The skin on his fingertips flaked in his glove and another blue symbol appeared on the monitor with each key pushed. The toppled chair rose with a soft hum and floated beside him, and the risen chair toppled again from a simple kick. The decaying office livened dimly with the small life the man had brought.

“Time’s ticking, friend,” a pompous voice said through his earpiece. “Can’t quite keep a platoon at bay for too long, you know?”

An exasperated grumble. “I know, just give me two more minutes. Two! Keep them away!”

The voice returned a poorly muffled chuckle. “As long as you need, buddy. I’ll keep watch.” A brief and quiet blip marked the end of the exchange.

Eyes rolled, he resumed the rush to finalize the document. Username, false birth date, false address, a long-extinct Old Melville Corporation PIN, and the 3D printer activated. Just a few moments until his application to the old Railway of Sky Network 1 would be marked official.

“Listen friend,” it sounded, “no idea why but they’re a little suspicious of your area now. Just a little, you know? Anyway, hope you’re done soon!”

“I’m registered! The ID is printing, I’ll rendezvous soon!” His excitement was evident despite his best attempts at being quiet.

“Good job! Proud of you!” There was nothing hiding the condescending tone. “I’ll tell Owl to get the elevator ready, and you don’t go getting caught on the way back, okay? Okay, over and over.”

“Out,” he corrected right as the connection terminated.

He sighed and wiped the purple visor of his gas mask and took into his hands the palm-sized card sticking out of the printer. He had succeeded at last.

“I did it!” he celebrated and hopped in place many times over.

He paused and breathed in the not-unclean air courtesy of his mask’s filter, caressing the card one more time. He placed it in his dark green leather-polyester overcoat’s inner pocket and patted his pants.

A folded baton and concealed pistol. A towel because towels are the most useful thing in the galaxy. A borderline ancient phone too old to be tracked by the Esquive Corporation’s satellites. Nothing displaced or missing. All was without a hitch.

With another kick against the poor red chair, he unplugged every electronic in the room and scattered every paper and shattered every glass he had cleared a mere moment ago. His exit was swift with a final rock throw to the monitor and the light bulb, leaving the insides of the building as dilapidated as the district outside.

It was dark despite the System Standard Time indicating the early morning hours. The shadows of the flying city high above blotted out any sky or natural sunlight. The only view his eyes could see was the city’s great grey bottom hoisted up by massive mile-wide pillars in the far distance on four sides and a dozen magnetic levitators on the bottom of the city itself. Or at least it would have been his view if it was visible from his location so far below.

Still, it was a better sight than what those below him could see.

“I’m on my way to the elevator.”

He ran crouched across the barren urban streets. Whatever structures and towers once stood were nothing more than abandoned concrete and rebar and steel. The streets were cracked and empty, whatever salvageable vehicles and materials long stripped and gone. Its once grey color was revealed only with each step in the black smudge coating it.

The air itself was blanketed in a grey mist, an endless stream of ash and dust descending from the flying city above. It drowned out more of what little light penetrated through, as was the case in all of Sky Network 1 and even more so the Ground below.

It was silent. The sounds of falling debris and rubble were muffled and instead created an oppressive static in his ears thanks to his mask-turned-helmet. Him and the vestige of the city. Nothing else yet.

Then echoed footfalls. His sole heart thumped faster as he hid in a tall blue building missing half of its side. Peeking as much as he could, he spotted four men in black battle gear. The infamous dark yellow helmets with a face-wide visor on their heads and ugly mustard yellow rifles with horizontal stripes of white on the sides told clear where their allegiance lay.

“Esquive goons,” he whispered.

One of the gunned men spoke. “Search the area so you can go home early.”

“They sent our entire platoon for a rat! A rat! A waste of time, I say!”

“Old Melville owned the district. This response for a stalker is justified,” the first stated almost autonomously.

“Look on the bright side,” a third started, “we get a bonus even if we don’t find anything!”

“That is a good point…”

“Enough,” interrupted the first. “Search and clear, in and out. Move. Other squads will meet up soon.”

The other three nodded in response and pursued their own corner of the district. It was clear that none of them took the job as seriously as their commanding officer. A good thing for the resident escapee.

After making sure the soldiers were far and had their backs turned, he crept out of a broken window and entered the next building. Then he snuck out of the front door into another on the opposite side of the street and repeated it all over again. A minute had passed and the distance he traveled was too great for the soldiers to catch up. He hoped it was anyway.

Another blip. “Hey, Guerin, buddy friend, change of plans.”

“It’s Angel now. It’s written on the card, even!” he said with a victorious tune. “And what do you mean? I’m only a few blocks from the elevator.”

“M-hm, that’s nice. You see, our friends over at Esquive Corp. found proof you were there. I’m starting to think your ten-minute explanation about how good you are at stealth yesterday was bogus.”

He froze. “You’re joking. How?”

“Not sure really, and why’d you stop? Just start running, you’re being chased. I’ll kill them for you! If you’re in danger, anyway. I’ll be watching!” The connection ended with that jolly statement and his feet ran faster than they ever have.

True to his contact’s words, he could hear the unmistakable sound of heavy armored boots running on asphalt. He cursed and again prayed the distance he made was enough of a difference to reach the elevator before they reached him.

Gloved hands clenched, he leaned forward and strove to run even faster. Faster. Faster. He clutched the pocket containing his new ID and turned left at the next corner, around the remains of a rotting wooden building. A themed pub in its previous life, food for the maggots now.

That was the fate that befell the entire city of Sky Network 1. Once a majestic city with skyscrapers that reached miles into the sky and streets that bustled with life. That once grandeur world stood today in rubble and decay and desolation, only scavengers and stalkers and soldiers left within.

These sights were all Angel could see, the vile mist acting almost as a shield from the true size of the ravaged expanse. It was hard to see more than a few meters away even with his mask’s dedicated “Mist Vision” mode.

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His shoes made soft noises with each contact with the ground, the soles designed to be as quiet as possible. The above city’s endless hail was close to quiet. This was much unlike the sounds coming just a few streets behind him. Leather combat boots laced with metal thumping across the ground and echoing through the empty streets.

“They’re getting closer?” Angel asked himself and cursed. Of course corporate soldiers had leg augmentations. Ones better than his own. His legs weren’t cybernetic but they were augmented all the same.

Turned the next corner, ran to the next street, and turned again. Running was the only thing on his mind but there was no denying the increasingly louder footsteps behind him. There was no escaping the words he dreaded calling from behind.

“Stalker, Esquive approaches! Halt now and this chase will end bloodless!” the altered voice echoed. It was deep but clear, as was the standard corporate voice changer. He couldn’t fathom how they told each other apart in their helmets.

The offer was almost tempting. Unlike New Melville, they actually would take him alive, but he had gone too far and carried an item too valuable to fall into corporate hands. He carried on to the large glass tube called an elevator, which was finally in sight over the roof of a former clinic. Just one more corner and one more street and he was home free. The thought of the daring escape made his lips curve upward.

That smile on his face naturally fell off upon turning the block and seeing a corporate technical in that hideous mustard paint, the machine gun on the back aimed at him and the triangular barrel of the plasma launcher in front charging.

His momentum was too great to stop or turn. No building in this derelict would be thick enough to stop a mounted plasma cannon from annihilating him. He was nothing but dead.

Not like this not like this not like this! My plan was perfect, how did those dirty sons of motherless goats block my path so fast? I did something wrong after all! I shouldn’t have listened to Xam! No, no, it was my fault for making some mistake that alerted Esquive! Damn them! Damn them and their progeny a thousand deaths in the Torment Nexus!

Out of time and out of options, he didn’t stop or turn. Instead he ran towards the armored vehicle and its six wheels and two weapons of death. Maybe through some miracle they would consider him too close to fire their weapons. Maybe through some miracle he would outrun them before they could even shoot. Maybe through some miracle the electronics would malfunction.

He kept hoping knowing well that miracles only existed in his mind and in stories.

The white glow emerged from the muzzle outlined in a light translucent yellow. Sparks and jolts travelled all over the barrel sticking out of the truck as the glowing plasma formed a sphere, the electric humming growing stronger with each second that passed.

Angel made out the silhouette of a soldier manning the machine gun. Through the darkened windshield he saw the outlines of two more. He wanted to wave and reason and plead but he knew that they had automatic targeting systems. He knew they couldn’t see him; the computer simply identified the unidentified and they were happy to pull the trigger. That was the standard.

There’s really no hope.

There was no hope.

It’s so over.

It was over.

Blip.

“Buckle up, buddy,” the jovial voice came through. “Mockingbird, all for you!”

A boom and a crash. The technical was in flames and scraps of metal and lead rained upon the area. The ground kept still but the air itself rumbled and took Angel off of his feet and back onto the pavement a few meters back.

Destroying a plasma cannon was expensive but no different from crushing a pile of metal. Destroying a charged plasma cannon caused the miniature mushroom cloud of light pink and jolts of electricity in and out of it, as well as the six-feet-deep and twenty-feet-wide hole in the ground. The buildings around it turned from ruins of concrete into more clouds of rocky particles.

From the center of the aftermath out walked a man clad in a pure white and unstained business suit and tie. It was the same for his entire attire, from his boots to his gloves. A single color whiter than snow. He wore no mask or helmet, letting his black shoulder-length hair flow freely and around his face.

What he did have was a bandage wrapped around his eyes and under his layered hair. Eyes that peered through its wrapping and right at Angel.

A whistle. “Just so you remember,” he began, “people are still chasing you! Come now, I’ll wreck ‘em.”

Angel coughed as he stood, phlegm spitting from his mouth and right on the mask. He nearly barfed at the thought but held it back and spoke: “Xam!”

“That’s Mockingbird. We’re on a mission, silly.”

“Right, whatever!” He approached his savior. “Thanks, I thought I was dead!”

The proclaimed bird leaned back and grinned. “That’s what you paid me for.” He gave Angel a rough pat on the back and continued. “Go on, now! Would be a bad look to have a client die on me.”

“Please cover my escape!”

The green ran away from the white who watched on. From the air he gripped the hilt of a two-handed sword with a rectangular blade covered in a myriad of colorful feathers in every possible angle. Blue and red and orange and violet and pink and on and on. He turned his attention to the four soldiers that first sought Angel who had turned up. Three of them, rather. One of them was missing but that didn’t matter. They had caught up too late. His smile only widened.

…

…

Angel had reached it, the elevator. It was the elevator that was yet to reach him. Its ascent was painful. Five-point-two-miles high. Five-point-three-miles high. Five-point-four-miles high. It was worse than watching paint dry.

Wasn’t Owl supposed to call this up already?

Tip tappity tappity tap. Tap tippity tippity tip. His feet weren’t tapping, it was more accurate to say they were aggressively stomping the rusted steel of the ground surrounding the glass tube. Each second that passed felt like a decade aged.

He knew and believed that Mockingbird would handle any resistance sent after him. A mercenary office doesn’t gain so much fame over infamy for no reason, yet that damned elevator overrode all the peace of mind his guardian gained him.

Up and down and left and right and behind and front. It was times like these that he wished he purchased three-hundred-sixty vision over general leg enhancements. His right hand hovered over his holstered pistol, a revolver design that predated the colonization of the Arraka System, the blocked star above him.

His left held the extended baton. It carried a slight tremble as his eyes darted to and fro and back and forth and his brain overloaded with false ideas. A shadow in the corner of his eye and his head would turn. A sizable rock falling from above and his arm would flinch. He looked back at the cracked screen of the elevator.

Five-point-seven miles high.

Just three hundred more.

Just three hundred more.

From the panel’s screen back to the surroundings. The blackened silver of the former houses and stores formed a circle with a wide berth around the elevator, each of them riddled with spiderwebs of cracks, not that it was visible to Angel between the distance and descending waste.

There were no windows, only gaps and holes in the wall. There were no doors, just open entrances or rubble blocking them. There were no people.

From the surroundings back to the panel. Five-point-eight miles high.

Barely over ten seconds. Nothing could go wrong now, for sure!

His eyes darted to the darkened sky. Flying vehicles were outlawed as a whole but corporations were the ones who made those laws. They were the ones that could bypass them too. Just to be safe, he thought, though the silence more than proved that there was nothing there.

The silence made his feelings of isolation stronger. Not a single gunshot reverberated through the city even with Mockingbird engaging Esquive. The truck’s explosion was the loudest thing he’d heard today or his entire life. It was just him and the near quiet and odorless air.

To the panel.

Six exactly. Decompressing. Steam burst from the hinges and many cracks and holes of the elevator door.

“Right, I forgot about decompression… Still, it’s here now!”

Victory achieved, merry eyes went back to their surroundings. There was still nothing there. Ruins remained ruins. Mist remained mist. The distance between the elevator and the nearby rubble remained far. A building turned black from goo, one a musky red, then the triangular roof of a residential building that fell now rested on the street, a yellow helmet marking the elevator itself, and a dark sky clear of anything that cleared the unclear.

All was still.

He made a successful escape. Mental pat to the back. A high-five.

Ego boosted and face sufficiently smug, Angel made large triumphant steps toward the open tube and the yellow helmet followed. He paused and heaved a satisfied huff as he raised his foot and stepped into the elevator. The person next to him did too.

Angel reached out to the buttons on the wall, his index pointed at the one with “Ground” written to its right and a hand gently cradled his wrist.

“What.”

“Hi.”

The screams of an angel grew louder than any firefight could hope to be.