He heard it then, a high-pitched singing note from the cable itself. It drilled through his ears, into the center of the skull, so sharp that he could barely keep the torch in focus, pressing it against the melting steel.
Come on – come on, you bastard! His teeth buzzed against each other, the scream echoing inside his head.
And the other sound, the roaring of engines, the wall shimmering with the rolling impact. A shout, loud enough to cut through everything else, and he knew the scimitar was glittering in the light, raised higher, ready to strike, meters away, then less, and he couldn’t look up, his eyes locked on the flame and the glowing metal -
It snapped.
He saw, in a frozen moment, the cable suddenly thinning to the width of his finger. Then nothing, just the wall underneath, scorched by the flame; the tension-loading had snapped the ends apart.
He saw it, the bright line etched in his vision, the image still there when the wall had vanished. For a fraction of a second he wondered about that, about the sudden wind that streamed across his chest and outflung arms, about the welding torch with its blue flame tearing from his grasp, then spiraling away, out of reach. His head filled with a sharp tide of blood, reddening his vision, then sluiced away again, leaving dizzying black spots across the rotating sky.
Turning in air, he saw the clouds roll below him; then, amazingly – they were above him. Two Havoc Mass warriors, arms and legs swimming against nothing, drifted upward, their mouths wide with curses he somehow couldn’t hear.
The wind rolled him again. He saw the building now, the wall shrinking away from him. The transit cable, snapped in two, whipped free, flinging the rest of the warriors into the air, their machines and weapons spinning loose.
He realized then, in perfect immediate knowledge, what had happened. He looked down and saw himself suspended, nothing under him but sky. The other end of the cable, which the Norton’s wheels had been clamped on, writhed snakelike, dragging the motorcycle and sidecar rig in a wide curving arc.
I should’ve got off – he had time for the one thought before he felt the lines at his belt snap tight, the impact squeezing the air up out of his lungs. I should’ve got off and then cut the cable – you idiot -
The world sped up and became real again. Axxter twisted his neck, looking over his shoulder. The loose end of the cable was snapping back toward the wall; the Norton was still attached, the grappling lines from its wheels stretched to their limits. The last link, the end of the whip, was himself, hooked by the pithons to the Norton’s seat.
He hit the wall at an angle, the glancing blow against his shoulder sending sparks across his vision. He felt his hands, outside the shuddering pain, scrabbling at the wall’s metal, trying to find a handhold. Then the building tore away from him again, the snapped cable lashing back out into air.
He managed to open his eyes and saw the Norton break loose from the cable, the grappling lines peeling away. The rig spun about, the sidecar, split from where it had struck the wall, spilling his gear in a slow constellation against the sky.
The pithons gave way, strained past their limit; he heard them snap like distant pistol fire. Everything vanished, even the building itself, as the wind filled his hands, spreading him into an X, back arched against nothing. He saw the clouds below, still for a moment, then rushing up bright toward him.
He hit, and was blind, in a white, featureless world. He could still feel himself falling, turning in the mist heavy against his face.
Suddenly he could see again, in a soft gray twilight. He turned his head and saw the dark underside of the clouds, above him now.
Then he heard the singing.
And saw them, in circles around himself, their faces smiling, marveling at his passage among them.
He saw the ranks of angels, the sky filled with them, singing in the gray light. Darker as his thoughts ended, his head filling with nothing, his fall pulling the last bit of himself away. But still he heard them singing.
NINE
He tried to wake up, then tried harder not to, to go back under the thick woozy dark. But it was too late: he’d already met the pain, the bruised layers that seemed to be piled in wet razor slices from his spine to his breastbone.
“Jee… zuss… Christ.” He heard himself say it, a distant whisper under the wobbling roar inside one ear. Something inside him, which had been part of him but had been shaken loose, wanted to throw up; he could feel it swelling against the root of his tongue. He’d have let the thing have its way, if he’d known which way he was. If upside down, it probably wasn’t a good idea; he remembered distant warnings about aspirated stomach contents – you could die that route.
Already, he’d assumed he was still alive. The frayed connection between the aches throbbing in sync with his blood and the trembling flinch inside his head – that was what it must mean. Dead, he wouldn’t feel this bad.
He opened his eyes. The right eyelid stuck, then peeled open like a stiff zipper. Sky, pinkish around the edges of distant clouds. Seen through a tangle of his own hair, matted black with sweat or blood. He shook his head, gingerly, little needles jabbing at the back of his skull. The dark lines swayed against the cloudscape. Right side up. He could work that much out.
His jacket and shirt had been torn open; looking down, chin against his chest, he saw raw bruises, his ribs stenciled in ink blue, a red abrasion at the edge of his hip bone for balance. He could see his chest rise with each breath, and match it with a particular rhythmic stab near his heart, unseen but felt like a knifepoint. Definitely alive; that confirmed, he almost regretted it. The throbs rolled their dull weight along his spine. He was amazed, under the numb protective wooze.
He remembered hitting the wall, at the end of the transit cable’s snapping rubber band. And then falling, the big step. Either one of those should have done the job. He lifted his arm, elbow creaking, and rubbed his hand across his face, letting more light slide under the stiff red fringe. The palm of his hand was red, too, in zebra bands with black grease and dirt. Its sticky wetness smeared across his cheek.
Grease – that made him think. Of the other poor wayfarer, his traveling companion, which had also gone smack against the wall, the louder clanging of metal against metal. It was probably the Norton’s grease on his hands – hadn’t he grabbed after it as it’d gone spinning away, half to save himself, to grab anything solid and mother-familiar in the empty air curling under his head and feet, half to save it, poor thing? He couldn’t remember. He just saw it rolling away again, in a flat arc toward the atmosphere’s crumpled edge, the wheels bent into bowl-shaped ovals, the grappling lines writhing helplessly around the hubs, frame snapped broken-back and the engine leaking bolts and scraps. The sadness of the memory, the last sighting, bubbled up and broke inside his own leaking chest. You idiot – on the verge of tears, he realized that he’d yet to feel anything except pain and grief connected with his discovery of still being alive.
“Way to go.” Axxter opened his eyes again. There were probably all kinds of shit to take care of, if he was to go on living. He knew he couldn’t just stay nailed to the wall.
For the first time, he wondered what exactly was holding him up against the building. His familiar nausea – another sign of life – knotted in his throat as he looked down and saw the cloud barrier roiling against the building’s curve, far below his feet. His boot pithons had snugged in tight, locking his heels and ankles against the metal, boot soles otherwise treading on air. The same for his waist, the lines from his belt fanned out and contracted, his butt flattened against Cylinder; the steel’s cold radiated down the backs of his thighs and into his coccyx.