“I don’t think I can do that,” Nadia said. She looked down at her tiny frame when she had everyone’s attention to illustrate her point. The rest of the kids looked hesitant. Helping was beyond them.

  “I’ll help you,” Malory said. She turned to her sister and squeezed her hand. “Lead the others. We’ll be right behind you.”

  “Okay,” Maya said. She flashed her lazy smile, gathered the rest, and headed up. “Follow me, it’s easy,” she shouted. She scaled the building as fast as Oscar, proving the point. The rest shuffled after her, slow and slipping on the ridges and grips. They disappeared above the entrance on shaky legs.

  “How are you gonna help,” Nadia asked. She raised an eyebrow in suspicion. They were the same age, but she was the perpetual burden, and wasn’t used to anyone showing concern.

  “Easily,” Malory said. She turned around and kneeled down. “I’ll carry you. Maya and I are much stronger than we look,” she lied. Her knee shifted in the gravel, far too close to a used needle. She channeled unmatched confidence to hide that she hated heights and had a crush and wanted the excuse.

  “Don’t be stupid, you’re almost as small as me,” Nadia said. She crossed her arms. She didn’t buy it. She knew kind lies, it seemed.

  “I’ll get you to the top with the others,” Malory said. Her legs ached at the prospect, the self-inflicted torture to distract from fear and attraction. “Promise.”

  “If you say so,” Nadia shrugged. She climbed onto Mal’s back and squeezed tight enough to restrict blood flow.

  The first step was an aborted stumble, calves and lower back caterwauling in protest. In the fragments of her memories, she suffered far worse, and she refused to stop. She swallowed the pain and took a second step. Numb hands gripped at metal, feet shoved to lift two girls up the wall. A frame of signage, glass crushed to dust under their weight, and Malory was thankful she wasn’t barefoot. She hoisted them over the entrance, breathing heavy, and didn’t look down. Nothing mattered to her except the next surface to seize, the strange taste of copper in her mouth, steady breathing without triggering a coughing fit, and the warm vice-grip Nadia had around her neck and waist. A metal girder; an oversized bolt protruding from dull steel; a section of abandoned scaffolding from window shutter installation; an exterior ladder to replace problematic sections of neon tubing; an industrial air conditioning unit; miniature roof sections that existed as a signature quirk of the architect; seams in sheets of siding peeled back by weather and scavengers; it all passed below her mistreated body hauling her friend into the terrifying sky. She could see others high above them, but acknowledging them left her horror-struck with vertigo.

  Malory was drenched, and expected to be a dried out synth-raisin husk by the end. More handholds, taut suspension cables, a discarded window washing bot, and she started to fantasize about letting go. The beautiful splat of a gore angel they’d make, the wind of the fall, no more torn muscles. She knew Nadia would resent her as a ghost. Calmed, another step, another. Sweat rolled from her chin, stung her eyes. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears, against her ribs. Last year, she found Nadia in the closet crafting stilts out of rotted synth-wood and plastic. She told Mal she wanted to be taller. Overshadow Oscar, the director, the people that looked down on her, and so Mal sat in the cramped closet and inhaled mothballs and mold to help finish the stilts. They broke after a dozen steps, but they laughed and laughed and she’d help her get to the top to look down on everyone even if it killed her. When she crested the next ledge, she was face to face with the others loitering, staring at her. They were resting below the massive black uplink satellite that capped the building. Nadia dismounted and Malory collapsed to her back, devouring oxygen. Her fingers bled, and she thought her toe was broken.

  The frosty air dried her tormented body as the others chattered. She sat up on her elbows to watch Nadia walk to the side they’d climbed and look out over the city and had to admit she was the largest person in her heart. She’d never say it out loud, though. Too mortifying. Out there was New Detroit in all its unfortunate majesty: ZenTech headquarters loomed over downtown and the other, lesser, skyscrapers, the dozen hab megabuildings—the last which remained indefinitely under construction, the ugly dome of Luna Paradise theme park and doomsday global seed vault, the wall that caged it all, the river filled with cancer, the hypertrain tracks stretching beyond to Chicago, to the raw material port in Traverse City, across the lake to Toronto and further into New Montreal. It was motionless, illuminated in dire warning, millions bracing in anticipation.

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  “It’s beautiful,” Nadia said, eyes a carnival of stars.

  “Very,” Malory said. She wasn’t looking at the same thing. Brief moments of stolen love made the rest bearable.

  “Hey, you two,” Maya called. “You should come sign!”

  Nadia turned around, caught Mal staring, and smiled like a pale specter. She trudged up in oversized shoes and held out a delicate hand. “You shouldn’t fall so hard for me,” she said. She was too small to help lift, but made the gesture anyway to complete the tease.

  “Maybe,” Malory said. She pushed the hand aside and used her spent legs, glad her face was still flushed from exertion and wouldn’t betray her.

  “Thank you,” Nadia said.

  “Anytime,” Mal said. “A little less climbing, though.”

  They laughed and walked to the rest of the group who busied themselves around a flat section at the base of the array. One of the kids pulled out a wicked combat knife and carved into the black, uncaring metal. The surface screeched as it gave way, one letter after another, until it spelled out a name. He admired it for a few moments while muted hurrahs sounded behind and handed the blade to another. Each orphan etched proof of their existence into an unfeeling structure, into a piece of the city that rejected the very idea of them. Another fished broken chunks of luminescent chalk from a cargo pocket they’d used for the game and forgot and smeared bright colors around the carvings, ornamenting the monument they’d made themselves. It would wash away at first rain, but it was enough for memories none could take away. Malory was the last to engrave her name into history:

  “We can get higher for the show,” Oscar said. He pointed to an unlocked maintenance door. Inside, a ladder connected to darkness and a hatch to the reflective surface of the dish.

  The climb was gentle, the halo of light from the entrance grew distant as Malory ascended. She couldn’t see anyone above, and listened for footsteps to avoid a boot to the forehead. Rung after rung, the smell of sweat and heavy breathing clogged the shaft. Someone thrust the hatch open and flooded the passage with dim skylight and fresh air. They filed out and sat on the edge, feet dangled over the abyss. The ravaged land hidden by the wall, the abandoned suburbs, the phantom farmland sprawled like a siren call to what could have been. They knew nomadic tribes roamed in the remains of a world that no longer was, and that it’d all been picked clean that close to the wall, but when they tried to imagine living that way, they found it wanting, even with bellies concave in hunger.

  “I always wanted to go out on an adventure to bring life back to the land,” Maya said. Her tone said it had been outgrown, a discarded children’s fantasy.

  “I just wanted to make enough money to fund the orphanage,” Oscar said. He shifted, and pulled at the strap of his bag.

  “I want to build a ship! See the stars,” Nadia said. She was obsessed with the legend of Allison Cerny, who stole from corporations to fund a colony ship to a new home.

  There was a low rumble on the horizon, no louder than the buzz of a refrigerator, but insistent. It grew, slow build to crescendo, decibel by decibel; an apocalyptic scream. It tore through the sky, cradled in flames and inanimate savagery, and passed over their heads with a concussive thunderclap. Their bodies jerked in the sonic boom and late evening turned to summer solstice at noon. The projected impact zone included the city limits, and Mal wondered if they’d witness the end of the world. Time seemed to stop, then violently accelerate, and then it went over the opposite horizon faster than it came. The structure shook under them as the meteor came to rest, a piece of dead and broken moon bonding with dying earth. Perdition existed in the north where it landed. The shock wave and debris didn’t pass the wall. It halted mid-air, suspended by the energy field cast over the cursed metropolis like an aborted haboob. The hypertrain route north needed to be rebuilt, but the wall held—it was designed for it. Malory realized the most unrealistic wish of the orphans wasn’t eliminating the needs of the poor, or an adventure among out-of-reach stars. It was her own dream of putting the moon back together.