To Escape From Gravity

Chapter One

Reed hated the wind. She hated how it whistled and whipped around her ears. She despised it for tearing across her skin. It ripped through her hair and was relentless. It was hopeless.

But the wind was ever-present in her world. Its droning sound would never cease, it was the soundtrack to every move she made.

The wretched wind was a character in her story from her earliest moments. But Reed was nothing special in that. Every child who was born in the ground cities were quickly acquainted with the violent wind. It'd permeate the mind and fog up one's thoughts. That's why all the buildings on the ground had walls a foot thick, attempting to subdue the howling noise in any way. None of the structures would ever rise too tall, because the wind would mercilessly knock them down without hesitation.

The wind was particularly irritating Reed that night, because she was facing it head on. The mechanical roar of her motorbike barely registered in her ears with the wind swirling around her as she raced down the endless road.

Even if one could learn to live with the wind, the dust and dirt it stirred up would break the most resilient. Without having to see it, Reed knew a thick layer of dirt had already caked her overcoat and heavy boots.

And without having to see it, she could also feel the pressing vastness of the earth spread around her. To get some semblance of contentment on the ground, you had to get used to the presence of nothing. The desert and flat fields stretched for miles and miles, until just on the horizon, you could see where the ground started to climb up towards the faintest silhouette of mountains. But it was so far away, you might sometimes question if it was really there or simply your eyes playing a cruel trick. Massive windmills were sprinkled throughout the surroundings and broke up the monotony of the landscape, but were another looming presence that offered no comfort.

Reed would often bounce between just wanting the darkness of night to swallow the land or desperately wishing for daylight to cut through the emptiness the night brought. But traveling by night was necessary, because between the sun and terrible wind, some days it could be unbearable to be exposed to the elements.

So to make the journey manageable, Reed had cranked her motorbike to life just as the sun dipped below the distant mountains and set off down West Road Three.

As the miles passed beneath her, she couldn't help but let her mind wander. Every few minutes, a dip in the worn road would rattle the motorbike and jar her out of her thoughts. Or a rustling at her back would snap her upright and bring her mind to the present.

Harlem didn't like traveling by motorbike. To be fair to the dog, it wasn't the comfiest ride ever. Reed had welded a sturdy metal box to the back seat of the bike, but it wasn't quite big enough for him to lie down. Nor were the roads ever smooth enough that lying down would be an option. So he had to sit upright in the box and, because even he despised the wind, he'd try to cram his head down between his front legs. Reed tried to take breaks frequently so they could both stretch out. But sometimes she sensed they both shared in the urge to power through the discomfort so the journey could end that much sooner.

On the ground, there were few things that people could say brought them happiness. And Harlem was one such thing she attributed to creating joy in her life. Domesticated animals were more popular for the sky citizens, or floaters, as they were snidely referred to. But in the ground cities, the occasional dog would be seen scurrying around. And that's how she had found Harlem four years prior.

In Turpek, a truly dingy ground city that sat at the intersection of West Road Two and South Road Seven, Reed had been sitting outside Jenema's mechanical garage when a pathetic whimpering was heard. Normally the various sounds of the city would barely draw her attention, but boredom spurred her to curiosity, so she wandered down the alley. The sounds of despair were coming from behind three beaten trash cans, and when Reed moved them away, it revealed a runt of a mutt that couldn't stop shivering.

She wouldn't ascribe herself to being a bleeding heart, but something about his matted fur and meager whines made her inclined to help. She scooped him up and stuffed him in the inside of her jacket and returned to the crate where she had been waiting. Within the hour, Jenema had finished working on the motorbike and leaving Harlem in Turpek was no longer an option.

Turned out, with a bit of food and a ton of sleep, Harlem was anything but a runt. Within two weeks, he had regained an enormous amount of energy. He rapidly grew up to be an imposing presence, with his head coming up to Reed's hips and his alert stance causing strangers to give the duo ample room when walking down the street. She never believed that dogs were particularly intelligent, and sometimes Harlem could be a downright fool, but he also had a sense of when to bristle at an unsettling character or when to be quiet and be absorbed by a crowd. He also could blend into the natural landscape of their world, with his cream and red patched fur melting into the desert clay when he'd sprint alongside her motorbike.

At night though, Reed wouldn't let him run beside her, which was why he was confined to his box seat. His constant growling let her know of his displeasure with the choice. The headlight of her bike illuminated about thirteen feet in front of her and everything else not touched by it was consumed by darkness. With coyotes occasionally roaming the desert at night, Reed didn't like the idea of Harlem being out of her view.

She also didn't want to prolong the journey, which would take twice as long if she allowed Harlem to chase the bike, because they'd have to often stop and let him catch his breath. Reed was never one to dawdle and procrastinate, so she wanted to reach her destination as quickly as possible. The sooner she got there, the sooner the job would be done, and the faster her pockets would be lined with silver.

And after an hour of fighting the wind and the nighttime, spots of light started to sprinkle the land before her. The city of Wardor was about five square miles of scattered one-story buildings. It was in some ways only visible at night, because during the daytime the rusty metals of the buildings would blend into the desert, barely rising above the flat land. When night fell, the dots of light would be collected into glow that you could see from a few miles away.

But the light it produced wasn't what made it noticeable. On a clear night, its yellowish cast was drowned out by the looming neon colors that came from about two miles overhead. Wardor was a noteworthy city, but not because it had much value in itself. Sitting in the sky above it, tethered by massive metal arms that reached down into Wardor, was the capital sky city of Miasten. The floating city was conflicting to Reed. It mocked her as it sat omnipresent in the sky. It made life miserable, yet was necessary to her livelihood. For herself, and for most grounders, she was born into a certain annoyance towards the sky cities. Yet there she was, doing whatever awful things it'd take to leave the ground and live up there.