The mysterious structures were an old source of gossip for Torish and his friends: seven hulking anvil-shaped blocks of concrete, featureless except for their numbers, the buildings loomed over the magrail line that cut through the heart of the city.
During fits of boredom, they’d play a game to see who could invent the most outlandish story about the people who used them; sometimes, they would sit and watch from the street over for people who went near, or even dare each other to see who could get the closest to the buildings. Torish was the proud record holder of that one–he’d gone all the way to touch the facade of Number 5. Disappointingly–or thankfully–nothing had happened.
Torish had never seen anyone go in or out of any of the buildings, and if there were any cameras or windows, they were cleverly hidden or disguised enough to be unrecognizable. Sojarav had claimed that his father’s colleague’s sister had seen one person enter once, but Sojarav was also the most inscrutable of their little group and often sneaky when you least expected it, so who knew if it had really happened.
