The shuttle cleared seven thousand feet and disappeared.
The onlookers had been expecting to hear a sonic boom with the way the space shuttle had shot forward, but it was silent.
It had simply reached altitude, oriented, accelerated, and was gone before the tracking systems had finished updating their displays.
The crowds on the perimeter roads stood with their phones still raised for several seconds after it disappeared, pointing at a sky that now held nothing but pale grey cloud and the ordinary traffic of commercial flights holding their approach corridors at a respectful distance from whatever had just happened.
Then the phones came down, one by one, and people looked at each other.
***
LucidNet processed the departure the way it had processed everything at a speed that made the event simultaneous for five billion people regardless of time zone.
