The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

Chapter 34/My in jail confession

"Go ahead I won't judge... much" said Dante.

"Back on Mars I got into Markor it's Martian Parkork, Free running. Jumping from roof top to roof top. My parents thought I was doing ballet but I was doing a Markor lessons. I got into doing it and began to go out and do it in the urban jungle. You see on the Eye people design buildings like they still do onEarth. On Mars you can jump up two stories, You can fall from about 10 stories and you can land with a roll and walk way. But people don't lock their windows above the second story floor. I started exploring, the more lost parts of FirstFootPrint city. When we moved to the Hedgehog - Red City, I was mad at my parents, so I began doing more and more dangerous stuff. Eventually I would climb up on the top of tall buildings and jump from building to building. Under the lower gravity it's easy."

I took a breath.

"I started going into places and left notes pointing out how easy it was and how insecure people were. Some kids call it physical-hacking. I never took anything but went into places and took photos to show off. The harder to get in the better. I started taking some friends to show off and after a while I started getting followed by this guy called John. I thought he was my side kick. He started to think I was his girl friend or something mushy."

I took a deep breath.

"Any way, after a while I discovered we would break in to places together, but he had started taking souvenirs. My exploits got on the local news. I did a couple of 'astounding mysteries' getting in an out of impossible places. My reputation grew so I was accused of all sorts of stuff I never did. Like doing two impossible break in's hundreds of miles apart on the same night. It was actually people burgling them selves and claiming the insurance and blaming the 'silver shadow'. So one night the police set a trap. We got surprised but I jumped out of the window and crawled up the building followed by John. We ran and ended going up the Grief tower which is about 17 stories up. Anything under about 15 stories is just about survivable if you fall, above that your toast. You know what I don't fall off. There was a beam which linked the Grief tower to the one over the street. I walked over like a tight rope walker. The police on Mars were from Earth thought it would be crazy and were too scared to follow. The beam was to weak for them, John followed but he got cocky near the end. He slipped and I grabbed him."

My throat was getting dry. I took a sip of water.

"I had him but he started to pull me over. The upper part of the building was plastic and just fell away. I told John, he was slipping we were both going. ... so he just says 'remember me' and let go. He hit the concrete hard. I wasn't going to let go of him. If he hadn't let go we would have both gone over so he saved my life. I still have nightmares about it. When I close my eyes I can still see him on the ground ... police running to him. I.. I got up and ran away, I was confused. He didn't die ,but he did ended up breaking his back. He's is now paralysed from the neck down. He took the wrap for me they said he was the silver shadow. He's back on Mars while they grow him a new spine. The internet says he might walk or it might not it's going to take a year to know. If he survives he might go to jail. So my parents packed me off on the first ship going to Earth to hide out until everything dies down."

I know this sounds strange but the incident had crushed me like a mountain on my back but retelling the story made it bite into me less deeply.

"Heavy," said Dante.

"Promise you won't tell" I said. It felt so good to tell someone, like I'd been under a huge pile of rocks and he had pulled me out.

Dante nodded.

"Hey that reminds me. Why were you so hard on me when we first met?"

Dante looked up. "Well I was dating Uriel, she dumped me and so I had a thing about Mars girls"