The Remaking

by J. T. O'Connell

  She set down the glass and debated how to pick up the slice of burger. "Now, men notice just a handful of things about each other; is he clean, does he look well-put-together, does he seem confident."

  Desmond leaned back and to one side, speaking slowly, "Yeess, men… men do that. But that's… mostly because…" he trailed off, not wanting to finish the comment.

  "I know, it's because most men don't want to sleep with other men. They want to sleep with women. It's a double standard."

  "Right," Desmond agreed, nodding sheepishly.

  "But women don't do that when they look at men," she picked up the hamburger, carefully pressing the bun so the bits of meat and cheese and onion wouldn't slip out.

  "No, they don't."

  The taste was astonishing. Juicy and tender and spiced, the burger was amazing enough, but with bacon and cheddar and the crunch of onions, Sela was blown away. She had only bitten about half of the slice away. If she set the rest down, it would collapse from being taller than it was wide, so she held it until she was ready to take another bite.

  "Oh wow, this is good," Sela said.

  Desmond just grinned.

  "Now I understand why so many people like these," Sela said swallowing. "Anyway, women get pushed into revolutionary new fashions all the time, and men can just coast along oblivious to how they do this to women."

  "What's the solution then?" He picked up the smaller section of his burger and took a bite.

  "Men should stop seeing women as objects to sleep with."

  Desmond shrugged and nodded, "You're probably right."

  "Yeah, but I doubt it'll change anytime soon."

  "Probably so," Desmond said vaguely. He smuggled an impish grin onto his cheeks, "Would it be bad of me to say you looked beautiful in those dresses Emory had you in?"

  A blush surged into Sela's face. The truth was, she did like hearing it, even if some of the outfits were way too revealing. Her habit of running was primarily for fitness, in event that fitness became a tool for survival. And yet, she had more than once thought her slender form was attractive, and it was nice to hear it from a young, handsome man.

  "I—I…" she stuttered, "C'mon, I made some good points!"

  Desmond laughed and Sela joined in, filling the balcony with mirth.

  "Yes, you did, and I agree that there's an issue. I just don't know that anything can be done about it. I mean, look," he put a finger to the tablecloth, "you have neurological and biological differences in how men and women interact. Men are driven by powerful urges to procreate, and women are driven by powerful urges to civilize that baser instinct."

  "What do you mean?" Sela asked.

  "Men want to have sex," he said. "It's an incredibly powerful urge, and as much as women want it, they'll never want it as much as men. Women want more than just that… that momentary and fleeting satisfaction. Women push men out of the Stone Age, into civility! Society began when women began to…" he shrugged, laughing, "began to withhold it!"

  Sela chewed on the last bit of the hamburger, "So does that make us better or worse than you men?"

  Desmond replied, "I think it just makes men and women different. It takes both of us to keep humanity going, to keep society moving."

  "And the double standard?" she asked.

  "I hate to say it's an unfortunate byproduct of the natural differences, but that seems to be the case." Desmond took a deep breath and sighed, "It's worse than just fashion, I know."

  "Yes," Sela agreed. The double standard had always existed in history, where men could engage in infidelity without much worry over consequences, whereas women most of the time risked societal condemnation for the same behavior.

  "But each man can only govern himself." `Desmond gazed at her in seriousness. "I do think you looked beautiful today. I think you look incredibly pretty right now! But I respect who you are, which is so much more than how you look."

  Another blush rose on her cheeks. She didn't know what to say, so she looked down and made a show of wiping the grease off her hands with the cloth napkins provided by the restaurant.

  Desmond changed the subject for her, "You said you have some questions about the job?"

  "Oh, yes," Sela answered. "First off, who will be installing the virus?"

  "Hopefully, it will be me. But we will both be carrying flash drives, so either of us could do it." He gulped the last of his coffee and set the mug down. "You are comfortable with doing some basic hacking, right?"

  "Yes, I have done work like that in the past."

  Desmond shrugged, "Well, we expect Davenport's network to be reasonably well-protected. It shouldn't be a problem, though. What else?"

  "Well, uh, ghost time; what exactly is the plan there?"

  "Our plan," Desmond cleared his throat, "Our plan is to tailor our ghost time so that anyone who looks into us will think we are just some middle-class kids, trying to hob knob with the elites."

  "Does that happen?" Sela asked.

  "Yeah, not a whole lot, but it does. People who want to be liked by the Council will show up at parties for people who are liked."

  "And that brings up my next question; this party looks pretty exclusive. How are we getting into it?"

  "You're right. It's invitation only," Desmond stretched his arms and gestured toward the railing around the balcony. "Here follow me."

  Sela hesitated as Desmond stood up, and then she followed him, walking over to the balcony, just a few steps away. She leaned out to look over the edge. This building wasn’t tiered, as many were. It simply tapered uniformly, which made the view straight down and dizzying.

  She blinked back her vertigo and focused on the city further out. The roofs of other buildings could be seen, parks and outdoor amphitheaters, lights now starting to brighten for the oncoming evening, illuminating more and more of the city, further down.

  "Right over there, do you see the shorter building right in front of the Tower of Hope?" Desmond pointed off into the evening.

  She was able to pick it out rather quickly, about a quarter-mile distant. It wasn't so much a short building, except when compared to the Tower and a handful of other buildings in the skyline. On the balcony, they stood higher than the pyramid peak of that distant building, though only by seventy feet or so.

  "Yes," Sela answered, "Is that where it's happening?"

  "That is," Desmond confirmed. "Each floor is owned by a different person, and Davenport's is level sixty-eight."

  Her best estimate was that Basil Davenport's suite was somewhere in the top third of the building.

  Desmond added, "You see what runs right behind it? The building, I mean?"

  In the growing darkness, she could just make out a ribbon thread moving horizontally through the buildings, around eighty floors up. The running path.

  "Won't they have the entrance key coded?"

  "Oh, it doesn't connect. It actually runs adjacent, and connects other buildings." Desmond looked at her, "We're going to rappel off the bridge onto a balcony. One of the levels is being renovated, so we will break in there. Once we're in, we won't have any issues at all."

  Sela realized that there wouldn't be much scrutiny when they were leaving. Security was to keep people out, not in. She wasn't afraid of heights, but then again, she had never rappelled from anything before.

  She cautiously brought that up to Desmond. He didn't seem concerned, telling her, "It's okay. Part of our mission prep involves free rappelling at a rock gym."

  "They have those in Megora?" Sela asked.

  "Only for those who can afford it," Desmond answered. "Now, we're also going to spend a lot of time going over the lists of people who will be there. We need to recognize and know those people, so we can understand any details they reveal. But they can't know how much we know about them, otherwise they'll get suspicious."

  Sela shrugged, "Won't they get suspicious when people who weren't invited are there?"

  "Maybe," he answered. "But it's doubtful. Several of the people
who are coming usually bring entourages of extra people, hangers-on and such."

  "Yeah, but they won't know any of us."

  Desmond chuckled, "That's true, but one of them is a drunk. From what we know about him, he's always stringing along people that he doesn't know, or even remember."

  They strolled back to the table.

  "Do you have any other questions?" Desmond asked.

  She shook her head, "Not about the mission."

  "About what, then?" he asked.

  Sela declined, "Probably best to wait until later."

  "Okay, if you say so." Desmond waved toward the glass, and when the waiter came through, he asked the man to fetch a box for the rest of the burger and the bill.

  When the waiter had left, Desmond turned back to Sela, "I've got a lot of prep work that I need to do, so my schedule is going to be pretty packed. You should be there for a fair amount of it though, and that way we can both get on the same page and iron out any little details we need to, okay?"

  "Okay, sure," Sela agreed.

  Caution; the key to survival in this dangerous business.

  Chapter 10

  “Try not to look down. Try to keep your eyes on the building,” Jericho worked the ropes deftly, his skilled hands tying complicated knots, as though it were second nature.

  “Yeah, yeah” Desmond answered.

  Signs had been posted telling runners and pedestrians that this section of the path was shut down for resurfacing.

  Even so, they could be seen, if someone in the area had a pair of binoculars. Several of the cameras nearby had been hacked to show loops pre-recorded and empty. Both Jericho and Desmond wore Flee Collars, driving away any nano-swarms.

  Sela checked the rigging of her harness again, trying to figure out what didn’t feel right about it. Jericho finished with the ropes and moved to help her. “Here, you’ve got this leg strap flipped over.” His rugged hands loosened the webbing and flipped it. “Wouldn’t fail, but it’d be uncomfortable with that bracket pushing into your leg.”

  “Thanks,” she managed, swallowing. Running on these elevated paths had been fine, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to violate the guard rails.

  Jericho double-checked Desmond’s harness and found no issues. “Okay, let’s get you two down there.” He slid the nylon descent ropes against Desmond’s braking karabiners and closed up the locks.

  Desmond tugged on a pair of leather gloves and climbed up onto the guardrail that went around the top of the waist-high glass walls. There he paused and grinned at Sela, “This part is easy.”

  And then he tumbled away, gloved hand wrapped around the descent ropes, letting them slide past. A dozen feet lower, he slowed his fall, swinging with the momentum of the fall. Sela felt her heart pounding, watching silently as Desmond descended a few more feet, laughing loud enough to echo off the windows.

  “Kid’s got guts, I’ll tell you that,” Jericho grunted.

  “Has he done this before?”

  “No idea,” Jericho replied, keeping his eyes downward.

  Desmond locked his karabiners on the lines and then drew out a short grappling hook. On the second try, the hook clanged against the balcony railing and caught. Desmond pulled himself toward the balcony, descending a few more feet in the process. He clambered over the edge and unstrapped the ropes.

  “Your turn,” Jericho said, quite unnecessarily, Sela thought, trying to ignore the pit in her stomach.

  “Y—Yeah,” she gulped.

  Desmond cast the ropes out again, and before she knew it, Jericho had her strapped and ready to go. He could read her hesitation. He probably could hear her thundering heart.

  “Look, it’s a piece of cake. Fifteen, twenty feet down, Dez’ll toss you the line and reel you in. Nothin’ to it.” He meant the words to reassure, but Sela felt her legs tremble.

  The twenty foot drop didn't frighten her so much as the extra five hundred feet below that. There was no point in delaying though, and Jericho gestured to the guardrail, “C’mon, I’ll help you.”

  With a nod, she grabbed onto the guardrail and lifted one leg over, straddling the barrier, leaning her other arm against Jericho’s thick shoulder to steady herself. Slowly, ever so slowly, she lifted her other foot from the padded path, heel first, then toes.

  “That’s it, you’re doing fine,” Jericho said, an arm around her shoulders. “Alright, now start to lean back against the line. Keep your feet against the glass.”

  Both of her gloved hands were welded to the rope, one in front of the karabiner, and the other behind it, holding the rope out for braking. Her feet were planted against the glass wall.

  “Now, go ahead and let go with your left hand,” Jericho said. “All of your braking is on your right hand there. You don’t need to hold on with your left.”

  But try as she might, Sela just couldn’t let go. It didn’t matter. Inch by inch, she worked her feet down the glass, and then the reinforced concrete, and then the steel I-beam below that.

  And then the bridge was gone, but she couldn’t step away, couldn’t step out into nothing. Even though she was already dangling only by the rope, something inside of her still commanded her feet not to leave that solid structure.

  Jericho called down, “Time to cowboy up, little girl! Hop out and give yourself a few feet of line.”

  Sela trembled at the thought and risked a look below. As vertigo struck her Jericho yelled, “Don’t look down! Don’t even think about it! Get that left hand off the rope! Just hop, and drop your right hand for half a second!”

  Still she couldn’t, even when she heard Desmond encouraging her from several floors below and behind her, “It’s okay, Sela! You can do this!”

  “I’m going to start counting!” Jericho growled, He wasn’t annoyed, but he was firm and serious about getting her to move.

  “Just like we practiced, Sela,” Desmond called.

  “One!”

  “Oh alright!” Sela felt anger flare, and almost without any thought, she pushed back against the steel, jumping sideways in the air, dropping her braking hand while she willed her left hand down to her side.

  A whiz sounded from the aluminum karabiners as the woven nylon ropes slid through the reduced friction. Sela watched the bridge slide upward away from her, not slow but certainly not as fast as had Desmond gone.

  She scowled at Jericho who tilted up a corner of his mouth, all the smile the man was capable of. And then he yanked his right hand up, gesturing for her to do the same.

  When she braked, the harness reigned in her fall against her thighs. Immediately her left hand seized the ropes. Her slow swing turned her around, so she could see Desmond, about ten feet away from her. He smiled, “Well done, Sela.”

  Holding up the grappling hook he said, “You ready?”

  She nodded and had to untangle her left hand from the ropes. Then she caught the line he tossed, hanging on as he pulled her toward the balcony. Almost there, she could feel her trembling, could see it quiver in the ropes.

  And then she panicked.

  As she grasped for the edge of the balcony, she began to fall. Only then did she realize, she had let go with her breaking hand to grasp the balcony railing. Her right hand missed!

  With a slap, her left hand crushed around the steel railing, holding it, and Desmond’s rope all at once. As soon as she had begun to fall, Desmond lunged forward, grabbing her right arm just as it missed the balcony. She could feel the power of his grip, could see the worry in his eyes, in the gnashing his teeth as he pulled upward.

  Once she was higher, both hands locked onto the railing, Desmond slid his arms under her, bear hugging her and lifting.

  “I gotcha,” Desmond whispered, hauling her over the railing, and gently easing her onto the concrete floor. “It’s okay.”

  Her bones rattled against the pavement, and her heart thundered in her chest.

  Jericho asked something that her panicked mind couldn’t translate into coherent ideas.

&nbs
p; Desmond answered back upward, “Yeah, she’s fine!”

  Sela’s fingers pressed against the concrete as she knelt there, still shocked at how close she’d come to… to what? The lines had thick knots in them a dozen feet lower, and went on for another forty further feet before empty atmosphere took over. She couldn’t have descended all that way.

  Still it was hard to overcome the mind. The human body was not easy in getting used to such an odd enterprise as hanging out over nothing. At least, hers wasn’t.

  “Well, get her off those ropes so I can send down the luggage!” Jericho demanded.

  “Okay, just a minute!” Desmond squeezed Sela’s shoulders and eased her to her feet, whispering, “It’s okay, Sela.”

  She nodded and managed a choked reply, “Yeah… I…” Her voice was tiny and quaking. “Th—Thanks, Desmond.”

  “No problem,” he gave her a lopsided grin. It was the sort of grin you gave someone to reassure them, but she could see his own adrenalin rush in it. She could see that he had been near to panicking as well.

  Her fingers fumbled on the karabiners so Desmond reached down to her waist and unlocked the braking system. He held the ropes this time and called out for Jericho to go ahead.

  Sela stepped closer to the building, hoping to walk off the shakes in her knees. It was a broad balcony, at least twenty feet deep, and almost a hundred across. A full dining table set could be put out here for a dozen people, and Sela guessed that probably one would be, once the renovations were complete.

  No doubt the bare concrete would be tiled over and the tarps making up the building wall would be replaced with thick glass paneling. Sela took slow, deep breaths, closing her eyes for a moment.

  As she stood there, Jericho attached a pair of thin, plastic packages to the lines and cast them down. The light bags angled over onto the balcony where Desmond caught them and unclipped them from the line.

  “Thanks!” he called.

  “Get changed,” Jericho commanded.

  Desmond handed Sela one of the bags, “I’ll change out here. You go on the other side of the tarp.”