The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

B2/Chapter 9/the chase

Flash back: 5 days after Scarlett's arrival. FirstFootPrint city.

Six months previously I was looking out from the Budget-Air building rooftop towards the black glass goliath of the Musk Building. I felt like a match box sized toy action figure before a lamppost. It was big, definitely too big. In Hedgehog buildings went through the dome ( hence the nick name). In Firstfootprint buidlings were not allowed to touch the dome. It had about 40 stories up. It was the middle of the night and I had decided to cheat. I had climbed up the dome and then drop down. Eventually, the last part of the climb done I was hanging from one of the curved man-sized struts which kept the roof up. I looked down over the roof to the Musk building. From here the roof looked tiny, like trying to jump from the window of your bedroom and land on the pole in a forest of spikes. The Musk building was close enough to safely drop on to. If I had missed there was 40 stories of fall time before I joined Dante in were ever parted lovers go when they die. I had to jump precisely and drop the 2 stories to the top of the flat roof of the Musk tower. Falling from the dome rather than climbing or jumping from a nearby building had been a cheat we had never thought about. Partly because it was an insanely dumb thing to do. If you missed you died.

Without Dante, it felt like life was hardly worth living anymore. I know it sounds mad, so mad I couldn't tell anyone but I felt angry at him for die before I could say all the things I wanted to. The fact I could never tell him his smile was deliciously off balance, kind of burnt. It was only out here life in my hands, seconds from death, I no longer felt sad or on the verge of tears. This was my alternative to drinking myself into oblivion. Strangely hanging from the dome like this, waiting for the wind to be still enough to me let me drop, drinking seemed safer.

I waited, this part of the city was quite. You could hear foot steps on the streets below. It seemed right and I swung and let go. My first feeling was I wasn't going forwards fast enough. I was going to drop all the way to the ground. The gentle martian gravity took me and I didn't accelerate down as much as I expected. The building quickly approached and it looked like I would make it. I landed on the roof absorbing as much as I could on my legs. I rolled on to the rough roofing slabs but discovered they were made of something spongey. I rolled again and found my self in the air. I was about to go over the edge of the far side when I grabbed a hand rail. I ended up with my feet dangling over the side. I let out a universal MOFO.

From there it had been easy. I had a huge sheet with 'I'm back did you miss me?-The shadow' Along with an eye for Mars painted on it. I unfurled it, back in the dome I wondered if it would be to big, now I worried if it was too small. I tied it off on the metal railing. The robots never slept and Kentro thought I would have 4 minutes until they got to the roof. While I took my back pack off I looked over the edge and saw some people looking up. I waved at them. I could hear robot troops moving. Quickly I tied the rope to the handrail. I left a couple of things to confuse and distract them. Some glass suckers to get them to think I had climbed up.

Then I abseiled down. The plan was to get to the ground drop the last ten stories but as I went down I noticed the robots were surrounding the building. That was quick. I was shooting down the rope and got to the end where I would drop into their waiting embrace. Then I stopped.  Looking around I noticed the buildingsnearbyy. I began to run forwards and then swung like a pendulum back. I did it again each time building up enough momentum to swing again. When I swung past the building's edge I approached the smaller buildings around the tower. I passed over the ring of robots. I let go and ended up on top of the surrounding buildings. I actually landed somewhere familiar. The machines would be after me but I knew the roof tops like the room of my own house. I was able to free run to a greenhouse where the ground-car I left was waiting for me.