The Clarity of Cold Steel

FOOM! It all goes blank as g-forces suck my eyeballs and consciousness to the back of my skull for one grim instant, shivering under the strain as the rocket takes off, launching us straight up into the night ether. Everything just shuts down. Instantaneous amnesia. A moment later, maybe longer, who’s to say, it comes back. Life. Noise. Harmony. Strafing below us, the Lackland looks about the size of a deck of tarot cards. Wind rips down my face and body, rippling like a liquid thing. I yell out to Brooklyn, but I can’t even hear my own voice let alone his.

The rocket’s roaring like a lion one instant and then it just doesn’t. A few sputters and the rocket dies, momentum carrying us onward and upward silent through the night. Mortise Locke is an illuminated jewel from this far off, a multi-tiered tiara of diamond sparkles suspended upon the silent horizon.

“You still alive?” I yell out to Brooklyn.

“Yeee-hah!”

Wind knifes by.

“Wait for it to tip!” I yell as the nose of the rocket begins to do just that, going from straight up and down to five degrees left, then ten, twenty. “Count to four once we start falling!” I’m yelling out for him but more so myself, trying to remember what that inbred tech told me.

Then, like sitting atop a tree being chopped, the rocket starts falling. I clamp my eyes shut and scream as my stomach lurches in circles and tries to claw like some spooked marsupial up and out of my throat.

I force my eyes open. Try to see through my tears. I’m still screaming. We’re up so high I can’t see anything except the Machine City, far off, then nothing, then the city, then nothing again as we twirl in descent.

“Whooo — hooo!” I hear from somewhere off in the night, and I know Brooklyn’s detached from the rocket and having the time of his life. His potentially very short life.

My hands and arms barely move, but I walk my cramped fingers north to my harness, palpate the cord, know that it’s the cord and grip it two-fisted. I rip a quick prayer to Garuda for safe flight and clear paths and tear on the cord. Nothing happens at first, but that second tug does the trick. Something gives. A pop. A sprocket turns. A series of springs let go as the harness detaches, hurling me out and away from the spinning rocket. Self-actuating wings unfold at my back, ratcheting out wide and long.

I’m falling still, but not spinning, and I remember what the tech told me to do. He told me to use the handles to steer, and so I find them and throttle them near to death. I right near instantly.

After a few deep breaths and a barrage of swears followed by a bevy of soul-curdling lurches, I finally get the feel for the craft. It’s an ultralight glider constructed of a triangle frame of graphite composite and covered by a tough sheen of canvas. A harness of aluminum alloy and leather connects me to its frame.

Through the night sky, I glide over the silent sea towards the last city on the face of the earth. A rare moment of beauty amidst a miasma of death and drek. The wind glides smoothly over my entire being as I careen onward, descending toward a blazing flame thousands of feet below.

Though I try, I can’t locate Brooklyn in the darkness.

A warm updraft envelopes me as I fly over the first of the burning barges, then loop around it in a wide circle, rising on the tides of night and ascending until the warm turns cool again. Then I’m on to the next one.

And the next one…

And the next one…

When I approach Mortise Locke in my final descent, I’m careening fast toward the three arcologies, standing there over the city proper on their pillars, looking like nothing so much as three great mushrooms poised ready to fall. But they don’t. Five dirigibles float above the wheels, tethered on lines. Three rise above New London, one above Buckingham, and the last above the Vatican. A crucifix is slathered across its side. I slide wide, come in low and avoid them, hoping I’m effectively invisible, taking in the Wheel Cities. I can make out only silhouette and shadow.

I cruise around the perimeter of the Vatican, taking it all in. Matching the map in my mind to reality. The cathedrals and churches, the open spaces inside the walls of the Vatican. Cables run like the umbilicus of some titanic fetus from a power station inside the Vatican walls to a gigantic square building that seems out of place compared to the neo-classical beauty surrounding it.

On the fringes of the great wheel, atop a three-story building, a light is blinking. At first I didn’t realize it, was lulled in by its regularity until I realized it was my signal. Sweet Sally. I make for it, swooping down along the fringes of the great wheel, seeing the geared sides notched to interlock perfectly with the King Wheel to the west.

I come in fast to the hotel, its roof nothing but a black square with a blinking light atop it. I come in fast and I come in hard, aiming for the top floor of the easternmost wall. At the last instant, before I’m certain I’m to become a new form of low-resolution graffiti, I draw back on the handles and use my momentum to ascend sharper than an obsidian razor. I retract my wings and rise just enough to set one foot onto the roof parapet. Servos whine as they begin to fold and ratchet the wings back in on themselves.

Sweet Sally’s on her knees, looking haggard, that arc light monitor by her side as she hovers over Brooklyn. He’s on the ground, clutching his leg and moaning.

“It’s broke good.” Sweet Sally wipes hair from her eyes as she tugs at harness straps. “Get this off him!”

“Shit.” I kneel and punch the release on his harness and it spits Brooklyn unceremoniously free. Then it begins to retract in on itself, collapsing back to something resembling a rucksack.

“Fuck…” he grunts, clutching his leg. “I’m sorry, my man. I fucking blew it.”

“Murphy’s law, kid.” I lay a hand on his head. “It was something up until the landing, though, wasn’t it?”