Chapter 29 – Up, Up and Beyond the Highest High

The floors of the Thousand Wonder quickly zoomed by as Arwain traced up its massive height. But even if he reached the top floor, even that wasn’t enough for Stratos to completely escape the bomb’s reach. The greatest manmade structure in the world only topped six kilometers.

If Mayor DeWine was telling the truth, a five-kilometer radius would still swallow up the middle and upper regions. Regardless, zooming along the side of it helped him focus and maintain his bearings.

He looked down at the timer. It went under three minutes. From his altimeter, he was currently around the 600th floor. If he maintained his breakneck speed, he would shoot past the tower’s tip in another two minutes.

Arwain bit his lip, cursing internally. The droids had eaten up too much of his time. Now, he had no choice but to keep climbing in hopes of being out of everyone’s range, holding onto the bomb until the last second. His neck craned up to see just how much he had left to go before looking down at the reflective surface of the building.

A set of majestic rainbow wings stared back at him, flapping with everything they had to add on just a bit more lift in tandem with the thrusters on his back. A grimace mirrored back at him before his face sighed and took on a resolute expression.

If he was going to be stripped of his everything, then he was going to take one last flight as high as he could.

Sure, he could just get replacements eventually. Sure, it would take time for him to get back to where he was. But what others didn’t realize was that these where the wings that his momma left him. Once they were gone, he would have nothing else left from her.

“Congratulations on being able to fly, my boy! My precious Arwain, taking to the skies!”

A fine brush swept through the synthetic feathers along his grafted wings, taking care to stimulate the nerves to prime its function.

“Thanks, Momma. I’ll be sure to earn lots of money, so you don’t have to worry. I’ll make it so you don’t have any regrets moving here!”

“I have no regrets. Not now, not ever.” A pair of arms pulled Arwain closer to his mother. “It’s worth it to see what you want to be. To know that you’ll have a future here.”

Poverty made it such that opportunities were few and far in between. When Mrs. Riot heard all about Stratos, she knew that she had to come, no matter how much of a burden it was. She had planned to work a handful of years, just enough to earn the city’s guaranteed care. If it meant that Arwain could grow up wanting just a bit less, it didn’t matter if the strength in her limbs slowly left her body. However, she didn’t expect how quickly her condition worsened.

And during those years, Arwain watched on with innocence, like a child should have. She did her best to hide the pain and break out a smile, letting him bask in the chance to be someone of his own choosing.

That boundless enthusiasm stared right back at him on the side of the Thousand Wonder. It told him that it was going to be alright. He was now that someone that people recognized.

However, the cameras that continued to follow his final ascent gave him an inkling that Mayor DeWine had foresaw this whole situation. Even now, the city below was full of people hopeful for his success as they fled to the lower floors.

Martyr a hero, create a legend.

The mayor’s words rang loudly in his ears amid the silent skies. With a click of his tongue, he sighed.

“Ahhh, knew I wasn’t going to get any second chances…”

Mayor DeWine had won. Arwain was doing exactly what he wanted him to do. Because simply, he had been diverted to this one option. He couldn’t help but to play the puppet to create a legacy that the mayor envisioned.

The public would no doubt rally behind that heroism. It would be a burning mark of pride for Flyers, enough to stamp out the scandals that accompanied them into obscurity. History cared only for the victors.

After all, how many could actually recall who Washington fought at Yorktown? Mayor DeWine knew the benefits would outweigh the controversy. And even if he rotted in prison and was reduced to a searchable cliffnote, the consequences would go on strong.

A shiver shot down Arwain’s back, the surroundings starting to get chilly from the altitude. He suddenly found himself gasping as the air grew thin. He broke into a layer of lower resistance, feeling faster and lighter than ever before.

Two minutes left on the timer.

Arwain breathed deep, trying to calm his core. All of his energy went to his wings as he fought off his body’s instinct to stop. He was well past his highest approach, completely in unknown territory. He looked back at the tower to see the grin of a dare devil, a madman, and who knew what else.

It was like he was having a last laugh before plunging into hell.

Only, this hell felt incredibly cold and heavy.

Arwain looked down to see frost building on his body, telling him just how cold it had become. He finally noticed how little his wings were working now, the thrusters giving all the height. Relenting, he tucked them around his body, hoping to shield himself just the slightest. The bomb in his arms was clutched tighter as he stared at the timer tick down. Bringing up the live video feed, the urging and cheering of people down below spurred him to keep going.

At one minute left, his vision started shaking, and finally, he looked forward to see no reflection foretelling of his demise. A half-hearted chuckle escaped his lips, a small victory that he had conquered even the tallest thing touched by man. A distant voice echoed in his ears.

“Arwain! Arwain! You’re almost out of range! Are you holding up?!”

“Ah… Jolly… it’s so… nice… up here…”

“Wake up! The temperature is getting too much for you! Combined with the thin air, you won’t last! Forget the bravado! Just drop the bomb, let it be!”

“Hold on… don’t want… to disappoint… the customers…”

-----

Jolly fumbled around her console, her mind ablaze as to what she could do to convince him. But she knew, he was stubborn as hell. There was no stopping his course once he charted it, and unless she told him another way, he would continue to climb higher and higher until the timer hit zero. And then, he would fall, completely helpless. Possibly even dead from hypothermia.

“Crew, prepare for retrieval!”

“Copy that! We just finished disarming all the droids. The mayor is in custody. All that’s left is to welcome back our ace!” Queen responded.

Jolly bit her thumb, scanning through all the possibilities that she had through her console. But there was only so much she could do from where she was, particularly with Arwain’s senses getting dull.

It was hard sometimes – only seeing the dashboard to know the condition of one’s teammates. However, Jolly made a living from it. She refused to let anyone else take the reins as she cared more about each member of the team than she ever let on. People rarely blamed the one in the chair for mistakes. It was a benefit of not having to deal with people in the field.

But rather than let it get to her head, she made sure to map out everything that could possibly happen to her teammates. And even in a situation like this, Jolly’s gaze suddenly fell upon the temperature reading around Arwain.

“Minus 20 degrees Celsius…”

Her eyes widened as something clicked in her mind. She checked the remaining fuel of his thrusters and saw that it had plenty to spare. Quickly, she hit the button for Arwain’s comms and yelled at him.

“Another package for you!”

Hearing a slight grunt, she waited until the remaining timer hit twenty seconds before hitting the ‘Eject’ button.

-----

Arwain could barely tell what was up or down anymore. His sense of perception had frozen like the cold around him. It felt like he had become an unfeeling statue.

But then, he heard Jolly’s sharp command.

“Another package for you!”

Given how high up he was, it was impossible for a package to be sent to him. Regardless, the fuzzy state of his mind registered the command while ignoring that fact, and his body went into auto-pilot. Given that he rarely took on more than one delivery at a time, he had the habit of stowing a second item on his back, right onto his thruster pack. With arms wide open, he got into position to receive something.

After several seconds of waiting, nothing happened. But just as Arwain tilted his head in wonder, a sudden jolt disconnected him. It felt like his body was spiraling out of control, but he couldn’t open his eyes to see what had happened. His eyelids had been frozen shut.

Ah, I must have lost my wings. I don’t feel them anymore…

The wind whipped all around him, chaotic and roaring at his impending doom. The victims of the Icarus bombs must have felt a similar dread brimming from within. The total loss of control and sense of helplessness was a powerful force.

But that all blew away when he heard Jolly’s voice in his ear.

“Contact in five… four… three… two… one…”

Arwain hit a weave of netting which stretched against his body, slowing his fall. The elastic harness twirled him around until the momentum of his descent completely died. A sigh of relief escaped his lips as a warm hand was held against his cheek. That hand reached up to brush the frost over his eyes.

Slowly, Arwain could see again.

“Good, you’re conscious still. I don’t have to risk Queen bleeding out by performing mouth-to-mouth,” Jester motioned in her direction, where the other members of Silver Stream were waiting.

“She’ll have to settle for this.”

Arwain reached in and clamped onto Jester, relishing the warmth coming from him. He was so cold that he didn’t care about appearances. The self-proclaimed fujoshi could have happy shipping dreams that night.

“Now, now. Do I have to take you down all the way like this?” Jester chuckled.

“Isn’t it obvious that someone needs to?”

“… no?”

“No?”

Arwain looked down to see his wings still intact, much to his surprise. He smacked himself in the cheeks to make sure that he wasn’t imagining it.

“Jolly came through for you in the end,” Queen said.

“Huh? What did she do?”

“Wait, you don’t remember? It looked to me like she told you to slap that bomb onto the thruster pack so that she could eject it. The bomb continued flying up while you fell like a rock. Jester here was the only one graceful enough to sling you from a terminal velocity drop into his waiting arms.”

“I had to get you out of there, Arwain. Your vitals were hitting dangerous levels,” Jolly joined in on the comms.

“But…,” Arwain started to say as he looked all around. They were still towering high above most of the buildings. “The bomb’s radius. Shouldn’t it-”

“No clue,” Jolly interrupted, “I couldn’t think of any way to get you five kilometers away from the thing, but it looks like I didn’t have to. The bomb’s components were messed up instead.”

“How were you able to know that would happen?”

“I wasn’t certain, but the structure of the bomb felt like it would be bad in cold. You see, devices in old days relied on a lot of parts that fare pretty poorly from temperature shifts. Internal batteries have an issue with retaining a charge under certain temperatures. Not to mention that metal conductivity tanks so the connections become poor. If it’s got any liquid components, then forget about it surviving.”

“Oh! Then all that kept it from exploding?”

“No, it still blew up. Only, the effective radius ended up being less than four hundred meters. You fell about a kilometer when it exploded, well out of range.”

“Jolly, remind me never to get in an argument over numbers with you. I owe you a big one. Anything you ask.”

A giddy chuckle was her first response, followed by a bunch of ‘hmms’.

“Are you sure you’re ready for what I want to ask of you?”

“On second thought, I take it back. I don’t have a farm to give away like Dingleberry.”

Dingleberry had no idea what was going on as the others turned to him, so he just stood proudly, wielding his pitchfork in victory.

“A victory celebration then. Paid out of Arwain’s pocket.” Sarge’s quick suggestion diverted the topic.

“Now that, I could live with,” Arwain cheered, leaping out of Jester’s arms. “Alright, let’s head down. A hero’s welcome awaits!”

He pointed to the cameras still trained on them, doing a fist pump for his audience. The mayor wanted him to be a hero. While that part went unchanged, he’d be damned if he didn’t use all the fame to make things right again.