Maria stood on the edge of the abyss, her trim body nearly vibrating with the need for the mayhem waiting to happen. Her head snapped around to look at me and the rest of the mob waiting behind her as she gave us a vicious grin. “Time for all you little bitches to cowboy the fuck up, today we retake the Empire. West Side!”

Then she leaped out to the tangle of escape lines linking the Shanti to the Empire, swinging and scrambling along the lines with hand grips and her bare feet, no safety hooks or partners links, just her going hand to hand on the lines above and quick stepping on the spider treads still lining the torn film of the old emergency walkways.

We don’t use the chutes, no one wants to go down.

All of us followed along right behind her with a wordless shout. Big Z was in the lead, with the big man soon leaving us behind, swinging from hand to hand outside the walkways, challenging the rest of us to keep up, daring Maria to let herself fall behind.

He nearly passes her when the lines begin to jerk wildly and he misses his grip, suspended freely in the air above the fog below for just a moment before he spins in place and swings out in free fall, both of his legs kicking at nothingness and arms lashing out to grip another line in both hands.

Our arrival has not gone unnoticed.

The Baker Boys have held the Empire for the last week, living it up and pushing hard on everyone else, hard enough for all the west side groups to send their best, all agreeing that Maria was the only person that could be boss on the raid.

Some people who are all too fond of naming themselves after letters of the alphabet might claim to be tougher, but Maria has a rep, she has always kept her agreements, even before, when she had been a hotshot CEO.

Maria says all the west side groups will share the spoils, so all west side are going to make sure that it’s Maria who divvies everything up.

But first, we gotta get across the gap and the Baker boys ain’t going to make that easy. Already their guards were on the anchor points of the lines, jumping and jerking out on the line far enough from the anchor to shake things up, slowing down people trying to cross, doing their best to knock us loose and send us down to the long fall.

Others would soon be coming to hold the windows, long poles sharpened on the tips or hooked to grab hold of and pull people loose as they try to get across and inside the windows, then others with knives and clubs to take down anyone who forced their way in.

The lines got some give, even towers of concrete and steel got to give a little to the wind and you can’t have your escape line snapping on you as you try to get away from a fire, but the lines don’t have that much give and all the antics of the Bakers can’t shake them too much.

In moments we’re bunched up near the ends just out of their reach, the last of their line dancers scampering back inside, our own long poles getting passed hand to hand along the thin bridge over the abyss so both sides can poke and pull at each other.

Fighting at the end of the lines is a losing game, you can't put much power behind a pole with one hand while you are standing a thin line, getting close means a whole bunch of people inside can go at you while only the guys on the front of the escape lines can do anything, and pretty soon people up top will start dropping junk on top of you.

That's where the rest of us come in, mostly guys who are stupid enough to think death is going to pass them by because they're special, or just too gone in the head to think at all.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Case in point, Big Z starts to jerk his body up and down, getting a little bounce before he jumps out into the air, his feet kicking off a line hard enough to make everyone else on it fumble to hang on with both hands.

The big man gets some air time sailing across like a bird before slamming into the side of the Empire well away from the windows being defended and starts falling down its side, scrambling for a grip and finally catching one three stories down, one hand clamped onto the still of an open window, fingers slipping a bit before a mix of strength and jagged glass digging into his thick gloves brings him to a stop.

I don’t see him pull himself in, because I’m already in the air myself, off on the other side, a hook in my hand made from part of a chair catches on an opening. The stout tether of the hook made of a braided phone cord is tied around my waist for when my grip fails on the hook will keep me from falling. I may be not quite as brave as Big Z, but I know my limits.

The hook catches, my hand slides loose from the end of the hook when my weight hits it and I fall to the end of my tether before I can scramble up and inside.

Others follow some don't make it, I try not to hear the screams of the falling, the sounds end soon after they hit the fog down below, well before they could hit the ground.

Soon the not quite so daring will make their jumps, partners linked so if they miss and fall the guy still on the escape line can swing them back onto the building and then leap themselves once the first is anchored, safer but slower. Slower is bad, the Bakers will have free groups ready to track down and jump all over leapers like me before we can get together and hit the window guard from behind.

The room I’m in is sparse and dirty, all the furnishing are long gone for salvage and its been exposed to the outside, I head out into a bigger room, to see old cubical farm panels and cracked linoleum lit up by red Enturna lights still burning bright after all these years.

No. No more time for thinking, got to act.

Outside in the hallways, the carpeting is long gone, I can hear the shouting up above and see a group of Baker boys charging into a door down the hall, I hear Big Z’s roar, the big man has already gotten up two stories from where he came in before they had caught up with him. I never liked him but I can use him to clear the way, I head the down hall and into the doorway to hit the guys on him from behind.

A black haired woman is hanging back, I use a two handed swing on the blunt side of my hook to the back of her head, and she goes down. Another one turns at noise, I step in close and shoulder him into the wall then take another swing with one hand. It catches him more on his shoulder than his head, but he still goes down with a scream as something inside him snaps.

I step back from the room and look around, the big man is right at the edge of a window. With five of them struggling with him up close, taking all of them to keep him pinned halfway out the window, with no room for their weapons, one has to step back to pull out a knife, I step up behind him.

Big Z grins at me with blood stained teeth and reaches out to hug all four of the Bakers still on him, “West Side!” then he kicks down hard with both legs taking them all over the edge, laughing like a madman.

I put the point of my hook into the head of the one in front of me, pulling him aside as I can hear the screams of the falling and Big Z’s laughter before they fall far enough for the fog for his laugh to briefly turn into a gurgling sound before they all go quiet.

With so many defenders gone from this floor, it is easy to gather enough of the other leapers to head up the stairs and hit the window guards there from behind, once a way in is clear our numbers quickly overrun everyone that is left.

We gather together on the observation deck, the now hacked vending machine here are numerous and automatically supplied due to the number of tourists that once visited here. The fog doesn't touch the automated machines so the junk food and drinks will never run out, the same Nano that keeps us all young and healthy will ensure that the factories and delivery services will always run like new.

Most of the Baker boys choose to join up with various other gangs, those that don’t know that they will get to take the long fall.

Their leader gets a different fate. His Nano is already healing him from the fight so Maria takes the time to kick him in his chest until he can’t move for a while from lack of breathing, she must paid a lot to have those strength mods. Then he goes into the elevator with the ground floor button pressed, the elevator is sealed so the fog can’t touch him even after he passes below the eightieth floor, not until it’s all the way down and the doors open.

No one touched his eyes, he gets to sit in there, propped up so he can watch the numbers change as he gets lowered down.

We watch the needle above the elevator swing all the way over to the letter G and wait for it to slowly return, as always it comes up with nothing left. No clothes, not even a drop of blood.

Since the Nano cloud doesn't touch anything that isn’t organic, we have to assume that something down there is either pulling the clothing out or the Nano is changing people into something that can walk out on their own. All we know for sure is that no one, and thankfully nothing, comes back up.

Today I got enough food and drink to make the pain go away for a while. My share isn't enough to stop the hunger entirely, but others are out there feeling the pain of hunger and thirst as their personal Nano suites cannibalizes their bodies with no relief in death unless they make a run at the Empire or chance the long fall.

One day soon they will come and drive all of us off and it will be Maria’s turn to take the trip down, another day and I might be the one in charge of taking the Empire back and then it will be my turn when I lose it again.

Until that day comes, or there are so few of us left that the Empire can feed the last of us, I’m not going to find out what is down in the fog, instead I’m going to eat my bag of salt free air fried chips, sip my artesian mineral water and think of better times.