"...Edward Mann, please report to WalkWay Seven Twelve. Edward Mann, please report to WalkWay Seven Twelve. Thank you." The intercom fell silent.

"Alright, then, mate, I'll see you later. I gotta go see what they want from me," Edward told the short bald man that he was talking to.

"Yup, see you later Edward," replied the bald man returning to work.

Edward pressed the up button for the nearby elevator bank and waited while one came zooming downwards at speeds of nearly seventy miles an hour.

While he waited Edward was able to look out upon the grounds of the largest Sky Tower in North America, a monster of concrete, metal and glass that rose miles into the sky.

It was three towers, really, each of them sloping upwards gracefully from the ground and connected by walkways that provided breath-taking views of the surrounding landscape.

Each tower was self-sufficient, as well, important as Earth's resources ran out ever so slowly. Each building could grow its own food, make its own power, and entertain its own people.

The grounds outside were beautiful, long and sloping fields of green grass and rock walkways and statues. Unseen below it all two eight lane one way highways ran underground, the arteries that provided the few things that the towers couldn't make on their own, running twenty-four seven.

And elevator beeped behind him and Edward performed a smart about-face and headed into it. Elevator number twelve just like always, just like the building knew he liked.

The building automatically read Edwards implanted chip and it immediately began to speed upwards towards the seven hundredth and twelfth floor.

"Hello Edward," the building said cheerfully, "Looks like there was a slight spill by an old woman, no liquids but there was a lot of stuff and possibly some flower. They just need your help to clean it up so that things run smoothly, alright?"

"Sounds fine to me, Jason," Edward said to the building. Jason. That's what Edward called it, what everyone called it. Jason, named after the man who had founded the towers.

"You doing alright today, Edward?" Jason asked in his strange soothing voice.

"Yea, yea, I'm alright. Boy, it's a beautiful day today..." murmured Edward as he gazed out the glass face of the elevator into the blue sky and across the rolling forested hills below.

"It is indeed," agreed Jason.

The elevator began to whisper slightly, a sign that it was about to stop. And it did.

"Here you are, then, Edward," said Jason. "I'll talk to you later tonight. Oh, and by the way, your new book is here, the one you requested yesterday. I'll have someone deliver it."

"That'll be wonderful, Jason," Edward said. "Thanks a bunch."

"No problem, Edward."

As the doors to the elevator closed silently behind him Edward thought about the tower, HIS tower. Tower 46B. It was a beautiful building, designed by an architectural genius and well maintained. The tile floors and wooden floors and carpets alike were all still gleaming and clean despite nearly a hundred years of use. The windows had barely a smudge on them and at times one could hardly tell that they were there.

The elevators ran at top notch speeds with barely a sound, the people were happy, and the food was good.

Yes, without a doubt Edward would gladly die for his tower. Loyalty like this was very common among Sky Tower inhabitants, and it was admired by a great many corporate and national entities.

As he turned the corner of the spacious hallway that he was following Edward immediately pin-pointed the problem. About halfway across the Sky Bridge - a good hundred feet at this level - an old lady had accidentally over-turned her heavily laden trolley that she had been pushing back to her home.

Various canned foods and oranges and apples had rolled around the floor, some being knocked further and further away as other residents of this Sky Tower made their way across the bridge.

Edward quickly jogged to where the old lady was and began helping her right the trolley and gather her groceries.

The old lady stood up and watched as Edward worked. "Why, thank you very much young man," she said as she arranged some groceries that had gone astray inside her cart.

"It's no problem, mam," Edward told the old woman. "Hell, it's my job, y' know?"

"Oh boy, DO I!" exclaimed the old woman as she laughed slightly. "I can tell you that you're going to love retirement so much! The upper apartments are so nice and you don't have to work any more and it's wonderful!"

"I bet it is. Too bad for me that I've got a good forty years to go before I'm done with, though," sighed Edward. "But it's all right, Jason is good to me. He makes my days enjoyable even with the work."

"Yea, yes, Jason. You know, he still talks to me every day, greets me in the morning and says goodnight just before I get to sleep. He's a wonderful fellow, most polite chap I've ever met."

"Yea, he's a great pal of mine."

Edward stopped a moment and watched the legs of the people walking by, going about their lives. Jeans. Shorts. Skirts. Legs. Shoes. Sandals.

"Alright, I think this is everything," Edward said as he deposited fruit and cans alike back in the trolley.

"Wait, dear, before you leave, have an apple why won't you?" the old lady said as she offered Edward one of the bright red fruit with her shaking hand.

"I'd be delighted," Edward said, taking the apple gingerly from the lady's hand. "Have a nice day, alright?"

"You too, dear, you too," she replied.

Each of them disappeared into the crowd.

Edward began making his way back to the elevator bank while eating the apple in his hand. About halfway through he stopped to look at it, though, as he had tasted something odd in it. Looking closely he could see that he had reached the core on this side of the apple and there was something growing there, something small and white, something delicate...

The next thing Edward knew his eyes were lying to him, the floor seemed dirtier than it should have been, the people's clothes were pitted and their skin was scarred - his vision was swimming...

Vertigo quickly set in and Edward threw up on the floor while people around him recoiled away in disgust and horror.

Disease was rare on the Sky Towers.

The last thing that Edward heard before he blacked out was Jason's voice sounding urgent, requesting a medical team to...

And he was gone.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Each beep cut into Edward's head like a knife. He was throbbing, his whole body beat with his heart, a single pulse every time.

Edward slowly forced himself to open first his left eye, and then the other.

He was surprised to find himself lying in a fairly uncomfortable hard bed in a white clinical looking room, most probably the medical section of one of the towers.

Something wasn't right, though... Compared to the rest of the tower the medical section should have been so clean that a person would feel uncomfortable even breathing in it with gleaming metal surfaces and pure white ceilings and walls.

But this wasn't the case. The white walls were dirty, dingy, and Edward thought that he could see mold growing in one corner of the room. The metal surfaces for the tables and the equipment were rusting and dull, and on top of all that one of the lights kept flickering on and off and buzzing incessantly.

Through the crooked door-frame Edward could see people walking back and forth in the hallway, some wearing dirty scrubs and others wearing ragged casual clothes.

It was then that Edward noticed the man sitting next to him, a perfectly ordinary looking man in a clean black suit whose face was so unremarkable that Edward would probably have trouble committing it to memory.

"Hello, Edward," the man said quietly as he stood up, "How are you feeling? Tired? Light headed? Confused?"

Edward watched as the man closed the door to the hallway as much as it would close in the crooked door frame. "I'm feeling alright, I guess. My head hurts a little, though, and I am confused as to why this room is so dingy and... UNKEMPT... when the rest of the building is so beautiful and clean all the time?"

The man stood by the door and smiled for a moment, turning his head slightly and looking at Edward like a dog. "Well, there's a very good reason behind that, but you're not going to like it." The man paused for a few seconds more and then leaned in and asked Edward, "Listen, do you want to hear the most horrible truth that you'll ever hear?"

Edward nodded without even thinking, listening intently and watching the man from where he lay in the bed.

"Ok, you ready for this?" The man paused and took a deep breath and then picked up a picture from a table next to him. On it was a picture of a slimy-looking mold. "Do you know what this is, Edward?"

Edward shook his head and said, "What is it?"

"It's a type of fungus. The species is about three years old and we don't know where it came from. Do you know what this is?" The man held up a picture of a mask-wearing man in a lab coat attaching a tank with a chemical symbol into what looked like a building's ventilation system.

"Not a clue, but what do these have to do with me?" Edward asked as he frowned slightly.

"Just be patient. This, Edward, is an employee of this tower attaching a tank of special nano-devices into the ventilation system of the building. Do you know what these nano-devices do?" The man didn't wait for an answer this time. "These devices are built to be breathed in by people, by us, and then to make their way to our brains. They're programmed to do one thing once they're there. Do you know what that is?"

"No, what are they programmed for?"

"They're programmed to lie to our minds, to make us think that everything is fine and to feel happy. The beautiful grounds outside of the tower? Figments of the nano-devices. In reality that ground is barren and brown with barely and vegetation because all of it is killed by the towers. The amazing condition of these monstrous buildings when you never actually see anyone working on them? It's not really like that. I'm going to tell you right now that this medical section IS in better condition than the rest of the building. Scary thought, right?"

"What? No, what? You're telling me that the life I've lived is a lie? All of it?" Edward nearly screamed this out. "Where's Jason, let me talk to Jason!"

"Jason? Who is...? Oh, you mean the building's computer... That's another byproduct of the nano-devices, they make it sound friendly and happy and have you imagine some conversation with it in order to help you feel less lonely."

"But... Why aren't these nano-whatevers not working for me anymore, then?" asked Edward as he wondered why he was singled out from the rest of the people in the building.

"Well, I was going to get to that. You see, when the fungi gets inside you it manages somehow to get to your brain and sets up shop there. While it grows it absorbs nutrients from your blood stream and, for some reason, the nano-devices. However, it doesn't harm you directly. Basically, the mold is eating the nano-devices. Strange, I know, but as long as you eat enough for the both of you it shouldn't harm you. We can't figure out how to kill it, though, so you're stuck with it."

Edward was about to say something when the man continued on and said, "Now, there are some clothes on the table here. Put them on and then come into the hallway. We need to go to your apartment so that we can gather your things because we're taking you away."

"What? No, I'm not leaving! You can't take me away from here! I've lived here my whole life, I've seen how things can be! We can fix-"

"Just come with me, alright? You'll see why you need to leave, why it's not safe for you to stay here, why it can't be fixed." The man stood up and offered Edward his hand, which Edward shook reluctantly. "My name is Jason, by the way."

"Oh, that's just cruel," whimpered Edward. "Do you enjoy ruining people's lives?"

"Not particularly. My employers got a kick out of my name since I help to rehabilitate people - they figured that it might help ease them into suburban life."

"This is bullshit... We'll get out there and you'll see..." Edward muttered as he got out of the bed and started to put on the clothes. "I'll show you..."

"Yea, yea, like I haven't heard that before. Let's go, Edward. I'm waiting on you..." The man tapped his foot on the floor impatiently.

"I'm coming you great big fat prick! Jesus Christ... Here, I'm ready, let's go!" half-yelled Edward as he flared his nostrils and glared at the man in the suit.

"Alright, Edward, follow me, then..." said the man as he left the room and started walking down the hallway.

It was dingy in this narrow space as well, just as bad as the room if not worse. The white walls and once nice carpet were now stained with blood, bile, and other unspeakable fluids after years and years of use. The lights in here were just as bad as in the room as well with only a scant one in three working, leaving the hallway dim.

And there were people rushing everywhere, none of them looking washed at all! Their clothes were dirty and wrinkled and stained, their faces were covered in grime, and the filthy hands clutched old and breaking medical devices and clip-boards.

And they were UGLY by normal Sky-Tower standards. Nearly all of the people were pale as ghosts compared the sort of tan that Edward was used to seeing and a good portion of them had what looked like chronic acne. A small number of the people that Edward passed also had strange disfigurations on their hands and faces from unknown horrific events.

At one point a woman smiled at Edward, she had to have been twenty-five, and nearly half her teeth had fallen out and her gums were black.

Edward caught up with Jason at a lone elevator that was just to the side of the hallway, and the look the Jason gave him gave Edward the sinking feeling that everything he had seen was real.

And then he saw the cockroach.

"What the hell?! Get it away, kill it, for Christ's sake!" he snapped at Jason who only laughed.

"Hush, Edward, or else people with start looking at you funny. They can't see it, you know. In fact, who knows how many they pass by and look at every day and don't see? Probably hundreds."

The elevator beeped and opened up and Edward stepped in - after a moment's hesitation - and took a place next to Jason who promptly pressed the "close" button and then the "lobby" button.

The elevator began to creak down the shaft making all sorts of noise as it went. At one point Edward swore he heard something snap and he saw at least three cockroaches duck in and out of holes in the walls of the elevator. And it was cold. In fact, Edward began to shiver slightly.

"Yea, noticed the cold, have you? Part of the system broke a few years ago and the higher-ups decided that they would just program all the poor blokes in the building to feel warm. It worked pretty well, too, didn't it? Yea, don't lie. I know that before you got sick you were as snug as a bug in a rug in here."

"Y-you have a d-damned coat, man?" Edward asked as he began to shiver violently.

"Yea, in the lobby, man. Just a few more seconds..."

The elevator finally stopped its screeching descent and opened its doors with an angry buzz and the two men stepped out, Jason grabbing the two coats that had been hanging from nails driven into the wall next to the elevator.

Down another crowded hallway and the pair of them emerged into the wide and open lobby that had a beautiful view of the sky outside via a giant panel of glass windows that followed the slight curve of the building. The only thing wrong with them, it seemed, was that they were so dirty it was nearly impossible to see through them.

"What the fuck?" asked Edward when he saw that one of them was actually boarded over and duct-taped. "Can they actually make people believe that that's not there?"

"They can. Scary, isn't it?"

As Edward kept walking he saw plenty of people give him and Jason funny looks for wearing coats inside the building - probably because they were unaware of just how cold it really was.

The pair soon made it to another hallway and kept on walking on their way to one of the elevator banks.

Things were just as bad here, the windows were filthy, the carpet was thread-bare and nasty, and the people were just as horrid looking.

And the cockroaches, oh, the cockroaches!

Edward watched as they ducked underfoot of the people, got stepped on, and even crawled around on the people. He swore that one lady had three of them just sitting in her hair.

Edward shuddered and felt his head to make sure that nothing was on there and noticed that Jason had put the hood and quickly followed suite.

They came to the bank of elevators and it wasn't number eleven that opened up, but number nine.

Jason entered and Edward followed a moment later whimpering about how, "But Jason always got me elevator number eleven..."

"Oh come off it!" snapped Jason. "Did you not hear me when I told you that that computer was half made up and part of your imaginations? I mean, dear god, do you think it could really get everyone their favorite elevator and keep things running smoothly? No! It just made you think that it was eleven." Jason tapped the side of his head for good effect.

Edward frowned and then stared blankly at the floor, watching the cockroaches as the scurried around unafraid of either himself or Jason.

Then a cold, metallic voice sounded throughout the elevator, much too loud. "Edward Mann, please report to the East-" but it was quickly cut off by Jason.

"Over-ride access code number seven one seven seven." The metallic voice quickly quieted. Jason let a moment pass by and then said, "So, how'd you like the real Jason?"

Edward's mouth gaped like a fish and opened and closed several times. "N-no, that couldn't have been, it must've been-"

"No, Edward, that was Jason."

The rest of the elevator ride was silent.

The doors on the two-hundredth floor of the Sky Tower creaked open and Jason and Edward stepped out into the quiet lobby of one of the many apartment complexes that made up the inside of this Sky Tower.

A lone counter sat in front of the two men with a complex looking system of mailboxes behind it and a tarnished brass bell sitting there, forlorn.

A few threadbare old couches were lying around and the walls had nice old rustic looking paneling on them - this with the classy and strangely polished light fixtures and pseudo-clean wooden floor made it look like someone actually gave a crap about the condition of the lobby.

Someone from behind the counter began to chuckle and Edward looked up to see the owner of the apartment complex, an old man who was balding and had bad teeth and had always looked like this, strangely enough.

"How'r you likin' the truth, Mr. Mann? Isn't it ugly and dirty?" asked the landlord as he polished his glasses.

"How- how long have you...?" stuttered Edward with apparent curiosity.

"Oh, a few years now. I could only save so much of my lobby once I found out, but it's better looking than the rest of the building. Ha, and you would laugh and look at me like I was crazy when you saw me workin' on that supposedly PERFECT floor! Hahaha..." the landlord broke down into silent chuckles.

"Come on, Edward, let's go to your apartment," said Jason as he led Edward away with a hand on his back.

"But... But, I don't get it. How many people are there that have gotten sick?" Edward asked Jason quietly.

"Oh, only a good hundredth of a percent of the people here have gotten sick. Others like the landlord back there, their bodies just seemed to oust the nano-devices on their own. The higher ups don't care, though, as long as they're making money off their tower. This your apartment?"

"Yea, yea, it is," acknowledged Edward. "So, what do they do with everyone when their... eyes are opened, so to speak."

"Well, we bring them back to their homes here in the tower like I am now and now I give you a choice - you can either stay here and live with your life-long home as the hell hole that it really is or you can try out life in a normal pre-tower city. There's a quite rustic place that I think you might like, a small town up in Alaska..."

"Just let me see my damned apartment, will you?" snapped Edward as he pushed his way past Jason into his apartment, his home for the past eleven years.

The first thing that he was greeted by was the scurrying of cockroaches, hundreds of them, as they ran away from the light that Edward flicked on. He could tell they were there, though, hiding in the shadows and in the dark corners.

The grand living room that Edward was so proud of and would have normally been greeted by was in pieces. The three person couch was actually broken in half and slanted towards the middle on either side and the accompanying love-seat was moulding and rotten - it looked like it wouldn't be able to take the weight of a person. The previously beautiful coffee table that had been the centerpiece of everything with its absolutely entrancing woodwork that would draw a person's eye in in a moment and its shining, polished surface was dinged and marred and covered with cockroach shit.

The floor, a previously shaggy rug that Edward had enjoyed running his toes through was a ragged mess that was caked with dirt and dead insects and the insect's fecal matter.

The baby grand piano that had stood off to the side and had been played fairly often was leaning crazily to one side, and Edward got the feeling that if he tried to play it it either wouldn't work or it would be so off tune that it wouldn't be feasible anyways.

He rushed over to his bedroom and found that his bed wasn't as kept as he'd always thought. Rather, the blankets were thrown on in a rag-tag manner and one of the pillows was lying on the floor while the other one was lying on the bed emptied of its feathers which were strewn about the room. The desk in one corner was missing one of its legs and was sitting at a funny angle because of it, and the computer didn't look nearly as new as it should have.

"Sucks, I know," Jason said from the apartment's doorway. "Well, have you reached a decision yet, Edward?"

Edward, however, didn't hear Jason. Rather, he was standing in the doorway to his bedroom and trembling violently.

"Edward?" Jason said starting forwards.

By now Edward had burst into tears.

"Yea, yea, I know man. But don't worry - it'll be alright, man. Let's go and get you out of here, alright?" Jason said while putting an arm around Edward's shoulders and leading him back out the door.

As the Jason helped Edward out of the lobby he nodded at the Landlord who nodded right back - a moment of acknowledgement between two people who knew the ugly truth.

Jason supported Edward all the way to the elevators, and from there he entered elevator number four and pressed the 'B17'.

The elevator croaked to life and began to speed - or rather, fall - down to the basement levels of the tower.

To any normal person the situation would have seemed surreal with the elevator shaking as it plummeted downwards, Jason standing in one corner of the elevator, and Edward sobbing in the other corner.

Eventually the elevator began to screech to a stop, and when it did stop it was with a 'thud' as it smacked against the metal bars that were there to keep the elevators from falling any farther into the depths of the basement area.

"Come on, Edward," Jason said as the doors opened. "We're gonna get you outta here. Alright?"

Edward didn't say anything.

"Yea, come on, buddy," Jason said as he pried Edward out of the corner and then out of the elevator.

They had emerged into a cavernous concrete room that looked and smelled dank. Water ran freely down one of the walls. At the end of the room was a metal door from behind which came the humming of machinery. Several people were standing around looking either devastated or afraid, and one of them looked like they were deep in shock.

"Just wait here for the people who'll come to take you out of here. They should be here pretty soon. Alright, take care, Edward," Jason said as he turned to go back into the elevator.

Edward didn't say anything, he just stood there in a stupefied manner.

As the elevator doors closed there was a beeping on Jason's head-set and a gruff sounding man said, "There, that's eleven of them. Think you'll be able to get to twenty of them before processing time today?"

"Oh yea," Jason replied as the elevator jerked upwards back towards the medical level. "And I'm definitely gonna beat Kierson today. You'll see."

"Yea, I'm sure I will," said the man on the other end of the conversation as he chuckled slightly. "Anyways, are the effects of the nanos still workin' strong on everybody else?"

"Yea, looks like it," Jason replied.

"Good, good," the man murmured. "Looks like we won't have to put any flavor in this batch. Stupid little blighters won't even realize what they're eatin'. As long as we cook it right it shouldn't spread, too."

"Yea, ironic, isn't it?" Jason scoffed. "Those damn hippy morons think that engineering this new fungus or whatever the hell it is will help them de-seat us from out position of power. Ha! More like they gave us another food source!"

"Yea, no shit," the gruff man said. "Anyways, get back to work you bum. We've got cattle to feed."

And as the elevator rose upwards Jason smiled to himself and thought, 'Boy, this upcoming vacation to the Bahamas is going to be damned nice.'