Burning Midnight

by Will McIntosh

  He looked out at the city, the buildings all silver lights, the streets red taillights on one side, white headlights on the other.

  Hunter surfaced again. Sully heard splashing, then one of Hunter’s hands appeared, grasping the lip of the open hatch. She pulled herself up, both hands empty, swung around, and found a rung of the ladder with one foot.

  “One down, nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine to go,” Sully said. “How was it?”

  Gasping, Hunter dropped to the roof and wrapped both arms around her midsection. Water dribbled from her wet braids. “Cold. Dark. The water’s deep—I really had to swim hard to reach the bottom.” She shivered. “I hate being cold. I hate it.”

  Sully handed her a towel. “Maybe we should invest in a second dry suit and take turns.”

  “No.” She shook her head fiercely. “I do the swimming.”

  Sully shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss. If you change your mind, let me know.”

  Hunter handed back the towel. Because of the dry suit, her head was the only part that got wet.

  They headed to the second tank, which was identical to the first. Sully followed Hunter up the ladder. It was starting to sink in, what Sully had committed to. Ten thousand of these things? Years of nights spent freezing on windy roofs, when he could be watching TV or hanging out with friends? What if they found nothing?

  CHAPTER 14

  It was so gray outside that the lights were on in the cafeteria. Sully was tired of winter; he was ready for green leaves, birds singing. It was a bad sign, given that it was early January. February would be just as cold and gray. There was no hope for a warm day until mid-March, at least.

  “Sully, wait.” Dom clapped a hand on Sully’s shoulder from behind. “We’re going out for lunch. Mandy’s meeting us at Nathan’s.”

  “I can’t.” He held up his brown bag. “I brought mine. Plus I can’t afford to eat out.”

  Dom snatched Sully’s lunch out of his hand. “I’m buying. You can’t live off sandwiches that’ve been sitting in your locker for four hours every day. You need hot food. Stuff that sticks to your ribs.”

  Laughing, Sully followed Dom out of the cafeteria. It was technically against the rules for juniors to leave campus for lunch, but no one stood in the freezing-cold student parking lot to check IDs.

  “How’s the water tower project going?” Dom asked as they headed down the main hallway, lockers lining both walls, toward the front doors.

  “It’s brutal.”

  “How many have you done?”

  Sully closed his eyes. “Eighty-four.”

  “That’s a lot of freaking tanks.” Dom pushed open the front door.

  “Not when you’re planning to search ten thousand, it isn’t. When Hunter told me we were going to search ten thousand, it was just a number. Now that we’re actually climbing up to each tank…” Sully blew air through his lips.

  Dom nodded, commiserating. “You finding anything?”

  Sully grimaced. “Two commons so far. Two ones.” It was a pathetic haul for the work they’d done. Pathetic.

  Dom’s phone vibrated. He checked it. “Mandy. Says she’s just leaving school.”

  “You guys are getting pretty tight.”

  Dom grinned. “Yeah, we are. She’s pretty cool. Plus, I don’t know, I like having a lesbian friend. Makes me feel all modern.”

  “Whatever you say,” Sully said, laughing.

  —

  Mandy waved from a booth by the window. Dom slid in beside her and gave her a big hug as Sully set his tray down and slid in across from them.

  A half-dozen kids their age passed by their table, their shoulders festooned with brag buttons.

  “Spare me,” Dom said after the door closed.

  “It makes sense that they call it the gifted academy,” Sully said. “Most of them are in there because of gifts their parents gave them at Christmas.”

  Dom nudged him with an elbow. “Hey, that’s good. They should call it the Masten Gift Academy.”

  “Be nice, now,” Mandy said. “I almost went to Masten.”

  “Have you ever burned any?” Sully asked. He’d been wondering, given that Mandy’s parents had money.

  Mandy set her hot dog down. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that.”

  “Why?” Dom took a massive bite of his super-cheeseburger, then continued talking with his mouth full. “As long as you don’t wear those damn brag buttons, it’s cool.”

  Mandy lifted her head. “No, what I mean is, I wouldn’t burn them even if someone handed me a pair.”

  Dom’s eyes went wide. “You’re kidding me.”

  Mandy looked apologetic as she turned to Sully. “I didn’t want to say anything, because you sell them. I’m not judging you. My aunt owned a store, and I love my aunt to death.”

  Sully nodded. You came across people who were suspicious of spheres once in a while. Organic by choice. “But?”

  “But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. People used to think smoking cigarettes was good for you, and look how that turned out. When Internet ads say something is absolutely free with no obligation, it never is.”

  Dom leaned toward her, elbows straddling his lunch. “You think burning spheres is gonna give everyone cancer?”

  Mandy sighed heavily. “I don’t know what it’s going to do. I just know there’s always a price, and I don’t buy anything that doesn’t have the price clearly displayed.”

  Sully had heard this argument before. More than once, in fact. Everyone was entitled to their opinion, but it always struck him as a little paranoid. Why did everything have to have a cost? Warm spring days were free. Swimming in the ocean was free. Not everything good had a dark side.

  “People have been burning spheres for nine years now. If there was a downside, wouldn’t we know it by now?” Sully asked.

  Mandy waved her hands. “I don’t want to argue about this. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

  Sully shrugged. “Okay. No problem.”

  Looking relieved, Mandy leaned back in her seat. “Good.”

  There was an awkward silence. Finally, Mandy leaned forward. “Did you see the rumor on BuzzFeed that the president just burned a Mint?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Sully and Hunter headed for the next building in silence, both of them frustrated that they had to bypass another building. Every once in a while they hit one where access to the roof just wasn’t possible, because security was too tight or the roof was fenced. Whenever Sully was looking up at one of those impassable buildings, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was the one. Worse yet had been the two entire streets in Flatbush where they’d found Xs written inside all the hatches, as if someone was marking towers already searched. Maybe the Xs were there for another reason, but Sully hated the idea someone had gotten to towers before them.

  Hunter stopped walking, pointed at a fire escape.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sully craned his neck to take in the tan brick tower.

  “Twenty-one stories. Eight tanks.”

  “Eight tanks,” Sully repeated, taking deep breaths, psyching himself for the climb. “That’ll bump us to three fifty-six.” He clapped his gloved hands, rubbed them together. “Here we go.”

  The cold burned his lungs as they climbed, the wind growing stronger. Twelve steps, about-face, four horizontal paces across the escape, then about-face again, twelve more steps. By this point Sully could climb a fire escape with his eyes closed. He wasn’t about to, but he could. He climbed fire escapes in his dreams, winding up and up, sometimes down and down.

  When they reached the top, Hunter dropped her coat and climbed the first water tower. Sully followed, helped her wrench the hatch open, then got out of her way.

  After about half a minute, he heard Hunter surface with a gasp, catch her breath for a moment, then submerge. It usually took two lungsful of air to search a tank (three for some of the bigger ones), which meant Hunter had to make that hard swim to the bottom twic
e in each tank. If there was some way to reduce it to one, they would save time and energy….

  Sully pressed his palm to his forehead. Rose spheres. Hold your breath for a long time. He had one in stock, could trade for another on SphereSwap.com.

  “Hey,” he said as Hunter came down the ladder. “It just hit me. I’m going to get you Roses.”

  Hunter frowned. “What?”

  He cleared his throat, realizing what he’d just said. “Rose marbles, I mean.”

  “Oh,” Hunter said. Her eyes opened wide. “Oh. Jeez. Why didn’t I think of that? I knew there was a reason I was cutting you in on my million-dollar idea. You’re the brains of the operation.”

  She hopped down, accepted the towel Sully offered. He was still flushing with embarrassment. I’m going to get you Roses. What an idiot.

  He followed Hunter to the next tank.

  Three hundred fifty-six down when they left this roof. Only 9,644 to go. Beautiful.

  —

  “This one’s going to be a piece of cake,” Hunter said, taking in a nine-story concrete building, hands on her hips.

  “Why is that?”

  Hunter trotted up the front steps, gave the steel door a shove. It creaked open. She turned back toward Sully. “It’s abandoned. We can take the stairs.”

  The ground floor was stripped to the beams; bricks were stacked relatively neatly in a corner, while concrete and other junk was piled in the center of the space.

  The stairwell was heavily tagged with graffiti, and, not for the first time, Sully wondered what the hell they would do if they encountered three or four men who wished them harm. The building seemed deserted, though. Huffing, Sully tried to keep up with Hunter.

  “Really, there’s no hurry,” he said between breaths. “The tower’s not going anywhere.”

  Hunter picked up her pace.

  Groaning, Sully followed.

  After pushing open the door to the roof and stepping out, Hunter paused. Sully joined her, and was met with the bass thump of dance music.

  “What is that?” Sully asked, looking around. There was no one in sight. He took a few steps, paused. The music was coming from their left. He turned, headed toward the far end of the roof, where two water towers were perched side by side on a square steel frame. An orange extension ladder was propped against the underside of one of the towers.

  Sully stopped at the base of the extension ladder. There was no doubt about it: music was coming from inside the tower.

  “Look at that.” Hunter pointed.

  There was a hatch cut into the tower’s underside, just above the end of the extension ladder. Light bled through the seams.

  A sharp note of laughter rose over the thump of the music.

  Sully gripped the base of the ladder. “I have to know.”

  “You and me both.”

  As they climbed, the music grew louder; conversation and laughter drifted down. When Sully reached the hatch he raised his fist and knocked.

  The hatch swung open; from his vantage point, Sully could see shelves filled with liquor bottles set into the slatted wooden walls. A woman’s face appeared—round, pudgy cheeks and a head scarf—blocking out the shelves and the bottles.

  “Hi. Do you have an invitation?” the woman asked.

  Sully laughed. “An invitation? To go inside a water tower in an abandoned building? Do you have a permit?”

  The woman frowned. “How did you find this place, if you didn’t get an invitation?”

  “We followed the music,” Hunter called up from just below Sully. “Come on, it’s cold out here.”

  The woman stood. “Okay, fine. We’ll make an exception.”

  Sully climbed another rung.

  “There’s a handhold to your right,” the woman said. “Here.” She took his hand, placed it on a steel pipe set in the floor. Sully pulled himself up.

  Inside, the water tower was packed. There was a little bar at one end, a few small tables along the walls. People were holding wineglasses and bottles of Heineken; some were dressed up in jackets and fancy hats, others wore jeans.

  Sully squatted, gave Hunter a hand up. They stood in the midst of the most unlikely bar Sully could ever have imagined.

  The woman studied Sully’s face for a moment, then shouted over to the bartender, who was shaking a metal tumbler, “Andy? Soft drinks only for these two.”

  Andy gave her a thumbs-up.

  The drinks, as it turned out, were free. Evidently you paid in advance when you received your invitation. Sully got a Coke, Hunter a Mountain Dew.

  Sully took in the high ceiling, the pipe running up the center of the room. So this was what Hunter had been diving into for the past month.

  “Excuse me.” A man in a gray fedora, smoking something from what looked like an ornate fountain pen, tapped Hunter on the shoulder. “I couldn’t help noticing that you’re wearing a wet suit. I have to ask why.”

  Hunter looked down at herself. “I’m not wearing a wet suit; I’m wearing a dry suit.”

  Amused, the man raised an eyebrow. “Well then, why are you wearing a dry suit?”

  “Why are you in a bar in a water tower?” Hunter shot back.

  Chuckling, Mr. Fedora pointed at Hunter. “Touché.”

  “What is this place?” Sully asked.

  The guy shrugged. “Trespass theater, according to the designer. It’s only open for two more weeks.”

  When they finished their drinks, Sully got them a second round. They overheard that one of the other guests was some relatively famous actress who’d been in a Lord of the Rings film, but if she was there, Sully didn’t recognize her.

  “I can’t get over this. What a great idea,” Sully said.

  Hunter nodded. She was moving ever so slightly to the beat of the music, half smiling.

  “So tell me something about you,” Sully said. “You’re like this mystery who shows up in your superhero suit at night, dives into freezing-cold water for four hours, then vanishes.”

  She smiled up at him. “I don’t vanish. You drop me off at the crappy apartment I share with fifty other people.”

  A Daft Punk song came on. Four or five couples started dancing, heads back, arms raised toward the ceiling. Sully bobbed his head to the music; Hunter moved her hips, still smiling at him. She was beautiful in the bar’s soft light.

  “You know, even after two hours of swimming around in those tanks, you’re stunning.”

  Hunter’s smile widened; she slid just a little closer to him. Sully leaned in and kissed her. Her lips slid against his.

  She turned her head, took a half step backward. “Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.”

  A spasm of disappointment squeezed Sully. For one moment, for one magical moment, he’d thought it was really going to happen. “Why is it a bad idea?”

  Hunter heaved a sigh. “I’m just not girlfriend material. Trust me on that.”

  Someone once told Sully that if a girl tells you she’s bad news, take her word for it. In this case, Sully would have ignored that advice, given a choice. Since starting the water tower project, he’d gotten more and more hung up on Hunter, until now he went to sleep thinking about her, and she was the first thing he thought about when he woke.

  Hunter dropped her head, sighed again. “Let’s stay focused on the prize. Okay?”

  “Absolutely. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s my fault as much as yours.” Hunter checked the time on her phone. “It’s after eight. We can finish the end of this block at least.”

  They climbed down and headed toward the stairwell door without speaking. Sully needed to call his mom, tell her he was going to be late again. She wasn’t happy that he was out every night. If she knew what he was doing, he’d be toast. Right now she thought he was in a quaint little burb called Tarrytown, twenty miles north of Yonkers.

  “Hang on,” Hunter said. She was studying the far end of the roof.

  Sully followed her. She squatted at the edge and studied the narrow gap be
tween the building they were on and the one next to it.

  “How wide would you say that is?” Hunter pointed to the gap.

  “Maybe five feet?” Sully leaned close enough to the edge to glimpse the alley eight stories below. The sight made him queasy. “Why?”

  Hunter looked up at him. “If we jump it, we save sixteen flights of climbing.”

  Sully burst out laughing. “And if we trip, we die.” He held out his hands, palms up, raised and lowered them like he was comparing weights. “Let’s see: avoid sixteen flights of stairs versus die a horrible death. Hmm. Tough one.”

  “How tall are you?” Hunter asked, rising to her feet.

  “Five ten.”

  “Lie down.” She pointed at the roof.

  “Why?”

  She folded her arms. “Just do it, okay?”

  Grumbling, Sully lay down, wondering just how much filth the darkness was hiding. He’d barely gotten settled when Hunter’s sneakers flew over his face. She landed with a thud.

  “I cleared you by four feet.”

  Sully sat up. “That’s without a pack. Plus, the roofs have that low ledge you have to clear, and if you don’t clear it, you trip and fall eighty feet.”

  Hunter lifted her pack, slung it across her shoulders, and turned toward the gap.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” Sully asked.

  “I’m jumping,” she said. “If you want to climb all those stairs, go on ahead.” Fingers splayed, Hunter backed up a few steps, studied the roofline.

  “Hunter, no. It’s a terrible idea.”

  Hunter took off, sprinting toward the edge. She planted one foot on the ledge and launched herself over the void.

  She landed on the far roof, still on her feet. Her arms shot into the air. She let out an earsplitting howl of triumph.

  “Did you see that?” She danced in a circle, laughing. “Did you see that? I am a ninja.”

  Sully went to the edge of his roof. Hunter stood across from him, hands on her hips, grinning.

  “Now you’re going to have to wait in the freezing cold while I climb the stairs.”

  “Maybe I’ll build a little fire. Cook some wienies. While I wait for a wienie.” She slapped her thigh, cackling madly.