Ariel (36 page)

* * *

I tried to use the chamber pot in my room and couldn't relax enough. I tried to sleep. I couldn't relax enough, but I had to go to the bathroom. I lay awake and stared up at the blackness, thinking how nice everything would be if only I could use the fucking bathroom.

I was scared. I was surprised at how hard it was to admit that to myself.

I got up and dressed.

* * *

"Shaughnessy?" I whispered beside the silent sheet. "Shaughnessy?"

"Who is it?"

"It's me. Pete."

Another voice, sleepy. "Wha? Time to go already?"

"Shh. No, Deb. Go back to sleep."

She appeared quietly, drawing the sheet aside and stepping into the huge room. She wore the T-shirt and white shorts she'd had on before. "What do you want, Pete?"

A single Japanese lantern burned behind me, casting my shadow upon the sheet, upon half her face. I moved a little to see her more clearly. She looked as if she had been crying.

"Shaughnessy, I—I want to apologize. For the other night, when you came into my room and I yelled at you. I was upset. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it. You didn't deserve that."

"It's okay, Pete. I understand."

"No, it's not okay," I said, echoing the words I'd used to begin shouting at her that night. "I need you to understand. I haven't been thinking straight." I tapped my temple with a forefinger. "I feel like I can't see things as they are."

"You need Ariel back," she said simply.

I nodded in the darkness and she shut her eyes. "I understand, Pete. Yes, I do." And without saying any more she turned back inside her little cubicle. I heard her beginning to cry.

I stood there a long time, listening. When it stopped I realized there was a wet streak under each of my own eyes. I wiped them away with my sleeve. And then I left.

* * *

We sat on the front steps and watched them go, Mac, Walt, Rank, Drew, Tom, Malachi, and myself. Occasionally someone would look back and we gave them a heartfelt thumbs-up.

"Well," said Tom after the last of them had turned out of sight, "what are we waiting for? We've got a building to jump off of."

Twenty-Two

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills When all at once I saw a crowd  .  .  .  .

—William Wordsworth, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

Ice water chilledmy lungs as I drew a shuddering breath and jumped off the top of the World Trade Center.

The building dropped below me. The street was a five-second, screaming fall away. The skyscrapers pointed away from me, their angle of tilt increasing with their distance, as though I looked at the city through a fish-eye lens.

The wind caught the kite above my head as I stepped off into the dizzying height. It threatened to lift the sail's nose, to carry me backward over the roof where the vortex winds whirled unseen, which would slam me back onto my starting point. I pulled the bar, moving my body forward six inches and picking up speed by increasing the angle of attack.

* * *

The journey to New York had been uneventful, made mostly in silence, only the uneven drumbeat of the horses' hooves pounding in time to the steady clinking of our swords in their slings. When we passed those who had left on foot before us they cheered, and for those few minutes I felt good.

We reached Manhattan before nightfall the next day, abandoning the horses at the Holland Tunnel. After freeing them, we walked the rest of the way to the World Trade Center. The front doors were open. We walked into the huge, blue-toned main floor and began climbing.

* * *

I went straight toward the Empire State Building for twenty seconds, then began a gentle turn to the right. If I turned more than about thirty degrees I would be losing more height than I'd be able to make up. I made sure it was more gradual than that, inching to the right side of the kite. After a second it responded: the right wing spar dipped slightly, and there was the city, spread out in high relief, wheeling ever so slowly almost two thousand feet below. Ice cubes formed in my stomach as I looked down at it. I tried to relax in my prone position, resisting the irrational impulse to kick my feet as though swimming. The wind blew into my face. I felt as if my shoes were going to fall of.

Stall speed increases on a turn—that is, it's easier for the kite to lose lift while banking. I compensated by pulling forward on the trapeze bar to gain speed. The kite lost altitude, but I'd gain that back when I passed over the western edge of the tower I'd jumped from; the air rushing up the sides would provide lift. If I did it right, I'd gain more than I had lost. I continued the gentle curve until I saw the rear of a yellow kite with a red V in the center. A G.I. Joe figure in a warm-up suit dangled beneath: Malachi Lee. He was climbing at a good angle as he passed over the World Trade Center, playing it smart by keeping the nose up slightly and letting the wind do the work. Far ahead of him, just beginning his second right-hand curve toward the eastern side of the opposite tower, was an even smaller figure beneath a white paper airplane with a diagonal blue slash: Tom Pert.

The top of the building was now above me by a few stories; I'd lost the height in the turn. Each of us was launching as the one before him began his first half-turn of the circle, and as I steadily approached the building another delta shape glided from the edge. A rainbow-arced kite with a ball of gold at one end of the colorful crescent: Mac.

* * *

We'd managed to climb up the first forty-four flights before Tom decided it was too dark to go on and we set up "camp." Exhausted, we set our long, thin burdens on the floor and slept in a hallway. We hadn't seen another human being since passing the ground forces the day before.

* * *

An upsurge of wind lifted the sail. I raised the nose just a tad, climbing. In only a few seconds I was back at rooftop level, fifteen hundred feet from the street. Another of the kites swooped, bat-like, from the top. Red, green, and blue stripes: Hank. Behind me, Mac should be midway through his first turn. I was too busy to watch; the air gusted unpredictably and the glider required my constant control. I couldn't afford to let my grip relax on the control bar.

I climbed until I was about two hundred feet over the top of the tower before the upsurge died down. Malachi and Tom had been right: the updrafts more than compensated for the altitude we lost during turns. By the time we came over the eastern edge of the other tower, straightened out, and caught the convection current from that side, we should have gained at least three or four hundred feet from rooftop level. Possibly more, if we could keep our turns gentle.

My speed had put me a little ahead of the game. Tom was just reaching the opposite edge of our lift-off tower's twin. He should have been just leaving the influence of the updraft, but the difference shouldn't prove crucial, as long as I didn't overtake him. Or run into him.

I leveled off and flew straight. Ahead of me Malachi Lee completed his second one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and straightened.

* * *

I'd got up early next morning, having slept little, and what sleep I'd had was troubled. Everyone else seemed edgy also. Except for Malachi Lee, who looked like a relaxed cat. Drew seemed the most nervous. He was defensive and easily agitated. We left him alone.

We picked up our zippered nylon bags and took the stairwell again. The climbing was dreary and mindless, which was bad—not because of the drudgery but because it left your mind free to roam. Fear played volleyball in my imagination. Ironically, I was relieved when we finally reached the top.

The final door was locked. We took it off its hinges. It opened onto a small area that, as with the Empire State Building, had been a concession counter selling souvenirs. We walked on through double glass doors and blinked in the sunlight glaring from the roof. We set the kites side by side. Each of us walked to the edge and looked down silently, alone with his thoughts.

On a clear day, you can see  .  .  .  .

The Empire State Building. No more pollution to mar the scenery; the Change had provided a grand view. Funny—it seemed even smaller from here, though it dwarfed the buildings around it.

We still had five hours to go before we jumped. Rather than sit around and become even more jittery—Drew had developed a pronounced twitch in his right eye—we unzipped the long bags and began assembling the rigs.

* * *

I banked into the second turn. Drew ought to be launching about now. I risked a glance toward the farther of the twin towers. His kite—green on the wingtips and along the keel—rested on the roof beside Walt's, nose-down, two Technicolor moths.

Goddammit—he's chickened out.

I shouldn't have been so disdainful, but I was. I could understand the reluctance to take that first and irretrievably committed step, but not the lack of fortitude in being unable to overcome it.

Hell, Garey—he doesn't have as much at stake as you do.

Now the green and white kite was moving, being lifted up and carried to the sheer drop of the edge.

Drew jumped, only a little behind schedule. I completed my turn and straightened out just as his feet left the roof.

* * *

It was small talk only as we lay out our respective A-frames, making them rigid by affixing nose plates and crosstubes, tightening nuts, running rigging wire, securing the sail, attaching the trapeze bar. We took our time and did it right, then went over it again, tightening a wing nut here, tautening a wire across a turnbuckle there, and then we inspected each other's kites as we had before. I excused myself once and went to the other side so they couldn't see me vomit.

Soon it was time to jump.

* * *

I approached the eastern of the two towers a good seventy-five feet above rooftop level, higher than either Tom or Malachi had been. The wind was favoring this side and the convection currents pushed a bit stronger, helped by the additional flow of air from below. I kept the nose high and climbed. Ahead to the right, on the opposite tower, the last of the kites jumped away. Blue and red stripes radiated in a sunburst from the nose: Walt.

By the time the strong updraft began to lessen I was four hundred feet above the rooftop of the World Trade Center, almost two thousand feet from the ground. I kept the nose up a little while longer to gain as much height as I could. It would decrease my speed, but I would end up ahead—the higher you are, the farther you go. I was thankful for the haircut McGee had given me as I looked forward, the wind rushing across my face, pushing the hair sticking out from the crash helmet toward my eyes. I was higher than Tom or Malachi. I decided to keep it that way; I might need all the height I could get. It was easier to lose than gain, and I could always lower myself later, when we were closer and I could better estimate how I'd have to come in.

I glanced at Fred for reassurance, and to see that it was still secure against the left side of the triangular bar, held tight by four bands of masking tape. I hoped I would be able to remove it easily when it came time to land on the eighty-sixth floor observation deck and ditch the kite.

* * *

As I buckled myself onto the kite just before jumping, I noticed on the wing a small decal that I'd managed to miss before:

WARNING: Hang gliding is a dangerous activity and can result in serious injury or death even when engaged in under ideal circumstances. This equipment is manufactured in accordance with the safety, material, construction, and flight standards established by the Hang Glider Manufacturer's Association, Inc. This equipment should he used only under proper conditions after proper instruction and practice supervised by an experienced hang gliding instructor. The manufacturer has no control over the use and maintenance of this equipment and all persons using this equipment assume all risks for damage or injury. The manufacturer and the HGMA, Inc., disclaim any liability or responsibility for damages or injury resulting from the use of this equipment.

I felt I should make a joke, but it didn't seem very funny, really.

* * *

The rigging wires hummed beehive tunes as they cut through the air. The trailing edge of the Dacron sail flapped rapidly, like a drum roll at a circus. Manhattan was a three-dimensional grid beneath me. I felt as if I were some huge kite flown on an invisible string held by a child on the streets a third of a mile below. A backward glance revealed the four remaining hang gliders, pop-art candleflies at various heights, spaced more or less at five-hundred-foot intervals. My own kite was sky blue, but with a bright yellow V along the leading edge.

The East River was to my right, the Hudson on my left. It was quiet down there. Quiet and gray. Washington Square slid silently beneath my feet: the halfway mark.

I patted the Aero-mag at my thigh to be sure it was still in place, then felt the pouch to be sure it was securely closed. The blowgun and the sword: my weapons. They would have to do.

The mammoth dart of the Empire State Building neared steadily. A few men were visible on the eighty-sixth floor. A good sign. There would have been more had they noticed us.

From below I thought I heard noise. Somewhere down there, two "armies" fought. Shaughnessy. McGee.

Tom, leading us, looked to be just a little low. Immediately ahead of me, Malachi looked to be just where he needed to be. Of course. Behind me, in order of proximity, were Mac, Walt, Drew, and Hank. Drew looked a little low, but it was hard to tell because I was higher than any of them and relative altitude was hard for me to gauge from above.

Those four were going to have it roughest. Tom and Malachi would probably land before any alarm was efficiently sounded. I figured I might squeeze by before any sort of organized resistance could be massed. But Mac, Hank, Drew, and Walt would almost certainly have to avoid archers. A hang glider is maneuverable, but hardly evasive. Especially when you're in a hurry.

I was the only one of us without a bow. The rest carried light hunting bows with thigh or bow quivers, which made the arrows much easier to get to. Tom carried an extremely short bow. It required strong arms to pull it to full draw, but Tom could yank it to his ear without batting an eye. Hank Rysetter carried his tournament target bow taped on his trapeze bar. Pulleys at the ends made it a compound bow; peep sight, levels, a distance/elevation gauge, and a bow quiver made it look like a damned machine, as if it ought to be able to load and fire itself. I thought all the gizmos were cheats, but whatever works, I guess.

Tom was close now. My arm muscles tightened and my hands clenched harder on the bar. I shivered.

The white wing with the diagonal blue slash was now even with the eighty-first floor. Tom raised his nose and began listing in a narrow angle curve. He began to lift. I was close enough—no more than a thousand feet—to see that he'd been spotted: two people stared out a window above his climbing kite. They disappeared.

I concentrated on the scene ahead just long enough to realize that Tom and Malachi were going to land at about the same time, if neither one was shot from the air, and then I had to think about how the hell I was going to descend. Maybe I could spiral down tight  .  .  .  . I pulled the bar toward me. The nose dipped and I picked up speed. I was still fifty feet higher than I needed to be when the building's updrafts caught me and lifted me still higher—shit! I'd overshot—the building was nowhere near as wide as the World Trade Center. I could have stalled and parachuted straight in, but I'd have been a flashing neon sign: HIT ME! HIT ME!

No choice: straighten out, circle to lose height, and try again.

I was being lifted still higher. The wind here was strong. I flew straight for five hundred feet and began to turn. As I came back around I saw Malachi's kite spiraling down the side of the building. It was empty. Tom was quickly dumping his, and the battle was joined.

I was too busy concentrating on what I was doing to get more than fleeting impressions: Malachi pulled his bow and a man dropped; Tom pulling his bow, and the same; Mac's rainbow kite skimming over the edge and him kicking someone in the head even as he somehow unbuckled himself and shucked his kite, dropping onto the deck; Malachi now swinging his hunting bow at someone's head, dropping it, and his sword magically appearing in his hands.

I was still too high, and the goddamn upsurge lifted me again. I pushed the bar away in a deliberate stall, holding it stiffly with one hand while the other ripped the broken-down Aero-mag away from my left thigh. I had fitted a dart before I jumped, and it was held in by a rubber stopper.

Somebody down there saw me and began to raise his bow. I yanked out the stopper and puffed hard. The vortex winds spilling over the sides of the huge building grabbed me and shook me like a kitten in its mother's mouth. I pitched forward just as something ripped through the fabric of my sail. I had to grab something, and quick, or else I was going to be slammed into God's own hypodermic syringe: the tower. I scraped down its length, hands flailing. Something rammed against my right arm and slowed my fall. I shot my left arm over to it and grabbed for my life.

I was clinging to one of the slanting, T-shaped, black metal guards around the perimeter of the top floor, the one hundred second floor observation deck. The gusting wind tugged at the sail on my back and threatened to pull me off. I locked my legs around the guard and let go with my hands, hanging upside down. I reached up and strained the kite toward me to slacken the strap I was buckled to, and managed to get my harness clip off. I put the Aero-mag in my mouth and held onto the kite's control bar just long enough to remove Fred. With the sword loose and held tight in my right hand, I let go of the kite. It descended in a slow spiral toward the ground, over twelve hundred feet below. I made the mistake of following it with my eyes.

Picture hanging upside down, at almost the tip of one of the largest buildings in the world, and raising your head—looking
up
to the far away ground to watch a giant kite spiraling away. Every survival instinct I had screamed for me not to move, not to twitch a muscle, not even to breathe. I hung motionless for what seemed like minutes, listening to shouts from below.

I forced myself to move. I tightened my grip with my ankles and leaned forward. My stomach muscles clenched. I grabbed with my left hand. The right was busy trying to hold onto Fred. All this with a blowgun in my mouth. Saliva dripped from the corner of my lip and flowed across one cheek. I hoisted myself upright slowly, worming my legs. The black metal guard I'd latched onto was square, and the corners dug into the insides of my thighs.

Upright and straddling the slanted T of the bar, I saw the developments on the eighty-sixth floor, two hundred feet below. Walt had sped up, obviously having to lose height, and was coming in just as Hank dropped in midair from his glider and landed atop a man who was trying to draw a bead on Tom Pert's back. At least a dozen bodies were already down. There was no sign of Drew.

Hank's kite sailed on until it dropped on top of two men. I quickly tucked Fred under my arm and brought my hand down to the dart pouch—and discovered that it had come open and was almost empty. A few left, though, so don't waste time. I slapped one into the Aero-mag, raised it to my mouth, and puffed just as the two men moved Hank's kite aside. One of them slammed to the concrete as if he'd been hit by a baseball bat. If the shot had been true I'd got him just above the left ear. I rammed another dart home and fired as the second one looked from his fallen comrade to me, and he pitched backward onto the other still form, grabbing at his chest.

The bar I sat on was just beneath a circular observation window about a yard wide. Praying it was breakable, I returned the Aero-mag to my mouth and drew Fred. I brought the handle up and began pounding it against the glass. It spiderwebbed at first, and then started falling inward in jagged fragments. I cleared the shards away from the edges. It was going to take both hands to climb in. I saw no one in the small room, so I dumped the blowgun and sword inside. I grabbed with both hands, feeling glass cut into the left one, and hoisted myself up, in, and through. Glass crunched beneath my feet.

The room was thirty feet in diameter, circular, and painted an ugly shade of blue, into which graffiti had been etched everywhere. The floor was metal. The room was featureless except for the viewing ports around the perimeter, the graffiti, and the very top of an elevator shaft. Beside it was an iron stairwell.

I held out the lip of the dart pouch and looked in. Six left. Better make 'em count.

I removed the hang-gliding harness and tucked Fred in at my left side. I'd grabbed a wide leather belt from a Western clothing store and it was buckled tightly around my waist. A belt loop would no longer serve.

Footsteps clanged on the metal staircase. I looked around. Between the elevator shaft and the wall was a narrow space where I could stand. I hurried to it, keeping my footsteps quiet. I fumbled within the pouch until I came up with a dart pinched between thumb and forefinger, and I carefully inserted it into the Aero-mag. I kept my back to the wall and waited to see which side they'd come from. Both, probably. The shattered observation window would give me away, so they'd be prepared. I tried to hold my breath, waiting. Eyes straight ahead; don't favor any one side or you're dead. I concentrated on my peripheral vision—and saw the harness on the floor where I'd shed it. Shit. I hurried to pick it up.

Movement from the corner of my eye: my head jerked right, and there he was, spear in hand, in the midst of drawing back for a thrust. Blowgun up and
puhh!

He spun, hands covering the space between his nose and upper lip where a four-inch piano-wire dart was wedged, and crumpled to his knees with a cry of pain.

I didn't waste time fitting another dart, but dropped the blowgun and pulled Fred from my belt. Holding it in my left hand, I leaned back and began inching the sword forward as if I were walking forward and carelessly keeping the blade in front of me, not realizing it could be seen before I was. When most of the length of the blade was exposed, it was batted aside by an axe. Its wielder stepped out from around the corner and swung at where my chest ought to have been. The axe thumped into the side of the elevator and I stepped out and swung the hang-gliding harness with all my strength. The heavy buckle hit him on the head. He brought his arms up to ward it off, rendering his axe ineffective. I brought the blade back and pushed. The point went into his chest. Something popped as the steel slid in, and there was a second quick jolt as the point came out the other side. He opened his mouth and blood bubbled out. I felt his weight in my forearms as his knees buckled, and when I was sure he was dead I pulled the blade out and finished off his writhing comrade.

I dropped the harness, retrieved the blowgun, and tucked it at my right hip. I ran down the stairs with Fred in both hands and cursed myself for not pulling the dart from the first man. Five left now. At least the one hadn't been wasted. How wonderful. Oh, the economy we learn in battle.

Someone was heading up the stairs, making so much noise that he couldn't have heard me coming down. I was ready for him as, spear cradled in one arm, he rounded the corner onto the level space where the staircase turned. His head was down so he could watch his footing. I gripped the rail with one hand and said, "Hey!"

He looked up and I caught him full in the face with the sole of my boot. I thrust hard, trying to straighten my knee as I made contact. His head snapped back with a bone-cracking sound and his body tumbled the way it had come, stopping hard against the wall. I ran past it and kept going until I reached the door with "86" stenciled on it in white. Fred in left hand, I held my breath and pulled the knob with my right. A silver blur almost cut me in two. It
wheet
ed past as I jumped back. I slammed the door. "Malachi, it's me!"

"Pete." His voice was muffled. "Wait."

Leaning against the door, I heard the clash of steel from the other side, then two grunts. Malachi's, a controlled exhalation, and another, punched-in-the-kidney sound.

"Tom!" Malachi's voice. "This way."

The door jerked open. I flinched. Malachi stood with his back to me, fresh red staining his sword. Tom was next to him, one-handed broadsword at ready, also stained. Past them I saw Hank and Walt fighting their way into the metal-and-glass souvenir counter that was the indoor section of the eighty-sixth floor. Walt engaged like a classic fencer, incongruous with his heavy Scottish sword: block, parry, block, and leap nimbly in, pushing the blade into his opponent's sternum almost to the hilt. Walt pushed him off the blade with a foot, turned, and ran inside, shirt snagging on the shattered glass door.

Hank hadn't even drawn his blade yet; he was still picking them off with his target bow. He was all fast, fluid motion, deftly pulling an arrow from the thigh quiver, sliding up the length of the bowstring with two fingers to notch the arrow, and barely taking time to draw, aim, and release. His latest aggressor had been running for him full-out; he jerked backward on invisible strings not three feet from Hank, landing on his butt and staring stupidly at the arrow that had sprouted from his solar plexus. He started to reach for it, then his eyes rolled up in his head and he pitched sideways. Hank pulled, fitted, drew, sighted, and released again without even glancing at the man he'd just killed. Another fell with a hunting arrow lodged in his throat up to the feathers. Hank turned a complete circle, sweeping the bow, but no more opponents were to be seen. Only then did he walk calmly toward the stairwell door where we waited.