“Did you see that shit? Boom! Totally sweet! Ol’ Clubby McDumbface there just dropped like nothing.” Jack sprints across the top of a couple smaller buildings as he makes his way to Corva’s rooftop.

His pack is heavy and awkward, swinging side to side with each step, ensuring that he’s never really got full control over where he’s going. Jack doesn’t care, though. The juice from his chembraid sings in his veins. He’s feeling great. He’s already made quick work of nearly a dozen grunts since he got back on the roof. There’s a clear path of dispatched Umbrati foot soldiers between him and Corva.

Slim’s voice, conveyed compliments of a comm kneak, scratches loudly in Jack’s head. “Yeah, kid, he fell just like all the ones you’re running by right now. Don’t get cocky.” There’s a small burst of static at the tail end of Slim’s comment. “And get your finger outta your ear. It won’t help you hear any better and it’s gummin’ up my audio stream from you.”

Realizing that his finger is, in fact, stuffed in his ear, he removes it. “Right. But about that one grunt, Clubby. He was the first one where them nanos exploded. All these others, we just used ’em to do some brain-scramblin’ by bouncin’ ’round in their skulls.”

“Which is the right way to do it. I gave you a good-sized swarm of nanobots, but not infinite. You’ve only got but so many. There aren’t enough to blow up every grunt in this raid party.”

Jack skids to a stop at the edge of Corva’s rooftop. “Oh c’mon, Slim. Clubby was on Corva’s roof with a bat. It was just a few steps away. Worth a few nanos to get the quick kill there.” He gauges the distance in the gap between rooftops. He can see more grunts in the alley below. Some are starting to scale the building wall and make their way to the top. “You think I can clear this?”

“Distance looks a bit long for you, little guy, even with the rocket fuel in that chembraid. Plus, you’ve got that sack on your back loaded up pretty good. Check your left. There should be a gangway across to the other roof. Go that way. See if it ain’t damaged.”

Nodding in affirmation, Jack makes his way to the gangway. He jams his finger back in his left ear. “This cheap-ass comm kneak of yours sure is buzzy. Makes my ears tickle.”

“That’s because it ain’t exactly a comm kneak. I had to cobble parts from an old radio and a VR kneak.”

Jack stops just short of the gangway. A sickened chill runs over his skin. “Aw, gross, man! Don’t tell me it was one of your perv scenes. Not cool, man. This thing is stuck in my head. Who wore it last?”

“Relax, kid. I sterilized it. You’re fine. Now pull your friggin’ finger out so I can hear around you.” There’s a pause as Slim stops talking and waits for Jack to comply. “Thanks. Now, that gangway looks pretty beat to shit, but I think you should be able to cross it. Go ahead and set your controller kneak to ‘passthrough.’ I’ll remote the nanobots and keep your path clear so you can concentrate on getting to the other side.”

Jack reaches up and finds the needle-shaped device sticking out among the small grouping behind his left ear. It’s the tallest of the set, so his fingers find it pretty easily. He grimaces.

“I don’t even wanna touch this thing. Shoulda made it controlled with a neurolink.” Pinching the top, he twists it clockwise. “You should be good to go.”

Edging up to the narrow gangway, Jack peers over the edge of the roof. At three stories from the alley below, it’s not that far down, but a drop would hurt pretty bad. It’d certainly make him easy pickings for the grunts down there. His mind flashes to the image of his fingers tearing out that one grunt’s throat. He shudders, but not from the brutality of the act. It’s that those were his fingers, his hands. But it wasn’t him. What was that shit? Could I do that again? On my own? Could I even get close enough?

He shakes his head, clearing the thought and focusing his attention on the gangway. It’s a narrow steel thing, not too long. Shouldn’t take more than three to four steps to cross it. Lightweight pipes form a simple railing on one side. He can see through the honeycomb mesh that serves as the walkway, barely as wide as his two feet together. A few grunts climbing up near the gangway suddenly lose their grip and drop down, flopping across the grunts on the alley floor. Slim’s doing his job clearing the way.

Another blast of static in his head. “You gonna stand there starin’, kid, or are you gonna get moving?”

Jack blinks. “Right.”

He grabs the rail and gingerly steps up on the gangway, testing his weight. It feels pretty solid. No creaks or squeaks. Tightening his grip on the rail, he holds his breath and bends his knees to bounce a bit. Still no sounds or vibrations that might indicate the gangway’s readiness to plummet to the ground below. Reassured that the crossing is safe, Jack gives a single nod to himself. With his hand still on the rail, he turns and runs across to Corva’s roof.

Two steps away from the end of the gangway, he hears it. His foot makes contact with the mesh walkway, and then there’s the loud metallic pop of a bolt head snapping off and shooting across the gap.

Feeling the little metal bridge give way beneath him, Jack takes a leap at Corva’s roof. His upper body clears the edge just fine, but he feels his shins smack against the roof’s edge.

“Kid! Jack! You alright?”

“Yeah. I’m good. Giving the painkillers in my braid a helluva workout today, though.” Jack looks back to the gangway and the corner of the roof he tripped over. The thing didn’t fall completely. It’s wedged between the two buildings at an ugly angle, held in place mostly by the light railing caught on the edge of the rooftop. “That bridge ain’t alright, though.”

Slowly, he gets up. The pain in his shins throbs. That’s gonna leave a mark. His pants haven’t been torn, but he can feel the heat pulsing from where his legs hit the roof. On the upside, it doesn’t feel like anything is broken. So at least there’s that.

Slapping dust and little bits of rock from his chest and shoulder, he turns back in the direction of Corva. He doesn’t have to look very hard. She’s right there up in his face.

“You witless shit!” Blood drains from her nose, smearing past her mouth to one side, clearing a slightly more clean area where she’s otherwise covered in dirt and grime. It looks like the back of her shirt is in tatters. It’s possible that the straps of her backpack and Zeke’s weight on her shoulder are the only things keeping it from falling off.

“Holy hell, girlie. You look horrible.”

“Yeah. No thanks to you.” She reaches up and uses her forefinger and thumb to wipe away a bit more of the blood from her nose. “And I told you to stop calling me ‘girlie.’ Pinny.”

He frowns. “There’s only one person allowed to call me that, an’ you ain’t her.” Jack winces to himself as the words leave his mouth. Lyia is back at Slim’s. It’s likely that she’s hearing all of this.

“Good. Remember that when you start trying to give me names.”

“Sure. Whatever, Corva. Besides, what’re you talkin’ about, ‘no thanks to me’? I just helped save your ass by poppin’ the top on Clubby over there.” Jack points his thumb over to the collapsed body of the grunt with the heavy club.

“Yeah. That one was mine. He was keeping the roof clear.”

“Oh.” Jack is quiet for a moment while it sinks in. “Oh! Like with Lyia an’ me before? You can do that with them, too?”

“Yeah. Apparently.” She spits a bit of excess blood.

“Shit. I didn’t know.” A thought occurs to him. “Wait … then why didn’t you just control those three grunts last time, instead of controlling me an’ Lyia?”

“I didn’t know I could control them. You and Lyia are more familiar to me. Zeke thought that would make it easier since I’d never done it before.”

There’s a scratchy buzz in Jack’s head. “Hey kid, this little chat of yours is nice n’ all, but you need to get outta there. The whole reason we let you go was so you could get Zeke and the girl, then bug out. I’ve been holding off the climbers with the nanobots, but there’s a lot of them grunts. Can’t keep this up forever.”

“Yeah. Gotcha.” Jack directs his attention to Thegn on the other roof. Something’s not right. The old codger is just kneeling there with his head down. Maybe he’s mumbling something. Jack watches as the old coot extends his scythe and easily cuts down a pair of grunts clambering onto his rooftop.

Jack’s curiosity gets the better of him. He pokes Corva on the arm and points at Thegn. “Hey, what’s ol’ Wrinkles up to, anyway? You gotta plan for the ancient fuck?”

“Actually . . .” She looks to Zeke on her shoulder before turning back to Jack. “We were hoping you were already in Cliff City. Our next move was to meet you there. We were just about to get out of here.”

“Good. Everyone’s on the same sheet of music.” Jack pauses for a moment as a thought occurs to him. “Wait, why are you so interested in ducking out? You’ve been doing pretty good standing toe-to-toe with the old dude. What’s goin’ on?”

“He’s—the fight’s done. We need to get moving.”

“Oh c’mon! That ain’t an answer! I saw how you handled him. He’s tough for an old man, but you were able to get him to the ground. Now he’s just sittin’ there, starin’ at the rooftop. I’m guessin’ you can probably take ’em. ’Specially with the kit I brought you. It’s totally sweet. Just—”

Corva grabs his arm, interrupting. “Look. We can talk about this after. There’s no time. We need—”

“No, you look. I’m tired hearing ‘later’ and ‘when you’re ready.’ I’m ready now. I deserve—”

“Jack! He’s going to kill everyone here! He’s going to put his mark on everyone in Bule. You want to be around for that all over again?”

For the first time in a long time, Jack has no words.