by James Bow
I eased her away. Our gazes stayed locked. “We don’t have much time,” I said.
She nodded. “Good luck.”
“You too.”
She got onto the rungs and started climbing. I climbed after her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE FALL OF SIMON DAUD
We half-crawled, half-climbed the rungs stretched between the cables of Iapyx’s singing web. The hot wind vibrated the gantry and made my wrists ache. I tried not to look through the rungs at the clouds below. I focused on remembering to breathe.
We emerged from the gantries, and suddenly the web of cables that had surrounded me all my life was below me: we stood on a master cable at the very top layer of the latticework. That should have made me feel safer — more stuff between me and the clouds below — but instead it made me feel dizzy and exposed. Hot winds tugged at us. Though we were in the shade of the cliffs behind us, I could see the silica cap at the top, gleaming. If a stray beam reflected through that cap at us, we’d have no protection.
Ahead of us the cable angled up toward the mylar-covered anchor poking out from the cliff face near its glittering cap. The master cable was wide as a gurney, and smaller cables made thin handrails on either side. But just being near the clifftop made me scar-tighteningly terrified of climbing toward that deadly sun.
We were close enough that we could see people on top of the anchor, but nobody looked down at us or shot at us. I just saw the backs of heads and bodies of security officers wrapped in white sheets against the coming sunlight, between the chrome utility boxes that lined the edge.
Suddenly there was a commotion: shouts followed by a scream. Someone toppled off the anchor, hit the master cable and came skidding down it, tumbling over and over until an arm caught a guy-wire and he lay face-up and limp.
Rachel scrambled over to him. I staggered behind her, and almost ran into her when she stopped dead, her hand flying to her mouth.
Because it was Aaron, who’d wanted to see the stars.
Aaron stared between us, focusing on nothing. “He stabbed me.” His voice was almost childlike at the wonder of it. “Nathaniel. He just brought out his knife.” He blinked. “Why’d he do that?” He blinked again, stutteringly, like Morse code.
“Aaron?” I said.
“I don’t know why he’d do that…” Aaron’s voice was a murmur. His eyes were glazing.
“Rachel,” I said. “Can you—”
“It’s too late.” Her voice was taut. I looked from her to Aaron, bewildered. Then I realized that Aaron wasn’t blinking anymore. He wasn’t breathing anymore. He wasn’t anything anymore.
The wind roared in my ears. My hand closed on the handrail, numb and pincer-like. I looked at Rachel as she reached out and shut Aaron’s staring eyes. She looked up at me, her face pale.
“Nathaniel Tal,” I said, each word a separate breath, “is going to pay for this.”
“Ms. Caan! Mr. Daud!” Nathaniel’s voice cut through the hot, dry air.
We flinched, then looked up. Nathaniel stood at the edge of the anchor, looking down at us. We both looked back the way we’d come.
“Don’t even think of turning around,” he called. “I have a clear shot from here.”
The master cable gave us only one option: forward. Forward we went, stepping over Aaron’s body. We reached the point where the cable attached to the lower side of the anchor. The mylar sheets draped over it rattled and snapped in the wind. There was a small ladder to take us up the last five metres. Straight up, nearer the sun. I could see the silhouettes of men looming at the ladder’s top, waiting for us.
At the rungs, I touched Rachel’s shoulder. “Did you have any sort of plan for when we got to the anchor?” I asked.
“No. Did you?”
“Come, now, Mr. Daud, Ms. Caan,” Nathaniel called. “Don’t keep us waiting.”
I held out my hand to Rachel. “How about: Don’t die, get the truth out later?”
She clasped my hand. “Good plan.”
We climbed the final few rungs onto the platform. A guard reached down to help Rachel up, but she slapped the hand away.
As I reached the anchor, another guard reached down, pulled me up and pinned my arm behind me. Not very hard, but it didn’t have to be. He knew what my body could no longer do. Rachel’s arm must have been twisted harder; I could see pain narrowing the corners of her eyes.
“Aaron’s dead,” I told Nathaniel.
As if I’d hoped to shock him. There was still blood on his hand. His smile was odd, though. Sympathetic? “He wasn’t cooperative. I’m hoping you’ll do better. I have confessions to be signed.”
A confession? Tell everyone the Grounders had attacked the anchor? No wonder Aaron wouldn’t cooperate. I wasn’t going to either, and if I knew Rachel, she’d rather die.
Rachel shouted at Nathaniel: “What are you really hiding? What could we possibly be close to finding out?”
Nathaniel turned back. For an instant, I thought he was going to answer. Then he smiled thinly. “There really are some things it’s better not to know.”
But what were they doing here? What was this attack they were trying to blame us for? The guards pulled me toward the cliff face, where mirrors stood on easels. Mirrors: that was smart. They could set up mirrors to defend the anchor. And there were two guards laying out the last of the mylar sheeting, too, laying it out over the top of the anchor, pulling it beneath the legs of the easels. All this was good. Other chrome boxes were open, revealing harnesses and escape suits: not much use. A hammer and a wrench lying around —
I was still taking inventory when the sheet of mylar billowed up in the hot wind, tossing me a reflection of the sky.
For a moment I was entirely blind.
In my blindness I heard Rachel yell, then another yell. One of the guards who’d been holding her now clutched his kneecap while she struggled with the other guard. She pulled free and ran at Nathaniel, but the first guard rushed her, arms outstretched, ready to tackle.
I didn’t think. A guard held my arms behind my back, but his grip was not strong, and I could move my legs. I stuck out my foot in front of the rushing guard and caught him on his shin. He went flying.
He hit the anchor, hard, rolling across the mylar sheet toward the edge. He grabbed wildly, and caught a fold, but it was no use. He pitched into open air. The mylar sheet slithered with him. There was a terrible tearing sound.
We fell over as though a rug had been pulled out from under us. The easels crashed. Mirrors smashed. Several pitched off the side. I felt myself rolling until I got hold of myself. I found myself on my back, by the edge, as Rachel, Nathaniel and the remaining guards picked themselves up.
For a moment, there was stunned silence.
And pure horror on Nathaniel’s face.
He wasn’t staring at where the guard had fallen … none of the guards were. They were all looking at the anchor. I rolled over, pushed myself away from the edge, and looked down. I could see the falling guard. He was still falling, trailing mylar like Nocturne ribbons. The sheets over the anchor had ripped away. Tatters flapped in the wind, useless.
Suddenly, a guard pushed past me, knocking me down in his haste, rushing for the ladder. He and another clambered down toward the safety of Iapyx.
“Stop!” Nathaniel shouted. “Come back here!”
I pushed myself back up on my hands and knees, and looked again at the now-revealed anchor. My throat closed.
It was black.
They’d painted the anchor black. Without the chrome to reflect sunlight, the anchor would heat up disastrously. The anchor was external shield material. The wires binding Iapyx to the anchor weren’t. Nor were the welds. The links would fail if the sun hit the anchor.
The mirrors. The mylar sheeting. They would have kept the sun off, have saved the anchor long enough for the paint to be removed — but they were gone, now. The mirrors had broken, the mylar had been torn away — and it was my fault.
My
… I couldn’t even fit the thought in my head. I was so confused. Why paint the anchor and then break out the mylar and the mirrors? Why try to destroy the city and then try to save it?
Then, finally, I figured it out: Nathaniel wasn’t trying to destroy the city. Instead, he’d been trying to implicate the Grounders in a plot to destroy the city. He’d brought Aaron here to frame him for that plot, come out here to manufacture evidence for that plot. That failed plot.
Only — it hadn’t failed.
It was, in fact, going to succeed.
Nathaniel swung around and punched a button by the chrome box. There was a click and rattle of gears, and a flagpole swung out from a recess beneath the anchor, sending a banner rippling through the air. My heart thudded to see it. I could imagine the reaction of everyone in sight, from the semaphore tower on down; we all knew what it meant. Red flag: The anchor is compromised. Engage solar defences. Evacuate Iapyx immediately.
Then Nathaniel pulled a pistol from his jacket and aimed it down the master cable. He fired two shots. The fleeing guards toppled. One of them fell away into space. The other rolled, as Aaron had, thumping down the cable, before an armpit caught on a guy wire and dragged him to a stop.
“Sir!” shouted one of the four remaining guards. “What are you do—”
Nathaniel turned and fired point blank into the guard’s chest. The other three guards rushed forward, and Nathaniel picked them off, one by one. They weren’t armed.
I shoved myself to my feet and ran at him, but before I reached him, he turned on me, the barrel of his gun poking me in the chest.
He gave me a smile. It was almost apologetic. “No witnesses,” he said. Then he frowned. I stared, frozen in fear and shock, wondering what in sunlight he was waiting for. He looked like he was counting in his head. Then he sighed. “Six shots. Dammit.”
He tossed the gun aside and grabbed me by the shoulders, hauling me to the edge.
Behind him, Rachel rushed up, swinging the pipe wrench. It cracked against the back of his skull. He grunted and staggered into me. I fell back on the anchor, then rolled, as fast as I could, away from the edge. I scrambled to my feet and stood beside Rachel.
Nathaniel had pitched into the emergency locker. He stood there, leaning heavily on it, clutching the back of his head.
Down below, from Iapyx, a faint wail started up, growing louder as others joined it. Sirens. Above us came the rattle of gears and machinery. Across the canopy of Iapyx, wings of mylar cranked up, blocking the view of the silhouetted cliff face. Angel wings, we called them. Once Solar Maximum came they’d keep the sunlight off the anchor — but they wouldn’t last long before they caught fire and disintegrated. They were a last line of defence in case the anchor was compromised, to buy us time. Angel wings to protect us. And angel wings because we were going to die.
Nathaniel straightened up and faced us. I braced myself for another attack. Rachel’s knuckles whitened on the pipe wrench.
Just then, a buzzing sound. An ornithopter was flying close. Banking up, it flew level with the dome of Iapyx, dangerously close to the sunline, between us and the angel wings. I couldn’t help but marvel at the pilot’s daring. I couldn’t help but wonder what the pilot was doing.
Nathaniel looked at us. He looked at the passing ornithopter. He looked back at Iapyx, at the smoke already rising from the angel wing that was now in direct sunlight. Then he reached behind him, into the emergency locker, and pulled out a shoulder pack. By the time I realized what it was, he’d already got it partway on.
A parachute.
“No!” Rachel dropped the pipe wrench. She and I lunged for him, but he kicked the remaining parachutes off the anchor and jumped, pulling on the buckles as he fell. By the time we got to the edge of the anchor and looked down, the fabric of his chute ballooned up, and eased him gently into the clouds.
Engines buzzed below us. An ornithopter dropped from the gantry a hundred metres away. I recognized the plane by its size and the shadowed insignia on its tail fin. The mayor’s plane. The coward’s leaving, I thought. He’s abandoning the city.
“Oh, Creator,” Rachel gasped, her voice so small I hardly heard her. “Oh, Creator! We’ve got to do something! We’ve got to—”
But there was nothing to do.
I’d been a pilot. I knew how to read the angle of the sun. We had just minutes before the sunlight burned through the angel wings and hit the anchor. It would eat through the welds. The city would fall.
And there was nothing we could do about it. The mirrors had fallen from the anchor. The mylar sheet was in tatters. There was no way to get all the paint off in time. All the options ticked off toward a horrible certainty. I went to the ladder, but as I did a distant whoosh told me the topmost angel wing had caught fire in the sunlight. How long would it take us to get down the ladder and back to the gantries? How long would the remaining angel wings last? No witnesses, Nathaniel had said. He’d done the math.
Rachel started for the cable. “We’ve got to—”
I caught her arm. “There’s no time.”
“We have to warn them!”
“They already know.”
The sirens wailed. More ornithopters dropped from their gantries and fled away along the chasm. Rachel and I watched them go. People were evacuating. But it wouldn’t be enough. Not given the number of ornithopters we had, and the few people each could take, or how long it would take to get everybody boarded.
We both knew this. It wouldn’t be the smallest piece of enough.
“Simon!” she shouted at me. “Please! It can’t — Not like this!”
I looked at Rachel. I raised my hands, palms up. She looked away, shaking her head in disbelief.
“We’re going to die,” she whispered. She stared in horror at the light blasting down toward us. “We’re going to burn to death!”
Burn to death, I thought. And as I thought this, a new resolve swept through me. I took her hand, and pulled her around to face me. “No, we’re not.” My voice was steely calm. I hardly recognized it. “We are going to jump.”
“Jump?” Rachel stared at me, incredulous. There were no more parachutes.
“Trust me. You really don’t want to burn to death.”
Amazingly, she laughed at that. Then she wiped her eyes and cleared her nose with a sniff. “Well, I guess if you have to choose.” She squeezed my hand.
And suddenly everything was very still. Ornithopters were dropping, one after another. Sunlight was blasting toward us. But in my heart there was a big, open silence.
There were three wings above us now. The top one was on fire.
“Do you remember the first time we met?” I asked. “You were holding scissors.”
“You were dripping red paint all over your shoes.”
There was a whoosh. The top wing was gone.
“Did I ever mention you were a good dancer?” she said.
“No.”
She touched my cheek. “You are.”
“Rachel—”
“What’s it like, falling?” Her hand was tight around mine. “I’m … What’s it like?”
“Come to the edge.”
We went to the edge. Another wing went up in a rush of flames. There was one more left. We had less than a minute. Rachel was trembling so hard it was like she was having a seizure. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t do this.”
“Falling’s fine,” I said. “It doesn’t hurt. It’s fine.”
Rachel whispered: “They say you’re dead before you hit—”
“I’ll hold on to you. All the way down.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
The last wing. A huge rush of noise, like every bird of Old Mother Earth taking flight around us.
“Kiss me,” I said, and kissed her. And there was nothing between us and the light. It grew. It dazzled. It heated my hair. Above us, the red flag burst into flames.
And I never got a chance to say, “I love you, Rachel Caan,” because
I was still kissing her when we jumped.
* * *
If there are any manuals about killing yourself, and I really hope there aren’t, they should put this warning under the entry about jumping from high places: wind is a fickle thing.
As we left the anchor and started our plummet down the cliff face, a fierce wind whipped up from below. It spun us round and pitched us sideways, into the web of cables stretching out from below the anchor. I hit them, hard. Air left me. Light left me.
Rachel left me.
It was over in a flash. I saw her face. I saw her dangling beneath me. I felt the sudden, shocking pull on my hand. My fingers had only just re-learned how to hold a fork. She slipped from my grip.
And then she was gone.
The vibrating cables shook my chest. I lay too stunned to move, much less try to jump to my death. Again.
Sunlight struck the anchor. And the anchor shone.
Even coated in black paint, it shone so bright the light hit me like a solid thing, blinding me, pitching me back along the cables. My foot caught on a junction between two cables. I struggled, but couldn’t free myself. I shielded my eyes and squinted as the anchor turned red, then white.
The last ornithopters flew out, and I heard my city scream. Five thousand voices. I heard them all. The rocks around the anchor sparked. The cables shuddered. And then everything snapped.
Iapyx let out a roar. Cables twanged, faster and faster. Below, a thundering crash told me the stem had failed. The city pitched and bucked. More cables snapped.
Slowly, grandly, the whole city fell.
I dropped. My foot came free and I clutched at the cables, my body overruling my desire to just let go. The gantry holding Iapyx’s semaphore loomed and snapped. The gigantic arms, still glowing from the heat of the sun, sliced past. The cables jerked me sideways and I flew in my city’s wake. My fingers slipped, and I slid down the cables toward the ends that were still glowing from the melting heat. I hung on, desperate. The foggy floor of the chasm rushed up. I was whipped sideways, speeding through clouds, my vision flipping from clear to white and back again.