Simon Rising

by Brian D Howard

  The police reached his level, a pair of them each at two opposing stairways. All had guns drawn, pistols and shotguns. Rushed eyes found another girder only attached at one end. He pictured it bending from force at one end, blocking off a stairwell and forcing the cops back down. The girder ripped itself free of others and lurched like a striking snake that bit the brick wall of the stairwell. A shower of bricks and cops tumbled down the stairs.

  “Dammit!”

  He turned to his two remaining pursuers. His breathing was fast, and he was powerless to slow it.

  A familiar black woman in a suit stepped out onto a girder, megaphone in hand. The FBI woman handed the megaphone to a uniformed police officer still on the steps. She gestured the officer back and down, and he retreated.

  “Do you remember me, Steven?” the FBI woman called out. “We met in the hospital when you woke up. I’m Agent Moore. Why don’t you call me Rachel?” She took a few tentative steps closer.

  “I kinda remember you, I think,” Steven admitted. “Those first few days are kinda fuzzy.”

  “That’s because you were shot, Steven. In the head. You should be under medical care, Steven, not balancing for your life up here.”

  Steven scanned around him. Only the two were nearby. Swarms more were just arriving at the ground. He was running out of time.

  Moore inched forward, her hands out in front of her, empty. He let the woman get a little closer. If hecame up with something good he would only have to avoid the two.

  “You haven’t given me much choice,” he said, not sure how much time to stall for. People on the ground were getting out of cars. He wanted them away from the cars, he knew that much. Maybe partway up.

  “You came here, Steven. We’re all just following you. Let me get you safely back to the ground.”

  A plan was coming together for Steven. He grasped at the pieces, hoping to put them together while he talked. And before he ran out of strength for it.

  “I don’t think you understand, Rachel,” he warned. “I’m in control up here. I can throw cars with my mind, Rachel. I’m not what you think, and I’m not something you’re prepared for.” He ripped two more girders free, as punctuation, and aimed them like missiles ready to launch. “I could push you off of where you stand, or take out the beam you’re standing on, but I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  Moore still advanced, slowly. He lowered his voice as the agent drew closer, choosing his words for the FBI woman alone. The cop in the stairwell was keeping line-of-sight.

  “You’ve seen the news, Rachel, so have I. There are people in this city who can do things. People who can grow enormously, who can throw fire from their hands and seem pretty much indestructible. And there’s me. I can stop bullets with my mind. I still haven’t found something I couldn’t lift, and I’m pretty sure jail bars wouldn't hold me in.” He moved around the elevator shaft, putting himself between it and Moore. She stopped about ten feet away.

  “That’s not for me to decide, Steven. My job is to bring you in front of a judge and jury. You know that.” He fired one of his missiles and it tore through the girder she stood on. She yelped in surprise, but fired rather than screaming.

  He diverted the bullets to the side before catching her and setting her on another girder, this one perpendicular and not leading directly toward him. I’ve got you where I want you, now just listen, dammit!

  “I know that’s your job. I know you want me to pay for robbing banks. But that’s not me anymore. That man died when your men gunned him down at a bank. That man isn’t coming back. But there is a choice you can make.”

  He had to look down to confirm where his feet were in relation to the girders, and he positioned them at the edge of the elevator shaft framing. Twenty or so stories straight down to a floor somewhere past the blackness. He gulped, nervous but trying to be confident. The elevator shaft in Barton’s building had been different. There he had time to slow his descent. This would be very different. He wasn't convinced he could actually do it. It would have to be just right. Dead at the bottom was a very real possibility. Another gulp.

  “Steven—” Moore began.

  “Steven is gone, Rachel. Dead. You can call me Simon now.”

  “The people in this city who can do things,” he continued. “How are you going to arrest a man who can spray fire from his hands? Our world has changed, Rachel. You aren’t equipped for people like that. You can’t stop people like that. Maybe I can, I don’t know.

  “But I do know this. I’m not sure you can stop me. But I don’t think you want to fight me. I think the city probably benefits more from me walking free than it does from me being in a cage. I’m not going to say I’m above the law, but I’m not sure it really applies to people like me. But maybe we can be on the same side in some of this.” Her expression, still determined, softened as he spoke. Something in her eyes looked...haunted.

  “So I should just let you go and let you run loose like another vigilante? Like the Messenger? Bay City doesn’t need that.” She took a few steps sideways as she spoke, toeing her foot along the girder towards a cross-beam and keeping her eyes on his.

  His second missile destroyed the beam she had been working towards. He stabilized her so she wouldn't fall. If she fell to her death it would never be over.

  “It also doesn’t need a fight between us! We don’t have to be enemies, Rachel. Steven Ambrose might have been your enemy, your fugitive criminal. But he’s gone. Dead. Maybe if the paperwork agreed about that he could stay dead, and it wouldn’t have to be a problem anymore. That part’s up to you. You can chase the ghost or you can bury him.”

  He latched onto as much of the building as he could see and lurched it one way, then the next. Rachel dropped to a squat, grabbing the beam with her hand. Her gun fell away in the process.

  “You can’t win this. No matter what, one of us dies tonight. But maybe it only has to look that way. I hope you make the right choice in that. Goodbye, Rachel,” he said and let himself drop and plummet down the shaft.

  CHAPTER 41 – LIFE DECISIONS

  Rachel turned back to Ambrose after handing off the megaphone.

  “Do you remember me, Steven? We met in the hospital when you woke up. I’m Agent Moore. Why don’t you call me Rachel?” Keep him calm, keep his attention focused. She stepped a little further out onto the narrow girder.

  “I kinda remember you, I think. Those first few days are kinda fuzzy.”

  “That’s because you were shot, Steven. In the head. You should be under medical care, Steven, not balancing for your life up here.” If she could keep him calm, maybe this could end without getting any worse. The media would feast on the mess as it was. Thrown and so many crashed cars, a downed police helicopter. She didn't know what had happened to the six officers that had raced up the other stairwells. The last stairway to get smashed apart....She could have been in that one.

  And the media and bloggers thought they enjoyed the bank robberies....

  She kept her hands out in front of her, showing him they were empty, and crept forward more. He wasn’t warning her to stay back yet. That was good.

  “You haven’t given me much choice.”

  Steven stood so calm, so still. His hands hung relaxed at his side and he made no effort to clutch anything for balance. Not even the tiniest amount of swaying.

  “You came here, Steven. We’re all just following you. Let me get you safely back to the ground.” Nobody else had to die tonight.

  “I don’t think you understand, Rachel. I’m in control up here. I can throw cars with my mind, Rachel. I’m not what you think, and I’m not something you’re prepared for.”

  Two long I-beams ripped themselves free from the latticework skeleton. They angled at her like arrows or spears.

  “I could push you off of where you stand, or take out the beam you’re standing on, but I don’t want to hurt anyone.” His face was calm, confident, rational. Was this pre-hospital Steven? She continued her slow creep forwa
rd.

  “You’ve seen the news, Rachel,” he said, more quietly, “so have I. There are people in this city who can do things. People who can grow enormously, who can throw fire from their hands and seem pretty much indestructible. And there’s me. I can stop bullets with my mind. I still haven’t found something I couldn’t lift, and I’m pretty sure jail bars would not hold me in.”

  ‘You can’t stop me,’ a voice whispered in the back of her head.

  He moved around the elevator shaft, moving in front of it as if cutting her off from it. She stopped about ten feet away. About as close as she could be without coming acrss as threatening.

  “That’s not for me to decide, Steven. My job is to bring you in front of a judge and jury. You know that.”

  One of the girder-spears launched itself and tore through the beam beneath her feet. Startlement and fear clenched her heart. Her finger worked the trigger as instinct took over. She had tipped too much to be able to reach anything as she spun away from life. The world spun around her for just a moment before she found herself lifted up. Her feet were pulled back under her and she found herself standing on another beam.

  “I know that’s your job,” he said while she oriented herself. The beam under her was a cross-beam. She could only go sideways. “I know you want me to pay for robbing banks. But that’s not me anymore. That man died when your men gunned him down at a bank. That man isn’t coming back. But there is a choice you can make.”

  He looked down as his feet, adjusting where they were at on the narrow girder between him and a long drop. He was looking nervous now. As if he needed to be. She needed options, but he seemed to be the only one who had them. She noticed the gun, somehow still in her hand. For all the good it was. Stall, that’s all you’ve got left.

  “Steven—” she began before he interrupted.

  “Steven is gone, Rachel. Dead. You can call me Simon now.”

  “The people in this city who can do things,” he said. “How are you going to arrest a man who can spray fire from his hands? Our world has changed, Rachel. You aren’t equipped for people like that. You can’t stop people like that. Maybe I can, I don’t know.”

  You can’t stop me. But he was right, she wasn’t equipped. The BCPD wasn’t. It would still be days more before the cleanup from the man with burning hands. The same man that was mopping up SWAT troopers when she left to chase after Ambrose. Plenty of men had remained behind to deal with that one. Even still, maybe not enough.

  “But I do know this. I’m not sure you can stop me. But I don’t think you want to fight me. I think the city probably benefits more from me walking free than it does from me being in a cage. I’m not going to say I’m above the law, but I’m not sure it really applies to people like me. But maybe we can be on the same side in some of this.”

  Same side? What, we just deputize you? A scene of Steven throwing ski-masked criminals around flashed through her imagination. What are you getting at? Where are you going with this?

  “So I should just let you go and let you run loose like another vigilante? Like the Messenger? The city doesn’t need that.” She slid her foot along the girder, cursing her low heels, towards an intersection to move to him. Just how quickly could she grab the cuffs behind her and slap one end around his wrist? No way. Much too far. Nothing. There was nothing she could do if she couldn’t talk him down.

  The other floating girder attacked the beam she had angled towards, ripping that one apart. Her world shook under her, but her body stayed in place. He had supported her. Why?

  “It also doesn’t need a fight between us. We don’t have to be enemies, Rachel. Steven Ambrose might have been your enemy, your fugitive criminal. But he’s gone. Dead. Maybe if the paperwork agreed about that then he could stay dead, and it wouldn’t have to be a problem anymore. That part’s up to you. You can chase the ghost or you can bury him.”

  Ghost? Wait, what was his plan here?

  The building shook, swaying and rocking and trembling. She dropped the gun to squat down and grab the beam, clutching the cool iron. He wasn't supporting her this time. You can’t stop me. She gritted away tears. She was beaten. Anger and frustration and fear all warred in her throat, brawling with each other knowing only one could escape.

  “You can't win this. No matter what, one of us dies tonight. Or maybe it only has to look that way. I hope you make the right choice in that. Goodbye, Rachel.” One step backwards and he plummeted.

  “NO!” Rachel yelled as Ambrose and fell and vanished into the shadows and obscuring iron framework. Her free hand reached out, pointlessly and almost breaking what balance she had.

  A cloud of dust billowed up the elevator shaft. Over the radio someone announced that the target had fallen.

  “Well, fuck,” she breathed. Confused questions sounded in the radio chatter. She had too many of her own to pay them any mind. Now was not the time to reach for the radio at her belt.

  It didn’t add up. He was a planner, and he had cornered himself here. Was that another mistake from a damaged brain? Or had she read him wrong from the beginning? He said they could be on the same side. His face had looked determined, not despondent or desperate. His eyes had never shown a beat—that moment of decision—of deciding to commit suicide.

  He could throw cars, stop bullets. He somehow disabled a helicopter with his mind. Could he fly? What else could he do? She looked down at the dust swirling in a cross breeze. What would she find when it settled? Probably not a body, she realized. He talked about paperwork suggesting he was dead. There would be some insistence on searching for a body, but she could head off the worst of that if she really wanted to. The press would be happy to hear he was dead. It wasn’t like he had family that would demand a body to bury.

  She could list his death in her final report; she could close this damned case and move on. She could take a vacation. God knew she needed one. But could she live with that, with helping him fake his death? Would continuing to hunt him down be any better, or would that just get more people killed?

  If Ambrose was still alive West would make a bigger deal out of her letting him get away now that he represented a bigger threat. Or did he? Maybe he was only a threat if pursued?

  If that was the case she’d have to leave the FBI, but West would probably bury her career if she stayed. The public would swallow the collateral damage if he had died. But all that damage to have him slip through her fingers? That would be career ending.

  She made her way back to the stairs and the officer still waiting there. The officer looked just as out of breath as Rachel felt.

  “You tried,” the man suggested.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “What was he saying toward the end?” the officer asked.

  She was stuck with a decision to make. The responsible part of her grappled with the part that wanted so much to just leave this city where normal was a thing of the past. But how long would it stay here, anyway? How long before the law in other cities faced these problems? Maybe it was time to leave law enforcement. Maybe it was time to find life outside of the FBI. She couldn’t make that decision here, now. Vacation, then. Figure it out on a beach. Where she could take her time with it.

  “That he wouldn’t go to prison, mostly,” she oversimplified, starting down the stairs. “And goodbye. Then he jumped. I think he was tired of running. Wouldn’t be the first.” Rationally, she knew it was wrong, but her conscience wasn't complaining. Some of the stress and anxiety subsided as she descended.

  “Nah, it wouldn’t.”

  She had time to think on the long walk down dim stairs. There was already a lot about tonight she didn't know how to explain. She dreaded the paperwork.

  The man with fire hands. Steven moving things with his mind. She stopped short and sat hard on a stair.

  “You okay?” the officer asked.

  “Yeah. Tired. Go ahead.” The policeman continued down, younger legs and younger lungs more tolerant of the night’s running and stair-climbing.<
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  It had been in front of her face all the time. From the start Steven hadn't left fingerprints anywhere. There were gloves in the hospital he could have used to keep prints off the IV and wrist band he’d removed.

  Opening and closing things at the apartments with his mind wouldn’t leave fingerprints. Fifth floor balconies wouldn't be an obstacle, and would have been an easy way in. The only apartments robbed were ones with unlocked patio doors. If he could fly, then one balcony to another was trivial.

  Going in through a warehouse store roof. Opening a skylight that could only be opened from inside, getting in and out without any indications of a rope. All so explainable now.

  And every time she had ignored that possibility. Refused to admit that it could even be. So wrong. So arrogant and short-sighted!

  You can’t stop us, the creepy nightmare voice echoed again. She hung her head in her hands and just let her breathing slow.

  When she reached the ground, the dust had mostly settled at the bottom of the elevator shaft. The cement floor was smashed through to basement levels below. Bits of cement and other debris were strewn about, but there was no blood.

  She kept people away from the hole and told an officer to tape off the area. After all, she suggested, the flooring may be unstable and unsafe. “Nobody survives that,” she said, wishing it could only be true. She already knew they wouldn't find a body in the rubble. Had her career been the final victim of the night? Was she committing career suicide if she helped him fake his death?

  Thorne found her, his uniform gray with concrete dust.

  “Looks like I just missed it. What the hell did I miss, Rach? I just got here when he fell, I ran into the dust, but....”

  “Yeah. We chased him to the top,” she told the Lieutenant. “Then he said he would never go to prison, and he jumped. Twenty-four-something stories, I lost count. There will be a mess to clean up, but that’s not for you or me, Pat.”