The Dazzling Heights

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Livya sat up straighter. “Sir Jared patented the refractive technology that allowed holographs to obtain motion perfectly aligned with the observer, creating the illusion of presence.”

The door to the classroom slid open again, and a familiar form appeared there. Rylin instinctively sank lower in her seat, wishing she could sink all the way into the floor—farther, even; into the mechanical jumble of the interstitial level and the floor below, all the way down to the ground itself, littered with trash and god knows what else, it didn’t matter—she just wanted to disappear.

“Mr. Anderton,” Xiayne said, sounding amused and unsurprised. “You’re late. Again.”

“I got held up,” Cord offered by way of explanation, and Rylin couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t exactly said he was sorry.

Xiayne glanced around the room as if searching for some explanation for why he was missing a desk. He seemed to register Rylin’s presence with some astonishment. He hadn’t singled her out yet, hadn’t made her do one of those awful self-introductions that some of the other professors insisted on. What if he did so now, and in front of Cord?

But to Rylin’s shock, the professor winked at her, in a way that could only be described as conspiratorial.

“Well, Mr. Anderton, it seems you need somewhere to sit.” Xiayne pushed a button and a desk rose up out of the floor, directly in front of Rylin.

Cord didn’t glance Rylin’s way as he took his seat. Only the tension in his shoulders betrayed any reaction to her presence. Rylin sank miserably lower.

“As we discussed last week,” Xiayne continued, undeterred, “settings are the easiest aspect of the world to re-create in holographic form, because, of course, they are stable. A far more difficult task is the portrayal of something living. Why is that?” He snapped his fingers, and a cat leapt from behind his desk onto the top of it.

Rylin barely refrained from gasping aloud. She’d seen plenty of holograms before: on their screen at home, and of course the adverts that popped up whenever she went shopping. But those were loud and flashy and low-resolution. This cat felt different. It was rendered in exquisite detail, and moved so realistically in a thousand small ways—the lazy flick of its tail, the way its chest lifted lightly with its breath, the challenging blink of its eyes.

The cat jumped onto the desk of the girl in the front row who’d spoken earlier. She let out an involuntary squeal of shock. “Movement,” Xiayne went on, ignoring the scattered laughter. “The movements of anything living must be rendered with perfect relation to any viewer, no matter where he or she is located with respect to the holo. Which is why Sir Jared is called the father of modern holography.”

Xiayne went on for a while about light and distance, about the calculations needed to make something seem larger to the viewers who were closer to it, but smaller to those farther away. Rylin tried to listen, but it was hard to focus with Cord’s dark head right in front of her. She willed herself not to stare. A couple of times she saw Leda looking at her out of the corner of her eye, and she knew the other girl was missing none of it.

When the bell finally rang to signal the end of class, Xiayne quickly changed tack. “Don’t forget that your next project is in pairs, and is due in just two weeks. So you all need to find a partner if you haven’t already.”

The room burst into a hum as everyone began pairing off. Suddenly, Rylin was seized by a terrible, overwhelming fear that she might somehow end up with Cord. She thought of the way he’d looked at her earlier this week, resentful and hurt. No matter what, she could not be partnered with him.

The sounds of the room seemed to be growing louder, making Rylin almost dizzy with the pressure of it. She did the only thing she could think of.

“Partners?” she asked, turning to Leda.

Leda blinked at her in disbelief. “You’re kidding,” she said flatly.

Rylin forced a smile. She had a feeling she would regret this. “What have you got to lose?” she asked.

Leda glanced from Rylin to Cord and back again. “Fine,” she said after a moment, with a flash of reluctant respect. “Just don’t expect me to do all the work for you.”

Rylin started to reply, but the other girl had already stood up to gather her things.

Rylin bit back a sigh and started toward the front of the classroom. She might as well introduce herself to the professor and ask what this assignment was.