Chapter Forty-Seven
In truth, plummeting might have been a better word. Falling was what one did when they stumbled over a snag in their carpet and skinned their knee; sudden and painful, but brief. There was nothing brief about hurtling towards the ground from fifty storeys up, except perhaps for the instant of pain upon reaching the paved surface of the street below. It was an experience for which neither was entirely prepared. For Nadia, it began as a rush of excitement so profound she nearly whooped aloud in ecstasy as her body began to produce adrenaline at a prodigious rate. Of course, by the time they had passed the forty-eighth floor, that feeling of positively flying was replaced by the realization that neither she nor Orion were doing anything of the sort. Which, as their plan had rather hinged on it, was something of a problem.
For his part, the man she was clinging to was trying desperately to figure out how exactly a creature without instincts for this sort of thing was supposed to teach himself to fly, while under enormous stress and in less than a minute, at that. As his posture was presently a horizontal one, parallel with the ground below, he tried simply flapping his arms up and down; it had seemed the most obvious thing to do, but as the wings caught the tremendous wind rushing past them as they fell he was tossed about as though he were nothing more substantial than a leaf on the breeze. Tumbling head over heels, the muscles in his arms shrieking at the sudden strain, he came to rest in a position parallel to the ground once again; this time facing the star-lit sky above, with Nadia below him.
This seemed to alarm his passenger even more than it had him, prompting her to shout into his ear so that she could be heard. "The hell are you doing!?"
Oh, how would I know, he snapped inwardly. Human beings are not naturally equipped for this. Gritting his teeth, he threw his weight to one side and turned them back over, keeping his arms by his sides to avoid more out-of-control spiralling; he had lost count of how many floors they had passed, but the general fact that they were approaching the ground at tremendous speed seemed more than enough information to him. He did not have time to figure this out; he would have to try whatever he could before he ran out of opportunities to do so. Tilting his head to give Nadia the best chance to hear what he had to say, he began issuing instructions.
"Lie flat on my back and put your arms along mine!"
She leaned in closer, cocking her head to one side to put her ear nearer to his mouth. "What?"
Taking a deep breath, he fortified his words against the wind's grasping fingers. "Put your arms along mine and hold onto my wrists! I am going to need the support!"
She looked at him incredulously. "Then how am I going to hold on!?"
He frowned at that; it was a fair point. It had taken two to get the lengthier leather straps in place; she couldn't use those to fasten herself in more securely. Not nearly fast enough, anyway. There was really only one option he could think of and, realistically, it really didn't sound like it would help very much more than holding on to his wrists would if things went seriously wrong. "Hold on with your knees!"
The look of frank disbelief returned, with an added dash of underwhelmed expectations. "My knees!? Are you serious!? What am I, a jockey?"
He rolled his eyes. Of course he was serious, now was hardly the time for jokes. "I cannot think of anything else! And we do not have an overabundance of time to debate the matter, either, in case you had forgotten that we are hurtling towards certain death!"
Nadia had to admit he was right about that. Not that that meant she liked the idea any more than she had before. There was, however, no way that she was going to trust her life to how well her jeans could adhere to whatever it was his clothes were made of; not unless he could spontaneously change the both of them into Velcro suits, anyway. Sighing, she wrapped her legs around his waist, hooking her ankles together as she stretched out her hands along his arms, gripping his wrists as hard as she could.
"Okay, now what!?"
Smiling grimly at the orange-yellow tone of the streetlights below, the only light by which he would even see the ground, he glanced back at her. "Now we hope that this idea is not our last."
Not able to catch his quieter words over the howling rush of air passing them by, Nadia's available responses were somewhat limited. "What did you say!?"
Orion's only response, as they were now below the twentieth floor, likely nearer to the tenth and entirely too close to the ground, was to once again extend his arms. His wings, suddenly catching the wind around them, snapped his arms back, painfully, but with Nadia's help he managed to force them straight. Throwing his legs, now effectively their rudder, upwards, he angled himself into a shallow dive, transferring their descent from a straight plummet to more of a hastily-downward glide. With the pavement rushing up to meet them, Orion tilted the wings some more and closed his eyes as he tried to steady them out one last time. Opening them moments later, he saw the asphalt surface of the street was mere inches from his nose. Allowing himself one, solitary breath of relief, he then tilted his wings further and, using the momentum gained from their nearly suicidal leap, managed to gain a few feet of height. Cruising down the blessedly lengthy street, they began to lose speed and, without any traditional brake available, he hesitantly brought his legs up under him to let the toes of his shoes trail lightly over the ground. Once they had slowed significantly, he began angling the wings back until he was standing again; suddenly back on his feet, he bled out the last of his momentum by stumbling awkwardly a few steps forward and landing rather ungracefully on his backside as the added weight of his passenger caused him to swing around unexpectedly.
Letting herself drop to the pavement behind him, Nadia just spent a moment running her hands over the hard, cold surface of the ground. It was rough and hurt the skin of her fingers, but she didn't care two cents about that. Looking around, she saw the street they had landed on was basically the same as the rest of this part of downtown; framed by towering columns of steel and glass, with the signs announcing their names set in front obscured in the darkness. Plants, set in oversized concrete pots, grew along the sidewalk to break up the scenery a little and she also noticed a simple bus shelter a short distance up the street. It was exactly like every other street-side bus stop with a shelter she had seen; a small, metal-framed structure designed to fit maybe six people inside of itself, with glass walls set between its black-painted corner posts and a small two-seat bench tucked into the corner opposite the simple gap in the glass that served as the shelter's door. She could not make out which buses stopped here, but she found the fact that something so ordinary was present strangely reassuring. Feeling a grin breaking out over her features, she let Orion just collapse backwards onto her, the back of his head resting against her chest. Opening his eyes after a deep sigh, he looked up at her.
"Nadia?"
She blinked at him in mild surprise; he had never used her first name before. "Yeah, Orion?"
He smiled weakly up at her. "I never want to do that again. Not ever."
She giggled quietly and kissed him on the forehead. "You're speaking for the both of us there, mister. I think we should just go with a roller-coaster or something next time we want a thrill."
"Absolutely," he agreed. "For now, though, I think I will require your assistance in getting to my feet. My legs do not appear to be working."
Laughing again, she nodded. "All right, hang on a minute."
Pushing him up to a sitting position, she picked herself up. Dusting herself off, she then took the man by his upper arms and pulled him upright. Letting him lean against her for a minute as he regained control of his motor functions, she found herself smiling quietly as she realized just how far they had come from their first encounter. It hadn't been easy, either.
Holding up his wings, Orion sighed, drawing her attention back to him. "We will have to do something with these, I fear. It pains me to just abandon them here, but they are stolen property and Apollo will not hesitate to persecute you and your family if they are found
in your possession."
Nadia sighed. "Yeah, it's a shame all right. Still, you think maybe what's-his-face would have liked it this way? The guy who made them; Daedalus, was it? I mean, he made the wings for his son and himself, right? One pair lead to someone losing their life, these saved the both of ours."
Orion smiled at the notion. "Yes, maybe that would have made his grief somewhat more bearable. It is unfortunate that he never knew it while he was alive. Perhaps, then, these have fulfilled their purpose?"
She blinked at him, not quite sure what he meant. "Well, I don't know about that; you saying we should burn them or something?"
He chuckled, shaking his head. "No, no, nothing like that. It would be wrong to destroy them. I suppose no one ever really knows how long something has a role to play; it would not be right for us to deprive the world of relics such as these. They have survived the centuries that have passed already, perhaps they will last those to come. Perhaps they will outlast us all."
Nadia was momentarily struck by his words; they reminded her of what Black had said, about his intending to 'win' over everyone else, or whatever words he had used exactly. Shaking this notion clear of her thoughts, she helped Orion free of the wings and moved from the street to the bus shelter upon the sidewalk. Resting the wings upon the bench inside, she nodded in satisfaction. "At least they won't get wet here. If it rains, I mean."
Orion chuckled approvingly. "A fine idea. It is not the museum they deserve to be in, but it is better than leaving them in the street."
She laughed at that. "Yeah, well, now that we've found them a home, we'd better make ourselves scarce. I don't think Apollo will come after us now that we're out of his building, but I'd rather not be here to find out otherwise."
Her companion, now more accurately a friend, nodded. "Agreed. It is several hours until dawn, as well; we may yet get some rest tonight."
She sighed wistfully. "I wish. There is no way I'm sleeping after what we just did. I'd have nightmares about falling over and over again."
"Fair enough," he acknowledged. "But, before we begin walking, might I ask; where, exactly, did you park your vehicle?"
"Oh," was about all Nadia could manage, before she began laughing at the absurd notion of having to end a night so full of excitement and danger with tracking down her car by squinting at street signs. She supposed it wasn't over, yet; she still had to tell him about what Black had said in regards to his meeting with Thomas. And neither of them really felt like speculating about what had happened, or was still happening, on the fiftieth floor of the Icarus Development building.
Burgess, however, was still present and had little choice in the matter.
In Icarus' Shadow Page 65