The night was cool and dry. She was slightly chilled but didn’t want to wear a jacket to cover up her magnificent gown, which shimmered and glowed with each step she took. The living fabric composed of bioluminescent microorganisms and nanobots fit even better in real life than the augmented reality projection had shown her. Despite her nerves at meeting her father, she knew she looked amazing.
I’m writing Fighting for Utopia as a serial on Substack. You’ve landed on chapter three of this sci-fi short novel about a young hero who finds a solarpunk commune within a cyberpunk world but is not content to enjoy the peace there.
Enjoy chapter three below | For chapter one go here
When she got out of the auto-cab, she lingered anxiously for a second, then gathered her nerves, like a mother hen scooping up eggs, pulling them up and under her. She took a deep breath and held it.
Zara continued to hold her breath as she walked up the steps into the building, the dress shimmering with each step.
There were security, paparazzi, and staff milling around. Cameras flashed from a handful of paparazzi using older-style cameras for the nostalgic vibes that were in vogue with the techno-elite. Most of the paparazzi just recorded continuously from their glasses. They’d fake the vibes later with AI editing software, convenience beating out against authenticity, as it always does.
She began to walk into the building. Just as she entered, inside a smaller entryway, a voice came at her side. “Hey, you… where are you going?” a burly security guard in a bulky jacket called to her as he walked over. Her whole plan hinged on waltzing in wearing a beautiful gown. She didn’t have a plan for if she got stopped.
“Who me?” she sputtered, letting out the breath she’d held too long. Stay calm. Take slow, deep breaths. You belong here, she said to herself.
“Yeah, you got out of an auto-cab on the side, not a limo, and you didn’t get your photos taken. Just who are you, and do you have a pass?” he said sternly but not overly aggressively.
She didn’t know why but blurted out her real name on a whim: “I’m Zara Sarimoto. The guest of honor, Max Sarimoto, is my father.” She reached into her purse to get her handheld network terminal, a flatty, they called it. “I can show you my ID on my flatty,” she said.
He squinted at her, “Nah, it’s all right. You look like you’re his kid, so go ahead. Sorry, ma’am.”
Like his kid? She hadn’t ever considered whether her father had other children. He was so reclusive and scrubbed from the web that he could have other kids like her; they’d never discussed it. As she passed through a doorway far too small for what was through it, she stepped into the rotunda, and all thought of her father’s other children was eliminated.
Her breath caught; she’d seen scenes like this in movies and even one in a simulation once, but she’d never seen anything like it in real life. The view was stunning. She was standing in the rotunda of the old City Hall, a massive staircase in front of her. The techno-elite had preserved most of the original architecture. Each wall was heavily adorned. There were lions and statues among flowers and leaves, columns of different styles, little archways, curves, and lines drawing the view up multiple stories to a high domed ceiling. She thought This was Greek, Roman, or maybe French, something old and European.
The building was beautiful when it was the actual City Hall, but now, amidst her life in the outer parts of Bay City, it was the most marvellous thing she’d ever seen. In recent years, they’d installed lighting and some integrated living plants within the building. They updated back office rooms, installed kitchens, and a ballroom. The old City Hall, once the seat of government in one of the US’ most important cities, had become the social gathering club of the techno-elite, non-ironically taking the old seat of the government building as their social hangout spot.
The building was decorated to the max for the charity ball. The lighting was synchronized to a DJ spinning soft, loungey electronic beats at the top of the stairs. There were floating platforms using some technology she was sure was not publicly available, they appeared to be floating with magic or some anti-gravity tech straight out of Star Wars — nothing she had ever seen before.
As she slowly walked around and stared at everything, she was startled when a server approached her, “Hors d'oeuvre, mademoiselle?”
Zara looked down at a tray with a confusing array of identical little colored objects the server had said were something that sounded like oar derves. She looked up into the server’s face, then back down. She wasn’t sure what they were. Was it food? She took a small step closer and realized that despite looking like little abstract sculptures, they did seem edible. She took one and quickly said, “Thanks.” When the server handed her a small napkin, she knew it was food. Glancing around, she saw others snacking from the trays. Her tastebuds were overwhelmed with the flavors when she popped the little edible sculpture into her mouth.
She fell into a rhythm, walking around, having light conversations with a few people at the bar as she grabbed a drink or refill, her belly filling with delectable little edible artworks.
After the speeches, she thought her father did a tremendous job, she went to find him. Feeling a little nervous, but her nerves steeled by the champagne.
A small group, perhaps some other techno-elite or journalists, stood off to the side of the stage. They were all crowding around her father, most with their backs to her, but she could see his face around the heads of the men standing in front of him.
His eyes fell upon her and he smiled slightly, as you do to a passerby in a grocery store. Seeing him looking at her, Zara flashed a big smile and a small wave as she continued to approach. His head snapped back towards her as his eyes flashed with recognition. His expression changed, his smile replaced by a firm jaw.
As she moved to approach him, he began to pull back slightly, away from her advance. She could see that the others appeared to be three other techno-elite men like him and a woman slightly older than her who looked familiar in the way all newscasters are. A middle-aged woman and a teenage boy were in the group, clearly the woman’s son. As she approached the group, her father loudly said, “Excuse me a moment, I’ll be right back,” and pulled away, slipping past the boy, momentarily resting his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
She watched him walk quickly away from the group. She didn’t stop to talk to the group but followed after him, unnoticed by the group. Just another young woman in a crowded room. He turned into a small room; perhaps it used to be an office or conference room. She followed through the door, growing more anxious as she stepped into the room. His quick departure from the group upon seeing her left her with an unsettled feeling in her stomach. Her father shut the door behind her and said, “What the hell are you doing here, Zara?”
She sputtered. She’d rarely seen him angry, but he appeared to be furious, practically shaking. “I, I, I came to see you.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Zara. I… How did you… nevermind. I’m sorry. You must leave at once and quietly.”
“But father, I bought this dress… I saw about the ball in the newsfeeds... I thought I could surprise you.”
“Zara, I have a wife and son. I know I never mentioned them. They don’t know about you. Your mother, it was a mistake, but she kept you. Oh fuck, this is not how I ever envisioned any of this. I’m sorry, sweetheart. We need to talk about this another time; I really must go back to the ball.”
Zara’s world shattered, her chest caved in, rushing into the void where her dreams, her hopes, had been just moments earlier. She felt all her emotions from the last few days crash, turned to sheer panic and anxiety. She tried to speak and briefly opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She had no air in her lungs to form the words. She sat speechless as her father stood up.
“Zara, please just go back home. I’ll call you later,” he said as he stood and left the room.
She didn’t leave. She couldn’t walk. She felt faint and sat in a dusty office chair that no one had sat in for over a decade. She replayed her childhood in her head, every interaction she had with her father. She was a little girl in her living room again, showing him how she learned to do a cartwheel, tumbling sideways as he watched and chuckled. Who was this man? A husband? A father to a techno-elite teenage boy? What about her? What was she? A naive bastard?
She began to cry, tears falling onto her lap, light rippling out from the center of each teardrop as they hit the living fabric. She rubbed at the wet spots, not wanting to ruin such an expensive dress. The dress. Why did she think an expensive dress would ever mean anything? She had tried to believe she could save up, get a dress, and what? Buy her way into the techno-elite, become a family with her father? He already had a family, and it wasn’t her. Worse still, she knew Mom and Benji would have talked her out of it, telling her that life isn’t so simple.
It was all obvious now.
If you like my normal newsletter, I’ll go back and forth. Posting regular newsletters and essays along with chapters from Fighting for Utopia. I’m currently brainstorming two pieces, one on AIs replacing democracy, and a second on the future of the video game industry.
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