Glass and steel, sixty stories of it, climbing up into the grey afternoon until the top floors vanished behind low clouds. At street level the entrance was all polished stone and tinted glass, flanked by two planters full of perfectly trimmed shrubs.

A man in a black suit stood just inside the doors, hands folded in front of him. He had the particular stillness of a man who got paid very well to notice things.

People streamed past on the sidewalk without so much as glancing up. New York had long since gotten used to the Tower, the same way it had gotten used to the traffic and the smell of hot dogs and the pigeons that feared nothing.

Aside from the two women planted on the sidewalk, staring up at it like it might bite.