His breath steams and streams away with every exhalation, stolen by the winds. James clips his harness to a safety line and checks that it’s secure before unclipping from the weight he’s ridden up on. Wind turbines rise from the lake’s smooth snowy surface like white arctic flowers, scattered all the way to the horizon. Out on the lake, the waters are frozen, the lakefront ice-rimmed. Standing atop the weight, James hangs suspended above the city, exposed to sun and sky and the bracing winds racing off Lake Michigan. For a moment he’s weightless - as if he’s launching into open air and about to fly. He escapes the shadow canyons of downtown Chicago and rises into bright winter sunshine.Ī snow-mantled city sprawls below him. He’s speeding up the face of Willis Tower, whipping past other suspended weights in their columns, his cheeks tugging at the Gs, his exposed skin freezing. Electromagnetics kick in, pushing him faster and higher.

Riding the weight, he shoots up out of the Willis Tower sub-basement and up through an open gap in the pavement. Kinetic power from the flywheel feeds into gears, feeds into winches, feeds into the steel cable holding James’s weight. He takes a breath and nods to Fitz that he’s ready to fly.įitz gives him a devil-mischief look, shouts, “Have a nice trip!” and yanks a connection lever. James sets his work boots more securely, readies his stance, and grabs onto the steel cable that holds the weight. A chill breeze wafts over him, hinting at how fast the massive wheel spins on frictionless magnetic bearings. It looms over him, a blur of motion holding vast amounts of kinetic energy. Beside him, a flywheel the diameter of a city bus is spinning. James Black, his father’s worst enemy, clips his safety harness to dead-man bolts and steps up onto a 1,000-kilogram weight. This short story by Paolo Bacigalupi, which appears in the anthology Cities of Light, envisions cities powered by clean, efficient energy and neighborhoods using solar micro-grids to provide energy sovereignty. With insights from local officials, architects, residents, and more, our Sustainable Cities of the Future series examines how we’ll live, work, and play in the cities of tomorrow. Fix is exploring how our urban centers are being reimagined and what green, equitable, and resilient communities could look like.

As the climate changes, cities must change with it.

曼谷的發條女孩 by Paolo Bacigalupi