A Crack in the Sky Read Online Free PDF

his study modules, leave Dr. Toffler in his box, and travel with his family to Grandfather’s mansion. These were Eli’s favorite days. Fortunately, there were plenty of occasions to celebrate. Company holidays, Grandfather’s birthday, the Fourth of July. Sometimes there was a Papadopoulos family wedding. No matter what it was, Eli knew that the CloudNet news cameras would be there to cover it, which was why everyone prepared so carefully. The laundry droids would set out the boys’ best balloon pants with matching jackets and ties. They would also pack an extra set of casual clothes for them, just in case there was a football game.
    Even when he was a small child, Eli understood that the message for the media was this: See? We’re like everybody else. A normal family. We even play football together.
    Once they were clean and suited up, Eli and Sebastianwould follow their parents into the transport, which had the familiar InfiniCorp logo emblazoned on its side: DON’T WORRY! INFINICORP IS TAKING CARE OF EVERYTHING! The transport would fly the four of them out beyond the Providence dome, and Eli would gaze down through the window. From high in the air, Outside looked bleak and empty to him—endless miles of sand and barren roads with only occasional patches of abandoned buildings. Eventually, far on the horizon, he would be able to make out a silver glow, the first shimmer from a massive hemisphere of metal and light twice the size of the Providence dome.
    New Washington, where Grandfather lived.
    Eli loved these family visits to the mansion—these
photo ops
, as he sometimes overhead Mother and Father referring to them in whispers. Eli had twenty-three cousins and eighteen uncles and aunts. Plus Grandfather, of course. He was the one Eli looked forward to seeing most.
    Grandfather, whose actual name was Hector Papadopoulos but
everyone
called him Grandfather, always made a special fuss over Eli. At some point during the commotion the old man would always wave him over.
    “There he is! My fat lamb!” he would say. And then, “What is it that nobody ever sees, never arrives, and yet no one doubts will come in mere hours, at most?” Grandfather adored riddles and always had a new one ready when Eli visited. Eli was good at figuring out the answers and often got them right on the first guess. It was usually some sort of play on words. He’d consider for a moment and then give his reply.
    “Tomorrow.”
    Then Grandfather would laugh. “Nicely done!”
    While the CloudNet cameras snapped pictures of the other children, Eli and Grandfather would head into Grandfather’s private office, away from the commotion, to play checkers, another of Grandfather’s favorite pastimes. Grandfather sometimes let Eli beat him, but not often. It wasn’t his way.
    “What an observant child!” Grandfather would say whenever Eli made a clever move. “Such an intelligent boy!”
    Eli was a frustration to Dr. Toffler and a disappointment to most of the Papadopoulos family, but to the old man none of this seemed to matter. Eli was Grandfather’s special favorite.
    Eli was proud of Grandfather and what he’d done for the nation. He’d started the company as Papadopoulos Incorporated and evolved it into a giant organization that sold just about every kind of product and service there was to sell. He’d kept it growing by merging and acquiring and gobbling up competing companies until at last it became one gigantic conglomerate, InfiniCorp, the organization that built, owned, and ran everything in the whole country.
Everything
. Which was wonderful because Grandfather had organized it all, made it more efficient.
    When the Great Sickness came, sweeping across Europe, Asia, and Africa, killing millions, only InfiniCorp was strong and organized enough to protect its employees. There wasn’t time to design the perfect vaccine, but InfiniCorp scientists created a fragile concoction that had to be used within minutes of its manufacture.