Two flights up, a glance out the window activated my panic mode. This roof thing wasn’t going to work out at all. The neighboring building was too far away for a jump.
Three flights up, I’d come up with a plan to make it work anyway.
It was one of those early brainstorming plans that a sane person would reject out of hand. But my sanity was questionable, and time was not on our side.
Myka slammed through the roof door and granted us access to the wide expanse of sheds housed on the roof. Hiding? Not an option. Cool hovercraft escape? Not gonna happen. Seduce the Sev Tech mercs to get them on our side? Okay, I’d just watched a vid with that premise, and it was dumb.
So my unbaked plan was the only choice. The gap between buildings was about four Ellys long. Way too large for your average person to jump. Myka put the brakes on as she realized this. “I thought it’d be closer.”
No brakes for me. I overtook her without pause as a gunshot blasted near my feet.
“Keep going,” I said. If I had to give odds, I’d give my plan a ten percent chance of working. Ninety percent chance of us falling to our unglamorous deaths.
My momentum forced Myka forward, and I tossed her a pogo stick. “Do what I say, and don’t ask questions. Hand that to me when I tell you to. We’re gonna jump.”
Myka’s response was that of a reasonable person: “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I ignored her because the answer was obvious. But with Sev Tech taking potshots at us, she didn’t give any actual resistance.
I wasn’t doing advanced mental calculations or anything. This was pure, unfiltered “winging it”. On the plus side, the terror flooded me with more adrenaline, which would be a nice boost.
Almost there. The neighboring building taunted us, and I staggered my footfalls to make sure I’d jump off at the best moment.
As my right foot hit the edge, I slammed the pogo stick down like a daredevil.
Myka was a screaming anchor on my arc, and she created the most fatal drag imaginable. Didn’t matter. I’d assumed that’d be the case.
Solid building gave way to a cavern of air, and I focused on the neighboring building.
“Now!” I shouted. I flipped the switch on as I dropped the grav board and let gravity—ha! —do its thing. The second pogo stick hit the palm of my hand, and I jammed it against the falling grav board, giving a meager boost to our momentum.
Then it was up to gravity and the gods.
The gods took pity on us.
There must’ve been a fortuitous wind or some bizarre distortion of the rules of gravity on Ri, because we definitely should not have made that jump. But somehow we did.
I hit the roof but was pulled over the edge as Myka fell short. She dangled from the handcuff as I grappled to a dip in the concrete with my fingers. The cuffs sliced the meat of my hand, and Myka’s weight threatened to pull my arms from their sockets. Her body swayed, slamming against the side of the building as the Sev Tech goons gawked from the other side.
The only thing keeping me and Myka alive was the beveled design of the roof.
“Can you find a ledge?” I strained. The wind up here was a monster, so I wasn’t sure if she heard.
She kicked her feet, though, faltering as gunshots pelted the building around her. The mercs were back to shooting at us.
My palms sweat. I imagined my fingers digging into the concrete to anchor their hold as Myka’s efforts jerked me around in a violent spasm. Felt like she was about to tear off my arm to keep her company in her fall. I might’ve been screaming. Definitely grunting.
The weight lifted as Myka found purchase. No chance to savor the relief, though, as a shot hit me in the back. I gritted my teeth and butt my head against the grainy concrete. No part of my body wasn’t in pain.
The gunshot wound burned my right hip, limiting my movement. I couldn’t pull myself up. My muscles couldn’t handle it.
Myka appeared next to me. She was scaling the fucking wall in her athletic shoes and knee-high skirt, eyes wide with terror but jaw set. She spared a moment to glare at me before she set site on the roof and continued her vertical crawl like a fucking mountain-climber. When our handcuffs reached their limit, she jerked at the restraint to get me to join her ascent.
Fine. We were doing a “push past the pain” thing. Ordinarily not my scene, but the continued shooting presented a compelling case to give it a try.
I clawed at the concrete above and slowly, arduously pulled my weight up using only my flabby biceps. Myka was already safe on the roof, and she pulled in a tug of war against gravity as my stomach hit the edge, then my hips, then a knee planted its flag as I shoved my arms into a full push-up. This was more exercise than I got in a year.
Finally I collapsed on the blessed surface that was the roof, panting as if I’d just punched through thirty steel walls. Myka also heaved deep breaths and glowed with sweat. Her expression contained a cross of anger, concern, and lingering terror.
Whatever. We were safe.
I Don't Believe in Authentic Earth Lemurs
The building was apparently a vertical zoo, currently closed. Real animals in habitats that rose up and up along a single guest path that gave disgustingly rich people the opportunity to view “authentic Earth animals”. The top habitat was a glass jungle enclosure for something called lemurs.
One hundred percent of the time, anything claiming to be an “authentic Earth” anything
