Chapter 1: Ron Mills Finds a Match
The hum of the aeroponic misters was a white noise symphony in Ron Mills’ lab. He wiped his hands on a cloth, leaving streaks of graphite and soil across the khaki fabric, and peered at the intricate lattice structure growing in the chamber. It was a new mycelium-based building scaffold, designed to be seeded and grown into a livable habitat within weeks. Sustainable, beautiful, and strong. He smiled to himself.
A sharp, cheerful ding cut through the hum from his tablet propped against a jar of nutrient gel.Mirage.
The smile turned into a grin. He’d almost forgotten he’d left the app running in the background. Setting the cloth down, he crossed the spacious, sun-drenched lab—a former greenhouse he’d retrofitted with reclaimed timber and solar glass—and picked up the device. A notification bloomed on the screen: “You’ve got a new match! Meet Nyssa.”
His thumb hovered for a second. He’d been on Mirage for a few months, with lukewarm results. Most conversations fizzled after the usual “What do you do?” and his explanation of biodynamic architecture. But something about her profile photo made him pause. It was a candid shot, slightly blurred as if taken mid-laugh. She had a warm, open face, intelligent eyes that seemed to hold a secret joke, and a cascade of dark curls over one shoulder. The bio read: 28.Gainesville. Lover of absurd novels, spicy food, and conversations that don’t feel like interviews. Seeking a partner-in-crime for hypothetical adventures and very real takeout.
Ron swiped right days ago. And now, a match.
He tapped the message icon. Don’t overthink it, he told himself. Just be you.
Ron: So, a partner-in-crime. What’s the first hypothetical adventure? I’m thinking we secretly replace all the public benches in the city with slightly more comfortable, ergonomically superior ones. A silent act of civic rebellion.
He set the tablet down and returned to his mycelium scaffold, poking at a node with a calibrated probe. The reply came faster than he expected.
Nyssa: Benches are a good start. But too traceable. I was thinking more along the lines of anonymously donating confusingly specific books to little free libraries. Like, only books about the history of glue, or falconry in medieval Lithuania.
Ron laughed, a short, surprised sound in the quiet lab.
Ron: That’s devious. I like it. So, Gainesville. You’re a Heavy, then? What’s it like living in the land of… well, everything bigger?
He winced as soon as he sent it. Smooth, Ron. Reduce her entire continent to a size joke. But her reply was breezy.
Nyssa: It has its perks. Never worrying about reaching the top shelf. The skyline views are unbeatable. But it’s not all giant cupcakes and lazy rivers, despite what the travel holos say. There’s a… weight to things here.A pace. What about Proudland? Is everyone as relentlessly inventive and community-minded as the brochures claim?
Ron: Pretty much. We’re all about optimizing. Sustainable loops, integrated design. My brain doesn’t really shut off. I see a problem—like housing scarcity—and I start sketching solutions on napkins. It’s a blessing and a curse. My friends tell me to relax, but building things is how I relax.
Nyssa: What are you building right now?
He snapped a picture of the mycelium lattice, the fine, white threads beginning to weave into a stunning geometric pattern under the grow lights.
Ron: A living foundation. Grows itself, sequesters carbon, and when its lifespan is over, it composts back into the earth.No waste.
Nyssa: That’s genuinely beautiful. It looks like a frozen snowflake. Most of the architecture here is… monumental. Less snowflake, more mountain. It’s impressive, but it doesn’t feel like it breathes.
They talked for an hour, the conversation flowing from architecture to food (he was growing a hybrid peach-plum in his vertical garden; she described a fried dough street snack from her neighborhood that was “a heart attack in a delicious, paper bag”), from favorite terrible movies to their mutual annoyance with small talk. Ron felt a charge he hadn’t felt in years, a clicking of mental gears that was as exhilarating as a breakthrough in the lab. She was sharp, funny, and challenged him. When she mentioned a theory about using resonant frequency to potentially strengthen polymeric alloys, he nearly dropped his tablet.
Ron: Okay, who are you? Most of my dates think graphene is a brand of candy.
Nyssa: I get that a lot. I’m just a curious person. Maybe I’ve read too much. So, Ron Mills, inventor. What’s the thing you’re yearning for? Beyond the benches and the book donations.
He leaned back against his workbench, the polished wood cool through his thin shirt. The lab was quiet now, the misters off. The question felt big in the dimming light. He typed slowly, honestly.
Ron: A real connection. Something that isn’t transactional. Everyone here is so focused on progress, on the collective good, which is great. But sometimes it feels like we’ve optimized the heart right out of the equation. I want an adventure that isn’t on a drawing board. I want to build something with someone that isn’t made of mycelium or solar glass.
He held his breath. It was too much. He’d shown his hand.
The typing indicator appeared. Disappeared.Appeared again.
Nyssa: I think that’s the most perfect thing anyone has ever said to me on this app. For what it’s worth, I’m tired of monuments. I want something that breathes, too.
A warmth spread through his chest, bright and terrifying.
Nyssa: Hypothetically… what if our first adventure wasn’t so hypothetical? I’ve got a weekend free. The Mid-Level Market in my district is insane—spices from Tinies traders, architecture manuals from Proudland, all sorts of weird Heavy street food. Could be… research.
Ron stared at the message.A real meeting. Cross-continental. It was a big deal, complicated. The travel logistics alone… but the idea of standing next to her, of hearing that laugh in person instead of imagining it…
Ron: That’s a serious step up from confusing library donations. I’d have to get a travel visa. But… yes. If you’re serious, I’m in. Send me the details.
Her details came through: a plaza address in the Sterling District of Gainesville, a date and time two weeks from now, and a final message.
Nyssa: Don’t wear your best shoes. It’s messy. And be ready for a taste of the famous Heavy fried dough. See you soon, partner-in-crime.
Ron spent the rest of the evening not working. He paced his lab, then his living pod, his mind racing with a different kind of design. What to bring her? A seedling from his garden? A schematic of something beautiful? He felt a jolt of pure, undiluted possibility. It was like the first time he’d successfully paired a solar cell to a living root system—the thrill of two disparate things connecting to create something new, something alive.
He finally collapsed into bed, the lights of Proudland’s efficient, low-rise city twinkling gently outside his window. For the first time in a long time, his thoughts weren’t on solving a problem for his community, but on the thrilling, unknown problem of another person. A 14-foot-tall person from a world of giants, who liked absurd novels and thought his mycelium snowflake was beautiful.
He fell asleep with a smile on his face, completely unaware that the woman in the photo, the woman with the intelligent eyes and the warm laugh, did not exist. Not as she appeared. And the adventure waiting for him in Gainesville was not one of spicy food and market stalls, but something far more concrete, desperate, and dark.
The two weeks passed in a blur of frenzied productivity and distracted daydreams. Ron’s lab became a monument to divided attention. Half-finished schematics for a new water reclamation system shared desk space with open tabs displaying Gainesville travel guides, customs regulations, and painfully slow visa application portals.
“You’re going where?” His friend Leo asked, handing him a micro-sensor over their usual lunch at the workshop canteen.
“Sterling District. Gainesville. For the weekend.”
Leo choked on his algae-noodle soup. “The land of the… oversized? Why? Did you invent a bigger spork?”
“Funny.” Ron smiled, a genuine, easy thing that had been appearing more often lately. “Meeting someone. From Mirage.”
“A Heavy?” Leo’s voice dropped, not in prejudice, but in sheer logistical concern. “Ron. Buddy. The size difference alone… I’ve seen the cultural briefs. Their door handles are like… wagon wheels. Their stairs are cliffs. You’ll get crushed by a stray pastry.”
“She’s mobile. It’s fine. They have Middlest accommodations in the transit zones.” Ron’s tone was confident, but he’d already privately run the calculations. Average kinetic force of a casual gesture from a 14-foot-tall individual, even a lean one… it was sobering. He’d packed a reinforced personal stabilizer band from his old rock-climbing kit, just in case. Better safe.
The visa approval came through with two days to spare. The bureaucratic language was cold, outlining strict zones of movement, mandatory locator beacons, and a waiver absolving the Gainesville Oligarchic Transit Board of any injury, psychological trauma, or “dietary incompatibility incidents.”
He stared at the document on his tablet screen, the sterile legalese a stark contrast to Nyssa’s last message, which was a photo of a vibrant, chaotic market stall overflowing with strange, glittering spices. The caption read: Your olfactory adventure awaits. Don’t wear good shoes.
He began to pack. Practical clothes. Durable boots. A gift: a sealed propagation tube containing a seedling from his peach-plum tree, its roots nestled in a nutrient gel that glowed softly under his desk lamp. He also packed a stack of thin, flexible display sheets—blueprints for a miniature, self-sustaining terrarium ecosystem he thought she might find interesting. It felt vulnerable, offering this piece of his world.
The night before his departure, he lay awake. The gentle, orderly hum of Proudland’s night-cycle—the soft whir of air filtration, the distant pulse of guide-lights along the paths—suddenly felt sterile. He found himself yearning for the promised chaos of the Sterling Market, for the smell of unknown foods and the press of a different kind of crowd.
His tablet chimed. A new message from Nyssa.
Nyssa: Last chance to back out. Forecast says it might drizzle. Which here means globules of fryer oil and sugar the size of your head. It’s a mess.
Ron: Sold. I’ve engineered a special umbrella. Basically a tiny reinforced canopy. I’ll be fine.
Nyssa: Can’t wait to see it. Travel safe. Terminal 7, Arrival Bay C. I’ll be the one… well, you’ll see me.
He couldn't sleep. He got up, walked to his window, and looked out at the constellation of small, warm lights from the other living pods dotting the hillside. A community of individuals, yet he’d never felt a connection here that crackled with the same voltage as those text messages. He thought about honesty, about the way she’d asked what he was yearning for. He’d told the truth. He had to believe she had, too.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The adventure was no longer hypothetical. It was a high-speed mag-lev shuttle leaving at dawn. It was a customs checkpoint and a locator beacon clipped to his belt. It was a woman with a laugh he’d only heard in the silence of his own mind.
He plans to meet.
Across the sea, in a district where the streetlights were obscured by a permanent, grease-scented haze, Nyssa Calder stood before a wall-sized screen, its glow painting her face in sickly shades of blue. Her living space was not the monumental gallery of Heavy opulence one might expect. It was cramped, dominated by industrial shelving units holding not books, but rows of identical data-drives and humming server stacks. A single, large window looked out onto a neon canyon of competing food-advertisement holograms.
The photo on Ron’s Mirage profile—the one of him smiling in his sun-drenched lab—was open on a secondary monitor. She traced the lines of his face with a tired finger. The message icon blinked. It was her contact. The name was just a code: Asset M-77.
Asset M-77: Status. Is the mark prepped?
Nyssa’s fingers, which had typed witty banter about fried dough with such effortless speed, now hovered stiffly over the keyboard.
Nyssa: Travel visa confirmed. He arrives tomorrow. 11:00 local.
Asset M-77: Procedure is unchanged. Establish rapport. Isolate. Acquire the schematics for the Proudland arterial waste-conversion nodes. His lab has the latest prototypes. He will have them with him, or be able to access them.
Nyssa: He’s an inventor. Not a fool.
Asset M-77: He’s lonely. And you are precisely calibrated. The Oligarch does not tolerate failure, Calder. Your family’s allocation depends on this. The rations. The medical dispensary. Remember the terms.
The screen went dark. Nyssa didn’t move. The echoes of her laughter with Ron, the easy flow of ideas about snowflake architecture and resonant frequencies, curdled in her stomach. She looked at her reflection in the dark glass of the monitor. The warm, intelligent eyes from the profile picture were a clever composite. The real ones staring back were sharp with a cold, desperate fear.
She walked to the window, her frame blocking the garish light from outside. Down in the street, forty stories below, the throng of Heavies moved in a slow, rolling mass. A food cart offering “Triple-Fried Delights” had a line wrapping the block. The air was thick with the smell of hot oil and decay.
She had one job. Get the schematics. The oligarch’s engineers needed the efficient, waste-eliminating technology from Proudland to stabilize the faltering, overloaded systems here in Gainesville. Systems buckling under the weight of endless consumption. She was the lure.
Ron Mills, with his dreams of breathing buildings and genuine connection, was flying right into the belly of a beast that didn’t want his heart. It wanted the ingenious machines it kept inside his brilliant, trusting mind.
She closed her eyes. For a fleeting second, she allowed herself to remember the feel of the sun on her skin during a rare, permitted trip to a Middlest-scale park as a child. The clean air. The sense of space. Then she opened them, turning back to the sterile glow of her servers.
She had to be perfect tomorrow. She had to be Nyssa. The one he was crossing a sea to meet.
He plans to meet.
The mag-lev shuttle from Proudland descended through a permanent, ochre-hued haze. Ron pressed his forehead against the cool viewport, watching the continent of Gainesville resolve beneath him. It was a geography of sheer scale. The buildings weren’t just tall; they were vast, blocky monoliths clad in reflective panels, casting deep shadows over wide avenues. Vehicles the size of Proudland housing units moved with a slow, ponderous grace. From this height, the people were indistinct, but their movement had a different, heavier rhythm.
A soft chime announced their arrival at the Sterling District Transit Hub. The shuttle docked with a metallic sigh against a specialized airlock designed for Middlest passengers—a human-scale entrance grafted onto the colossal structure like an afterthought.The transition was jarring. One moment he was in the familiar, ergonomic capsule of the shuttle, the next he was stepping into a vaulted arrivals hall where the ceiling soared a hundred feet above, supported by pillars wider than his lab. The air was warm, thick, and carried a complex bouquet of scents: frying oil, something cloyingly sweet, antiseptic, and the faint, humid odor of immense bodies. The sound was a low, rolling boom of countless conversations and footfalls, absorbed and magnified by the space.
A clear, delineated path marked with glowing arrows on the floor guided Middlest arrivals. He followed it, his locator beacon a heavy weight on his belt. The path led to a raised platform fenced with transparent, impact-resistant shielding. Beyond the barrier, the main concourse of the terminal teemed with Heavies. Ron had seen holos, but the reality was a physiological shock.
They moved in a constant, tidal flow. Legs like ancient tree trunks, swathed in thick, stretchable fabrics. Bodies of staggering mass and dimension, some requiring wide mechanical walkers that whirred softly, others moving with a surprising, gentle agility. The sheer physical presence was awe-inspiring, and for a fleeting second, it veered into primal terror. He was an insect in a garden of giants. He took a deep, steadying breath, focusing on the details—a woman laughing, her chins quivering, as she adjusted the straps of an ornate, bejeweled feeding harness; a man carefully sipping from a bucket-sized cup, his fingers thick as sausage links.They were just people. On a different scale.
Terminal 7, Arrival Bay C. The sign glowed ahead. His heart began a quick, hard rhythm against his ribs. He scanned the waiting area beyond the barrier. There were a few other Middlest travelers clustered nervously, and a handful of Heavies waiting, leaning against the far wall.Then he saw her.
Nyssa was bigger than advertised, a lot bigger and a lot fatter.
The woman from the profile photo—the clever eyes, the warm smile—was there, but framed within a face that was round and soft, with multiple chins that layered down onto a thick, sloping neck. Her body was a series of immense curves, swathed in a brightly patterned, tent-like dress that strained across her prodigious belly and wide, shelf-like hips. Her arms, thick and dimpled, were folded across her chest. She wasn’t immobile, as many of the most extreme Heavies were, but she was monumental, a fact emphasized by her stance against the wall. She must have been closer to 28’ maybe 30 feet tall. The profile had been… optimistic.A fiction.
A cold trickle of disappointment, then immediate shame, washed through him. He’d been captivated by a mind, by a spirit. Was he really this shallow? But the discrepancy was more than just numbers. It was a fundamental misrepresentation. The person in the photo suggested a certain mobility, a specific life. The woman waiting for him represented a completely different reality within Gainesville’s spectrum.
He must have stared a second too long. Her eyes, those intelligent, knowing eyes he’d recognized instantly, found his. They narrowed slightly, registering his expression before he could school it into neutrality. A complicated flash went through them—apology, defiance, a weary resignation. Then she pushed herself off the wall with a grunt, the motion causing the thick flesh of her arms and torso to sway.
She walked towards the barrier gate where the Middlest were funneled through. Her walk was a slow, deliberate rocking from side to side, each step a careful transfer of immense weight. The floor seemed to tremble faintly with her approach. She stopped at the designated meeting point, a marked square on her side of the barrier, and looked down.
The distance was vertiginous. He had to crane his neck back to see her face fully. Up close, the details were sharper. Perspiration gleamed on her brow in the warm terminal air. Her makeup was expertly applied, but couldn’t hide the puffiness around her eyes. She smelled of sweat, of the floral, heavy perfume she’d mentioned, and underneath it all, the distinct, greasy sweetness of Gainesville’s signature processed foods.
“Ron?” Her voice was lower than he’d imagined, slightly breathless. It wasn’t the playful, easy tone from their messages. It was cautious, testing.
“Nyssa.” He smiled, hoping it reached his eyes. “You’re… easier to spot than I expected.”
A flicker of a smile touched her lips. “Yeah. The profile pics are from… a few years and a few hundred pounds ago. Mirage rules. You can report me for false advertising.” She said it like a challenge, like she was waiting for him to turn around and walk back to the shuttle.
He shook his head, the gesture feeling small. “I didn’t come for the pictures. I came for the woman who recommends books on falconry in medieval Lithuania.” He hefted his bag. “I brought you a seedling. And blueprints for a terrarium. They might seem a little… small-scale, here.”
Her expression softened, the defensiveness melting into something genuine and vulnerable. She let out a long breath that gusted down toward him, warm and smelling of mint. “You really did.” She looked him over, from his practical boots to his hopeful face. “You’re exactly like your photos. It’s unnerving.”
“Well, I’m a boring Middlest. What you see is what you get.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “So, is the famous market close? I’m ready for that heart attack in a paper bag.”
“It’s a bit of a walk for me,” she said, her gaze shifting past him, scanning the crowd. A slight tension returned to her shoulders. “But there’s a transit pod station just outside. We can take that. It’ll be… cozier.”
He followed her out of the terminal, walking slightly ahead as she directed. Every step she took was a minor seismic event he felt through the soles of his feet. People—Heavies—parted for her with quiet deference, or sometimes with barely concealed distaste. He was an invisible curiosity trailing in her wake.
The transit pod was indeed cozy. It was a standard Heavy-scale passenger capsule, but she filled most of it. Ron had to climb onto a specially installed Middlest seat that was bolted to the floor near the front, like a child’s car seat. The pod hummed to life, joining a stream of traffic on a elevated rail.
She was quiet for most of the short journey, looking out the window at the staggering cityscape. Finally, she spoke without turning. “You’re handling this better than most. The… disparity.”
“It’s a lot to process,” he admitted, choosing his words carefully. “But you warned me not to wear good shoes. I figured that was code for ‘things are messier and more complicated than they appear.’”
She finally looked at him, a real smile, weary but warm, spreading across her broad face. “That’s exactly what it was code for.” The pod began to slow. “Ready for the mess? The Sterling Market is… intense.”
“Lead the way,” he said.
The market wasn't a place.It was an organism. The noise hit first—a roaring cacophony of vendors shouting, music blaring from competing stalls, the sizzle and pop of countless fryers, and the deep, rumbling chatter of thousands of Heavies. The smells were overpowering: roasting meats dipped in sugary glazes, vats of bubbling oil, sickly-sweet drinks, the tang of exotic spices, and beneath it all, the hot, animal smell of the crowd.
Stalls stretched as far as the eye could see, scaling the sides of buildings on reinforced platforms. A vendor a dozen feet above Ron’s head bellowed about “crispy crust delights,” his enormous ladle dipping into a drum of batter. Nyssa moved through the chaos with a practiced ease, a giant ship navigating a tumultuous sea of flesh.
She bought two of the fried dough balls from a cart, each one the size of Ron’s head, dripping with honey and something glittery. She handed one down to him. It was a ludicrous, impossible portion. He broke off a small piece. It was delicious, terrifyingly so—light, airy, sweet, and rich with a flavor that exploded on his tongue before settling into a heavy warmth in his stomach.
“Good, right?” she yelled over the din.
“It’s a weapon!” he yelled back, and she laughed, a great, booming sound that seemed to vibrate the air around him.
For a little while, it was okay. It was even fun. He asked questions about the spices, about the mechanics of a stall that sold steaming, barrel-sized drinks. She was witty, sharp, her eyes lighting up as she explained things. But he noticed her glances were frequent, darting towards the crowd. She was monitoring the area, ensuring their privacy. The crush of bodies became denser. Ron felt a jostle from behind, a Heavy's foot coming perilously close to where he stood. He instinctively stepped closer to Nyssa, the side of her leg a vast, warm wall beside him. She noticed his displacement and her hand—fingers as thick as his wrist—came down, not to hold his, but to form a protective semicircle around his space, shielding him from the worst of the press. "It gets tighter near the central avenue," she said, her voice low in his ear. The scent of her perfume and sweat was overwhelming at this proximity. "We should cut through the Serviceway. It's quieter. We can actually talk." He nodded, relief and a new, subtle excitement mixing in his gut. The "Serviceway" was a shadowed alley running between two monolithic food-processing warehouses. The roar of the market faded to a dull throb. The air here was cooler, smelling of damp concrete and industrial garbage. It was deserted. Nyssa stopped walking. The sounds of their journey seemed to evaporate, replaced by the distant hum of machinery and the drip of water from a rusty pipe overhead. She turned to face him, her bulk blocking the light from the alley's entrance. Her expression had changed. The warmth, the wry humor, was gone. In its place was a focused intensity. "Ron," she said, her voice low and urgent. "I need to show you something." She didn't wait for a response. A new voice, smooth and electronically modulated, cut through the gloom from behind him. "He's exactly as described. Good." Ron spun around. A Heavy stood there, but unlike the market-goers, this one wore a dark, form-fitting suit that seemed to restrain his bulk rather than accommodate it. His face was partially obscured by a sleek visor. In his hand was a device, pointed at Ron. "The schematics, Mr. Mills," the modulated voice said. "The portable drive or the cloud-access codes. For your mycelium network and the arterial converters. Now, please." Ron's blood ran cold. He looked from the stranger back up to Nyssa. Her face was a mask of determination, not fear. "Nyssa?" The word came out as a disbelieving whisper. "I'm so sorry," she breathed, her eyes not with tears but with resolve. "I'm not what I seem. I work for the resistance. They're watching this." The man took a heavy step forward, the ground vibrating. "Sentiment is processed elsewhere. The data." Ron's mind, trained for problem-solving, raced. The isolator band on his wrist was just a stabilizer. His bag had tools, but nothing to counter a giant. He was in an alley with someone far more important than she'd let on, and the adventure he'd yearned for had suddenly become something much bigger than he'd imagined. He took a step back, his shoulder brushing against the cool, grimy wall of the warehouse. There was nowhere to go, but everything had changed.