Flying. I was flying.
Wind combed my hair. I constantly measured and recalculated my parabolic angles, not daring to look down. My eyes remained on my landing target. An empty stone plaza below and a little distance away from The Edge that had once been used as a look out where couples used to meet before the shopping centre had been built. Nobody went there anymore. It was a deserted bit of open ground.
From my estimation, I was going to make it. Definitely going to make it.
Success. My first long leaping flight. It was going to be a success. A success that I wasn't going to dare to tell anyone about. They'd think I was crazy and had gone mad.
I landed with a few rolls to break my fall. When I stood back up and looked back across the huge expanse that I had just leaped across, I was shaken with a sudden horrific fear. What if I hadn't made it? A fall into water from this height would result in broken bones.
A tiny, black, distant figure stood on the edge of the veranda. I squinted to see if I could catch any more details but he was too far away. He looked at me and I stared back at him until his figure turned and disappeared.
Calming my racing heart and taking a moment to let my shaking legs steady, I checked my look in a window and arranged my hair to cover the grazes on my face. I did my best to wipe away the blood on my face with the moist hanky Big Brother had lent me. No need to let people stare anymore than they already would when my clothes were splattered with blood. I felt a bit sore and bruised after the fight but nothing serious. My ears were still ringing and vision slightly blurry. I probably had a concussion from the lightheadedness, nausea and tiresome headache.
I also felt abnormally hot, but that could just be the adrenaline talking.
At least I had escaped. Otherwise who knew what might have happened to me? He'd definitely wanted to do more than bash my head into the floorboards.
Through the shopping centre, I hurried as fast as I could without running. Why were there so many floors in this place? The fastest route to Headquarters and Mr Holt's personal office required me to take a lift to the fifth floor, and then walk halfway across the shopping centre to take a staircase to the office lifts. From the first office floor, I had to cross the remaining five hundred metres to the hidden elevators that would take me the rest of the way into the Headquarters lobby.
I ignored the stares and pointing fingers as I walked through. Security guards stared at me from corners with upraised eyebrows, talking into their walkie talkies.
I should have aimed for the open car park on this end of the shopping centre, so that I wouldn't have to walk so far. Or walked around the outside of the shopping centre to get to HQ's direct access entrance hidden in the service corridors.
In the lobby of Headquarters, Pollyanna, the Chief Admin Officer, looked at me in surprise from where she was manning the reception desk. Obviously, I wasn't expected.
"Is Mr Holt in?" I asked her, not caring about how I must look.
"Howie - he just got a call. Your team is meant to assemble back in your own office. Didn't you receive the message on your phone? He's already left. Are you ok? You're covered in blood."
"Not my blood. My phone got stolen," I leaned over to whisper, wiping the sweat from my face. The other receptionists didn't need to hear. "Please send him a message and tell the relevant people to track the phone while locking its features. It might be with the murderer we were trying to track."
"I'll get right on it," Pollyanna nodded, gesturing at the drinking drum by the side. "You'd better hurry to your own office. Grab a drink of water before you go."
"Thanks," I gulped down a cup of cold water and tossed the paper cup into the bin. Then I took the fire exit for the nearest exit to leave The Edge.
Not wanting to expose myself and my improved leaping abilities any more than I had to, I ran to my team's office building. It was at least twenty blocks away. A fair distance from Headquarters. I'd probably feel sick by the time I got there with this concussion. As I ran, I dodged and darted between other slower pedestrians, hopping impatiently at red pedestrian crossings while I waited my turn to cross the street. I heard quite a few people exclaim at all the blood on me.
At one intersection, a car ran a red light and got flashed. The little green pedestrian man was singing his walking jingle and I had run across the road the moment I had seen the lights change. I heard the sound of a shocked yell and scream somewhere behind me.
Briefly, I caught a glimpse of the oncoming car in a silver flash and realised that my momentum was too great to stop or avoid the car. The driver was also stunned and swerved but no matter how he swerved, he was still going to hit me unless a miracle happened.
I did the only thing I could. I took a big leap forwards and felt a corner of the car scrape past my side, knocking me to the ground. There was the smell of burning tyres and the sound of screeching brakes.
I was stunned, but only for a moment. I jumped back up and continued running. The car paused and then resumed its course, not bothering to stop and see if I was alright after the driver had seen me get back up to run.
On the other side of the road, I examined the scratch on my side and torn clothes with a grimace. Some pedestrians asked if I was alright and scolded the irresponsible driver. One old lady scolded me for darting onto the road without looking either. With all the blood on me, they thought I was seriously injured and tried to make me wait for an ambulance. Extricating myself from their superficial concern, I took to my heels again, and the witnesses, seeing I didn't seem badly hurt, let me go.
The scratch in my side didn't hurt and I didn't bother to look at it properly. It couldn't have been a bad injury. I'd abraded some skin when I fell as well, but all that were just skin injuries. They weren't important.
Unless the lack of pain was just the adrenaline talking. In any case, it was more important to get to the office and report to Mr Holt what had happened. If I remembered what I was meant to tell him when I got there. It was a long distance. I was running out of stamina after the eventful morning, I had a concussion that was making my head throb and swim. Swim with enough giddiness that I was starting to find it hard to see straight.