the blinding light. The sound of the pulling of enormous curtains told them they could open their eyes, though it took a few seconds to recover their vision.

When order was finally restored, Antonio was sure that he was in one of the biggest spaces in the world. The boss’s office was huge, covered by thick tapestries on two of its sides. The scarlet fabric had brilliant embroidery, sinuous lines that snaked and intertwined. Antonio heard a murmur of voices near him, but he was completely oblivious to the conversation that was taking place a little bit further up, at the height of the adults. His father nudged him gently, and Antonio noticed that Samuel Perez was addressing him. The boss, the top boss from the look of his office, was smiling at him from beneath a grand mustache. He was a much older man, perhaps around forty-five, with coffee-colored skin and dark eyes. He exuded purity from every corner of his face, from every move he made.

This must be little Antonio, right?

Yes, my name is Antonio.

Have you ever been up to a level this high?

No, he answered, still dazed.

Samuel addressed Pablo again, a tall, strong, dark young man who was standing next to the door.

Please, draw back the curtain just a little. The diligent and helpful Pablo pulled one of the tapestry handles again and, at the floor of the office, right in the corner, a curtain moved swiftly and strongly, letting in a great burst of light. Antonio was speechless. But his surprise was even greater when he noticed something strange in his body. Little by little, the curious feeling rose through his legs, through his waist, his chest, his arms, his neck and face. Finally, his hair was moved by the wind. He looked to Samuel’s eyes. He was smiling from ear to ear. 

Yes, the window is open.

Son, on these upper floors, the air is pure and you can breathe without fear. Go nearer to the window, he urged.

Those were the first words he heard from his father since they had entered. He walked slowly toward the window, but he was afraid and very nervous. His eyes had become accustomed to the natural light and he had goosebumps; no classmate from school had ever come so high.

When he was a few feet away, the curtain revealed more of the window. He stopped and looked around. His father and Samuel were seated on either side of the desk, talking about the promotion, and Pablo, winked at him from his station next to the door.

He continued his walk toward the window. The sunlight covered everything and expanded everywhere. The cold autumn air gently struck his face, going into his nose and filling his lungs with the purest air he had ever breathed. As he experienced this sensation, he realized what lay at his feet and extended overhead. It was the City.

Level seven was one of the top floors. With the exception of the Great Families, no one lived in floors so high, reserved only for sports and business, the two occupations that demanded the purest oxygen, suitable only for the rich. However, though this left six levels, which contained around a hundred floors, very few buildings actually had occupants in this extra space. Levels two, three, and four, some thirty-five stories, were intended for the dispersion of air, and so were full of pipes and complicated mechanisms that filtered the pure air and circulated it throughout the all the levels of the City. Levels five and six were for the most part deserted, for security purposes, or so the authorities said. And level one was completely covered with giant solar panels to capture energy for the entire Vertical City.

Antonio looked out the window, but he did not dare get nearer. Suddenly, as if reading his thoughts, the window began to close slowly. He looked again at Pablo who, in his dark uniform, smiled at him and gestured that he should get closer.

The City that he sensed in the distance grew tremendously as he pressed himself to the glass. Looking over the surroundings, he discovered five or six buildings that were taller, but all the rest were shorter than the one in which he was standing. The ordinances, which, in the year 2756, had prohibited addition to any building, had not completely impeded the furtive rise of a few buildings, but had succeeded in preventing any equality in the heights. Because of this, the City had a very irregular appearance. But Antonio did not know any of that then, since on level eighteen, where he lived, everything was the same.

All of the shorter buildings looked more or less the same. They were huge, black rectangular prisms crowned with a flat roof that held a solar panel, for even at that low height, you could get some energy in the prime sunlight hours of the day. He was surprised to see that all of the buildings had grand windows that would allow the light to enter without fear. In the place where the oldest buildings were located, there were huge windows of tinted glass; the majority had large openings that were, for the most part, covered up. There was no natural light there, only electrical illumination that allowed visibility, and the views from windows on level eighteen were not much better than those on level twenty-two; there was nothing to see. Even some homeowners with windows had decided to cover over them. But up high, on top of the world, Antonio felt that all windows took in natural light.

The corridors that ran around the buildings at each floor, and at every five floors connected the buildings to one another, were crowded in those hours, but the scene was very different from what Antonio was accustomed to. Everyone had an appearance that seemed much more pure, and in general, the citizens who passed by were much older than the children in his zone. They wore expensive clothing and were in a hurry. The passages were filled with electric vehicles that transported the citizens. There had been a time when anyone could get one of those vehicles, but already by the time that Antonio was a boy, only community transportation existed for the vast majority of the citizens.

They did not give him time to see very much, but Antonio felt elated. His father seemed so, too. They got off the elevator hand in hand at floor eighty-two, where, until that day, Ginés had worked. In the mind of the boy, his image in the window, with the Vertical City in the background, was etched indelibly. He could remember little more from the rest of his life.

Come on, son. Let’s get a drink.

They went to a cafeteria. Ginés got out his access pass for level fifteen and swiped it at the door, which opened slowly, and father and son entered the cafeteria. They sat and pushed the button on the table labeled chocolate milkshake. The cafeteria was pretty full and there was a lot of noise. After a minute, they saw their shakes coming through one of the slides that connected the bar to the tables. Ginés put in some money, and the box opened. Father and son got their milkshakes, put in straws, and sipped. Ginés could not erase his smile, and he looked at Antonio as if it had been years since he last saw him.

Son, do you like the light? he asked, as if he were speaking to a ghost.

Yes Papa. Antonio was still marveling over his new discoveries, and could not wait for the moment when he could tell his classmates all about it, so he was not paying much attention to his father.

Well, we must get used to it. As of today, we will be living on level nine.

Antonio was almost as stunned as his father had been. Samuel had offered him a huge promotion, rising nine levels, something really rare, worthy to appear in the news. Still, neither Ginés nor Antonio imagined that this was the beginning of the end of life as they had known it.

They left the cafeteria and walked through the various passageways until they arrived at an elevator to take them to floor fifty-three, where they lived. They walked through even more corridors. It was getting close to suppertime, and Ginés was eager to tell his wife the news, so he pulled Antonio a little to speed up the walk.

The cleaning machines seemed to live in the walkways, always there and producing an infernal racket, though they did keep the corridors clear of items that fell from higher floors. The ordinances of 2756 had also prohibited the dropping of anything from corridors and walkways, and this had reduced some of mess of the lower levels. But still, waste continued to fall from higher floors.

Ginés advanced without paying much attention, neither to the cleaning machines nor to the lost items they had yet to sweep up. He smiled broadly and he felt euphoric. He had worked nonstop since he had turned sixteen. He entered into the Ministry of Public Administrations as a messenger and ascended, little by little, until he was made an agent for level fifteen, in charge of electronic surveillance of the buildings, a job that required certain qualifications that he had not had; instead, he had extensive experience and a reputation as an honest and generous man. But from that moment, and without requesting it, he would be the Deputy Director of Security at level nine, with access up to level seven, where Samuel Perez’s office was located. He would not work in the security of the machines in the highest levels, where only the most advanced engineers worked (including some who studied books on paper that had to have been in the antiquaries for centuries, as no one, with the exception of divers, went down to the levels where paper existed, or came up from there). Mr. Perez had told him that he was to busy himself with the buildings, the maintenance of the structures, and the security of the people who worked there, as the members of the High Families that lived in the top levels had their own private security. 

They entered the house, and Antonio went running to his room. He pulled the thick glasses from the pocket of his jacket and stashed them in a plastic box that he kept under his bed. He returned to the living room and turned on the light; he saw absolutely nothing. Ginés walked in the darkness to the kitchen, where Maria, his wife, was cooking vegetables from the greenhouse.

Do you like the light? he repeated the question he had asked his son.

I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever see it. She responded without looking at him, a note of sarcasm in her voice. 

Ginés pulled his glasses from his pocket and put them on his surprised wife. Keep those. You’re going to need them in a bit.

Maria, understanding what he was saying, dropped the onions that she was cutting and threw her arms around her husband.

Antonio crossed from his room to the kitchen. His parents were hugging and invited him into their embrace. They were starting a new life. And nothing would ever be the same.

2

At twenty-seven years old, Antonio was quite mature, but in spite of that he continued traveling in his mind, always dreaming. He obtained a degree in history and philosophy and began to work in the only museum that was still standing in the City. He ascended rapidly, and at twenty-five they named him head curator of the National Museum of History and Reflection, which basically made him the director, and even then he was often referred to as such. 

As in almost all of the institutions of the Vertical City, the government exerted an intense pressure to direct the researches that fostered the museum, as well as the objects that were displayed, so that the patrons would not wend too far into the past and unnecessary risks were not run.

The museum was one of the places to be visited by the French president, Edouard Lapierre, and so the Minister of Public Administrations himself had appeared a month before to examine what the French leader would see.  The minister was another most pure of the High Families.

His appearance, like almost all of the members of those clans, was very contradictory. His pale skin contrasted with deep, black eyes that were sometimes viscous. His weakness was manifested in his short stature and the bones that marked his face. The High Families declared that they were the most pure citizens in the nation, and therefore should be the most powerful; they held the government and ran the major private companies. In reality, they had the whole country under their subjugation. They all looked alike, for, in an act of utter contempt for intermixing, they had been marrying one another for more than three centuries; cousins with cousins, aunts with nephews, brothers with sisters; according to the comments from those of the lowest levels, even fathers and daughters were being paired together. When a rebellious member of one of the Grand families dared to mingle with someone of a lower caste, any resulting child was labeled as a mixed bastard, and it was ensured that he would never climb higher than the fifteenth floor, which would mean a life full of misery. Perhaps that is why there were no cases of mixed bastards in the last century.

To Antonio, all of this seemed barbaric. He did not at all agree with the theories of Purity proclaimed by the General Tribunal. But like most others, he had no choice. He did not even know anyone outside of his own race. The only people of mixed race in the City occupied the lowest levels, those which were impossible to access. In truth, no one in their right mind would want to descend to those depths of the City. No one in their right mind, with the exception of Antonio, that is.

Good morning, dear Antonio. How is your father?

The minister greeted him warmly, but did not extend his hand. The members of the High Families did not maintain physical contact with any person from the lower levels, as their fragile health would be threatened.

Hello, Pedro! he said amiably. "Well, the truth is I haven’t seen him in a while, he’s always working. How is the family and your children?

Marta and Clara have already become women, and the rest of us just plug along as we can, you know how it is.

Marta and Clara were Pedro Valdes’s daughters. Antonio knew them very well, and he doubted they would ever truly be women. They had the same sickly look as the rest of the family, and it was possible that they would live just as long. The High Families lived much shorter lives than the rest of the citizens, at least on the more open levels. They put it to their important jobs and the fact that they only slept two hours a day. No one questioned it.

I don’t want to waste your time. I am sure they are waiting for you at the ministry, so let’s get this inspection started. Come this way.

Pedro followed Antonio slowly and they entered the first room of the museum. When Antonio was made the head curator, he had tried to reform the expositive discourse of the collection, displaying the objects in chronological order, in a progression over time, but the ministry had prohibited it; the objects were to be displayed without clear reference to their historical origin. This was another method of indoctrinating the citizens. In reality, thought Antonio, they should not be so worried about what the citizens thought. Ninety percent of the population had no idea what kind of world they lived in, and everything they did was dictated by the ordinances and what they saw on the screens in their houses. They were happy that way. The other ten percent never went to the museum.

This is the room of the bulls. There are several capes from the 22nd century, flags from the 20th century, slippers, tights, lighted suits, posters, panels with advertisements... Look at this, Antonio passed him a kind of toy gun. It’s an electric pike.

I had heard talk of these, but I had never seen one. He returned it with disdain. Get rid of all dates from the information panels. It does not interest us; we only want the French president to be able to see that which is our city... or that which is was.

All of the countries were searching for purity, and for that they tried to distinguish themselves from the rest through their ancestral traditions, those which distinguished them even in the times of maximum race-mixing. At least that was the case in theory. But in practice, from level ten to level thirty, no one cared about traditions or distinctions. There, no one even knew about the traditions, and those citizens made up the bulk of civilization. The men in power, the High Families, were the ones who looked for that distinction: the stamp of purity. It didn’t work, normally, but in this case, after more than six hundred years without an official visit, it was necessary to highlight the defining characteristics of the Vertical City of Madrid.

They passed through each of the rooms, and the minister was pointing out all of the things he did not consider appropriate. His assistant followed the decrepit figure though the corridors, noting the instructions of his superior so that later they could review and ensure everything was to his liking. The frustration was etched into Antonio’s face as he saw all of his efforts to build a good exhibit undermined by the ill-fated interest of a useless and sickly being.

When the minister left, Antonio ordered the curators and assistants to adjust the museum to the tastes of the boss and retired to his office. The museum occupied all of floor one hundred forty in the widest building of the City, making it one of the largest unitary spaces in the urban area; nevertheless, almost the whole place was occupied by enormous closed rooms in which objects were piled up without any sort of cataloguing; this was the result of centuries of disinterest. Only with the arrival of Antonio were they beginning to separate the objects of the museum according to category, since the origin and date of most of them were unknown.

Antonio wanted to know more about their origins, about the origins of the Vertical City and its ancestors, the horizontals. He wanted to know how the forefathers of humanity had lived. In his classes at the university, there was hardly any talk of those matters. They were studied as myths, the ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Moors, the Medievals and the Renaissance, but there were no images or real objects from those times. Where could you find them? On level, thirty, most likely, but that level was inaccessible.

At noon, he left the museum to eat in a restaurant with one of his best friends. Adolfo Martinez had been his friend since college, and under his father’s influence, he had gone to work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in one of the higher positions right around the time Antonio had been appointed head curator. The institutional offices were all on the same level, though on different floors. Almost all were very close to each other, and they all had the same monotonous gray, metallic build. In any case, floor one hundred and forty, like the floor that housed the museum, allowed large windows to be opened to let in natural light, as was also the case in the ministries and business management offices.  The power was concentrated at that level, but those buildings hundreds of yards below garnered all the misery of a mechanized society, geometric and sad.

Adolfo waited for him in the Prime Café, seated at a table near a window through which he could watch the rich pedestrians dressed in their gray suits, echoing the drab colors of the City. Antonio used his level seven pass to access the café and took a seat next to his friend when a city transport appeared through the glass. Two passengers got off, and two more got on. The rest waited on the next transport.

What do you want to eat? I ordered protein paste, manufactured meat, and boiled vegetables.

It’s like you never get tired of eating the same things... said Antonio with certain disdain. Adolfo raised his eyebrows skeptically. I’m sorry. Today has not been a good day. I’m fed up with the damn ministry.

Don’t tell me: He’s reorganized the museum.

You know it. Antonio knew the menu by heart. There was little to choose from. He pressed the buttons for pork, artificial salad, and protein soup. I don’t understand what the goal is.

They are afraid. Adolfo responded while picking up the tray that had just arrived through the shoot. The High Families only know each other through the communicators. They haven’t even traveled to or seen images of other places. The only things they have known for more than three hundred years are the aluminum and titanium buildings made before the General Tribunal, the pestilential corridors and concrete walkways. They are afraid that Paris has evolved in another way, that it is different.

Antonio reflected on the words of his friend. He had always considered him very intelligent and admired the wisdom he showed on the most confusing aspects of the pure.

But their fear doesn’t justify the desire to change the museum. No one remembers anything of our past anymore; generations have been dedicated to making disappear everything that happened before the Tribunals, and what we have left, that which we guard as a symbol of our memories, is nothing more than a jumble of useless objects that cannot be placed in time.

I am telling you, they’re afraid. The first members of the High Families, through the Tribunals, decided that mixing was harmful to society, and they realized that most of the standing customs came from mixed backgrounds. They recovered all that suited them best from their own culture, built mile high buildings, and buried all the trash in the bottom level. It’s normal that they wouldn’t want you to show those things in your museum, even when those who are alive now have no idea what those objects are or where they come from.

That isn’t what they told us in university.

In university? Antonio asked, not without sarcasm. And what did you hope? The university, the museum, the ministry, the energy companies, the transportation, the ventilation, the lighting... everything is dictated by those bastards, the Estebaranz.

Yes, Pedro Estebaranz, I hear you....

I’ve had enough! Adolfo let his fork fall with undisguised force onto the metal table, and everyone around turned to look at the young men.

The Estebaranz, began Adolfo, speaking very low, are sickly beings, weak, decrepit, imbeciles! A woman with an expensive coat of gray synthetic fur looked at them again. Adolfo offered her his cup of water. Would you like some, ma’am? He turned back to his friend. The Estebaranz have only been looking up for a long time now. They have started a new building.

Antonio could not hide his clear expression of surprise. It was absolutely prohibited to begin new construction, both up high and on the ground, though in reality, no one would dare to build from the twenty-ninth level anymore. The ordinances of 2756 had stopped all new building construction, as the population was decreasing, and people who lived on the outskirts were moving to occupy the apartments of those who had died and left space free in the city center. As the way of life had begun to become vertical after the first Tribunals, the closer you lived to the buildings whose upper floors were the centers of power, the better. It was dangerous to live away from those neuralgic centers, from the protection of the forces of Security and Maintenance. They held the belief that in the outskirts, where the buildings were much shorter, artificial ventilation would not reach, and the air was much less pure on the first levels. Just being at such low levels made the pure citizens feel threatened by the mixed people, which were known to occupy the lowest levels of the City. The other reason that citizens decided to move inward was that the outskirts were too close to nature, which also caused a lot of fear.

When Antonio recovered from his initial shock, he continued to speak in low tones to his friend.

Where are they building?

On the government building.

How do you know about this?

I went with the minister the other day to the office of the head Estebaranz, you know, that cretin...

Go on, please, Antonio interrupted, intrigued.

"When we went up in the elevator, it stopped just before reaching the two hundredth