The Night Runner

Originally published in Murky Depths Magazine, Issue #5

The city spread below her, and she leapt to it.

     The wind hit her face. She closed her eyes and reveled in it. An instant, a calculation faster than thought, then she opened them to find the pavement rushing closer, the lights from the street growing brighter. Her hands found the ledge as she knew they would. Muscles strained against her weight as it carried her into the gap. A tuck, then a roll to cut her speed. Her feet touched concrete, and she was running again.

     Her name was Grace. It was not the name she was born with, the name she carried like a lead weight throughout her days. It was her true name, the name she chose for herself, the name that propelled her across rooftops and hidden paths, night after glorious night.

     More open air loomed ahead, twenty feet to the next building, perhaps twenty-two, and a drop just as far. She knew the right motions like she knew her own mind. Her strides propelled her into space and gravity did the rest. Her knees bent at the impact and she tucked into a roll to absorb the strain. The move took her to the far side of the narrow roof, where she rolled off the edge and hung by her hands for a heartbeat before dropping safely to the sidewalk.

     Somewhere, at the back of her memory, was a name for the way she moved. Parkour was what they had called it: a dying name for a dying art, a perfection of speed and motion for the sake of the motion itself. It had been her life for as long as she could remember, and now she was the last one to remember at all.

     Her muscles held the record, her movements a museum. She knew them as well as she knew this city, Her City. It too had a name, but to Grace it was always Her City. Its alleys were her friends, its buildings her family. Its sights and sounds washed over her like a wave, every one of them familiar, from the grav bikes in the streets to the calls of the alley preachers. She knew them all, and she loved them all, and as she loved them, she ran.

     A quick tuck of the legs and an outstretched hand carried her sideways over a low railing. She hit the wall with both feet and kicked off, changing direction without losing speed, catching the wide eyes and open mouths at the edges of her vision. A subtle smile came to her lips, but she wouldn’t let her admirers break her concentration or shift her focus from her next obstacle. The gate ahead was high, but not high enough to stop her. She scrambled up the chain-link, leapt and found the edge of a fire escape. She swung herself up and took its steps two at a time.

     At the top, she paused and looked down at the alleyway, at the rows of windows, well-lit and open to the night air. She watched the shadows inside as they moved, arranging pieces of their lives that no one else would ever see. She watched and she smiled, knowing that, with her, their secrets were safe, knowing that they were meant for her alone.

     And yet, this time she was not alone. Below her, something moved: a black shape on the fire escape. It retreated into a window three stories down, trailing a long coat behind it. Grace swung down, dropping so softly as to make no sound, and crouched low to peek over the ledge. She could see the room, the faded carpet, the peeling wallpaper. She could smell the sharp tang of ammonia mixed with the greasy scent of cat food. Inside, a woman, old and frail, slept beneath a tattered blanket in an overstuffed chair. In shadow above her was a man, dressed all in black, reaching out for her.

     Grace wanted to call out, but before she could, he was upon the old woman. He put his hand on her chest and her body stiffened against it. An instant later, she sank back into the chair, but in that instant, her eyes snapped open and found Grace at the window, pleading with her before they lost focus and closed forever.

     The man turned for the door, and as he turned the knob, Grace moved. She grabbed at the window frame and launched herself inside. But he was quick. Already he had crossed the hallway to the central stairwell. He straddled the railing and looked back at her, his face lost to the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat. Then he let go, and dropped out of sight.

     Grace’s body hit the rail in time for her to see the trail of his coat disappear into the lobby four stories below. How fast had he moved? Maybe too fast, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying. She gathered her breath and judged the rails, the distance between the landings, the strength of the wood. Then she threw herself over. She moved from side to side, her hands and feet catching her weight, dropping as fast as she dared, until she reached the bottom.

The lobby was empty. She burst out onto the street, past the tourists with their cameras darting about their heads, past tall vidscreens full of sex and subliminal promises. He was gone, but he had come this way. Grace searched the crowd as she ran, watching the faces ahead of her for some sign, some consensus of direction that would point the way.

She didn’t have to wait long. A startled cry, an outstretched hand, and all at once the crowd craned its necks skyward. Grace followed with her legs before her eyes could show her the way. There, in the distance, stood a woman at the top of a glass cathedral, black hair and white nightgown whipping in the wind. She looked down at the crowd, her head bowed as if in prayer. No one but Grace saw the dark silhouette behind her, the man in black whispering gently into her ear.

She fell like an angel on fire. Her nightgown made a comet’s tail that followed her to the ground. There were screams from the crowd, a wet thump, but Grace did not let them distract her. All her thought was trained on the scaffold that would carry her to the roof. She leapt at its steel bars, swung her body over and between them. Up she moved, swinging from handhold to handhold like some jungle animal. One final lunge brought her leg over the top, where she rose to silence and empty air.

There was no sign of the dark man on the rooftop, nothing but the penitent’s robe the doomed woman had left behind. Still, somehow, she knew the path her quarry would take. She could trace it in her mind as clearly as she could trace her own steps. With barely a pause, she found her direction, and ran.

A leap took her across a narrow gap to a lower rooftop. Tar gravel scattered at her steps. In the distance ahead, she could see the dark man moving, a shadow against the lights from the street below. He was running fast, too fast to catch, but she knew the ways of these streets, these rooftops. She could see where he was going, and she knew a shortcut.

She stepped lightly from the roof and balanced her way along the top of a stories-tall billboard. At the far end, she dropped behind it, sliding down a support strut like a child on a banister. She was quick, but it would be a close race. She hurtled down a fire escape, her muscles tingling with the effort, and hoped that she was fast enough.

The streets of Caucasian Town opened before her, and at once the smell of fried fish and pot pies filled her nostrils. She dodged a teenager hawking bootlegged memories, skirted a 3-card dealer and the marks he’d gathered. The crowd on the sidewalk was thick, and it slowed her. She searched for an opening and found it by pushing off from a hydrant to balance on the concrete half-wall between the traffic and the crowd.

He was here, somewhere. She knew it somehow, and as she ran, she searched for him. The people moved as one, yet each with their own energy, like birds in a flock, ever together, ever alone. From her height she sought him among the hookers with the visiplast panels in their abdomens and the veterans with their polycarbon limbs. There, above the crowd, she could not miss him.

Her foot almost slipped as she jumped a gap in the wall, for he was there, standing just at the end of the next block. People crowded around him, waiting for the light to change, oblivious to his presence. She called out a warning, stealing precious breath from her legs, her arms. The man’s dark head snapped around, and though his hat hung too low for her to see his eyes, she imagined fear in them.

He bolted away, elbowing free of the crowd. The group swayed, and one of its number fell from the curb. He stumbled into the crosswalk against the light, and a taxi carried him away on its hood.

The traffic jammed to a halt, and filled the air with the sound of metal. The crowd converged, and beyond it, Grace could see the dark man getting away. The cars grew still and settled to the ground. She ran atop them, picking her way from hood to trunk until she was free of the snarl, of the wreckage. She had caused this, nagged a voice deep inside her, but she pushed the voice away, and willed her legs to move faster. He had caused this, she said, almost aloud. He had caused it, and she would make him pay.

He was fast, but now she was faster. She had closed the gap, and was so close that she could almost grasp his coat as it trailed behind him. He was headed for the el-train, for the stairs to the platform. Grace allowed herself a smile, because once he started up those steps, there was no way out but the way he went in. He had made his first mistake, and one was all she needed.

They took the steps, and here he outdistanced her. It didn’t matter. They would reach the top and she would have him. With one hand on the rail, she vaulted over it and finished her climb at a trot. On the platform, a lone figure lay crumpled in a corner, covered in newspapers. Grace didn’t need to check to know that the dark man had taken him. The dark man wasn’t running anymore, but he paid no attention to either of them. He only stood at the far side of the platform and stared at the track, waiting.

Then she heard the rumble of the train coming in, and knew that he hadn’t made a mistake at all.

The train blew past, and seemed to grab the man up and sweep him along. It sped into the distance, and as it did, she could see the cloaked figure clinging to its side, already working his way to the head of the cars. Grace quickened her speed and ran after them, jumping from platform to track, feeling the fading charge of the magrail tug against the metal ring that held back her hair.

The train was too fast, even for her. It rounded the corner in the distance and was gone. Grace found a light pole near the track and spiraled down it to the street below. Her lungs burned. Her muscles ached. Still, she would not stop. She could not stop, not as long as he was still out there. She swung her body over a low fence that was in her way and kept right on running.

In the air around her, vid bulbs came to life and shot their mists out into the air. Into them, they projected a scene of fire and twisted metal. Grace could make out the train at the center of the image. It was off its tracks, accordioned against the ground, and as she ran she wondered how he had made it happen. She wondered if it was something he’d planned all along, or if he had merely acted on the opportunity she’d chased him into.

The images were there on every street, at every intersection. A medcopter thundered by overhead, its response so much slower than that of the cameras. She vaulted a garbage skip that sat tucked against a stone wall, but no one noticed. Their eyes were full of tears, glued to the images that flickered in the heavy air. Silently, they mourned for people they had never met, people whose lives were linked to theirs only by the streets of the city. They all thought it was that city, that dark maw that chewed them up and spit out the bones, but it wasn’t. It was him. It had always been him. It would always be him.

Again, she found the rooftops, her legs and her arms carrying her up stairs and through gaps, along narrow ledges and between walls. Again, the city was below her, and but for the plume of black smoke rising up in the distance, it was peaceful. Here she paused, palms and soles throbbing, breath and despair clawing at her insides. It had been Her City. It was why she ran, but it was hers no longer. It belonged to him now, and as long as it did, the running no longer mattered.

She looked out at the rooftops, stretching off into the distance as far as her eyes could see. This was the city that she loved, but it was lost to her now. It had taken all she had to give, and now, finally, she was ready to stop.

Then she saw something that lent strength to her limbs and quieted the fire in her lungs. There, on the rooftops, silhouetted by the glow from the street, another figure ran, a figure in a black coat that trailed behind him like a dark wind.

He was close, and this time, she knew she could catch him.

Her legs exploded into motion. Her arms worked the bellows of her lungs. She sailed into the open air and landed in a tumble on a narrow scaffold. She vaulted over the rail to the roof below and picked up speed. The next jump was wider, and she felt the heel of her shoe touch open air as she landed. Her weight pitched forward and she caught herself on her hands. The masonry scraped the skin from her calf, but it didn’t matter. She was back up and running in one smooth motion, and she was gaining.

She skirted a ledge just wide enough for both feet, and balanced across a waterpipe like it was a tightrope. On she ran, past windows and along balconies, over cooling units and across helipads. She skirted skylights and scrambled over satellite arrays, past gargoyles and hidden gardens teeming with color and hope.

She jumped again and came up short. Her hands found the ledge and her feet caught her weight against the building’s glass and steel face. Her legs scrambled against the smooth surface, desperate for traction as she pulled herself over the edge. Anyone watching might have thought it just another part of how she moved, but she knew better. Her legs burned. Her palms were raw and bleeding, and she was tired. She pushed aside the weariness, willed away the fatigue. All she needed was one last push, one final burst of speed and she would have him.

She knew this place. She knew from the childhood she had spent in its shadow. She knew it by the harsh angles of its sloping roof and the single approach by which it could be gained. She watched the dark man leap into the gap to land on that roof, and knew that she had him cornered.

She lowered her head, and drew strength from the place, from the city below her, from the hopes and lives of every person in the city. Whether they knew it or not, they were depending on her, and she would not let herself fail them. The dark man had stopped now. He knew he was beaten and he turned to face her. She ran to the ledge, and as she did she felt powerful, unstoppable. For the first time, she could see the man’s face.

He was smiling.

She knew the jump was all wrong from the instant she left the roof. Her speed was too slow, the distance too great. Legs and arms pinwheeled, trying to close the gap, but it was not enough. The ledge rose out of reach, and the dark man with it. When her body hit the stone buttresses, there were no holds for her hands to find. She bounced away, and felt the pull as gravity claimed her.

The wind hit her face. She closed her eyes and reveled in it. The sounds of the city enveloped her, drawing closer with each passing instant. She opened her eyes to watch the street rise up to meet her. The people on the sidewalk had stopped to watch her fall, and she could see each face with perfect clarity. At their center, the dark man stood, arms wide, ready to receive her. And in that moment, she smiled, knowing that this city was still Her City, knowing that now, she had caught him at last.