She giggled. The hand around the pipe rail wasn’t as white. I imagined David up here, picking off the figures one by one with his Nerf gun. Luz would squat down, get on her belly, and inch to the edge. The set hummed. I had helped make all this possible.
It was a small sound, a flat crack, and I thought, Oh. I thought, I should have asked Turtledove if we’d taken Mackie’s swipe card. I should have asked Mackie what he did when no one was here. But I knew, even before I smelled the distinctive, blue-smoke scent of dynamite, even before the platform dipped and swayed, exactly what he’d done.
With all the time in the world, I took Kat’s left hand and put it next to the right on the pipe, lay flat on the platform, and pulled myself to the edge.
Everyone below was crouched in the startle reflex, except Kick, who was running to the soundstage. Behind me, Ekaterina started screaming, and a split second later, so did everyone else. I thought I caught a flash of blue as Dornan lifted his face to look up. The tower swayed again. I could still smell smoke.
Below, Kick ran back from the soundstage wearing a headset. She tapped it, and gestured at me. I took off my hard hat, pushed myself back from the edge, retrieved the headset from the neatly stacked gear by the top of the steps, and turned it on with a click.
“Here,” I said. I went back to the edge.
“We’ve got fire,” she said. “Hold.” Click.
She looked so small from here. Unreal. She had grabbed someone by the shoulders, was shaking them, shouting, pointing. She grabbed another, pointed at something else. A ripple of purposeful movement started from Kick’s nexus.
Click. “We’ve got fire on your tower.”
Dornan was heading towards her. She made some gesture at him that he seemed to understand, because he stopped, turned around, and walked in a different direction.
She disappeared for a moment. I could hear her breath on the headset. “Steps are gone. Fire on the cladding is spreading.”
No way down.
“Is that the girl screaming?”
“She’s fine,” I said.
Now Kick was breathing hard. When she reappeared I saw why. She and four hands were moving the Model Forty. While I watched she gestured for someone to take her place, and started talking fast to Dornan and one of the electricians.
I could smell the painted plywood burning, and the stink of melting polystyrene.
“You should get people out,” I said.
Click. “Others can do that. I’m focused on getting you down.”
Orderly groups were moving towards the door, including my tour group.
“Mom!” screamed Ekaterina. “Mom!”
A tiny foosball figure in a sling lifted its face. Another figure, in glasses, dragged her towards the door. A flash: the photographer. Perhaps I should wave.
Four people were ripping all the foam from the two old sofas by the craft table.
Click. “The fire’s moving too fast for ladders. Can you help the girl jump?”
“Yes.”
“Mom! Mom!”
“Hold.” Click.
Now she appeared to be directing one of the carpenters to strip polystyrene from a sheet of plywood. Someone stood by with a glue gun. By the craft table, Dornan and the electrician were throwing things out of cardboard boxes. She put her hand up, palm out, to the stagehands dragging the air bag. They stopped.
Click. “She’s going to have go into the Model Forty. We’re nearly three feet over the tolerance for this bag, but she’s smaller than an adult. Hold.”
I could feel the heat now and hear the lazy crackle of flame. The shrieking behind me climbed to the ultrasound range and disappeared.
“We’ve got the bag as close as we can until you give the word. When you give the word, we’ll move it in, which will take us fifteen to twenty seconds, and then you’re going to have ten seconds to get her down. Ten seconds. It’s plastic. Any longer and the heat will distort the seams.”
“Fine.”
“On your word, then.” Click.
I went to the girl. “Let go of the pipe and take my hand.”
She was white around the eyes, white around the lips, white around the knuckles and the soft webbing between thumb and forefinger where she was clutching the pipe. Her carotid beat chaotically against her choker.
I walked to the edge of the platform. “Kick. The Model Forty will be at exactly the same position as the Seventy was the other day?”
“There’ll be more smoke on that side.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Then it will be.” Click.
I set my feet a foot back from the edge, recalled my muscle memory of three days ago, the lift and fall. Reimagined the effort of swinging a dummy that didn’t fight back, didn’t panic, and weighed only sixty pounds. Remembered the way Kick had fallen. What did the girl weigh, ninety pounds? Thereabouts.
It was getting difficult to see. Thick smoke curled thickly up the front of the scaffolding and seeped between the planks of the platform.
“Go now, Kick.”
“Say again?”
“Go now.”
She didn’t say, But where’s the girl? She said, “It’s a go.” Click.
I crossed to the girl. Three seconds. We looked at each other. “You can keep your hands on the rail, but I want you to turn around and face the steps.” Eight seconds. She didn’t hear a word I said. I stepped behind her. “You’re going to be safe. Relax if you can.” She was rigid. “I’m just going to take off your choker.”
The ribbon came free. I slid the cameo off and dropped it in my pocket. She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Eleven seconds.
It was a strong ribbon. I strangled her with it.
The carotid arteries carry oxygen to the brain. Deprive the brain of that oxygen, and in less than five seconds it shuts down.
Ekaterina slumped and I scooped her up. A little less than ninety pounds. Four steps across the platform. Sixteen seconds.
Click. “In place,” Kick said.
Smoke poured upwards like a waterfall in reverse. Right arm under her back, left under her knees. Shift. Right palm between her shoulder blades, left on her sacrum. Balance. Inhale. Set feet. Lift like a tray. Exhale and push, push my ki, push the girl, push her like a basketball, nothing but net, and she lofted up and out.
She came to in midair. Had time to open her mouth, and her shriek of “Mom!” was swallowed in the plump, oofing impact of body and bag.
Click. “Got her!”
I nodded. Coughed.
“Aud?”
I coughed again. “Here.”
“We can’t reuse the bag. We can’t do ladders.”
“Fire department?”
“There’s no time. Will you trust me?”
“Yes.”
It was hard to tell through the smoke, but seven or eight people were working frantically on something to the left of the platform.
“Before there were bags, stunters fell sixty, even seventy feet onto all kinds of crash pads. We’ve made one for you.” She was very conversational.
“All right.”
“The pros of the old equipment are that you don’t have to land in the exact center. No bouncing off at an angle. The con is… well, there’s no bouncing.”
I coughed again. The planking under my feet was getting very hot.
“What we’ve got is cardboard boxes stuffed with paper cups, overlaid by a sheet of polystyrene with foam glued to it. It’s about four feet deep, total, and seven feet on a side. You’re going to have to land very, very well. Hold.” Click. “We’re in position now. Do you have visual?”
I peered through the smoke. “No.”
“Hold.” I saw vague movement, a flash of yellow. The yellow stayed still. “I’ve put a yellow blanket on the foam. Do you see that?”