At one hundred thousand feet, dawn offered no gentle preamble.
The sun cleared the black, airless horizon all at once and struck the silver-steel summit spar of the Stratospheric Skyway with the fierce glare of an unshielded arc welder. One hundred thousand feet below, the cloud tops of Great Yan gleamed like an endless desert of snow, divided only by the thin, glowing ribbon of the sixty-hertz power grid that bound five mortal empires into a single hum of electrical peace.
Austin sat on a magnetic aluminum drafting stool on the exterior maintenance deck, sipping hot black tea from his stainless steel thermos. He was enjoying the last thirty seconds of quiet before the morning shift whistle.
Beside his stool, the eight-hundred-pound Cerberus Pug lay flat on a heavy-duty heated rubber work mat. All three heads snored in rumbling harmony. His three yellow hard hats hung by their elastic chinstraps from a nearby silver-steel handrail like giant eggshells.
Suddenly, deep within Austin’s lower belly, the twin solar engine skipped a beat.
No loose bolt rattled. No drive belt slipped on its pulley.
Deep in his core, the degeneracy pressure holding his stellar mass apart shuddered.
THWUMP.
