Data Runner

by Sam A. Patel

  “You worry about me! I was the one who—”

  “I’m not going to argue with you, Red. I know how good a runner you are, but this is different. This time you’re only going to slow me down.”

  “I know these tunnels just as well as you do.”

  “That won’t make any difference.”

  “Why not?”

  Dexter is already directing Snake where to go. I remove my backpack and shove it around the seat into Red Tail’s arms. “Look after this for me.”

  “Drop him at the corner of—”

  “I got it,” says Snake, who has figured out what we’re up to.

  “Why not?” Red Tail asks again.

  “Because I’m not taking the tunnels.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she says.

  But she already knows that I am.

  This time it’s not soldiers but men in suits who are on my tail. And I do mean on my tail. Every step of the way. And that is just the way I want it.

  The one thing about traceurs is that we always know the best places to trace. Go to any city in the world and find the local traceurs, show them you’re one of them, and they’ll happily guide you through that city’s signature run. Every city has one. In Tokyo it’s the Godzilla grind, an object-heavy course that begins at the famous Godzilla statue in Ginza and takes you through the streets, monuments, and malls of the most luxurious shopping district in the world. In London it’s the Waterloo skip, a taxing course through the busiest railway station in all of England. Here in the Free City we too have our signature run, and I know it like the back of my hand.

  The Gotham gauntlet.

  Since it’s a rooftop course, it’s one of the most popular PK runs in the world. That’s also how it got its name. Gotham isn’t just a reference to old New York, it describes the Batman-like feel of the course itself which requires every technique in the book.

  Twenty-five floors up, I take Blackburn’s goons on the training exercise of their life as I thief over a fan unit. Using one hand to vault over an object and the other to push off behind you, that’s a thief. Just beyond that is a rack of scaffolding blocking my path. I underbar through it.

  The next building is nine feet up, requiring either an arm jump or a pop vault depending upon how adventurous you feel. The gap is only two feet, but that’s enough. There are no safety nets here. An arm jump is sufficient—leap, grab the building with your arms, muscle up. But if you want to maintain your speed—if, like me, you’re being chased and want to widen your lead, you do the pop vault—leap, kick up off the side of the building, catch the ledge with your hands, and simple vault over. Perfect.

  I’m all the way across the rooftop by the time they pull themselves up. Huffing already. The next gap jump is four feet across with a nine-foot drop. I plant my foot on the building and leap…breakfall across the asphalt roof next door.

  I run, dyno up an overhang, slide down a vaulted rooftop and lache down to the next level.

  I drop, and balance, and swing.

  I pick up speed to pop vault up a fourteen-foot HVAC housing. Then stop. Reset. Gauge it carefully before I—

  Precision jump a seven-inch ledge.

  It isn’t for amateurs. Many seasoned traceurs can’t make it all the way through, but I can. There are very few things in this world I can call my own, but this course is one of them. Now the interceptors are in my territory. On my turf.

  The big one can’t muscle up the shiny slick aluminum of the HVAC housing. The next one pulls up just before the precision jump. It’s only five feet, but when you’re twenty-five floors up, all you see is down. After all, it isn’t the gap that kills you but the fall. The third guy I know I can ditch easily at the Turn Down, except that two more interceptors have headed me off and are now coming at me from the other side of the gauntlet, so I have to break from the course and go a different way. Into a direction unknown.

  Now I’m off the course. Running blind. I have no idea where the next rooftop will take me or if there will even be a way off it, and soon each ledge comes dangerously close to being a wall, and with no way off, my back to it.

  I skid to a halt at the next ledge. Wall. The next building is too far over to make a lateral jump, but there is a terrace one floor down that I can drop to. I back up and leap. The alley scrolls by twenty-five stories below me, but I don’t give it a thought as I fly across and bring my feet together for the breakfall.

  I land so hard I roll straight into the stucco.

  The terrace belongs to the corner office of a hip-looking company. You know the kind. They rent lofts instead of suites because they prefer exposed brick and wide-open spaces to cubicles and carpet. An aggrenet startup no doubt.

  As I run through the office to the main floor, I see my pursuers make the jump behind me. The first two make it easily, the third just barely

  The workstations on the main floor are scattered randomly like an archipelago of desks on a sea of hardwood. The guys behind me will have to zigzag through it but I vault over to keep a straight line, clearing all but one trans screen that I knock over after grazing it with my foot. Just before the stairwell, I pass a utility closet.

  One of the goons pulls out a gun.

  I rip open the utility closet and look for something, anything I can use. Grab a broom thinking maybe I can use the handle. Leave the door to the utility closet wide open and knock over a steel chair to block the path before bolting through the stairwell door. Slam it shut behind me. Slide the broomstick through the door handle and wedge it behind a pipe. I get half a flight down when I hear activity below me. I can’t tell if it’s Blackburn, or if they are coming in my direction, but I can’t take the chance. I turn and head for the roof, passing the stairwell door just as the first goon tries it from the other side. It holds for now, but I won’t hold my breath.

  I get to the top of the stairs and throw myself into the door, expecting it to fly open and stay open as I emerge into the chilly night. What I do not expect is for it to bounce back into my face. Strike the bridge of my nose with a sudden flash that knocks me off my feet and sends me crashing into a pair of garbage cans. What the hell?

  I groan briefly before bouncing back to my feet.

  Just beyond the door I find a wedge stuck between two cinder blocks and an aluminum pale full of cigarette butts. I jam the wedge into the door and hammer it in with one of the cinder blocks before propping both of them against the door. That should give me an extra minute.

  I wipe the sweat off my brow and hurry around the rooftop to check out my options. That’s when I see the three soldiers dressed in full-capsule body armor, perched on a ledge three stories above me on the adjacent rooftop. Laser goggles glowing red. Sundrop guns primed. They would take me out right now if they were able. They could do that without even aiming. Hell, with the vortex chopper’s plasma cutter they could crumble the entire building beneath my feet. And they want to—you can see it in the piercing shine of their glowing red eyes—they want to. But they can’t because this is the Free City and firing any plasma-class weapons within its borders would be more damaging to Blackburn than anything I could possibly have in my wing. Besides, they have eyes on me. Where could I possibly go from here?

  Where indeed. Two sides of the building are completely open with nowhere to go but down. The third side is where the Complex soldiers stand perched like gargoyles. The only chance I have is the fourth side.

  But it’s a really big drop. So big that I would probably take a minute to consider it if I had that luxury. But I don’t, because right now that jump is my only option. One floor below me I hear them shoving at the door. Inching closer.

  There is no turning back now.

  I step onto the ledge and take one more look across the chasm as a giant thud shakes the rooftop door behind me. A garble of voices. Now a series of smaller thuds from shoulders being rammed into the door from the other side. The wedge slips. The barrel of a gun appears through the
crack as if to pry it open. I can see it more clearly now, the size and shape, the markings on the side. It’s definitely a Glock 21, which means it’s definitely a .45 caliber.

  I give myself a much bigger lead than is necessary, which I know is the very thing I warned Red Tail not to do, but I can’t help it. This jump is ten feet over and twenty-five feet down, and I’m apprehensive at best. The door slips. I dig my toe into the roof.

  The door behind me flies open with a slam, and all I hear after that is the mumble of their voices unfurling into a string of remarks as they raise their guns to my back. There he is! There’s the Carrion! Don’t let him get away! But I am already in motion. Committed, as the tread of my boot grips the edge of the building. I leap.

  A shot is fired.

  The bullet whizzes past me as I soar, suspended in thin air like I’m hanging by a thread hooked to the crescent moon, until the Earth takes over and I drop.

  Feet running across air.

  Arms swimming against wind.

  I sail clear into the night.

  25

  The muscle memory takes over.

  My legs come together and up to my chest all on their own.

  This landing comes faster than ever.

  Spot my mark. Point my toes. Lower my legs.

  My feet catch the roof like the arrester hook of a fighter jet coming into an aircraft carrier. The balls of my feet flatten into my heels, into my legs that bend all the way to 90 degrees even as I throw my bodyweight forward to catch the blacktop with the flat of my hands, a move that crushes my palms into my wrists as I continue forwards into a roll that nearly dislocates my shoulder even through my body armor. But still I have too much momentum, so instead of popping back up for the usual runaway, I push forward again into a second roll, and when I get through that, finally get back to my feet.

  I feel it everywhere, but I think I’m okay. There is a limp in one knee as I stagger forward, but that’s only because I hit a nerve behind the kneecap. That should pass soon enough. I immediately check the inside of my forearm, which hit the tar pretty hard on the rollout. Scrapes aside, it’s going to leave a large bruise, but I don’t think the impact was targeted enough to damage the chip. That being the last thing on the checklist, I think I am in the clear.

  Shots are fired behind me but only two even come close, and those miss me by a couple of feet. There’s cover behind the old chimneystack and I am almost there, almost safe. Until I hear it.

  The CRACK steel-on-steel slide of one shot in particular.

  One among several that is sharper than all the rest.

  My stomach tightens with grief.

  The full-arc swing of a wrecking ball strikes my back two inches to the left of my spine and slams me forward once again, only this time it is without the slightest bit of control. This time there is no catching the roof and rolling out of it. I fly off my feet without balance or breath and land HARD.

  In a single flash of memory, I think of that moment back in Brentwood. Lying on my back in the old library as Dexter runs over to see if I am all right. I remember the tears in my eyes and the sledgehammer dent in my chest. But most importantly, I remember the need to get up afterwards.

  Get up, Jack.

  Because even then I knew, out in the field I would not have the luxury of nursing my wounds.

  Get up, Jack!

  Another bullet skips off the rooftop two feet away, a second six inches closer, a third six inches away. Get up, damn it! GET UP!

  But there is no way I’m getting up from that, not for another minute or two. And mostly the next minute or two is all a blur, but somehow—I can’t even tell you how—despite my back that feels broken, I manage to crawl on my stomach the rest of the way to the chimneystack and pull myself around the corner as the bullets continue coming my way. So now I have cover. Even still, I have to get up. That is priority number one. With the brick at my back I push myself up the wall and back onto my feet. Barely. This isn’t like it was before. Whether it’s the caliber of bullet, or taking it in the back instead of the chest, this one takes all the strength out of my legs.

  I peek around the corner.

  On the rooftop behind me they stand, all three goons dressed in the same black suit, still contemplating the jump. Just by the looks on their faces it’s clear that only two of them will even attempt it, and between the two of them, they’ll be lucky if even one gets back to his feet. I’m trained for it and I barely did. But they have guns, and this rooftop is like a closed pen, which means if I don’t get off now, I’ll be trapped.

  The rooftop door is flush against the brick with no handle on the outside. The only way it is opening is if Blackburn comes busting through from the other side, which isn’t far off. With a precarious step and less than firm footing, I stumble away from the door, realizing at once the horror of my situation. It isn’t that I might become trapped. I am trapped. Trapped on a rooftop with nowhere to go.

  I peek around again.

  Across the way, two of them have stepped aside to clear a lane for the third who I can no longer see because he has backed up for a running start. I try the door again frantically, try to squeeze my fingernails between the door and the frame to pry it open, but all I do is split them. I slam my fist against it.

  All of a sudden I hear what sounds like a bottle rocket coming in my direction from somewhere below on the opposite side of the building. The Doppler effect is all vertical as it shoots up the wall. Arrives fast. A giant harpoon attached to a rappelling line that soars over the ledge and fires a booster to drive itself into the roof. It fires again, ejecting a rappelling brake from the base.

  I run to the edge of the building knowing exactly who to expect. Standing on the sidewalk twenty-five stories below is Red Tail.

  “Well don’t just stand there,” she yells.

  The two goons watching me from the ledge goad the third to hurry up as I pull the brake off the anchor and lock it on. The third man finally commits to the leap. I know this because the moment I step onto the ledge with my hand on the lever and the line dangling between me and the building, I hear the foot-pounding echo of a running start. I rock back onto my heels. Balance on the corner edge with only the rope holding me in place.

  The third goon comes leaping off the building with fire in his eyes.

  I hop off the building and go zipping down the line as fast as the brake will allow.

  I only have to push off the building three times before my feet hit the sidewalk. The instant I touch down, Red Tail grabs the brake and removes it from my harness. “Stand back,” she says.

  The moment I’m clear, she breaks off the safety cap and hits the release, causing an electrical current to travel up the line and detach it from the anchor. The weight of the line pulls it over the edge and down the side of the building.

  Red Tail shoves my backpack into my arms and pulls me away. “Come on.”

  Five blocks up the street, an SUV comes screaming around the corner. Not ours. “Where are we going?”

  “The river.”

  The river is two blocks in the other direction. “That’s no good,” I say even though we’re already running in that direction. “They’ll box us in.”

  “Only if you stop when you hit water.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Over my shoulder I catch sight of the SUV accelerating toward us.

  “It’s the only way.”

  Red Tail has already stripped down to her underwear while I’m still standing there in my pants, which is crazy because I would have thought that she’d be the one who was shy, not me. I mean, this isn’t exactly the way I imagined getting semi-naked in front of her. Not that I ever imagined such a thing, but if I did. You know what I’m saying.

  “Come on,” she goads, and I am totally amazed by how much confidence she has for a girl who’s just standing there, out in the open, wearing nothing but her underwear. Just where does that kind of confidence come from anyw
ay?

  “Come on, it’s the same game,” she says as if sensing my trepidation, not of the swim but of her. “I show you mine, you show me yours.”

  Just then a bullet zips between us. That gets my pants off pretty quick.

  The critical stuff like our thin screens is already in my backpack, which is waterproof. Everything else gets left behind. Our clothes, our gear, our body armor—we leave it all on the bank of the river. Red Tail’s armor is full of scuffs but no welts, which is why she grew concerned at the sight of a slug lodged into the back of mine.

  Red Tail and I have already confirmed that both of us are excellent swimmers, but the way she dives in, the perfect arch in her back that inverts the moment she hits the water, it’s like she’s a professional. I dive in after her.

  The water is pitch black and cold. Ice cold.

  The trick is to keep moving. You have to keep moving. Move to fight the current. Move to fight the cold. Move to keep your whole body from shutting down. Just move. Move to cross the distance as fast as you can before you run out of steam. Because if you stop, you freeze. And if you freeze, you die.

  We’re not even halfway there when my back clenches and my muscles begin to burn. But not Red Tail, she is a machine. She just keeps stroking and stroking in perfect timing, breathing with the regularity of a metronome. It’s only by pacing her that I manage to do the same. That’s what keeps me going. As much as I want to stop for a minute to catch my breath, I keep going. As much as I want to tread for a moment in that cold abyss, I know that the moment I do, I will sink forever into that abyss and never be heard from again. I follow Red Tail like my life depends upon it because it does. If she keeps going and I stop, she will make it across and I won’t.

  Keep pushing. Even as my hands and feet grow numb to the very tips of my fingers and toes.

  Keep swimming. Even when my spine feels ready to snap.

  Red Tail pulls so far ahead of me that she’s almost reached the other side.

  All I can do is aim for the lights.