45. George – Paradigm Shift

With the bridge no longer threatening imminent collapse, Wendy and George finished hugging it out before they secured it to the side of the building with stray cables. Once satisfied it wouldn’t slip down to crush its builders, they slid inside, an easier task now the world was off kilter. At the absurd angle the city was tilting, they could stand on the building’s outer wall without falling, if they kept their balance. George found himself surprised at just how unsurprising it seemed, numbed and desensitized to novelty. His concept of expectation had flown skyward with everything else.

“George!” Rhea’s screech echoed through the falling dust clouds.

George whirled to find her voice, tracking it to a growing silhouette. He ran for her, dropping Wendy on her ass and ignoring the streak of curses as she folded into a niche between two bars. Rhea called George’s name again, clambering in through a diagonally felled doorway. Her foot broke through the crust of the ceiling and she pulled back before her ankle twisted, the movement sending her into a roll to the lower corner of the room. George yelped and dove to grab her, his attempt just as successful, and they collided into each other and fell into another corner with only a few scrapes to add to the slices and bruises already across every inch of their bodies.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“That or my dreams got better.”

She cupped his cheeks and broke into that smile he could never resist, and then broke into tears and beat his chest with balled fists until he genuinely feared she’d break his ribs.

“I thought you were dead,” she said.

“Sorry to disappoint you?”

She stopped hitting him, to his relief, and resorted to plain sobbing. A commotion from the doorway signaled the arrival of the others, and Holden’s face popped into view first, followed by Zeke. Wendy hobbled over, stopped to whack George upside his head on her way past, and then gave their dad a loving sneer.

“Yeah,” she said, “he’s alive.”

“And I heard everything you said to me,” George told him. “It was very moving.”

Zeke sneered and ducked out of view. Behind him, a confused Jamie followed his retreat, followed by Wendy.

“Hey, George,” Holden said. “It’s good to see you awake again.”

“It’s good to be awake again. Thanks for covering for me while I was out.”

“Now you’re back, I’m gonna take some time off. It’s hard having people always needing you. If this is what parenthood is gonna be like, I’m gonna go tell your sister I don’t want it.”

“My sister? Wait—”

Holden didn’t and left to follow Wendy. Rhea turned George’s puzzled face back to hers and buried her own in the wet patch she was growing on his chest. She heaved there, and after everything they’d been through, he couldn’t blame her. Dismissing everyone else from his mind, he wrapped his arms around his wife, squeezing her gently while he lay wedged in the groove between the ceiling and the edge of a wall, supporting both their weights. The slanting was uncomfortable, more so than being upside-down. Somehow in his absence, the world had managed to become even stranger.

“So, the world’s tilting sideways now, huh?” he said. “How long’s that been going on?”

Rhea wiped her eyes, smearing a snot strand across her forehead, but George quickly lost any attention he gave it when she gave him her answer.

“You’ve been out for five days,” she said.

“Five days?” The discomfort etched on his face crumbled further into disbelief. “Five whole days?”

She nodded.

“Fuckballz.”

…

While George and Rhea caught up, everyone else milled around on the apartment block’s outer wall. The vertical planes were leveling out, not yet a hundred percent horizontal, but certainly on their way. The survivors took in the sights, walking further in any one, open direction than they had in over a week. They peered over the edge, looking down, not at open sky anymore, but at rooftops. It had taken ten days to get used to seeing the ground as the world’s ceiling, and now, standing on the western exterior of a squat low-rise, they watched that ceiling slowly rotate into a wall blocking the direction they were heading.

“Hey, Jamie?” Holden said, nudging the kid. “You still got that camera?”

“Yeah,” Jamie said.

“Good, I want you to take one of me doing this.

Jamie reached into his box and frew out the old camera. Holden crawled on all fours and posed by a window.

“Look, I’m Spider-Man,” he said. “I can crawl on walls!”

He then burst into the theme song and Jamie snapped some shots. He then turned the camera on the view, capturing the others huddled together as land and sky became vertical. With the horizontal walls of the city sandwiched between them, that same question that haunted their journey was back on everyone’s lips.

“How do we continue now?”

“We don’t,” Holden said, “we wait. Let’s see what the world’s doing before we make plans.”

“He’s right,” Wendy said. “For all we know, the ground’s tilting back down again. If it is, we might be able to walk to the mountains before the next stage begins.”

“Yeah, but who knows when that is?” Cazz said.

Wendy pulled her phone out. “This was off when the Third Event took place. The battery charged up in my hand and I had to remove it, but I put it back in the day the world turned upside-down. It’s been off since then, but I set calendar alarms.”

“That was ten days ago,” Holden said. “It might not still have any power.”

Wendy held down the power button. “Only one way to find out.”

The phone sat in her palm and the crowd circled around it. The blank screen stared up at them, showing nothing. Then, after a long, communally held breath, it lit up to display the phone’s logo, and the breath was released.

“Eleven percent,” she said, “and the timer’s still ticking.”

“And how long on it?” Laura said.

“We got twenty hours and twenty-two minutes until this Event’s over.”

“That only gives us one more day to get everything done,” Holden said. “Wait, until this current event’s over? What comes after?”

Wendy shrugged. “The last alarm goes off sixteen minutes after, but we never got any details on what’s going on then.”

“Everyone keeps calling this the end of the world. I bet the planet explodes. Or implodes, like a black hole.”

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,” George said, walking up from behind him, “but I’d like to be holed up somewhere safe and underground before we find out. Feel free to join me.”

Holden turned. “Hey, you’re here. That’s good. We need to think of a way to get down to the next block but my head’s overheating. I don’t think the bridge is gonna be any use anymore, unless we maybe use it like a ladder.”

George eyed the frayed cable above them and grinned. “Don’t y’all worry. I got a plan so simple it can’t possibly fail.”

“Oh?”

He held up a scrap of paper to showcase a diagram of his calculations. “Sorry about the pink crayon, guys. There was nothing else in there to draw with.”

The group studied the plan, trailing their eyes over the stickman holding a lasso joining two happy houses.

“Are you messing with us?” Laura said. “This is your plan?”

“This is my plan.” George said. “It’s simple, foolproof, it’ll be quicker than building bridges and we have everything we need to make it work right here.”

Holden snatched it from his hand. “Your plan is to climb down a rope? I like it. It’s what Spider-Man would do.”

George pointed behind Bobert with his thumb. “The plan’s actually to lower grandma Bobert down a cable, and then the rest of us slide down it like it’s a fireman pole. Oh, except the last person. That guy has to lower himself down with the bit that the rest loops through, so we can reuse it again on the next block.”

“Does whatever a spider can.”

“So you’re plan really is to climb down a rope.” Laura said.

“Spins a web, any size.”

“It’ll be reinforced. Rhea showed me how when she wore her hair in braids. Believe me, they were stronger than most ropes we used in construction. You could pull on it all night and no amount of bucking would loosen—”

Rhea clamped a hand round George’s mouth and smacked him as she ducked out of sight behind him. “Don’t tell them about pulling my hair, you hijo de las mil putas!”

“Sorry, I just meant it’s a good way to strengthen the cables. You can teach us how to braid them. Three cables thick ought to do it.”

“And how long do we have?” Zeke said. “I don’t need no false hope if there’s not going to be any for real.”

George sighed. “Look, I don’t have any better ideas. I’m hungry and I just got up from a weird dream, except you were there,” he said, pointing at Holden, then Rhea. “And your dad was there, and O’Toole was there. Have we got any food?”

A quiet buzz answered him as a drone flew overhead. It carried a small packet and dropped it, scoring a direct hit onto George’s face. He spluttered and read the label, letting what remained of his functioning mind recognize what he held. It was a packet of half eaten peanut brittle.

“Uh, thanks,” George said.

The drone somehow nodded and flew off.

“By the by, who keeps flying that?”

Holden prized a length of cable from the corner of the bridge. “We suspect it’s the Kinsley Foundation. Those guys buzz all the best toys.”

George noted the cable in his hand. “So we’re going with my plan?”

“We’re standing on the wall of a building at a really weird angle. Down is now backwards, the East is now down and forwards is a sidewalk. It might mean the mountains we’re heading for are sinking. If they are, there’s a chance they might not be useful as shelters, so I’m still on the fence about it.”

George shrugged. “It is the only plan we have and the mountains stretch for miles. The side we’re heading for might still be useable. I think we should go for it. How many blocks do we have to go?”

“We only crossed four while you were out,” Wendy said. “There’s less of us now and we’re all tired. And it didn’t help, having to carry your useless ass around, so it kind of all fell on Holden here.”

“Oh, I’m happy to help,” Holden said. Je blew her a kiss. “It increases how attractive I look by making me seem competent.”

Wendy gave that a considered nod. “You know what? That’s true. You sound like a dummy but you got us to the fifth block. We get through here, there’s only three left. Think you can get us there in a day with only a rope?”

George exchanged glances with Holden, who nodded, and George nodded back.

“You know what. I think we can,” he said. “Rhea, sweetie, teach these guys how to braid, Holden, catch a few Zees, Wendy, learn to manipulate him more subtly so it seems less cruel to everyone watching, and dad?”

Zeke cocked his head.

“Pops, you’re coming with me.”

…

George led Zeke back to the room he first entered. He thrust a hand into the scabby wall and ripped out a fistful of wiring, placed the end in Zeke’s hand before tearing more from their plaster moorings. Zeke wound its length around his arm.

“I heard you back there,” George said. “You could have let me fall, gotten rid of me.”

“And why in hell would I want to get rid of you?” Zeke said.

“Because you practically said it to my face.”

“I said I can’t stand the sight of you.That doesn’t mean I want you dead. Doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

“Funny, I thought that’s exactly what it meant.”

“That’s ‘cos you’re self centered.”

“Pot. Kettle.”

“Wrong. I’m selfish, not self centered.”

George grunted as the line stuck in a corner. “Okay, now you lost me.”

“Son,” Zeke said, “I can’t stand the sight of at you because of my mistakes. It’s not your fault. You’re a good man, but you look like the wife of my best friend, who killed himself because of me, and you stare out of her face with my eyes.”

George pulled harder and the plaster crumbled. “Oh, so she was a bit masculine, then?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Is this an apology? It feels like you’re trying to touch something along those lines, but you missed. Like, by a lot.”

Zeke yanked at the same time as his son and the cable popped from the wall. “I don’t know what it is. Probably just something that needed saying.”

George continued plucking along the next wall. “Okay, I can accept that. And maybe it needed hearing.”

They didn’t look at each other or say anything else until the wiring led them out of the room, yet for the first time in George’s life, the silence didn’t feel awkward. Zeke broke it on the way out.

“I don’t know about you, boy,” he said, “but I could really use a drink.”

…

When Holden woke up, thirteen hours had gone by. He scratched at his skin, doing his best to ignore the body-wide, dehydration-induced dandruff flaking off, and after another hour convincing his body to function, he rolled out of bed. Finding a mattress, complete with Spider-Man bedcovers and pillows was a stroke of luck, and as that luck would have it, someone had left a half filled water bottle next to him. He downed it and staggered out to find everyone.

The apartments weren’t quiet, although nobody was talking. Snoring and rattling breaths could be heard at almost every door he stepped on. Climbing up a convenient staircase of cabinets and drawers someone had made, led him up to the outer wall where George sat alone, carving two holes into a plank of wood with a shard of rock, turning it hand over hand with O’Toole’s glass spanner.

“You still have that?” Holden said. “Y’know, we picked up some real tools back at Bobert’s.”

“I know,” George said, not looking up. “This is just to remind me of a promise I made. I told O’Toole I’d finish what we started. Y’know, ‘cos a deal’s a deal?”

“Right. Who’d you make a deal with?”

“I told Rhea I’d love and protect her, in sickness and in health. Remember?”

“Yeah, but no-one takes their marriage vows seriously. That’s like telling Pepsi you’ll only drink their stuff when you win that year’s supply, but as soon as their back’s turned you sell it to buy coke.”

“That was a refreshingly caffeinated six months.” George said, then raised his eyebrow. “And I appreciate how you sincerely mean to make my sister happy and never ever cheat on her.”

Holden caught himself. “Yeah, uh, that’s exactly what I said.”

“Speaking of who, they thought they’d catch some Zees while we waited for you to wake up I kinda feel bad for the people in our lives. Waiting for us to wake up seems to be a big part of our relationships.”

“What about the cable work?”

“I’ll show you. We can wake them up at the same time.”

Holden followed him back to the others, knocking on doors until everyone awoke. They piled into the largest room where, coiled in one large circle, was the fully woven cable. Several wires had been sliced down their length a good few feet, and weaved into others to create longer, stronger lines. Then they’d been reinforced by the group’s experts.

“You guys managed to braid all this already?” Holden said. “Was I out for a long time like George or are you guys really fast?”

“No guys,” Rhea said. “Just us girls. Your boys just sat there, completely oblivious about what to do. You guys were no help at all.”

“Hey, I weaved the wires into longer ropes first,” Alfredo said. “Got hand cramp from it.”

“Except Alfredo, who wove long ropes out of the wires first, and ended up getting debilitating hand cramps.”

George nodded. “Then in that case, Alfredo, you go down second last. Everyone else, let’s mosey.”

He slung the roll across his chest, aware of the weight even in reduced gravity. It seemed Bobert had made himself useful in the interim by making more stairs from junk to help them walk down through the building, down through the block, to the entrance of the next street.

“First everything’s upside-down and now it’s perpendicular,” Cazz said. “This damn apocalypse needs to make up its mind.”

They opened a door to the lowermost hallway. The drop inside was deep and ended at the front door. George unslung the wires and slipped the ends through the holes he’d carved in the plank and tied it in place. They held it out for grandma Bobert and she sat in it. Then together with her grandson and his best friend, Holden and George lowered her down.

“This better be long enough,” Bobert said to him, “’cos that old lady’s doing something a helluva lot braver than the rest of us.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” Laura said, “we got the cables from the bridge, didn’t we? That always reached.”

“That bridge we kept having to repair?”

Grandma Bobert’s feet touched the lower end of the hall and she disembarked. The others jumped down after her, sinking like feathers onto the ruined rebar walls and Bobert kicked open the front door to see how far down it was to the next block. The tilt of the world seemed complete. The next block was directly beneath them.

“Gran,” he said, “you okay with this?”

She nodded, giving him a toothless grin.

“This next bit’s a lot higher than one end of a room to the other.”

She cupped his cheeks and kissed his forehead, then sat in the waiting seat. As before, the four men lowered her as gently as they could, out through the door at their feet.

“What’d she say?” Alfredo said.

“She said she’ll be fine because big strong men do all heavy lifting. And then she told me not to ruin my handsome face by looking concerned. Apparently frowning like that makes your face wrinkle.”

“She said all that with a kiss?”

“What? No, just the strong men part. The rest was with that wrinkly frown.”

Grandma Bobert held the wires like she was on a swing. The longest, highest swing in the world. An echo of childhood in the back of her mind almost made her push her feet out, but she kept restrained long enough to touch down safely on the wall below and clutched at her heart as soon as her feet were secure. It beat faster than it had in years. Almost fifty times a minute.

“Gran, are you okay?” Bobert called, and she gave him a wave before sitting down where she stood. Bobert grabbed the line. “Alright, I’m heading down after her.”

“Hold on,” George said, “we have to secure it, otherwise we’ll be holding it up for every person.

“You’ll hold it up for me,” Bobert said. “I’m not leaving my grandmother down there on her own.”

“It won’t be—” George didn’t finish speaking.

Bobert leaned out to grab the cable and let his feet fall. George and Holden grunted as his full weight fell into their hands, but they held on. For all people were lighter than usual, the momentum nearly pulled the line from their fingers as Bobert slipped down it like a fireman’s pole. Fortunately, he reached his grandmother in a couple of seconds, before the fingers gripping it cracked under pressure.

“Well at least that shows your plan works,” Holden said. “And we all get to pretend we’re pole dancers.”

They retracted the swing and lowered it again, this time through its own loop, bent through an aluminum back of a sofa bed found in one living room. One by one, they slid down to the next building until only George was left, and he loosened the cable again, stepped into the wooden seat and held on tight. With his own weight in his hands, he slowly winched himself down, keeping his eyes shut the entire journey.

When something grabbed his ankle, they opened again, along with his screaming mouth.

“Chill, it’s just me,” Holden said. “I got you. You’re down all the way.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” George said, and let go of the cable. He immediately fell as his full weight sat on Holden’s hands and the cable shot up, slapping him in the face. George winced as a red welt appeared on his friend’s cheek. “Sorry.”

The loose end flipped around the chair above and back out the door. It fell on George, tangling him in heavy, heavy-duty wire.

“That’s one block down,” Holden said, “Two more to go.”

They found a window to a women’s washroom. The cubicle walls provided enough purchase, even so Grandma Bobert could step down with little help, and out into the main corridor. It was once again a long drop, and once again she was lowered in the swing while the others climbed down after her. Alfredo stayed to untether it, but didn’t bother parasailing down at the end like George. Instead, he dropped the cable in favor of pressure-walking down with his feet and hands pressed into opposing walls. By the time he was down with the others, Grandma Bobert was already being lowered to the next block.

The last blocks were overcome easily with gravity in their favor, even as a noticeably weakened force. Even the unpredictable winds were no obstacle, and in three hours, they covered a distance that had previously taken them days.

“Why wasn’t it this easy when we had more people?” Holden said. “I thought more hands made lighter work?”

“Cheppard kept saying it was a test,” George said, “maybe the test’s over.”

Holden rolled his eyes. “You’re not mentioning god, but that still sounds like religious speak. Like there’s a fate or a power in charge of our lives.”

“Maybe, but sounding dead certain there ain’t any still seems like faith to me. It’s not like you tested it scientifically.”

Holden rubbed his chin. “Huh. Touché.”

They cleared a path through a pile up of debris while Bobert gave his grandmother a well earned breather. The building they were in had only two floors, so shifting the mess meant throwing it out. When the remnants of a smashed grand piano wouldn’t fit through a window, Holden dragged it over to the front door instead.

“Hey, look,” he said, peering down out of the door.

George sidled next to him. “Aw, don’t tell me you’re gonna drop the piano on that seagull?”

“Look where it’s standing.”

George ignored the seagull and focused on its perch. “Well fuckaduck, that’s an anchor block. That’s the East Bridge anchor block. Holden, we made it!”

Holden hi-fived him. “East Bridge. And we made pretty good time, too. I think we should celebrate.”

“We can celebrate once we’re safe. This is it, our last stretch. Hey, Wendy, how much time do we have?”

“We got a little under three hours.” she said.

“Then let’s get moving!”

Holden raised a finger over George’s head. “Or we could refuel. There’s a pile of food over there.”

George followed Holden’s point and sure enough, a small selection of snacks and drinks lay in a little pile in one room.

“Well, that’s convenient,” George said. “Hey, guys, come down here. A whole load of food magically appeared.”

A drone buzzed up through the window and dropped a pop can in the pile. When it turned and saw the two men staring at it, it did a double take and backed up to the wall.

“Did you do this?” George said.

The drone dipped forward, a nod, as two more flew in carrying snacks. They saw Holden and George and instead of adding to the pile, flew over their heads and dropped their cargo. George dodged a second snack to the face and caught a pack of salted chips. Holden spluttered as a Twinkie fell into his floundering mouth.

“So this is for us?” George said.

The two closest drones looked at each other, and all three nodded. They then turned to an opening door as the other survivors slung their legs over to squeeze through the gap

“You guys look like you’re crawling into a giant cat flap.” Holden said.

Alfredo looked up. “Hey, it’s the drone. And it’s got friends.”

“Can I see?” Jamie said.

Alfredo pulled him over the wall and into the room, then passed over his cat box. The drones flew around it and peeked in.

“Hello, I’m Jamie. Jamie Travers, and this is Fido and Rover. Aren’t they cute?” He lifted the box for a better view and Fido hissed at the drones while Rover batted one out of the air. Jamie pushed him back in. “Sorry, mister drone, he probably thinks you’re a bird.”

Bobert helped his grandma over and led her to the snack pile. He gave the drones a peace sign on the way and Grandma Bobert tickled one on the belly, to the amusement of Cazz and Laura behind her.

“Okay, everyone, eat as much as you can,” Holden said, “because after this, we have a long climb down and the wind’s getting worse. Also, we have to hurry, because in less than three hours, the end of the world is gonna end, and if the end of the world already ended the world, I don’t wanna be around to see what the end of the world ending is gonna do to what’s left of the world.”

They sat around the food stash and dug in. It was sugar-laden junk, nothing their emaciated bodies needed, save for calories, but the drinks helped clear off a prevalent head fog they hadn’t been aware was there, and in less than fifteen minutes they laid waste to the feast. For the first time in days, every face was etched with satisfaction.

“I’m definitely coming back here again,” Cazz said. “Good food, good drinks, top notch service.”

“Five stars,” Holden said. “My heartiest congratulations to the chef.”

The drones sat in the corner of the room, likely still watching. The background whistles from the rising gale outside gave a clue to why they weren’t flying around the city, and now the rustling of wrappers and drinking slurps had gone quiet, the whistles were only growing louder. Bobert went to the main door and looked down at the foot of East Bridge.

“Hey, Holden, George,” he said, “I’m not certain about sending grandma down there in this weather. There’s everything flying about and that’s a tiny little landing platform.”

George peeked over the edge. “It’s not that tiny. All of us could stand on it.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the size of a whole block, either, and you haven’t exactly put in ten-thousand hours angling senior citizens on the end of your piece of string.”

“What can I say, we need to get down there as soon as we can. Hey, Wendy, how long we got left?”

“One hour and fifty-eight minutes,” she said. “Now fifty-seven.”

“Well if that’s all the time we got left,” Bobert said, “why don’t we just wait until the gravity comes back and run to the mountain?”

“Because we’re not even sure it will,” George said. “Besides, there’s one last alarm sixteen minutes after. Even with all this food we got, we’re not in any state to run a mile of bridge in that time. Or up a mountain.”

“We can enter the mountain from the tunnel under the topside, y’know where the trains go?”

George shook his head. “Given how accessible the tunnels in the city were, I’m not hedging any bets on being able to use it.”

Bobert groaned. “Shit. Are we trapped?”

George didn’t answer. He leaned back against the floor and stared off into the middle distance. Grandma Bobert tottered over with the swing end of the line in hand and handed it over with an expectant smile. When Bobert shook his head, she offered it to George. He copied her grandson’s sentiment and declined it. Bobert slammed the door and his grandmother retreated back to the others, confused and swingless. The two men sat across from each other, looking at something only they could see, until Bobert left to reassure his grandma nothing was wrong. George followed.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who still wants that drink,” his dad said on the other side of the doorway. He watched in bemusement as George raised a leg over the frame to roll back into the room, far less graceful than the old lady before him. He rolled to a stop at his dad’s feet and Zeke let his son catch his breath. “You don’t have to be ashamed to admit it.”

“I’m not,” George said, “I just don’t have any booze to drink. Where’s your kid?”

“Hiding behind your wife. He probably thinks I’m as much a loser as you do.”

“You know what? A few days ago, I’d have agreed with that, but I watched you with him. Not too ashamed to admit seeing you responsible like that, getting all protective over him, I got a little jealous.”

Zeke deflated. “Great, rub it in. I get it, I failed you.”

George reached up and slapped his dad’s forehead. “This ain’t about you, old man. I’m saying, as far as I’m concerned little Jamie there’s my new kid brother. He’ll be good practice for when Rhea pops.”

“Huh.” Zeke stared out the side window, out to the horizon, lost in thought. The horizon was vertical.

George gave Bobert a nod and approached Cazz and Laura.

“Hey,” he said, “I wanted to tell you guys something.”

Cazz and Laura smiled expectantly.

“I need to thank you two. The attention you guys gave me and Holden helped. It helped a lot. Kinda opened my eyes to what you can get done when you have your own personal cheerleaders breathing down your neck.”

“We aim to please.” Laura said, and walked off, giggling with Cazz.

He then interrupted Wendy and Holden. When he saw their interwoven fingers, they broke off and she turned away.

“I just wanted to know we were all good.” He said. “Friends. Siblings. Apparently you two are bridging another gap I—”

“You’re saying goodbye,” Wendy said. “I heard you. You can’t lower granny down, so we’re going to run instead.”

George smiled, a smile too wide and forced. “I’m not saying goodbye. I’m saying something comforting and encouraging that could later be construed as a goodbye if the worst case scenario happened to happen.”

“Efficient,” Holden said. “Got a way of dealing with our last obstacles?”

“Why?” Wendy said. “So we get stuck with people like the Cheppard? More of the holier-than-thou, we-saved-the-righteous-and-left-you-sinners-to-die crowd?”

“Probably not. They found constructive ways to survive and thrive. They won’t be likely to be superstitious.”

“But they’re just as likely to be judgmental. They already showed us how elitist they are. Look at my brother. You and him’s the most practical guys I know yet they left you behind.”

She stormed off and Holden went after her. George sought out Rhea.

“You looked after me,” he told her, pulling her into a hug from behind. “I want you to know I appreciate it.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?” she said.

“Are you offering that threesome?”

“Sure. Fuck it, you only live once.”

“You don’t owe me a threesome.”

Jamie stared at them from a pile of wrappers by Rhea’s feet. “You guys are being gross. I’m going to your dad.”

“He’s your dad, too, bro.” George said.

Rhea smiled. “I was always glad to have you around. You’ll be a good dad. You and your sister have been looking after yours for the last ten years.”

“Someone else who was good to practice on, I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t have managed. I panic and made stupid decisions. You kept everything from falling apart.”

“And you should give yourself more credit.”

“I struggled to wire a lamp with the correct tools and a YouTube tutorial. You remodeled your kitchen with wood chips and epoxy.”

“And an axe, don’t forget the ax-are you kidding me? You can’t rewire a lamp?”

“No rubber gloves. I didn’t want to be electrocuted.”

“You can’t get electrocuted when it’s not plugged in.”

“How was I supposed to know? I was homeschooled by a bunch of monks. Y’know, not everyone can solve all their problems with a spanner and a screwdriver.”

George pulled away and reached into his toolbelt. The spanner was still there, glimmering in the gloom. He held it to his eyes and looked through the glass. A drone buzzed in through the window and watched him. After a while, when nothing happened, he put the spanner back, and the drone seemed almost disappointed and flew away.

“Right, no help from on high and no help from higher up,” he said. “We gotta do this ourselves.”

He grabbed the coiled line and dropped it through the front door. It unfurled to the southern anchor block of East Bridge, and George called for Bobert. He handed the end to his friend and told everyone but Holden and Grandma Bobert to loop it around their hands.

“It might get a little painful,” he said, “but it won’t last long.”

“You got another plan?” Holden said.

“I have a pla? It’s like mostly a plan, but not quite thought out.”

He then hoisted grandma Bobert on his back and made Holden tie her in place. They found curtains congealed to the wall, nothing a few hammerings from their fists couldn’t free, and wrapped her to him in an adult-sized baby sling. To her credit, the old woman didn’t resist and sat calmly, smiling out at the room.

“Did you take a valium or something?” he asked her over his shoulder.

“George,” Bobert said, “What are you doing with my grandma?”

“We need enough weight to keep her from blowing around like a balloon, and I weigh the most here,” he said, glancing at Zeke’s belly. “The most weight that’s self movable, at least.”

“You’re not taking my grandmother down there like that. Gran, get off him.”

“Sorry, bud. I’m taking a leaf out of Holden’s book and being an asshat.”

“I’m not an asshat! Why would you… Wendy, am I a asshat?”

George ignored his friend and focused on reassuring Bobert. “I tied the other end to you ‘cos you wouldn’t let anything happen to your grandma, now, would you?”

And with that, George hopped back. The line snapped taught and everyone holding it lurched forwards, towards the hole. Holden grabbed the line closest to it and worked against the wind to keep the two spinning or flapping around too much.

“I’m gonna kill him!” Bobert said. “I am literally gonna kill him!”

“Relax,” Holden said back, “he’s doing everything he can to make sure she’s okay.”

A third of the way down the cable, George felt his fingers slip. The wind was ice across his face, but his hands still sweated from the heat of friction. Grandma Bobert weighed almost nothing, allowing him to focus purely on controlling his slide down. Only when he reached the end did he realize they’d passed their landing point.

“Fuck!” he said. “Why didn’t you say we were running out of rope?”

Grandma Bobert pointed to the anchor block.

“Yeah, I know that’s where we’re supposed to be. Can you see any footing? Like now? I’m sliding here, and there’s only six inches of cable left.”

She pointed again and George twisted. There, barely two feet below the anchor block, was the first riveted girder of the bridge. It sloped down, not entirely vertical, but with enough half-ball metal protrusions to snag a footing on. George clung to the metalwork with his feet and dragged them both towards it. Grandma’s weightlessness didn’t seem so insignificant now, and she did nothing to aid him. Then George’s fingers slipped from the cable completely.

He fell down the open road of the bridge, a whole half meter before his leg, hooked into the superstructure, arrested his fall . His crotch took the brunt and his eyes bulged and he flailed for a handhold, grabbing a nook to swing himself upright on. Then, with painstaking effort, George crawled back up onto the stone block cupping his swollen balls. Grandma Bobert clapped.

Holden gave them a thumbs up and turned back to the others. “They’re both down now. See, Bobby? He got her there safely, without a hitch.”

Bobert’s eyes narrowed.

“Okay, Zeke?” Holden said. “You’re thd next heaviest, so you’re up to go down.”

“You don’t expect me to slide down that piece of string in all that, do you?” Zeke said, gesturing at the winds.

“Zeke,” Holden said, “we’ve almost got a hurricane out there and instead of a entire block of houses to land on, we’re aiming for that little block of stone. So you need to slide down there while your son holds onto it, and that’ll stop you being blown away like a paper airplane. Okay?”

“You’re a condescending cunt,” Zeke told him, “you know that?”

He grabbed the braided wires and leaned back through the door. Once again, they snapped taut and pulled everyone forward, but when he was down, they untied Bobert and sent him next, followed by Alfredo. Cazz and Laura went before Jamie.

“What about you, Mister Holden?” Jamie said. “Who’s going to lower you down?”

Holden eased Jamie out the door and held the line so it wouldn’t snap too hard in the kid’s fingers. “I have to lower myself down, kid. I’m heaviest after your daddy, so I go last. Might take a while so you all start climbing down that bridge as soon as you’re there.”

“You don’t want us to wait for you?”

“I have to find a way of securing this, and we wasted a lot of time resting and thinking about what to do. We got maybe an hour left, so get yourselves to that damn mountain.”

“But—”

“I can take care of myself and I can catch you up quicker on my own than if I have to wait for people. Go take care of your family.”

Jamie shut his mouth and nodded with a gulp. He then glanced down and let one hand slide. Then the other went, and he inched out the door and down to Zeke’s outstretched arms.

“Alrighty, everyone,” George said, as Jamie landed “let’s mosey.”

“Aren’t we forgetting someone?” Wendy said.

“Who?”

“Holden. Y’know, your best friend?”

“Mister Holden will catch us up,” Jamie said. “He said he’ll be faster on his own.”

“I’m staying to wait for him.”

George took his first step down. “Today’s the last day, right? How much time do we have left?”

She checked his phone. “It’s August the tenth. An hour and eleven minutes to go.”

“Then we need to go.”

“You go. Me and Holden will catch up with you.”

“No, we all go so we can find the entrance, then you can come back out and shout ‘Holden, sexy darling, this way.’”

Wendy scowled. “I’ll never call him that. He’s arrogant enough already.”

Bobert stepped between them and pinched both their mouths shut. “If you don’t mind, my grandmother happens to be strapped to your brother’s back in a giant diaper, so George, would you kindly get your ass moving?”

“Sorry,” George said, and turned to face Bobert’s grandmother, “and sorry, too, grandma.”

He swung sideways onto the exterior of the bridge and stretched out to grab the railings of the foot path, descending on the rungs its handrail bars had become. He looked down the mile length of bridge, then nodded to a drone filming them.

“Okay, I have a very calm, but somehow feels like a getting heavier senior lady strapped to my back,” he said, “so if anyone from that world records book is watching, my name is George Travers and this is officially the longest ladder in the world.”

Wendy climbed down after him and grabbed the drone to force a close up. “Why are you watching us? Go see if Holden’s safe.”

She let it go, but it stayed put, moving back just enough to stay out of reach. The next to descend past it was Jamie.

“Mister Zeke adopted me today,” he told it. “If you guys have a computer you can write that on, my name is now Jamie Travers. I’m going to be nine soon.”

Zeke followed him, muttering to himself. “Can’t believe it took the end of the world to get me sober again. How’s that going to sound on my grave?”

One by one, they climbed down the rungs of the guardrail. By the time they were halfway down, the balls of George’s feet were complaining about the extra weight happily enjoying the view from the sling on his back. He grimaced and counted the next hundred steps, taking two or three at a time when he could, and wondered if it was possible to slide down the outer handrail. Cazz snapped him out of his musings as she overtook them.

“Hey, you need refueling or something?” she said. “We’re out of the city now, y’know. Get outta the fast lane.”

She slipped past him before he could catch a breath to retort.

“Don’t worry about her,” Laura said, taking her place, “she’s just feeling a little rejected.”

“Rejected? Why?”

“’cos she changed into a short skirt and no panties before catching up to you, and you didn’t have the decency to enjoy the view.”

“I’m kind of running on fumes here. Why’d she do that?”

“To say thank you, dummy. You and Holden, you got us here, just like y’all promised. You know how many guys ever kept a promise to either of us? I can count ‘em all on one hand.”

George winced as the tendons in his feet pulled. “Tell you what. When we get to a solid surface again, I’ll get Holden, and we’ll give you and Cazz’s asses a round of applause. You’re our cheerleaders.”

Laura smirked. “Good, ‘cos without any razors the last couple of weeks, we grew pom-poms.”

“Same here.”

She sped up and left him to cope with his feet, and after a few more, his eyes slid back to grandma Bobert’s amused face.

“My girlfriend kept complaining about hair in her teeth.”

Grandma Bobert nodded sagely.

“Are you telling Granny about our sex life?” Rhea said, taking Laura’s place. “Is he? Because I can tell you a few stories this puta wouldn’t want you hearing.”

Grandma Bobert raised her eyebrows.

“She’s kidding,” George said, watching one drop in disappointment.

Rhea rolled her eyes. “Why is it you talk to complete strangers about our intimacies but you can never talk to me?”

“I dunno, it just seems weird talking to you. You matter. No offense, grandma.”

“Oh, so if someone matters to you, you don’t want to communicate with them.”

“Exactly! Thanks for getting it.”

“Tonto del culo, me cago en dios. El burro sabe más que tú. La mona aunque se vista de seda, mona se queda!”

“Wait, I know that one. Something about a god of donkeys and monkeys?” he turned to grandma Bobert. “I think she’s complimenting my climbing skills. And possibly the size of my manhood.”

Rhea paused her descent. “Eres tan patético, que resultas entrañable.” She said, then caught him up again.

“You should charge people for speaking that crazy talk of yours,” George said. “I bet you’ll make big bucks.”

“You are the weirdest man I ever met,” she said. “You and Holden. Why do I put up with you?”

“Because I’m strong and have sexy stubble. Also, I forgave you for fucking another man.”

Rhea slapped him. “Don’t be cruel. It doesn’t suit you. Are you going to bring that up every time we fight?”

“We’re fighting?”

“George, I need to know you love me.”

“You crazy broad, of course I love you. Who do you think I’m doing all this for?”

She nodded down. “Two pantyless cheerleaders with a fortnight’s worth of pompom growth?”

“Wait, you heard that? To be fair, only one of them’s gonna shake her pompom. It’d be rude not to watch after all this.”

“Y’know, most men these days are a little more sensitive the way they speak to women. Why can’t you be like that?”

“Probably because of my childhood,” he said. “Unlike everyone else, I never rebelled against conformity.”

Rhea laughed and kicked his shin, then leaned over to kiss him.

“Hey,” Cazz called up from below, “I think we might have a little problem here.”

They looked down to see the merciful end of their descent was only thirty seconds away. Cazz and Laura stood on the stairs, looking between the higher and lower tiers of the bridge. Rhea and George dropped off the rungs and joined them, and Rhea’s laugh faded.

“I should have known,” she said. “There was always going to be one final obstacle.”

“Fuck,” George said. “We didn’t think this through.”

The tunnel was a hole at their feet. It gaped, dropping down into the mountain. George stood at its entrance. The others joined them and stared into it, stared into the abyssal hole at their feet, and the vertical drop into bottomless darkness.

“Can we climb down the train tracks?” Cazz said.

They looked at the tracks. George deflated. “No, they’re submerged in melted stone.”

“What about waiting for gravity to come back?” Laura said. “Like we talked about. Then we could just run into the tunnel.”

“We need to be under the mountain itself before that,” Holden said, arriving behind them. “The roads and hills above here are barely a few meters thick.”

“Well whatever we decide to do,” Wendy said, showing them the phone, “There’s less than six minutes left on the countdown.”