Chapter III
Paternal Impulses (Kick the Stars)
Holding a spool of udon in one hand and a sauce vial in the other, Champ Sappline looked up at the one-hundred-fifty-story building in which he would presently be reunited with his long-dead father.
The façade of the cylindrical chromium edifice was segmented like bamboo into five thirty-story sections. Excepting the black panes of the one hundred and second, one hundred and fourth, and one hundred and tenth floors, which were dedicated to the Empire State Building, One World Trade Center and the Twin Towers, its windows were one-way glass that matched the metal. Affixed to the surface of the building by the soles of their feet were two hundred seventy defunct mannequin prototypes. The extruding androids faced up, frozen mid-stride on a spi
