The way my left hand shakes is the worst part. It feels like a small, panicked bird is trying to claw its way out from under my skin. I keep it tucked in my pocket most of the time, but up here, eighty stories above the street, I need both hands to stay alive. I am up here because of Riley. My little girl has these medical bills that look like phone numbers, and I am the only one who knows how this tower was bolted together. I am also the only one who knows it is about to fall down.
I was a good soldier once. Then I was a good engineer. Now, I am just a man with a twitch and a wrench, standing in a room full of humming computers that hold every secret in the city. If these servers go dark, the whole grid goes with them. The power plants will pop like lightbulbs. And the man in the walls, a guy named Vince, is making sure that happens in exactly one hour.
The wind up here does not howl. It whispers. It sounds like a person standing right behind you, breathing on your neck. The building groaned, a deep, metal sound that started in the basement and vibrated up through my boots. I could feel the floor tilt. Just a few inches, but when you are this high up, a few inches feels like the world is ending.
I knelt down by the main support beam. My job was to bolt a heavy steel plate over a crack that was spreading like a spider web. My hand started jumping again. I grabbed my left wrist with my right hand, squeezing until my knuckles went white.
“Please,” I whispered. “Not now, Riley needs this.”
Then I heard it. A metallic scrape from the ceiling. *Scritch. Scritch.*
It was coming from the vents. Vince was in there. He was moving through the ductwork like a rat. I looked up, my eyes stinging from the dust. The vent cover was dark. I could not see him, but I knew he was watching me. He had been a ghost all night, cutting wires and loosening bolts. He was not just trying to blow the building. He was playing with it. He was playing with me.
I picked up the heavy bolt. My hand was a mess. It danced and jerked. I tried to line the bolt up with the hole in the plate, but the metal clattered against the beam. The sound echoed in the empty, cold room.
*Scritch. Scritch.*
The noise in the vent stopped. It was right above me now. I felt a sudden coldness in my chest. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard it hurt. I was trapped in a glass box in the sky with a killer, and my own body was betraying me.
“I know you’re there, Vince,” I said. My voice broke. I sounded small.
No one answered. The only sound was the wind and the slow, steady *creak* of the steel. The building leaned again. This time, a tile popped off the wall and shattered on the floor. The servers flickered. The master codes were stored in those machines. If the building fell, the codes were gone. The city would go dark. People in hospitals would die. People in elevators would fall.
I forced myself to look back at the bolt. I used my chin to pin my left arm against my chest. I used my right hand to guide the steel. I was sweating, even though it was forty degrees in the room. The salt ran into my eyes. I didn’t dare blink.
I felt a drop of something wet hit the back of my neck.
I thought it was a leak. I reached up and wiped it. It was thick and dark. It wasn’t water. It was oil from the vent.
I looked up. A pair of eyes reflected the dim blue light of the servers. Vince was staring at me through the slats of the vent. He wasn’t moving. He was just watching me struggle with the bolt. He wanted to see if I could do it before the whole floor snapped off. He wanted to watch the hope leave my face.
I felt a deep, soulful ache in my gut. I thought of Riley. I thought of her drawing pictures of us at the park. She didn’t know her dad was a broken man. She thought I was a hero.
The building gave a sickening lurch. A loud *bang* sounded from below us, like a gunshot. Another support had snapped. The floor was now at a sharp angle. I started to slide toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. My boots couldn’t find a grip on the smooth tile.
I grabbed the edge of a server rack. The metal was sharp and cut into my palms. I didn’t care. The pain helped me focus. It made the shaking stop for a second.
Vince kicked the vent cover open. He dropped down like a cat. He was wearing a grey jumpsuit, and he had a long, thin knife in his hand. He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a normal guy you would see at the grocery store. That made it scarier.
“It’s over, Miles,” he said. His voice was flat. “Let it go. The tower wants to sleep.”
“I can’t,” I said. I pulled myself back toward the beam.
He stepped toward me, his boots clicking on the tile. The building groaned again, a long, screaming sound of metal tearing. We both froze. The floor vibrated. I could feel the steel under us moaning, begging to give up.
Vince looked at my shaking hand. He smiled. It wasn’t a mean smile. It was a sad one. “You’re already dead, man. Your body knows it. Why are you fighting?”
“Because she’s waiting for me,” I said.
I lunged. I didn’t use the wrench. I used my weight. We hit the floor and slid together toward the glass wall. The city lights were a blur of yellow and white far below. We slammed into the glass. It groaned but didn’t break. Not yet.
Vince swung the knife. It sliced through my jacket and bit into my shoulder. I felt the heat of the blood immediately. It was a strange, sharp sting. I didn’t let go. I wrapped my shaking arms around him and squeezed. I buried my face in his chest and pushed with everything I had.
We were sliding. The whole floor was tipping. The server racks began to tip over, crashing into each other like giant dominoes. The blue lights turned to red. A siren started to wail somewhere deep in the gut of the building.
Ninety floors of air were waiting for us.
I saw the bolt I had dropped. It was rolling toward the edge. If I didn’t fix that plate, the main spine of the tower would snap.
I let go of Vince. He scrambled back, looking surprised. He thought I was going to keep fighting him. Instead, I crawled. I crawled on my hands and knees up the slanted floor, back toward the beam. My shoulder was screaming. My left hand was jumping so hard it was hitting the floor.
“What are you doing?” Vince yelled. He sounded confused. He stayed by the window, watching the chaos.
I reached the beam. I grabbed the bolt. I jammed it into the hole. I didn’t use a tool. I used my bare fingers. I twisted it, ignoring the way the metal tore at my skin. I turned it until it caught. I turned it until my fingernails cracked.
The building shuddered. A huge, heavy weight seemed to settle. The groaning stopped for a moment. I had bought us some time. Maybe a few minutes. Maybe an hour.
I turned around. Vince was gone. The vent was empty. The room was silent except for the red sirens and the wind.
I sat there on the cold floor, leaning against the steel beam. I looked at my hand. It wasn’t shaking anymore. It was too tired to shake. It was just covered in grease and blood.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. The screen was cracked. I looked at the picture of Riley. She was smiling, holding a dandelion.
I don’t know if the city stayed bright that night. I don’t know if the servers kept their secrets. All I remember is the feeling of the wind through the broken windows and the way the stars looked so close I could almost touch them. I just sat there in the dark, listening to the building breathe, wondering if the next breath would be its last. I stayed there until the sun came up, cold and grey, over a city that didn’t know how close it came to disappearing.
Every time I see a tall building now, my chest goes tight. I look at the top floors and I think about the man in the vents. I think about the sound of snapping steel. And then I look at my hand. It still shakes. It always will. But now I know that even a shaking hand can hold the world together for a little while.