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Introduction. 9
"C'mon! Do it!" Cass prompted me from the other side.
"No chance in hell! I told you this is crazy!"
"Do it Damnit! You know that you can! If anyone has any reason to be confident about this is you!"
Although she was right that the jump was doable, there was no way that I was going to indulge Cass in her fantasy of going roof-hopping. Both of us were already in our "Costumes" and Cass was waiting for me on the other side; she still seemed to think that I could do anything so long as it was physically possible (something that the arrow thing hadn't helped, I'm sure) instead of accepting that I did in fact know my limits better than her and that this all depended on my coordination, which saw itself hampered by the very real fear of falling and crashing into the pavement below.
"C'mon! Trust me!"
Swearing eternal torment on to Cass if I didn't make it, I took a few steps back and began running. I had 10.48211 meters before the end of my current rooftop and the gap between this one and the next was 6.33679. In the few seconds I had left before reaching the edge of the roof, I took note of distance, change in elevation, weight, gravity, air resistance, friction and currents and planned out my jump accordingly. I adjusted the length of my last steps and jumped with the tip of my foot just 3.121 centimeters away from the edge.
The few heart-stopping, stomach-lurching moment's I spent in the air almost made me puke my stomach out. When I landed on the other side, Cass stood there her hands on her hips and, despite the helmet, I knew that she was grinning like mad.
"Sooo?" She asked teasingly.
"I almost died!"
"No you didn't," Was the dismissive answer "Physics is your whole thing: you know better than anyone that you were safe."
"I also know better than anyone how many bones I would have broken had I fallen." I really did; I had looked a little into anatomy when I first started sparring with Cass all those years ago. Still, I decided to refresh those lessons for tonight – which meant I had asked Cass – after all, most of my fighting style was based on the mechanics of the human body. It wouldn't do to be sloppy.
"Let's go. You're leading."
"Why am I leading? You're the one who knows how to get there."
"Yes, but you're the one who knows how to jump all the gaps. Or if we can make the jump at all. Not all rooftops are as comfortably close as these two. Now lead the way and I'll give you the directions."
I could have argued that we could go side by side, but then realized that while she may have trained her parkour, the terrain probably meant that her skills weren't up to par now. So she was probably going to copy me.
"Whatever" I said as I started running, although it was more like a jog until the border was close enough that I needed the additional speed.
That was how I ended up spending my Friday night jumping across rooftops; my best friend copying my movements as well as she could, shouting directions at me all the while. I would be lying if I said that some part of me hadn't had fun doing it. The calculation of variables, the speed, the adrenaline and the short time I had to figure it all out along with the risk of falling, it all added up to a mental exercise I could actually enjoy. It wasn't often that I could push my mind like this.
Tonight we had decided to tackle things differently, and part of that was that I'd left all of the planning up to Cass. Surprisingly, She had actually come through and researched a fair bit about the crime scene in Star City. According to her, Star City could be divided into four sections: North, South, East and West. In the South were the richer parts of town, where the police did their jobs as best as possible and there were no gangs. To the West were the dockyards, half of it was controlled by Brick's Gang and the other half by the Triads. The East was supposedly Cartel territory although there was the occasional skirmish with smaller gangs, none of which were notable enough to warrant an explanation from Cass. Meanwhile, the North was Russian territory, again with some smaller gangs on the sides. There was also the Italian mafia, but they didn't seem to have any territory.
The way Cass explained it, there were no hard boundaries on where one gang's territory ended and the others' began; apparently everyone lost influence the closer they got to the centre or South of the city. Apparently, the last time we'd gone out we'd started in the North, and the further into Russian territory we'd gotten the less muggers there were. The Russians didn't like that sort of thing, after all. The plan for tonight was to head to the North-Eastern part of the city. That would be where the Russians' and Mexicans' territory overlapped, and plenty of small gangs occupied it. It was the zone were the highest amount of street crimes were committed.
Again, all according to Cass.
We were still jogging across rooftops when we found ourselves in front of a wall caused by the height difference of two adjacent buildings and, as had happened a couple of times alredy, I turned around and brought my hands together for Cass to plant her boot into. With the boost, she easily reached the next roof and began to climb. I ran in the opposite direction for a moment before turning back around and, with a running start I jumped up to plant one of my feet on the wall, propped myself up a little higher and took Cassie's hand to ascend the last bit of the way.
-
Just as we both found ourselves together at the same elevation, a scream pierced through the mundane sounds of the night.
"Help!"
I would like to say that we both followed our heroic instincts and ran to help the citizen in trouble. What I can actually say is that as I turned to look at Cass she was already running towards the sound of the noise. So when she reached the edge of the roof and held her hand high, I turned towards the street to descend and proceed as we had planned.
I managed to fall down onto the street without killing myself by holding on to the building's cornices for a fleeting moment each. Enough to break my fall but not anything else. I was sure that with practice I would be able to master the trick and make it look much smoother.
I was about to round the corner into an alley when I saw Cass up on the roof. We nodded at each other to confirm that we were ready and, taking out a bola for each hand, I rounded the corner as the balls started spinning and yelled
"Stop!"
I took in the scene as fast as I could. There were two figures standing in the alley, one of whom was pushing the other against the wall and was already turning to see me. A moment too late I noticed the metal object that the figure – a man I then noticed – was holding. Unluckily for me it was a gun.
Cass and I had spoken about guns. She was convinced that I could predict were the bullets would land by doing the same "Math thingy" that I did with arrows. I had told her that she was right, but I couldn't actually do it because I had never seen a real gun before (tv didn't count), so I had no idea what equations governed the trajectory of the bullets and I was also pretty sure that the state of the gun would alter the trajectory too. Meaning I couldn't predict exactly where the bullets would land.
What I could do was calculate an estimate trajectory with a big enough margin of error to be safe, a foot in this case, and see that the projected trajectory and my own body never coexisted within the same coordinates.
The fight was over in seconds. I moved towards the same the direction that my opponent was turning as I spun the bolas even faster for the throw. It took only 2.13156 seconds for the bolas to get the momentum they needed, but in that time the man had managed to point his gun at me and shoot once. My heart almost stopped as I realised that my left arm was in the projected trajectory of the bullet. Luckily it deviated to the other direction and I had already let my right bola loose. The gunman manged to let off two more shots before the bola reached his arm and the inertia forced him to point downwards.
By then it was too late; Cass had jumped onto him from the rooftop and the guy toppled down. She didn't need my help to finish subduing him and forcing him to drop his weapon. Still, I never stopped spinning the bola; I had adjusted my equations after those three shots and I was keeping ready for the unlikely event that he manged to wrestle Cass away from himself.
Cass ended up tying him to a nearby pipe with a zip tie. She also made sure to tie his feet together and take away the gun.
"Thank you"
The sudden noise startled me and only then did I remember the other figure in the alley. I turned around to see a guy of Mexican descent who was around our age and dressed like he was out to have a good time. He probably lived near here and had been going out to a party when he got mugged.
"It's no problem citizen!" Cass loudly exclaimed, having heard the guy too.
The poor dude looked at me as if trying to decide if I was going to say something weird and cliché like that too. For a moment I thought about having some fun with him, but decided that he'd probably had enough for one night.
"Don't worry, she's like that."
"Hey! I'm a superhero: I can act like that if I want." Was her offended response.
"We're vigilantes at best and this guy seems to have had enough even without your... eccentricities on top." I had to be careful and not say weirdness, that would have hit too close to home.
"Who are you?" Was the next thing the guy said. I pitied him a little because it sure was a hell of a night he was having, but the poor guy had just asked the worst possible question.
"I'm Nightowl and this party pooper is Axis" exclaimed Cass as I grimaced, thankful that our would be victim couldn't see my face.
"Uhhh..." Was all that he managed to say to that statement.
"Okay," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder and starting to lead him out of the alley. "How about you go back to your home and sleep off tonight's excitement while we handle this guy?"
He let himself be taken to the block's corner before thanking both of us again and taking off to... wherever it was that he was going. After I lost sight of him I went back to the alley with Cass and our little mugger.
The guy was almost completely tied up, except for his left arm which lay by his side. He was waring a ragged hoodie and equally ragged jeans. Also he was completely drenched in sweat. I could see why he was so nervous; if I'd been beaten up by two strangers in leather I would be too. Cass was standing up opposite of him with some objects in her hands.
"The poor guy just left, I think he is going to be alright. Although I thought we needed him to make a statement for the police?" I asked, already suspecting the answer.
"In this part of town? The police won't come Axis." She answered, never looking away from the mugger. I nodded and, not knowing what we could do with him, I changed topics.
"What did you find?"
"The gun, some bullets, five hundred in cash and some heroin." She said angrily. It just had to be heroin. Pot would be bad too, but why did it have to be heroin?
"Five hundred?" I turned to the mugger. "What, were you on a spree?"
Our guy simply kept his mouth shut and stared at me.
"Listen dude," Cass began. "You don't have many options here. Option one is that you keep your mouth shut and we give you a little physical reminder of the difference between right and wrong. Option two is that you talk and maybe we give you a warning and let you go." She was lying: Cass wouldn't just let this guy go under normal circumstances and after the heroin she was going make this personal. Still, the guy kept his mouth shut.
Well, I guess I would try my luck then. I got closer and crouched right in front of him. "Look dude, you're fucked anyways, you simply can decide how muc-" I couldn't finish that sentence because the idiot tried to use his free arm to grab me by the neck. I could see it coming form a mile away, so I simply grabbed his hand before it reached my neck and in one movement I stood up, rotating his shoulder to its limit. Just enough to make it painful. Cass had also moved in and as soon as I got out of the way she kicked the guy in the middle of his face, braking his nose and making him bleed in the process. She was about to kick him again before I called out to her:
"Owl!"
That made her stop and reconsider. However, it seemed that her kick had also made our guy reconsider.
"You think I'm scared of two Niños?" He said in a thick Latin accent. "I tell you anything and then I'm toast!"
"You're already toast," Answered Cass. "we're simply letting you decide when and how." To punctuate that statement I twisted his shoulder a little more.
"Ahhhhh! Okay, okay, I will talk! I was going to buy me another Dosis but I didn't have enough cash for a batch so I had to collect some!"
"Who sells it to you?" Please Cass don't tell me you are thinking about going after a drug dealer.
"I buy at a provider at Richmond 12561! Please, my arm!" I had probably twisted too much so I eased up on the pressure, but still kept a firm grip on his arm.
"Okay, I believe you, so this is what we'll do. We're going to give you a little warning, let you go and you'll make sure that you never see any of us again, because I will remember your face and if I ever see it again I won't let you off so easily. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Yes!" Cass had scared the shit out of this guy.
"Good. Axis, I think the arm will do as reminder."
Wait, what? She had to be kidding, but when I looked at her I saw that she was deathly serious. I couldn't argue without breaking the effect we had on the guy, so I only had one thing to do. I'd always talked about how some villains were better of dead anyways, some muggers arm was nothing compared to that. I had to put my money were my mouth was. I was stalling, I couldn't do this.
Okay, let's start slow. I slowly twisted the arm, ignoring the mugger's cries. The more resistance I encountered the less I could do it. I had to concentrate. Look at the shoulder. It's not meat, it's not connected to a human being. It's just the juncture between a lever and a place of leverage, the screams aren't there. It has a maximum rotation and an elasticity that will not allow it to move further. I had more leverage than the elasticity of its parts and the unions which caused it's movement. All it would take was some joules to hyper-rotate the lever a measly five percent more and preventing the rest of the parts from snapping it back into place.
It's just a bunch of numbers and shapes, so I simply push a little harder.
The scream makes me come back to reality as I drop the leve- arm, arm! I slowly back down and out of the alley trying to look away from the mugger and breath all of this out. Some minutes later Cass joins me having already freed the guy.
"Well back to the roof-" I grab her shoulders and slam her into a wall.
"What the fuck was that!"
"That was some justice at work; that guy won't hurt anyone else for a while after this."
"Justice? You sure it wasn't personal?"
"What? Hell no! Don't go blaming me just because you feel a little guilty! Nobody forced you to do this!" I let her go at that. She was right no one forced me. I could have said no and simply let the guy go.
"I'm sorry. You're right."
"Whatever. Let's walk some, yeah? Clear our heads. Maybe it'd be best to call it quits for tonight."
We started walking after that and a couple of blocks later we took off the helmets and jackets, simply carrying them in our hands. We talked and walked a lot. About nothing and everything. We never touched the topic of that night's escapade. I tried not to think about how easy it had been to hurt that guy. Some hours later, Cass said that there was something she wanted to show me.
We ended up at the docks, having escalated a building again until we found ourselves back on top of another rooftop.
"What did you want to show me?" I asked.
"You'll have to wait some more for that. Let's sit for now."
We found an AC unit and I sat resting my back to it while Cass laid on the roof with her head on my legs. It had been a long night, I let out a tired yawn and Cass noticed.
"Tired?"
"Yes. Not all of us can go without sleep miss Nightowl."
"Well sorry mister Axis." She said laughing and then spoke again in a calmer and more sincere voice. "Really I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For everything. For being a weird friend, for making you follow me along in this craziness, for putting you at risk, for making you hurt people and for-"
"Hey." I interrupted seeing that she was about to have a break down. I started to stroke her head. "Calm down. No one made me do this, I'm doing it because you're my friend."
"I made you do it."
"Cass I'm old enough to thin-"
She interrupted me, suddenly sitting up. "No you idiot: I'm manipulating you!"
I took a deep breath and spoke. "I already knew." More like suspected actually.
"What?" She hadn't expected that answer.
"Cass, we've known ourselves for over a decade. You have perfect memory and one hell of a learning rate. It stands to reason that you know me so well that you could probably make me jump off a cliff and think it was my idea in the first place. I knew that before we went off heroing and I let you do it."
"Why?"
"Because I trust you. You're my best friend."
She broke down after that and hugged me while sobbing on my shirt. I hugged her back and when she calmed down the sun was already rising.
"Look: the sunrise."
"That's what I wanted to show you." She said, and then she told me. "This is the best place to watch the sunrise, back when Dad died and mom started breaking down, I started to sneak out at night just to get out of the house. Back then the time of the night when everybody slept was still the quiet hours for me.
"My parents tried to stay awake when they realized I never slept, but they never managed to, so eventually the hours between bedtime and getting up in the mornings were completely silent and tranquil. I used to think, back when I was little, that the world belonged to me in that span of time where it usually belonged to sleep.
"Then Mom began to fill those hours with things too and I felt scared because I had lost not only my dad but that little piece of my world too. So I used to run away and watch the sunrise form different places in the city. This was always my favorite so I always come here when I'm feeling down. I thought that it would do you good after tonight."
We stayed there for a while after that. We talked about stupid things. She never said anything about the guy, the heroin or her mom, and neither did I say anything about the fear I felt of how easy had been to break that guy's arm, how little guilt I felt or how that lack of guilt made my stomach lurch.
