1 The Putrid Green Snow

The putrid green snow once again falls from the eternally gray sky.

Did people really once stick out their tongues to catch white snowflakes in their mouths? Such ancient tales sound so incredibly bizarre, they feel like nothing more than mere fiction.

The window feels cold on my skin as I press my forehead against it, sending vibration down to my teeth. Even though the air inside of the car is much more breathable than what is out there, I still can't shake off the artificial smell barging into my nose every time I inhale. At least the silence is something I don't mind getting used to.

Unnaturally verdant droplets flow down the glass pane in front of my eyes, through them I see empty city streets stretching for as far as the eye can fair, occupied only by patrolling police so heavily armed it seems like they are getting ready for a war, not that there has been one in nearly a hundred years.

Surrounding me in every direction is a concrete jungle invading into the high heavens. We humans have forced our ways into a pantheon that never existed, played a god who never cared, and ruined a garden that never could be lasted, and yet, looking out into what Earth has become fills me with not dread, but hope, hope for what could be if we were ever given a second chance.

Being submerged in my own thoughts, I did not notice that the car has come to a stop. The knocks on the window from the other door snap me back to reality.

I turn my head to the other side to find a short masked woman under a blue umbrella waving at me from the side of the road. It appears I have arrived at Cisca's stop.

I smile back and reach for a button below the window. With a beep, the door in front of the woman unlatches itself and slides open, letting the cold air flood into the cabin.

"Good morning, Mr. Kaplan," the woman says and steps into the car, shaking off the green moisture on her umbrella and closing it before she sits down beside me. She takes her mask off and puts it into her pocket.

Her short twin-tails are such a similar black as the leather, they look to be flowing right into the seat itself. A faint smell of unknown chemicals drifts off of her white lab coat, an odd outfit in weather like this, but it would be even odder if I ever saw her not wearing one.

I press the button again to close the door and return her greeting, "Good morning, Cisca."

She sets her folded umbrella down in the pocket attached to the door. The scenery outside of the window begins to move again after Cisca has buckled in her seatbelt.

"Is there anything new from the press?" I ask, but her squint suggests that she does not want to answer that simple question.

She breathes out a sigh and begins to speak, "Mr. Kaplan-"

"It's just us two in this self-driving car, Cisca, so call me Kris," I tell her. Being addressed as Mr. Kaplan doesn't annoy me, but Cisca is one of the very few people I would rather not keep a wall of professionalism between.

"Right. KRIS, I am not your secretary. That's Sophia's job."

There is the Cisca I am used to. I let out a chuckle under her dark blue gaze behind the thick pair of glasses barely resting on her small nose and respond, "Well, as you can see, Sophia isn't in the car with us right now, is she?"

"No, I guess she is not," Cisca says and reaches into her pocket to take out her phone, the light from which reflects off her skin that was so pale it was as if she has never seen the sun before.

She begins to tap on it with her thumbs, and with a swipe of her finger, the screen on the back of the empty driver seat lights up, displaying a monochromatic news article.

"So, you did prepare something for me," I say.

"Yeah, well, I knew you weren't going to bring Sophia with you today. She can't be trusted anyway. You have no idea what she can hide behind that luring smile of hers." The spite at the end of her sentence is amplified by her finger aggressively pointing in my face.

"Listen, I have no idea what happened between you two, but my secretary is more than just your ex, okay? Let's get back onto topic," I say to her.

Cisca clears her throat and pushes her glasses up with her fingers. "Sorry," she says and points to the screen in front of me, "As you can see here, UC Times has made another, quote on quote, exposé on you."

The title of the article above a desaturated photo of my face reads,

"New Estimation Puts Kris Kaplan, CEO and Owner of Kaplan Corporation's Net Worth at a Quarter of a Trillion Dollars."

Oh wow. I can't help but snicker and wonder who is making these estimations. What evidence are they basing such uneducated guesses on? Not once did they even come close to my actual wealth.

"Who do they think I am? I'm Kris fucking Kaplan. A quarter of a trillion dollars? They are closer to my annual income than my net worth," I say with a dry chuckle. I can see Cisca rolling her eyes beside me.

"Chill your horses, Narcissus. Keep reading," Cisca says and swipes her finger down, scrolling through the article.

"The twenty-six-year-old Ontarian had inherited great wealth from the late Lewis Kaplan. With Kris's unrivaled talent in manipulating money, he brought his father's business to an empire that is bigger than anything this world has ever seen before."

Manipulating money makes me sound somewhat sinister, but I can't disagree with the other statements. The rest of the article is just similar reporting, some of them are inaccurate and borderline false, but it would not be good if the public knows everything about me.

"You know, it's kind of your job to summarize the article, not present them for me to read," I say.

"Oh, really?" There is a strong hint of sarcasm in Cisca's voice that makes me feel like she doesn't agree with what I am saying. "It's also your job to listen to whatever your Chief Science Adviser says."

I laugh at her snarky delivery, and from her held-back smile, I can tell she is proud of it, too.

"Fine, I can't argue with that, Chief Science Adviser Cisca. Do you have anything else for me?"

"Nope, that's all," she says and remotely turns the screen off.

"Okay, then. Let's move on to the real topic," I say and press another button beside me, shifting all the windows to an opaque dark tint, "How is the launch of Project Eden coming along?"