Never Go Alone

by Denison Hatch

  Jake tried to be nonchalant. “The way you do.”

  “If that’s true, you do it my way.” Rory took in Mona, as if finally remembering she was there. “Our way. Our rules. It can get dangerous. I’ve learned that firsthand. First I’ll teach you how to not die, then you’ll live better than you’ve ever known. Are you in?”

  Jake grabbed Rory’s hand in deep agreement.

  ELEVEN

  “THE FIRST RULE OF URBAN exploration is . . . Never go alone.”

  Rory spoke to Jake as they walked through the eerie hallways of an old, abandoned insane asylum a few miles up the Hudson from Manhattan. It had been a nervous week since Jake had seen Rory and Mona, but they had finally come through. And now Rivett was observing with wonder a century of wallpaper peeling off the walls of the complex’s old cafeteria. The location was not un-similar to a video game, but it existed in real life. The three explorers were also accompanied by two more members of Rory’s core crew, both of whom Jake recognized from the party: Jack Castle and Nikolai.

  “One partner is good. A crew is better,” Rory said. He turned and smiled at Jake. “And hopefully they’re a good one. Go ahead.” Rory gestured to a steel door in front of them.

  Jake pushed through the old steel door and entered a kitchen. As he stepped through, the door shut quickly behind him. Jake rotated and gripped the handle but realized that it was locked. A sensation of deep fear ran through his body. What should he do? He flung his flashlight around the dark room in vain, until he heard the voice of Rory behind the door.

  “Brings me to rule number two,” Rory shouted loudly. “Never let a door shut unless you’ve checked the lock from both sides.”

  A long and full minute passed while Jake stood by. What were they waiting for? When the door finally opened, Rory was grinning. Castle cackled in the back of the group. They’d clearly played this trick on others before.

  “Thanks for that,” Jake said.

  “Learned your lesson, I bet.” Mona remarked.

  “Ever leave someone behind?” Jake asked.

  “Only the ones I didn’t like,” Rory replied. “Everything’s a test.”

  ▪

  Later that afternoon, they were back in Manhattan and inside the sewer system, which Jake had now learned was one of Rory’s favorite haunts. Rory knew the system underneath Manhattan like the back of his hand. Better, in fact. As the crew trudged through silt at the base of a pipe, Rory began to speak.

  “Rule number three. Carbon monoxide will hit you like a sledgehammer. One moment, you’ll feel nothing wrong at all. The next? You’re out like a light—and you aren’t turning back on. Ever.” Rory pointed his flashlight down a long underground corridor of arched stone. Blue spray-paint was scrawled on the sides of the wall with “NO O2,” “NO ZONE,” and other similar warnings. Jake glanced at Mona as she placed a respirator over her face. Rory handed an extra one to him.

  “If a place is a no zone? There’s a reason for it. Don’t test fate,” Rory said. Once they were deep inside the corridor, Rory stopped for a moment. The area they were exploring was old, but Rory shined his flashlight above what appeared to be a downright ancient sewer tunnel entrance. Also spray-painted with “No Zone” graffiti, engraved in the keystone of the tunnel’s entrance was a depiction of an ancient beast that vaguely resembled a hydra—the multi-headed serpent of Greek legend.

  “What’s that?” Jake asked.

  “The hydra. It’s the city’s oldest sewer system. Practically prehistoric. Go in there and you might not come out.”

  “You were looking for that before. At the subway station, right? How come?”

  Rory turned away from the entrance to the hydra.

  “You’re observant. The hydra snatches lives. But not mine.”

  ▪

  It was close to sunset. Rory walked next to Jake along the sidewalk. They had emerged from the sewer and were back in the beating heart of Manhattan. Jake recognized that they were not far from the Times Square location where they’d met.

  “It’s not really a rule, but the god’s honest truth is that these things will save your life,” Rory said.

  Jake noticed that Rory was holding a pack of moist towelettes. “I get it,” Jake grinned. “I’m a noob, right?”

  “You are a noob. But no. Not right,” Rory said as he pushed the towelettes into Jake’s hand. “I’m very serious. Because of rule number four.” Rory nodded down the street at a massive construction site. A skyscraper was being built—its interior skeleton arcing into the orange sky above.

  “Weren’t we underneath that yesterday? That’s where the hydra entrance was . . .”

  “You learn fast, noob. Knew you would.” Rory smiled. Rory and Jake sauntered past the plywood walls that surrounded the construction site. It was a frail wall, painted black and plastered with the ever-present “Post No Bills” command that was only rarely obeyed by the public. Rory nodded through a break in the plywood wall, towards a security booth just off the entrance to the site.

  “Rule four. Location hacking is sometimes nothing more than human hacking. What that means is: perception is everything.”

  The two of them padded around a corner and were quickly joined by the rest of the crew. Jake watched with interest as every single person began to pull out packages of towelettes, including Mona. They wiped their faces clean from the dirt and grime of the sewer below. Mona pulled her hair into a bun. She yanked off her head-mounted light and pulled a yellow hard hat out of her bag. Jake felt someone tapping his shoulder. It was Rory, holding a white hard hat. Jake put it on as he scrubbed his face with the towelette. Within moments, Jake and the crew had been transformed into a group of construction workers, electrical specialists, and in Mona’s case, an architect. One by one, they slipped through a large gap in the fence and infiltrated the worksite.

  ▪

  Rory’s crew stood confidently in a mesh-enclosed elevator, holding their clipboards tight. There was a nervous pause as an authentic construction worker with a thermos entered the elevator on the second floor. But he didn’t pay them any attention. He was too intent upon his cell phone, thinking nothing of the explorers as the elevator flew up towards the top layers of the skyscraper. The view became more monumental as they ascended hundreds of feet into the air, but Jake was having difficulty taking in the scenery.

  Mona gazed at the setting sun. When she turned to see how Jake was doing, she immediately noted the grim appearance of his face. Curious, she glanced down and noticed Jake’s fingers clenching the elevator’s railing as if for dear life—like a vise. She said nothing.

  Midway through their route, the construction worker who had joined them took his exit. They proceeded towards the top of the building. They quickly exited the elevator a few floors from the top. The sun rested lazily near the horizon, taking its time with the death of the day, and the cement columns of the skyscraper’s sub-skeleton cast long shadows across the floor.

  “Rule number five. My brother taught me this one,” Rory said as he led Jake towards the edge of the concrete floor. About to take another step, Rory flinched and stopped his motion mid-step. “Never go where you can’t see. If you don’t know what’s there? Don’t go. Take your time. Survey the scene. Preparation makes all the difference.” Rory swung his flashlight towards his feet. It shone on the floor, and Jake could clearly recognize that the concrete was still wet, with dangerous rebar poking out from underneath.

  Needless to say, the crew changed direction. They headed towards the opposite edge of building and took a breather. Castle sat on the floor. Nik strode out along a steel I-beam extending perpendicularly from the skyscraper. Nik then crouched and lay down, closing his eyes for a nap a thousand feet in the air. They all took in the gorgeous sunset from eighty stories up. Magic hour was almost finito and the sky was full of fire. A good fifteen feet from the open edge and standing next to Rory, Jake was able to relax and take in the view. It was truly epic. He found himself reflecting on what Rory had s
aid the night before. Some men and women in this city paid rent the equivalent of Jake’s yearly salary—every single month—in order to drink their nightcaps to this view. But Rory was right. Now that Jake had it for free, he couldn’t imagine it any other way.

  “So where’s your brother these days?” Jake asked Rory, “Will, right? He’s the one . . .”

  “He’s what?”

  “Who taught you everything.”

  Rory didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he perked up and handed Jake a small camera. “It’s click-click time. You asked me yesterday why we do this? The photos—they’re our reward. You want to take a squad shot for us? Sorry man, you can’t really be in the picture until you pass . . .”

  “Pass? Huh?” Jake asked as he reached for the camera.

  “Initiation,” Rory said.

  Ahead of Jake, the group lined up for a photo.

  “Everybody ready?” Jake asked. He looked back down at the camera. Pretending to fumble with the autofocus button, he was actually searching through all the photos on the memory card. Unfortunately, his quick scrolling found nothing suspicious.

  “What up, man? Take the photo,” Rory commanded. “And by the way, that brings us to the last rule. It’s a simple one, but it’s also the most important: trust your crew.”

  The group all dropped their upside-down hand symbol at the same time. Now Jake knew what it meant. It was an “A.” Access—the point of it all. Access was what they desired. They wanted to see a world that no one else could. Not even the rich and famous could have what they had right now. No one could pay for a view like this, unobstructed even by windows. It was free for the taking but impossible to achieve at the same time. And they’d done both.

  Click. A brief freeze frame on the camera as the picture came through. Jake looked up at Rory. “I think it’s great. Want one on your phone too?”

  “Nah. That’s good enough,” Rory said.

  Jake handed the camera back to Rory, who was busy gazing vertical.

  Up a flight of stairs to the very tip-top level of the building, an angled crane on a rotating jib extended another two hundred feet into the sky. The crane was like a groom’s hand waving out from the top of ten-tier wedding cake. Once Rory noticed the crane, it was clear that he had to conquer it. Rory glanced at his watch.

  “Twenty more minutes ’til nautical sunset. Plenty of time. Right?”

  “Sure,” Mona said. “You could call it that.”

  “Hey, Nik!” Rory yelled. “Get the Phantom out!”

  Jake watched curiously as Nikolai opened his backpack and pulled out the pieces of a four-rotor Phantom drone. Nik’s hands moved deftly, like a watchmaker who’s seen the parts a thousand times before. Within a minute or two, Nik had assembled the drone. Another GoPro camera was attached to the bottom of the drone, and it was secured to a rotating gimbal, controllable from a remote tablet. As Rory started towards the crane, Nik launched the drone into the air like a falcon.

  The crew slowly followed Rory up the crane, climbing up the runway, a solid piece of steel that held the skeletal arm of the crane like a massive geometric elbow. As Rory reached the steel gridwork that composed the crane’s limb itself, he looked back. He noticed that Jake had stopped moving, just a few feet onto the runway.

  “You all right, bud?” Rory asked.

  “I think . . . I . . . Uh. Not feeling too good all of a sudden.”

  Rory noticed Jake’s foot anxiously tapping the side of the crane, slipping every few seconds while he attempted to stabilize his core.

  “No one’s forcing you to do anything. Exploring’s about you. Can you take control? Ultimately you’re the only guy who can answer that question.”

  “I know,” Jake nodded. “But like, all it takes is . . . A little bit of grease . . .”

  Rory shrugged. He continued up the crane. Mona reached Jake on the runway.

  “Don’t be scared,” she said from behind him. “Are you afraid of heights?”

  The answer was clear, but Jake didn’t dare expose himself completely. He simply wasn’t moving. He looked ahead. Rory, Castle, and Nikolai had moved much farther up. Jake gazed at them. “Nah. I don’t feel good . . . I think I just ate something bad . . .” Jake said. He began to slide back down the runway towards the relative safety of the top of the building. Mona held onto a rail as he passed. Rivett was almost in a trance at this point. Mona exhaled a deep breath and followed him down. Jake sat down on the top of the building, his head hanging between his knees. Simply trying to regain his bearings, the entire world was spinning around him. It wasn’t until Mona sat down next to him that he felt better. Her presence grounded him. Her shoulder was a solid waystation within the ocean of vertigo.

  “You’re okay. You’ll be fine. Breathe deep,” she said.

  He did, and after a bit, his cranium began to revive itself. He didn’t want to look down, so he ran his eyes up the crane that he hadn’t been able to conquer—all the way to Rory, Castle, and Nikolai.

  ▪

  The drone circled above the three men on the final homestretch. They methodically climbed up the inside of the crane, its angle rising from 45 to 55 degrees, and eventually steeper. It was patently insane—the wind whipped their clothing like Tibetan flags. Unable to hear each other due to the gusting wind, they relied on hand signals. Eventually the crane’s internal angle was such that it turned into a vertical ladder. They continued to ascend with no ropes. Finally reaching the highest point of the crane, Rory found himself on the top of the world. As the three of them gazed around, their natural perspective began to resemble a fish-eye lens—they were up so high that the horizon was slightly rounded.

  Nik hung onto a rung below Rory, one arm and one leg connected, the other two hanging free and clear like a monkey from the canopy. He screamed with delight, pointing at the drone flying above.

  Castle glanced down and noticed Jake back on the ground with Mona. Waving to achieve Rory’s attention, Castle pointed down to Jake with a questionable expression on his face. Whether it was Jake and Mona sitting like two peas in a pod, or the fact that Jake hadn’t followed them up the crane, it was clear that Castle didn’t like what he saw.

  Rory only shrugged.

  ▪

  Down below, Jake watched Mona’s phone stream the video from the Phantom. After Mona confirmed that the three men were back on the way down, she turned off the feed. She gazed at Jake.

  “It’s okay to ask for it . . .” she said.

  “What?”

  “Help.”

  “With?”

  “Whatever it is that scares you . . . about looking down at where you came from.”

  “Will you help me?” he finally asked.

  “With what?”

  “Heights.”

  Mona smiled brightly. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  TWELVE

  IT WAS A SLEEPY MORNING on the High Line park. Sprinkled tourists and joggers strolled along the trendy, renovated greenway that was spreading across Manhattan—a modern punctuation mark denoting the city’s “coolness.” Jake sat on a bench composed of aesthetically pleasing poured cement. Tony Villalon was next to him, smoking a cigarette nervously.

  “It’s been a week. I feel like a girl who’s getting stood up. Why aren’t you calling me back?”

  “I’m working the case a little too hard to play phone tag,” Jake replied.

  “If you don’t follow protocol, I can’t protect you,” Tony said.

  “Sometimes I think I’ll have a bigger problem if I do.”

  Tony sighed. “So, what’s up?”

  “Everyone thinks this place is so fresh. But did you know the park was inspired by one in Paris? Promenade Plantée. Built twenty years ago.”

  “Great.” Tony chugged his cigarette. “I’ve never been here before.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. You’ve only lived in New York your whole life.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time for history lessons,” Tony answered.
“Talk to me, Rivett. Can you finger them yet?”

  “Don’t think so.” Jake shook his head negatively.

  “Why not? What have you been doing?”

  “I’m getting in there. Slowly, but it’s working. Went to a party. Met a bunch of them. Went out with them the last couple nights. But there’s a problem—it’s not small. They’re like Boy Scouts, Tony. They made me feel like a bad guy for bringing a pick set with me.”

  “For real?”

  “I don’t know what to say. I pushed back, but they literally made me throw the thing out.”

  “But they’re the ones with that stupid hand symbol . . .” Tony replied.

  “I still can’t confirm if it’s just the Rory Visco crew, or if everyone does that.”

  “Why don’t you ask?”

  “They don’t take kindly to questions. Not yet,” Jake replied. “Did you and Fong make the electronic pulls?”

  “Yeah,” Tony said. “Truly zilch. No selfie. Nothing else incriminating on their phones or computers.”

  “I might have one thing. A lead. Name’s Emanuel Vipa.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Some guy in the scene. Just see if he has a record, okay?”

  “That’s all you’re going to give me?” Tony asked. “You gotta learn how to take some help here and there.”

  “That’s funny. Someone else said that to me yesterday.”

  “What I don’t get is . . . Why do you like doing it all yourself?”

  “It’s like you and the cancer sticks, Tony,” Jake said. “You’re smoking that right now because John and the kid are at home, and this is a great excuse to get you out of the house. You can’t smoke at home, which is what you really want to do.” Jake grabbed the cigarette from Tony’s fingers and took a long drag. He exhaled the smoke lazily into the air, luxuriously—no care in the world. “Only difference between you and me is that I’m honest with myself. That’s what no one ever gets. I live the way I want to because I like it. It’s all my choice.”