The good news was that they had inadvertently left a trail of breadcrumbs. Every time Taven thought he’d for sure taken the wrong turn, he’d come to an unlocked door, an uncovered manhole, or some familiar looking piece of garbage that told him he was still on track.

  By the time he reached the building with the fire escape, he’d calmed down enough to do some thinking, enough to realize he had no idea what he was actually attempting to do. What was plan B?

  As he pulled himself up the rusty ladder, the only answer that came was that something important was in those bags that he and Ferah had left. “It better be good,” he said to no one.

  Suddenly, shots rang out, ripping up the brick wall near Taven. Still clinging to the ladder, he wrenched his neck, trying to find the source of the shots. But after another volley of bullets rained down near him, he decided it was better to focus on climbing.

  He gasped for air as if he’d been under water as he pulled one leg over the lip of the building. When both legs were over, he fell to the rooftop floor and exhaled. He was safe, but only for a moment, he knew.

  Two emotions competed in his mind: panic at being trapped up here, and excitement at seeing the bags. Taven crawled to them, knowing that the gunfire he heard probably wasn’t readily a threat, but that at any moment, when they had figured out exactly where he was, someone would ascend a neighboring building and take up a sniping position.

  He reached the first bag, and a glimmer of hope rose up inside him. It was full of explosives of every kind imaginable. He rummaged through the rockets and landmines, hoping he wouldn’t accidently set them off, until he found what he was looking for.

  He grabbed two grenades, one in each hand, and crawled back toward the fire escape on knees and elbows.

  The gunfire had subsided a bit, but Taven knew what that meant. They hadn’t forgotten about him. They probably had him surrounded, and he’d be lucky if a sniper didn’t take his head off as soon as he poked out to look.

  “I could think of worse ways to go,” he said.

  He looked at his grenades. He’d have to pull their pins one at a time.

  Just as he was beginning to question his plan, he heard the unmistakable sound of people climbing the fire escape.

  He pulled the first grenade’s pin and threw it over the edge. He pulled the second grenade’s pin, but before he could toss it, the first grenade exploded, rocking, the whole building.

  Taven shook off the blast’s effects but then had a terrible realization: He’d dropped the grenade!

  In desperation, Taven dove toward the grenade and threw it behind him as fast as he could.

  Luckily, it cleared the edge before exploding, but chunks of brick and shrapnel riddled Taven’s legs.

  He sat up and waited for the screaming high-pitched sine wave in his head to subside. After a dumb moment, he examined his legs. They were intact; if he were injured, it was only superficial cuts, and he couldn’t feel them right now. He couldn’t feel anything for that matter.

  What brought him back to reality—if you could call it that—was again that singular truth: the threat of pain and death. More bullets landed near him, likely from a sniper in an adjacent building.

  Taven rolled behind what looked like a chimney, though actually just an exhaust port. He reached out for the bags, and as he did more shots rang out. They didn’t faze him. He was starting to become unafraid. “Bad sign,” he muttered, pulling the bags back behind cover. “That’s when you catch a bullet.”

  He wanted to know what was in the other bag. The explosives were a dead end, he knew. Sure, he could do a lot of damage and might even be able to hold them off for some time. But eventually, he’d meet his fate and wouldn’t be any closer to reaching the Temple for his trouble.

  He pulled back the zipper of the second bag and saw shiny silver objects. They were some kinds of mechanical devices, though he wasn’t sure what they were used for.

  He pulled them out and laid them side by side. There were four, each with dual pistons.

  “Two for me, and two for her,” he said instinctively.

  Just then, his leg cramped—another unnecessary touch of realism. He pulled it out, straightened it and lay back against the wall to try to get relief.

  As he stared at his spasming leg, he made the connection. The silver contraptions went on their boots. Even the type of metal used matched up with the hardware bracing on his shoes. But for what purpose? he wondered.

  Maybe it was his subconscious trying to aid him, or maybe it was just fatigue setting in. But Taven relaxed his eyes, letting them focus out beyond his legs and feet.

  When he did, he noticed the series of buildings stretching forward like giant dominoes in a direct line toward the temple.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. Then a grin spread across his face. “This is going to hurt. I just know it.”

  CHAPTER 22

  AFTER STRAPPING A pair of pistons to each leg, he tried standing up. More bullets screamed past him, causing him to bend over awkwardly to keep his head down behind cover. He managed to stay on his feet, though he felt like he was walking on stilts; the machinery extended down under his boots, creating an additional two inches or so of metal heel.

  He had a guess for how they worked: For it to be remotely practical, he should be able to walk around on them without activating them. He wouldn’t know how much pressure was required to actuate the pistons until . . . well, he didn’t want to think about that just yet.

  “First, for a little distraction,” he said. He opened the first bag and pulled out a surface-to-air missile launcher. It looked simple enough to operate: just load the rocket—hopefully, the right way—point, and shoot.

  He slid the slender end of the missile into the launcher until he heard something click. Then the launcher beeped and blurped, signaling it was armed.

  It would be a crapshoot, he knew, but there had been enough pot shots taken that he had a good idea where the sniper was positioned. He took a deep breath and stood up, launcher over one shoulder, and aimed squarely toward the building from where the firing seemed to come.

  His assessment was apparently true, because before he could get the rocket off, he saw a muzzle flash in the distance, the light traveling faster than sound or bullet.

  He squeezed the trigger hard, hoping he didn’t get shot in the head first, or worse, get maimed and have to linger up there in agony before someone finally put him down.

  The rocket began to fire off, his shoulder vibrating hard, and the slow but heavy kick of the missile threatened to push him backwards.

  In all the excitement, he didn’t hear the sniper’s bullets fall. He watched in amazement as the flying peril raced toward its target. When it hit, he was stunned by the explosion. Despite being at least one hundred yards away, the sound and fury were so intense that Taven found himself instinctively reeling back, taking cover behind brickwork.

  He peeked over again and smiled at the carnage: The whole top third of the building was a flaming inferno. “Thanks, Ferah,” he whispered, and the thought made him sad for a moment. He wondered if he would see her again.

  He popped another rocket into the launcher and hobbled over to the lip of the roof where the fire escape used to be. He peeked over, down at the street and pulled his head back.

  There had to be fifty people down there, and he wondered what they were all doing. Were they planning some kind of assault? Or were they just waiting for him to show himself?

  The question didn’t need to be answered, he decided. “Time to give them their just desserts.”

  He pulled the rocket to his shoulder and aimed it down at the street. He nearly lost his balance, falling forward, but as he pulled the trigger, the pushback from the rocket helped right him.

  He laughed out loud at the momentary dispersal on the ground—ants abandoning their post—as the rocket raced toward them.

  Wasting no time, he moved back to the bag as quickly as he could on his new footwear, careful not to step too heavily. He dragged the entire bag back over to the edge and examined its contents.

  He was out of rockets but had several grenades and claymores. The latter—he didn’t know if they’d do any good—would at least make life more interesting for those ants down there.

  He grabbed the claymores, trying to understand how to arm them. He didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to study them longer. Knowing his luck, he’d just blow himself up accidently anyway.

  He threw them overboard, and to his surprise, they exploded when they hit the ground. All that was left in the bag now were grenades. He thought about throwing them over too, but decided to keep them for later, tucking two into his cargo pants pockets.

  He ran through the second bag, the one he’d retrieved the footwear from, and found two pairs of black leather gloves and something that resembled a crossbow, except it had a spool of wire on it.

  “She must have packed it for a reason,” he decided. The bow was too substantial to ignore. The gloves, on the other hand, seemed like extra garb that he didn’t need, so he tossed them aside. He put the crossbow’s sling over his shoulder and wore the bow on his back. Then he checked his submachine gun, putting in a fresh magazine and returning the gun to his thigh holster.

  “Alright,” he said, standing tall, facing the line of buildings that led to the Temple. “Time to make like Peter Pan and fly.”

  He hoped that in all the chaos, the goons below wouldn’t notice his escape. Regardless, he had no time to waste. Either this would work, or it would be such a colossal and painful failure that he would actually take the bathroom mirror’s offer to forget about it. And then an even more painful thought occurred to him: having to retrieve the medallion from the rubble pile all over again, living and re-living this mission endlessly, or until they burned up in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

  He started across the rooftop, and as he accelerated, he felt one of his piston sets pop. Then the other. They responded proportionately to the amount of pressure applied, and each step he took grew larger, his bounds higher, until finally he took the big one, the last leap off the building.

  He put all his focused weight into that last step, and the foot gear—as if possessing intelligence—responded in like manner, propelling Taven off the rooftop and into the sky.

  His elated relief at successfully clearing the edge soon vanished, replaced instead with the fear that he wouldn’t make it to the next rooftop.

  He had no way to gauge things and no way to adjust his course once airborne. A million thoughts ran through his mind, like how crazy this Plan B was and how even crazier he was for trying it.

  But as he came closer to the second building and it became clear he was going to reach it, he realized two things: One—Ferah must have calibrated these boots for just this act, and two—he needed to decide immediately whether he was going to try to land, stop, and jump again or simply bounce off this building on his way to the next.

  The odds were impossible, but he couldn’t figure why stopping and starting would improve them much. So, he went for it. He landed with both feet, feeling the incredible pressure doubled by the impact of the boots re-actuating.

  Fortunately, the reinforced boots and gear kept his ankles from snapping, but they did little for the rest of his body that experienced the worst case of whiplash imaginable.

  Before his physical shock had passed, he found himself propelled into the air again toward the next building. He was going to feel this in the morning, he knew. Or would he? If he succeeded, he’d be outside the construct and back to his old self, scars and all. If he failed, he’d get a new body.

  He reached the third and fourth buildings and cleared them in the same manner he had cleared the last one. Now that he was out of immediate danger, Taven thought more about what he’d do at the final tower. He thought about clearing it and jumping down to the ground near the Temple, but that seemed like he’d be pushing his jump-tech too hard. It was one thing to move laterally, but to descend several hundred feet from the last building was just asking for broken bones.

  He cleared two more buildings and was telling himself he had to make a choice about the final jump when he spotted trouble in the distance. Actually, he heard it before he saw it. And the sound of rotor blades cutting through the air was unmistakable. A helicopter was intercepting his assault on the Temple, he realized.

  He landed on the final rooftop, first trying to soften the impact by alternating his footing, but soon the clumsy move turned into a fast barrel roll that only stopped when he crashed into the ledge wall.

  “Ah!” he groaned. “Plan B hurts.”

  The chopper grew louder, and Taven forced himself to move, something that every pain sensor in his body begged him not to do. But he knew if he waited, the helicopter would be on him in no time.

  He peered over the edge and saw the chopper hovering between him and the Temple, which he noticed was big and ornate with a golden dome like a desert mosque.

  He knew he wouldn’t get a better chance than this, so he pulled out his submachine gun and prayed his bullets could pierce the glass of the flying bird.

  For the first time since practicing with his six-shooter, he raised his gun and aimed before firing. He squeezed the trigger and released an entire magazine of bullets toward the chopper in mere seconds. Before the mag was empty, the pilot changed altitude, rising swiftly to get out of harm’s way.

  Taven dropped behind the roof’s ledge and inserted another magazine. “So much for aiming,” he said. But the truth was that his bullets probably hit their target; it’s just that this vehicle wasn’t a simple civilian type craft. It appeared to have armament under its wings, and Taven figured the glass was reinforced too.

  He removed a grenade from his pants pocket, pulled the pin, and tossed it toward the chopper, which was nearly to the height of the roof now.

  He watched in desperation as the grenade sailed past the helicopter and fell some fifty feet or more down below it before exploding.

  “Blast it!” He knew he’d never be able to time that right.

  He raised his gun again, knowing it would probably have little effect. “Just a little luck,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

  As the chopper rose even with Taven, he again squeezed the trigger. Sparks emitted from the pilot’s windshield as bullets bounced off, and Taven even thought he saw the pilot smirk through the glass.

  Then, as if to answer the pathetic attack from Taven, the helicopter’s .50 caliber machineguns fired.

  Shock and awe. Now Taven knew firsthand what the expression meant. The mere sound of those guns made him drop to his knees and grab his ears, and by the time he noticed the brick wall coming apart from the heavy grain bullets, he felt empty, hollow of all genuine emotion.

  Hollow or not, there was still a part of his brain working, and Taven knew he couldn’t stay where he was. He sprinted toward the exhaust chimneys, the same kind of structure he’d hidden behind on the first building.

  He slid sideways, rolled around its corner, and felt a new twinge of feeling return. It was hope he felt, or maybe it was gratitude for narrowly escaping the jaws of the beast. Either way, it was fleeting, because he was totally doomed.

  He looked down at his hands. They were empty. He searched his holster. It was empty. He peeked around the corner and saw his gun glistening in the sunlight back by the ledge.

  “Idiot!” he cried. He still had the crossbow on his back, but what good would a primitive device like that do when thirty rounds of nine-millimeter had been ineffective.

  He peered back around the corner, and the chopper blasted its cannons again. He pulled back, his breath escaping him for a moment.

  The longer he sat there, the more he was bothered by a mental itch. It was an idea, one he was suppressing. What could be so important, more important than the fact that he was pinned down and unarmed?

  But that was just it: Why was he still alive? Why wasn’t the chopper releasing its heavy armament? It looked like it had several air-to-ground missiles under its wings, and Taven had seen what a shoulder-launched rocket could do to a building. A single one of those would decimate the entire rooftop and end the whole conflict.

  He was a sitting duck, but he continued to sit. Alive. Unscathed for now.

  And that was it. They had him, he realized. If they wanted him dead, they would have gotten him a while ago. The chopper was keeping him pinned down for a reason. It was for what Ferah had warned him about, why she had killed him when they’d gotten pinned down after retrieving the medallion.

  They would do anything to get it from him, anything to convince him to give it to them. He shuddered at the thought.

  He decided to test his hypothesis. He stuck his head out again, and the mighty guns erupted once more. This time, he didn’t pull back, but faced them, which felt like playing chicken with an on-coming train. Just as he’d expected, the volley of bullets tore up the floor several yards away from him, but they didn’t hit their target. Or, rather, they did hit their target. It was just that they didn’t want to kill Taven. Maim, disable, until someone could talk him into giving them his medallion, sure. But this chopper’s guns were too deadly, too devastating to risk shooting Taven.

  He pulled back, satisfied that they weren’t simply going to kill him. Now was the time to see how badly they wanted the medallion.

  He reached into his pocket once again and brought out his last grenade. He pulled the pin and held the grenade tightly in his hand. This couldn’t end well, he knew. But what choice did he have.

  He stepped out again. The guns roared to life, but like before, they only tore up the rooftop on either side of him.

  He stood motionless with eyes closed until the beast finished its hellish scream. When there was a break in the fire, Taven opened his eyes and raised the grenade high above his head for the helicopter pilot to see.