by Barry Lyga
“They know we’re in — I mean on this building, though,” she told him. “That one guy saw us zip line here and he radioed others …”
“We won’t be here for long,” he told her. They’d arrived at a balcony with only one exit — a ladder leading up to the roof. TonyStark went first and Cassie scrambled after him.
The rooftop was wide and flat, interrupted only by the hulking blocks of industrial air conditioning units and a bulkhead with a door. She was on something solid again, not a rickety fire escape or a six-inch-wide ledge overlooking a lethal drop, so she could be forgiven for pausing for a moment.
Sunlight overhead. Clouds. Blue sky.
“It was the text, wasn’t it?” she blurted out. Some part of her brain, a part not necessary for physical survival, had been working on the problem during their escape. “The one from @Shameless. It came to Bryce and they traced it, right?”
For a moment, TonyStark looked much older than his actual age. He spoke in something like a whisper. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it.”
She understood. Face-to-face with Bryce, TonyStark was all bluster, but clearly he didn’t want to imagine Bryce was at fault.
“Let’s get a move on,” he insisted, and jogged to the north.
Cassie followed. At the northernmost edge of the roof, there was a stout, faded red box labeled FIRE. TonyStark opened it and lifted out a false bottom. Underneath were two strangely squarish backpacks.
“You ever go skydiving?” he asked.
What in the world did that have to do with —
She realized. She stared at the backpacks. And then she looked over the parapet, down hundreds of feet below.
“This is your plan?” she asked, her voice cracking. “This is your plan? We’re jumping off the building? Are you insane?” The more she stared, the farther away the ground seemed to get. The distance swam before her eyes and she felt dizzy.
He took her by the shoulders and guided her away from the edge. “Have you ever done this before? Used a parachute?”
She laughed in his face. “Jesus Christ, no. But what if I did? Jumping out of a plane … I know how it works — you need enough distance and speed to open your chute. This is just a building —”
“It’s called BASE jumping,” he told her, now holding out one of the packs. “Totally safe.” He hesitated. “Mostly safe.”
“Nope.” She pushed him away. TonyStark and his absurdly tiny parachute pack. “Not doing it. Let’s just work our way down through the building.”
He licked his lips. For the first time, she saw panic in his eyes. “We don’t have that option. They’re already in the building, most likely. We can’t evade them. But they won’t expect us to jump.”
“Because they’re less crazy than we are?”
TonyStark’s nostrils flared, but he took a deep breath and managed not to lose his cool. “Listen to me: This is a thirty-story building. It’s almost a thousand feet tall. Dudes have BASE jumped off hundred-foot statues before and survived, OK?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but there was no rejoinder to that comment. It was just insane. There was no arguing with crazy.
She stood in shock as TonyStark slipped on his pack and then helped her into hers, snapping shut the clasp on her chest. He was talking the whole time, but she barely understood most of it. Something about making sure to jump as far away from the building as possible.
Did he think she was going to do this?
She was not going to do this.
“Look,” he went on, “you’ve got a static line, OK?” He tugged a slender cable that extended from her pack to a hefty bolt on the concrete parapet. “Connected up here. It pulls the chute for you at the right time. All you gotta do is bend your knees when you land, dig?”
She nodded dumbly.
“You only have about thirty seconds before you hit the ground. Pick your spot. Don’t change your mind. When you land, hit the button on your chest to release the chute and run like hell. Don’t wait for me. You have a phone, right?”
She nodded again. He really thought they were going to do this.
“We’ll find you, then.” He licked his lips again. “OK. I’ll go first.”
“TonyStark,” she started, “there’s no way —”
“Shit!” he yelled.
Behind her, the bulkhead door came crashing open. Half a dozen men in black body armor spilled through, weapons drawn and aimed. Cassie’s heart slammed into overdrive and a pulsing whine filled her ears. She saw TonyStark’s lips moving but couldn’t hear him.
The next thing she knew, his hands were on her shoulders, roughly shoving her to one side. He drew a gun from the firebox and squeezed off several rounds in the direction of the cops, who scattered for the protection of the air-conditioning units.
In the brief seconds of respite, TonyStark grabbed Cassie again and shouted. He was loud enough that she could hear him even through the static in her ears.
“Remember to jump out!” he yelled, and before she could object, he shoved her right off the roof.
She spun as she tumbled, turning around to see the cops advancing, catching a brief glance. On their own, her legs pumped hard in their last contact with the roof, propelling her several feet out from the side of the building.
And holy shit there was nothing under her.
Thirty seconds, he’d said. She had thirty seconds. It felt like thirty minutes, the world slowing, suspended in gelatin.
As she fell, she saw TonyStark leap over the edge of the rooftop, for a moment eclipsing the sun with his silhouette. His arms and legs pumped madly.
And then …
Oh.
Oh, no.
A cop at the roof’s edge. Seen from the waist up. Aiming. Firing.
He missed. Didn’t hit TonyStark, whose arms and legs were still working, pinwheeling madly against the air.
Thank God, she thought. Thank —
Still falling. What if this didn’t work? What if —
Didn’t hit TonyStark, but the bullet zipped through his static line. She watched as that umbilical went slack at both ends.
She cried out, but there was nothing to say, nothing to do, and her cry was just an inarticulate bawl of terror and anguish.
Spinning, TonyStark toppled downward. He’d leaped in a blind panic. He hadn’t jumped far enough out from the building.
She was too far away to hear it, but she could imagine the sound his head made when it cracked against one of the building’s ledges. A sound like a rubber mallet hitting a board, splintering it.
Her static line went taut, jerking her up for a moment, reversing her momentum and tearing her breath from her lungs with brutal apathy.
And then she was floating. Just drifting in the air, her chute a canopy above her, and for an instant, all was calm, all was sedate and good. The relief from the chaos of diving toward the earth was beautiful. The world was beautiful.
And then TonyStark’s body plummeted past her, unmoving, trailing blood and gristle as he plunged down, down, down.
100101600101
Rachel stared in disbelieving shock at her tablet, unable to tap away from the livestreams.
There were four windows open, each one showing a different feed. One from a local news crew, the others from onlookers who were Facebook Live-ing, Periscoping and BLINQvid-ing.
METRO POLICE RAID CYBER-TERROR DEN! read one scroll. But that wasn’t the one she was interested in.
#HasCassieSurfacedYet? is in the building! one BLINQ read.
Hive Mob to #BlevinsHotel. #HasCassieSurfacedYet? #Level6 #KillOnSight
It was perhaps not surprising how quickly Rachel had acclimated to internet speak now that she relied on it to check in on her daughter. She moved through each feed quickly, absorbing the acronyms and hashtags like she’d been
born knowing them. Oddly, she thought of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge just then, of a sacred river running through measureless caverns, as the void inside her opened further, as whatever shreds of hope she’d been hanging on to began to fray and fall. The Hive believed Cassie was at an abandoned hotel and police were raiding it. Rachel had no reason not to believe the Hive. The wisdom of the crowds wasn’t particularly wise these days, but it was usually accurate. Coleridge’s “sunless sea” was real, and she was living in it.
Her daughter. In a “cyber-terror den.”
If she could even trust that description. Harlon had been called a cyber-terrorist many times in his life, had even been refused entry to prestigious technology conferences and events by interns who didn’t recognize him. Mostly because he had the temerity to “hack while black.” White hackers were just … hackers. Hackers who usually became founders of mega-billion-dollar tech firms. Black hackers, on the other hand, were dangerous cyber-terrorists. “Thugs with bugs,” they were called.
As she watched, crystal-clear 8k video streamed to her, perfect in every detail but held in shaky, inexpert hands. First there were police cordoning off the building, then the outrage of the disappointed mob.
On the news feed now, a legal expert was discussing whether law enforcement or Hive had jurisdiction.
“If Cassie McKinney is in the building, theoretically, Hive Justice takes precedence over police action. However, this has never been tested in a court of law. Furthermore, Ms. McKinney is also charged with analog crimes, including destroying her cell phone, which could color a court’s decision on jurisdiction.”
He prattled on, and Rachel found herself outraged by the faux politeness of the media, the way everyone calmly referred to her daughter as “Ms. McKinney” while just as calmly discussing her impending horrific death at the hands of a mob. It would be more honest if they called her “that bitch.”
On the livestream, people were climbing down from rooftops, jumping from the sky. Rachel couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A careful network of old construction equipment, scaffolding and fire escapes acted as a sort of vertical ziggurat for those who knew the path. Some took missteps, panicked by the cops above them or by the tinny cracks of sound that she imagined to be gunfire, so loud up close, so pathetic at a distance.
Bodies in free fall. Bodies of people in terror. “ ‘A savage place … with ceaseless turmoil seething,’ ” Rachel whispered.
Was one of the bodies her daughter’s? Was Cassie already dead?
Her fingers danced on the screen of her tablet, lighting it, dimming it, lighting it, dimming it. She yearned to call Bryce but knew that she couldn’t. She was under constant surveillance, or so she assumed. Her phone calls, texts, emails — everything was monitored, processed, collated, scrutinized. They — the scary they of conspiracy movies, now suddenly real — knew everything she was doing and saying.
“If the mob kills Ms. McKinney before the police can arrest her,” the expert droned on, “I assume no charges will be brought. Typically, Hive Justice supersedes analog concerns …”
Resisting the urge to hurl across the room the tablet and its endless prattle about her daughter’s life, she instead stood up and paced the length of her office. Finally, she did what she always knew she would do: she picked up her phone and she called Bryce.
When she got his voice mail, she cleared her throat and spoke with as much casual boredom as she could muster. “Mr. Muller, this is Professor McKinney. I’m still waiting on that outline for your special project. Please let me know if you’ll be able to turn it in on time. Is everything going smoothly? Let me know.”
She hung up, then stared at the blank screen of her phone. Hoping Bryce would respond in a way that would make sense to her. Hoping she hadn’t done something stupid.
Something that could cost Cassie her life.
Returning to the tablet, she watched as someone on BLINQ zoomed in on the rooftop of the hotel. Police were leaning over the edge of the roof, rifles aimed down.
Something that could cost Cassie her life.
Assuming Cassie was still alive.
Rachel took a deep breath, a sip of cold coffee, a pause. She couldn’t wait for Bryce to get back to her. The wait would kill her — literally, she thought, holding a hand over her heart, feeling its palpitations. No, she couldn’t wait. She had to do.
*
For the first time, Rachel understood how addictive it was — thanks to the lights and colors all the tech companies used to light up users’ brains — to be online, to reach out virtually and make an instant connection with someone, even when you were feeling more alone than you had known it was possible to feel.
Rachel’s post to #UniversityMoms hadn’t just been well received by the working moms at MS/BFU; it had spread to other university mom groups, to sister schools and archenemies alike. Someone had screenshotted it and shared it on BLINQ, and then Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Yardio and Guessom, and within mere hours a wave of parental sympathy was rising. Petitions were started, signed, shared. Desperate pleas from other moms, some of whom had seen their own children punished by the Hive, echoed far and wide. The thrill Rachel got each time her notifications pinged — which was every few seconds at this point — was almost enough to sustain her, and definitely enough to make her see, even just a bit, why Harlon and Cassie spent the bulk of their time online.
“Online action needs to turn to real-life action,” Rachel repeated to herself, her eyes blurry from lack of sleep and too much screen time. She squinted as she browsed her notifications. This was a start, yes. But she needed more. The public needed to see her army in action. A crowd. A protest. Something they couldn’t ignore.
*
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Join a discussion or start your own!
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100101700101
Cassie landed safely not far from TonyStark’s exploded remains.
Somehow she remembered to bend her knees on impact.
Somehow she remembered to hit the button on her chest that detached the chute.
Stumbling for three or four steps, she lost her balance and dropped to all fours. She knew she had to get up. Get up and run. The police had seen her parachute down here. She had to —
A gout of vomit erupted from her, gushing out with a force she’d never felt before. She was helpless in its throes, her jaw straining, eyes bulging as she puked up everything in her. When it was over, she dry-heaved twice, her stomach clenching and lurching, her gullet rippling with useless contractions, violently expelling nothing from her.
Gasping for breath, she crawled to one side. There was a pile of trash bags gathered along the wall, and she could hear footsteps. On panic-propelled hands and knees, she made her way to the pile and burrowed in, ignoring the smell and the occasional sharp jab from something discarded and pointy.
Deep in the dark, her teeth chattered uncontrollably, so loud that she feared the sound would give her away. She slipped the wrist of her jacket between her teeth, biting down on it over and over.
Footsteps thudded into the alleyway. The squawk of radios. Shouts and commands. She wanted to peek out, to see what they were doing, but didn’t dare risk moving. Was it even safe to breathe? Would it move the bags of garbage and point to her location?
Someone approached her. After a moment, a foot kicked at the garbage bags. She bit down on her jacket as hard as she could, crushing a scream between her teeth.
Another kick. She closed her eyes and told herself not to move, not to flinch.
A third kick, this one softer. Desultory, almost.
She waited for another kick. For a bag to shift. To be dragged out of her cocoon of t
rash by her hair and thrown to the crowd.
Didn’t happen.
Instead, she heard footfalls receding, the buzz and chirp of radios fading into the distance as she realized that she was weeping in utter and complete silence without moving a muscle.
*
She didn’t know how much time passed before she risked crawling out of the trash heap. She’d told herself to wait at least five minutes, but after counting to 120, she lost track and started again, then lost track again, then decided she just couldn’t stand waiting any longer. She had to do. To act.
They wanted her dead, so she had to be more alive than she’d ever been.
The alley was empty. They’d left poor TonyStark’s body there on the ground without so much as an old jacket to cover him up. A part of her thought maybe he’d survived somehow and was playing possum, but his head was split wide open, a rope of smashed intestine snaking out from under him. She forced herself to look, to study, even though she wanted to close her eyes and scream. She had to let what they had done to TonyStark imprint on her somehow so she would always remember what she was now fighting for.
She knelt down by him and touched his back with a shaking hand. “I’m really sorry,” she whispered. “Thank you for helping me.”
And then she sucked in a breath and — because she had no other choice — she quickly ran her hands over what was left of his body.
She was trapped in an alleyway with the entire country looking for her. She had no resources at all and she needed some.
TonyStark’s phone was crushed to oblivion, but his wallet was intact. There was no ID or credit cards — of course — but there was a sheaf of paper money. Some places still took that. She tucked the bills into her pocket and probed some more, sniffling back tears.
And found the gun.
It had survived the fall. Because the people who made guns were terrified of death and obsessed with survival. She pulled it from his waistband and wiped it clean on his clothes. She had no idea how to use a gun, other than what she’d seen in movies, but she figured even just pointing it at someone would get her somewhere.