Boone
Los Angeles looks different from the air.
From thirty thousand feet, the city stretches forever.
Lights.
Freeways.
Neighborhoods.
Millions of lives moving beneath the wings of the jet.
Wren sits beside me, laptop open again.
The glow of the screen reflects in her eyes.
She hasn’t spoken much since we left North Carolina.
Her mind is somewhere inside the system.
Running scenarios.
Planning the shutdown.
I watch her fingers move across the keyboard.
“You’re doing that thing again.”
She glances up.
“What thing?”
“The intense focus thing.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It’s definitely a thing.”
She smiles faintly.
“I’m mapping the architecture.”
“Still evolving?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“No.”
The plane begins descending toward the runway.
The city grows larger beneath us.
Skyscrapers cutting through the night.
The same skyline we saved not long ago.
