Jacob stretched out on the floor, using his backpack as a pillow.
Sandy brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them. Her eyes were puffy and red. “I’m worried about Kat. She’s taking this hard.”
“She’s at the church. They’ll look after her. It’s going to take some time. For all of us.”
“I know. It just hasn’t sunk in yet. How’s Two-Step doing? He seemed in shock earlier.”
Jacob sighed. “Gomez was like a big brother to him. Hell, sometimes like a father. I told him we should close the store for a day or two, but he didn’t want to. He said he would work alone if I didn’t want to come in.”
“I guess he needs to keep busy to keep his mind off of it.”
The family with the little boy started packing up to leave. Jacob stood and held his hand out for Sandy. “Come on.” Sandy took his hand, and he pulled her up to him.
“We leaving?” she asked.
“No. I need to take my mind off of this too. Have you ever pressed up close to the glass and looked down? You know, like the little boy was doing.”
“No. I never came up here as a kid.”
“Me neither, but I didn’t let that stop me. When I first got out of prison, I would come up here to think. I saw the kids doing it, so I figured I would give it a try. I guess I needed to feel something then, some awe or something. I need to feel that now. Come on, give it try.”
They went to the window. “It’s not scary,” the boy said. He had stopped packing and had started watching them.
“Thanks. I wasn’t sure,” Sandy said with a smile.
“Come on, we have to go,” the boy’s mother said, taking him by the hand and leading him away.
“Here, let me show you how to do it. You’ve got to get the angle right and you only see the ground,” Jacob said. He pressed his forehead to the window and looked down at a slight angle. Below him, the lights of the market filled his field of view. “Try it,” he said.
Sandy leaned against the window, imitating his posture. “That’s a bit disorienting,” she said.
“You get used to it. It reminds me of being net-linked. Almost like your floating.”
Sandy put her hands on the window, steadying herself. “I can see what you mean.”
Jacob pushed himself away from the window and sat down. Sandy did the same.
“You know, they closed this down after the 9/11 attacks back in 2001,” he said.
“The Tower?”
“No, the sky deck. I guess they thought Muslim terrorists would come up here and blow up the place. Now Muslims live here and have family picnics.”
“Things change.”
Jacob fidgeted with the laces of his boots. “I guess that’s my point. Yesterday changed everything.”
Sandy looked at him. “Like you said, it’s going to take some time for all of us.”
Outside, the sky grew darker.
“It’s not just Gomez I’m talking about. I mean, I know I’m going to miss him. We’ve been best friends since elementary school. I’m talking about this job too. I’m not sure if we can get it done now. Not without Gomez. We need a new plan, and to be honest, I’m not even sure I want to try. I can’t have anyone else getting hurt because of me. Xia already got hurt once. Now Gomez. All because of me.”
Sandy took his hand. “I thought we talked about this before. We all made our own decisions to help.”
“I know. I know. But this is different. Gomez is dead.”
Sandy gave him a long look. “You want to call it off?”
“Part of me does. But part of me wants to finish, get our pay, and get out of here for good.” For a moment, he watched the sky grow darker, the reds and oranges giving way to dark blues and purples. “Maybe that’s selfish,” he said.
Sandy shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I guess I have time to think about it. First, I’ve got to tell Gomez’s mother. That’s going to be hard.” He stood and once again offered his hand to Sandy. “It’s getting dark, let’s get going.”
They rode the elevator down in silence, its hum and its rhythm offering a calming effect, allowing Jacob’s mind to wander. He knew what Gomez would want him to do. He would want the job to get finished. He always hated unfinished business. He had obsessed over the security monitors on and off for more than a year and would not accept that they weren’t going to work the way he wanted, no matter how many crazy rigged up schemes failed. There was no way Gomez would let him quit this job. But it was Jacob’s decision, whether he liked it or not. If he wanted to continue, everyone would agree, and if he wanted to stop, everyone would understand.
The elevator doors opened to the lobby. A couple sat at a table, the woman holding a flower and laughing as the twilight filtered through the windows.
“Where do you think they were before?” Sandy asked, nodding in the couple’s direction.
“Oh, we’re playing that? That’s an easy one. They spent some time wandering around The Market. He bought her that flower at the stall next to Pigeon Eater’s.”
“That sounds like a good idea. You want to go wander around The Market and buy me a flower?”
The rows of stacked shipping containers that lined the aisles of The Market created the impression of walking through a tunnel, the containers rising up on the sides and strings of lights zigzagging overhead, creating a glowing web. Above the lights was a second web, one of laundry lines running from one row of containers to the other, bouncing the light back down, giving the sensation of a dome over The Market. The sounds of the crowd and the noises from the
