Penelope Wright [Wright - Time Bomb

Shes going down the alley!

I dont spare time for a look over my shoulder. These cops arent on foot like last time. Im dealing with bike cops, and I wont stay ahead of them much longer.

I thought it was a good plan, going to the methadone clinic first. Clearly, Id been wrong. When I showed up at Seattle Needle Exchange, it was like theyd been waiting for me. Maybe they had been. This wasnt the first time wed hit them. And it wouldnt be the last.

I tug on the knot that holds my shield sack to my body. Its tight and the bags contents are secure. I try to push an extra burst of energy out of my legs. Its no use. Ill never make it to Columbia Tower before they catch me. My eyes dart around frantically and fall on Safeco Tower. Its farther downhill than Columbia, so Ill have to climb more flights of stairs before its safe to plunge. But thats fine by me. Bike cops will have to dismount to follow me. Nobody from 2006 is going to catch up to me on stairs.

I dash into the lobby of Safeco. Its seven oclock at night, but theres still a bunch of people around. I know this place almost as well as my own tower, though the lower floors arent accessible where Im from. I know exactly how to access the stairs from the ground floor, and I burst through the door and gallop up two steps at a time. A cop is right behind me, the door doesnt even close all the way before hes throwing his body against it, but Im already on the second floor.

I have to get to the twentieth floor before I plunge. Safecos only flooded up to the fifteenth floor, but if theres a storm, waves can send detritus as high as the nineteenth. I dont want to go home to the present, only to be knocked out by a rogue wave of junk. I hear the cops down below, out of breath, unable to keep up with me. I pull way ahead.

I allow myself a small smile when I reach the landing marked 18. The smile is wiped completely off my face when a stairwell door two stories above me smacks open with a hollow boom. Hold it right there. Youre under arrest, a mans voice shouts from above. Dammit! He must have taken an elevator to get ahead of me. I always forget about those.

Under arrest? Oh no Im not. I cant let them take me to the King County juvenile detention center. Dad flew me over it once in a helicopter. Its way too far from the Towers. Even if I could somehow swim the debris filled waters between juvie and Columbia Tower, the radiation would fry me.

I whip my helmet out of my vest pocket and Velcro it all the way around my jacket collar. I ratchet the two locks on either side of my collarbone. The guy above me stands on the landing of the nineteenth floor. What the hell are you doing? he asks in bewilderment.

I push the extra-long sleeves of my jacket up to my elbows. I unzip my left vest pocket and peel away the second skin to reveal my port-a-cath.

The cop takes slow, cat-like steps down the stairs, his hands held cautiously out in front of him. Just take it easy, he says. From below me, I can hear lumbering steps and the heavy panting of his partner.

I unzip my right pocket and pull out my hypodermic.

Nobody move, the cop above me shouts. The suspect has a weapon. His hand flies to his gun hip.

I flick the cap off the hypodermic needle. I dont have time for a proper countdown. Plunge. I thrust the needle into my port-a-cath and depress it. Withdraw. I slide it out. Drop. I open my hand and the spent hypodermic falls to the floor.

The officer throws himself at me, knocking me to the ground.

Slap. I flip the second skin back over my exposed port-a-cath, covering it up. Zip. I barely manage to zip the flap on my vest before the cop has wrestled my arms behind my back. He cant seem to find my wrists under the extra-long sleeves of my jacket.

It would be better if the cop wasnt here to witness this, but its not the end of the world.

Everybody knows thats not for another thirteen years.

Spots bloom in front of my eyes and grow big enough to burst into a shower of black glitter, and I slip into the void.