A cheerful early afternoon sun was shining down on Millennium City. The towering concrete and glass skyscrapers of downtown glittered like gems in the light. A light breeze kissed the city streets. For most of the citizens going about their daily lives it was a pleasant, if a bit warm, summer afternoon.

Down at the construction site, it was a slightly different story. There was little shade to be had among the bare bones of what would eventually be another towering office building. Large cranes moved immense steel girders to the upper stories. Below various examples of heavy equipment roared as they moved immense loads of dirt and other materials, belching diesel fumes as they helped the fledgling structure take form. Dirt, grime, and concrete dust coated most surfaces as man and machine worked together to give rise to another towering structure among the other giants looming over downtown. Among the lumbering vehicles a smaller, but no less imposing, figure moved to and fro. Sasha, accompanied by his supervisor, made his way up the structure to the tenth floor where the powerfully built construction cyborg had been working.

Sasha growled as a particularly stubborn steel beam refused to slip into place properly in it's slot among the tenth story's other structural supports. It was easier for the mechanical Russian to get into tight quarters than any of the heavy machinery, especially on the upper stories of a project, and so as a building took form and grow in height Sasha tended to climb into the sky with it. Sasha leaned into the beam and planted his palms on the support and tried to push it into a fully upright position. His mechanical arms clanked and rattled as he applied a portion of his significant strength, but the girder stubbornly remained at a slightly skewed angle. After several moments Sasha took a step back from the skewed support and shrugged at Daniel Ramirez, the site foreman.

"See? I could force beam into place. But that would maybe damage ceiling or bend beam. Is no good in either case. I think support was cut a few centimeters too long."

Ramirez nodded wordlessly and peered at the support. He circled it a couple of times, pacing slowly. Sasha stood by patiently, absent mindedly clicking his metal fingers together. Ramirez stopped pacing and sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he flipped through several sheets of paper attached to his clip board. After a couple of moment he let out an annoyed growl and turned to Sasha.

"Aight here's what we do. I need you to go downstairs and get a couple of temp braces and fix 'em in place to prop up the floor above. This support here isn't a major one so we can use some temporary supports while we get this beam cut down to size. While you do that I'll get Jackson and Perry up here with the plasma torch to cut the beam to fit. After they're done you should be able to slip this pinche' thing into place and get back to doing what you do."

"Got it."

Sasha wiped the sweat from his brow with an already grimy red rag he had tucked into his belt and headed back towards the open air lift that would take him back to the ground floor. Ramirez remained behind, talking on the radio and calling for the torch crew to come to the tenth story. As the rickety contraption clattered slowly downwards to the ground Sasha stared out at the city he was helping to build. Detroit had, some years prior to Sasha's arrival, been nearly wiped off the map by a superhuman megalomaniac named Doctor Destroyer. His army of killer robots and giant super weapons had only barely been driven back by the combined forces of all the city's heroes and allied military forces. Even then many lives had been lost and much of Detroit had been left a smoking ruin.

Sasha admired the manner in which the renamed Millennium City had risen from the ashes of the old city after such devastation, and was quietly proud to be a part of its ongoing growth. Construction ran in Sasha's blood, even before the traumatic transformation which granted him his strength. Sasha's father had worked in construction before him and considering the difficulty in finding jobs in Kursk, the city in western Russia he had grown up in, it was an easy decision to follow his father into the same line of work. Work was steady, and the family never wanted for a warm meal. Not everyone in the country could claim to be so fortunate.

Sasha broke away from his thoughts as the utility lift completed its descent and rattled to a halt. He stepped off and walked across the open construction yard over to where there was a pile of angled heavy metal poles that could be used as temporary supports. Several of Sasha's co workers waved and called out to him as he passed. He gave them a casual nod and a brief wave as he moved past them to where the braces were piled up. He got along well enough with most of his crew. There had been some initial tension when he was hired due to his cybernetic enhancements. The union had been concerned about a "mechanical superman" replacing less powerful workers. There had been some question as to why such a super powered individual wasn't doing 'hero work' instead of 'taking jobs from regular folks.' In the end the union had been convinced that Sasha's presence would not be taking any jobs away from other workers and everyone eventually relaxed. That was about a year ago. The bionic Russian still kept to himself mostly on reflex though. He remained self conscious about his unusual appearance and instinctively kept a certain distance with what he considered 'normal folks.'

Sasha reached the pile of metal braces and crouched down to begin stacking several of them neatly across his shoulders. Each brace was roughly fifteen feet long and while their weight was of no concern to the mechanically enhanced man he was working out in his head the best way to balance them while carrying them back up to the tenth floor. The lift would be tricky and might not be able to handle the added weight. Sasha growled at the prospect of having to climb ten flights of stairs while balancing a couple of tons of metal on his shoulders.

Sasha's thoughts were interrupted by an unnerving high pitched metallic snapping sound from high overhead. It was loud enough to be heard even above the rattling of the other construction equipment. He lifted his gaze up towards the source of the sound, as did several of his co workers. High above the construction yard a tall stationary crane had been erected to assist in moving steel support beams and large square concrete slabs to the higher stories as they were assembled. One such concrete slab, easily twenty feet across, was dangling from the crane's lift cable. Another shrill, reverberating popping sound came from the cable. Sasha could see the tightly wound metal cord fraying as some more of the smaller strands began to give way. The crane operator could just barely be seen inside, frantically struggling with the crane's controls. The rest of the crew on the ground saw it too and scrambled to clear the area. Everyone except Jack Parker, that is. Jack was, ironically, using a jack hammer to break up the remaining chunks of concrete that made up the foundation of the site's previous structure. Like a good worker he was wearing his noise cancelling ear muffs. Between those and the pounding of the pneumatic jack hammer in his hands he had no way of hearing the cable as it began to snap, nor the panicked warning shouts of his co workers.

Sasha dropped the metal braces, letting the clatter semi-melodically to the ground, and launched himself towards Jack. His gear-and-chain-driven body ratcheted to full power with a thought. Small jets of steam spurted from his shoulders as he sprinted towards his hapless coworker. Before the bionic Russian had cleared three steps the last of the strands holding the concrete slab snapped, letting the monolith fall freely. Jack noticed the sudden motion and looked up to see the Sasha barreling towards him. He gave a wide-eyed and confused look, then glanced at his co workers who were howling and waving and pointing at the sky in warning. Finally realizing where the danger lay, Jack looked up, only to see his doom plunging towards him from above.

Sasha considered tackling Jack to knock him out of the way, but he knew that hitting Jack at full speed like this would kill him just as surely as the free falling slab of concrete. Instead the cyborg dug in his feet and slid to a halt standing right up against his bewildered cohort as as he ducked and threw his hands over his head. Sasha raised his arms high over both of their heads, hands spread wide.

A fraction of a second later the concrete floor section crashed to the ground, slamming down on top of both Sasha and Jack. The slab shattered into a pile of rubble with a thunderous impact. A cloud of dust, dirt, and grey powder was thrown up in all directions, obscuring the entire area in the wake of the shock wave. The crew looked on with horrified expressions frozen on their faces as the plume of dust washed over them. For a long moment no one could see a thing, and no one dared move until the dust settled enough to see. Daniel Ramirez appeared a moment later, panting and heaving after having sprinted down several flights of stairs.

"Wha.. what happened?" Ramirez demanded.

"The crane. Its cable snapped," one of the crew replied.

Daniel looked around, rubbing his face and neatly trimmed black mustache nervously. Then he noticed something missing.

"Where's Petrovich? I had sent him down here for some braces."

One of the crewmen pointed at the pile of rubble.

"Jack was working there, he was under the slab when it fell. Petrovich ran towards him and..."

They all stopped and stared at the crumbled concrete pile.

"Oh my god..." someone murmured.

The pile of grey rubble shifted slightly. The crew gasped in surprise as a large flat piece of slab was heaved and tossed aside, revealing Sasha and Jack Parker. Both were completely covered in tiny chunks of shattered concrete and a thick layer of grey dust. Parker was still huddled with his hands over his head. Sasha was panting heavily. His shirt and vest were badly torn, especially on his back, and he had suffered several deep cuts on his torso legs and shoulders which bled freely. Regardless, both men were alive.

A collective shout of triumph and relief went up among the gathered construction crew. Ramirez tossed his clip board and joined the rest of the crew as they clamored over pile of rubble to help Jack and Sasha get clear. Sasha waved off any attempts to assist him and hauled himself out of the concrete and over to a short stack of wooden beams where he wearily sat down. Daniel Ramirez walked over to where Sasha was sitting. He gave the Russian a curious, concerned look.

"That was incredible man! We all thought you two were goners."

"Dah. Can see how you might have thought that."

"You're bleeding pretty bad man. Don't worry. Paramedics are on the way."

"I am?"

Sasha looked around at himself. He often overlooked what he considered minor injuries, although his definition of minor was pretty broad. In fact he was prone to not even notice such injuries over the background discomfort he felt on a persistent basis. Exerting himself in a sudden manner like that caused his whole body to throb, and Sasha was finding it difficult to concentrate on his foreman's worried words.

A moment later a still dazed Jack Parker was lead over to where Sasha was seated by a small group of crew members. He grabbed Sasha's big metal hand in both of his and shook it fervently.

"Thank you man! Thank you so much! I'd be... oh man... so dead if you hadn't..."

Sasha smiled broadly as Jack stammered over his words.

"It is nothing, Jack. Just glad I could help."

"I've never seen you move that fast!" one of the crew members commented.

"Normally do not have to move so fast." Sasha chuckled in reply.

By now the crane operator had descended form the control box high above. He was clearly upset and was almost too flustered to speak clearly for several moments. Eventually Ramirez cut him off.

"What happened up there?"

"I dunno, the controls just stopped responding." The operator responded.

"What about the cable? We did a full safety check on that whole rig before we started this contract."

"I know! I was there myself when it was done. After the controls stopped working I heard something. Sounded like some kind of buzzing sound, like a wasp or a bee, then the cable started to snap."

Sasha eyed the crane from his perch on the stack of wood. The snapped cable was swaying gently in the breeze. What had caused the cable to snap like that. The company Sasha worked for had an impeccable safety and maintenance record with regards to their heavy equipment. As answers were not to be had at the moment, he shrugged and waited for the paramedics to arrive so he could stop bleeding all over everything.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoy this story, please also check out my other completed tale, Pack Rat: Sins of the Father. It was the first story I completed here on .