Content warning:

Self-harm, suicide, blood, bodily harm

The Rampart Hotel towered into the sky. It was hard to believe the building was once considered the flagship symbol for a new boom in southeast tourism—a boom that lasted as long as these things usually do. Now it was a distastefully modern thing with a square, flat roof somewhere in the grey clouds and a car park that was mostly empty. As Penrick made his way into the lobby and ordered an old fashioned, he wondered if the flagging status of the hotel was the reason it had begun hosting the jumping competition in the first place.

He settled into a plush green armchair and finished his drink. There were several other jumpers in the lobby, gathered near the bar or sitting near the electric fireplace. People often thought that jumpers were plain schizo; nervous wretches drenched in sweat with pinched-red faces and mumbling every word. The truth was naturally the opposite: the lobby possessed the calm serenity of a middle-class cocktail party. People laughing, trading photos of children, of dogs, of memories.

He checked his watch. It was four in the afternoon. The jump had been scheduled to start ten minutes ago, but nobody had come to collect them. Penrick ordered another old fashioned with the roasted cherry on top and relaxed into his chair. There was no rush, he thought. It would take as long as it took.

A woman detached herself from two men at the bar and made her way over to the seat opposite Penrick. She had a slim build, couldn’t be older than thirty, Penrick thought, which was a pretty good age for a jumper. Her strawberry-blonde hair framed her face nicely, and she wore a nose ring as black as an eclipse; that would have to come off before the jump. No jewelry allowed. That was one of the rules—out of respect for whoever cleaned up, more than anything else.

“Mind if I sit?” she asked, touching her face as she spoke. “I’m Abi.”

“Milton Penrick.” He gestured to the seat opposite. “I just ordered another round. If I get their attention, can I get you something?”

She shook her head. “I prefer to be mentally aware when we jump. Not to mention, my husband gets touchy when other men buy me drinks. He’s over there.” She nodded to a tall, distinctly Greek-looking man with an olive complexion and hair like it had been slicked back with vinaigrette.

In all his years of jumping, Penrick had never come across a couple. Jumping was a lonely sport, though there had been times when jumpers paired off to sleep together the night before a big jump. Penrick had engaged in his share of pre-jump sex, but last night he went to bed alone. He needed the privacy to write an email to his parents.

“I don’t see what it matters,” Penrick replied, “if you’re mentally ready or not, considering the sort of jump we’re here for.” You do realize what you’ve signed up for, don’t you?

The waitress returned with the old fashioned. “It’s just the way I like to be,” Abi said. “I take it you’ve been jumping a lot?” She touched her face again as she spoke. Penrick wondered if she was nervous after all.

“I’ve been around the block,” Penrick replied. That was the truth. His fascination with jumping began when he was four years old, when his mother would create obstacle courses for him in the garden—an obsessive distraction she needed to avoid returning to cigarettes—which usually involved vaulting over towers made of household objects.

To his recollection that was the first time he’d experienced “the thrill of the jump.” That feeling, as though your heart were jumping into your throat; the whistle in your ears. It was the closest you could come to flying, and if you could fly, why would you ever land?

From there it had progressed naturally. He jumped the triple at the school sports day, took up parkour on the weekends. At nineteen, he went to Thailand to try bungee jumping, then a year later he flew to New Zealand to skydive. That one had been badass—the whistle in your ears felt like it might never end.

It wasn’t until his early twenties that he became dedicated to the hobby. By then he had a job in telemarketing, which brought in the money he needed to get to the conventions and competitions. He read the professional rulebooks when he could find them, signed up to Sky-High, his local chapter of jumpers, and met the community. Mostly nice people for the short time you knew them. His last friend, Jimmy Barentine, though everyone called him Jimmy Neutron for that God-awful hair-do, had jumped the Golden Gate Bridge. In his final voicenote, Jimmy spoke only of his unbridled excitement to taste the thrill again. Penrick had no idea what that must’ve felt like. He imagined Jimmy soaring through the air, feeling as though he might smash through the water, through the planet itself and come out the other side. The air in your ears like a steaming kettlepot.

“I can tell,” Abi said, bringing Penrick out of his reverie. “You’ve got that calmness about you. I’ve been around for a while. So has my husband. We jumped off a cathedral a few years ago. Shattered both my legs. Couldn’t walk for months.” She smiled a broad smile. “It was fucking awesome.”

Penrick wondered what chapter Abi and her husband were from. The Rampart Hotel Jump was open to all chapters, though as he scanned the lobby Penrick didn’t see any familiar faces. “Yeah, I’ve been there too. Broke my back once. That was killer. Would do it all over again if I could. The thrill is, well, it’s—”

“Orgasmic,” Abi said, and then touched her face. “Sorry. Shouldn’t blurt out. Mental note made.”

Penrick drained his glass until his cheeks felt warm “You’re right. That’s exactly what it’s like. I’ve jumped off buildings before, big ones too, though not as big as this one. Ended up in hospital each time. I’m in absolute agony, you know, but each time I wake up with all those tubes in my nose and those drips in my arms, I can’t help but think about how much I’ve creamed my pants.”

Abi snorted. She called her husband over with the wave of a hand and introduced him as Jason. He shook Penrick’s hand firmly and then sat down in one of the spare chairs. He was nursing a Manhattan. This pleased Penrick, who didn’t want to be the only one drinking.

“You guys know what is taking so long, hum?” Jason asked, his voice thick with a Mediterranean accent. Penrick found his habit of adding hum? onto the end of every sentence endearing.

“Fucked if I know,” Penrick replied. He checked his watch again, now inching closer to half-past four. “I’ll be mad if they call it off,” he said, recalling a time he’d flown to Paris for an expensive VIP spot to jump off Notre Dame, only to have the jump cancelled last minute due to a weather warning.

Jason coughed up a laugh and wiped a droplet of sweat from his forehead. It was a cool day in September and the lobby had the air-con on full blast. Penrick hoicked an eyebrow and thought, are you actually both virgins? Then Jason said, “I do not know how to feel about a final jump, hum?” He looked directly at Penrick, as if sensing his suspicion.

“There’s no greater pleasure in the world,” Penrick replied with ease. “It’s the highest a jumper can strive for. It’s the pinnacle of the art form. Imagine the feeling of the thrill. Now imagine how good it’ll feel knowing it’s the last thing you’ll ever experience.” He sipped his drink and felt butterflies in his stomach. “Most people die against their will. Most people die horribly and without pleasure. We’re lucky, we get to make a choice.”

As he spoke, he felt a strange quiver of sadness. For most of his life, he had dreamed of performing a final jump, and now that he was here, he found himself glumly wishing there was something more to strive toward. This couldn’t really be the end, could it? If there was any trepidation in his voice, however, Jason didn’t hear it. The man smiled weakly and took stiff sips from his drink.

The hotel manager, a squat man with Brett embossed on a nametag, appeared in the lobby a short while later and approached each of the jumpers with hesitation. Penrick called him over. “Is there any reason for the hold up? I was hoping to be jumping by now. Are we still waiting for the cleaning crews?”

Brett spoke in a terrified whisper. He sounded, Penrick thought, like some first-timers before their maiden experience. “Yes, yes, you’ll all be jumping shortly, God rest your souls. We are just waiting on a jumper who signed up this morning.” He made the sign of the cross and pocketed his shaking hands. “Between you and me, I’d like to get this all over and done with before the authorities get wind of it all. But each of you has paid so much money.” He made another cross. “Yes, yes, your community is going to keep me afloat, to say the least. What an irony.”

“We’ll be out of your hair soon enough,” Abi said.

Just then, the front door burst open and in barged a tall man with shaggy hair, dressed in a faded red jumpsuit and military boots with steel toecaps. Those would have to come off, too. Penrick sighed. Whoever the man was, it was obvious he hadn’t jumped before; an amateur was the last thing they needed.

“Ah,” Brett wheezed. “Mr. Kerrick?”

“Otto,” the man hollered as he breezed into the now-silent lobby, surveying each of the jumpers with bulbous, erratic eyes. Penrick wondered if the man was on stimulants. Adderall, perhaps. Otto coughed up a glob of spit on the floor and clapped his hands. “Well, you’re all much more boring than I expected.”

“Jesus Christ,” Penrick whispered. Abi and Jason looked back at him with unemotional eyes.

Otto clambered onto the edge of the bar, made the sign of devil horns like a guitarist at a metal show and then leapt onto the floor. The sound of boots on carpet was like the closing of a coffin lid. “WAHOO, YEAH! I’M HERE TO FLY! AIN’T THAT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT?” The man’s wild eyes connected with the hotel manager. “Come on, you boring fuck. Show me where I get off.”

Penrick could feel his blood boil. He thought of Jimmy Neutron again; it was jumpers like this Otto punk that soiled the name of the jumping community. How many jumpers had died just for bozos with extra money to show up and ruin the art? There ought to be a new rule written in the code: first timers shouldn’t be allowed to sign up for final jumps. If he had more time, he might’ve added it himself.

Not even the air-con seemed to stop the torrent of sweat pouring down Brett’s face. The man looked like a melting candlestick. “Oh, Hail Mary, gather all your things,” he quivered. “I will lead you . . . and explain the rules.” He mopped his head with a monogrammed handkerchief and unlocked the fire stairwell.

“If he’s so ready to go, let the newbie jump first,” Penrick said. Abi touched her face but didn’t say anything. There was fear in her eyes now. This was always the problem with first-time jumpers. They got into everyone’s heads. It’ll be no surprise if you’re the only one who jumps today, Penrick thought.

There were ten jumpers in total, all from different chapters across the country. Not a bad turnout, though Penrick imagined most jumpers were at Jump-Fest for the weekend. He would’ve gone with the rest of Sky-High, but Jump-Fest explicitly ruled out final jumps and where was the fun in that? He followed Brett up twenty flights of sunless, gym-smelling stairs. Some jumpers chatted nervously to each other, while others preferred to make the ascent in silence. Penrick fell into the latter category for a blissful few seconds.

“You ready, man? You really ready to go splat?” Otto said as he fell in line with Penrick. He stank of urine, booze and sweat. Penrick wondered if the idiot had pissed his pants before or after entering the hotel.

“Why are you here?” Penrick asked.

“What kind of question’s that?” Otto punched him in the arm. “Dumb question, man. I’m here to fucking . . . to look at the birds, man. Aha, a-yup, that’s what I’m doing.” He socked Penrick’s arm again. “I’m here to jump man, just like you, ey? I’m here to go speeeelat.”

Brett unlocked a heavy fire door and they emptied out onto the asphalt square of the hotel rooftop, where a cube-shaped generator hummed a nervous rhythm in one corner. Brett shut the door behind them and picked up an orange bucket. The man’s hands were shaking so much it was a miracle the bucket didn’t jump first.

“And how many jumps have you done, huh?” Penrick asked, holding his breath to avoid the miserable smell. “How many times have you gone splat?”

Otto’s lips peeled back to reveal rows of tombstone-yellow teeth. “Oh, this is the first and last. But I’ve done things you couldn’t do, man. Way worse things.” For the first time, Otto seemed to look around and consider his surroundings. They were so high up that the world below became 2D, the distant town of Totem looking flat and pixelated. Penrick waited for him to break, maybe piss himself all over again, but Otto took it all in and turned back to Penrick. “Jumping is a piece of piss.”

Brett shook the bucket. “Each of you should discard any jewelry, any phones and any . . .” his voice was momentarily lost in the wind, “. . . and um, anything that might not break on the impact. This includes heavy-duty shoes and um . . . prosthetics.”

Further up the line, a woman removed a prosthetic leg from her trainer. She hopped on one foot to maintain balance. Penrick wondered if she’d lost the limb on a previous jump. It happened, sometimes.

“Your items will be discarded along the lines of your communal book of ethics,” the manager said. “Phones will be wiped and put out for disposal. Mementos and photos should include your jumping society nickname so that they can be anonymously forwarded to the next-of-kin address listed on your application form.”

Penrick removed his watch and emptied his pockets of coins. There was a Facebook message on his phone from his mother that read: “Don’t jump.” He killed the phone and waited to toss the items in the bucket. “Let’s just see how far you make it before nerves set in,” Penrick said. “There’s no shame in backing out during the grace period. Some people just aren’t ready.”

Otto smiled and leaned in close. “Oh, I’m more than ready to die, man. For me, this is the perfect escape. That’s why I signed on to your little jump. By the time the cops find me, I’ll be down the drain and mixed in with all the sewage. Ain’t that how your cleaning crews work, ey?”

Penrick felt his heart skip a beat. He’d always prided himself on his fortitude and had been called the “Stoic Jumper” at more than one competition, but right then he wanted to grab the long-haired man by the neck of his stupid jumpsuit and hurl him over the edge.

“You brought the cops?”

“You an idiot or sumfing?” Otto replied. His breath was a swamp mist. “I didn’t bring them. They’re looking for me, fuckwad, there’s a difference.”

Farther up the line, items clattered into the orange bucket. Rattle-rattle. In went bracelets and rings.

Otto tilted a tattered photograph into the waning sunlight and brushed a thumb over the face of a frail woman with a scrollwork of grey hair. “This is my mother. Looks nice, don’t she? Real cookies-and-pie sweetheart.”

In went coins and tokens, talismans and necklaces.

“She pushes me sometimes,” Otto said, brushing her cheek again. “And I ain’t like to be fucking pushed. Not one bit. I’m a grown man. I figure one day she’ll push me too far.”

In went phones and watches.

“And that’s just what she did this morning when she found out I lost my job at the appliance shop. I tell her I didn’t lose it, no, sir. I just fucking . . . I got done out by the bigwigs. They conspired against me, the manager and the old bitches that work the tills. They said I’m mean to customers. I say, me . . . mean? Never.”

In went piercings, earrings, and hairclips.

“So, I try to tell her. I try to say, hey, look, Ma! I ain’t done nuffing wrong. Not a single thing. Oh, but she gets a bee in her bonnet, and she starts on about how much better her life would’ve been if Pa had just pulled out and sprayed me over her stomach, and maybe if she’d gotten an abortion then Pa wouldn’t have gone out for a pack of Benson & Hedges twenty years ago. That’s pushing it too far, man. That requires punishment, she knows that. So, I take the knife, the Ginsu one she uses for carving Sunday roast and I shish-kebabed her, bent her out of shape. Real bad.” He spat on the ground. “Guess I got carried away. I figure if I don’t jump now, I’ll do it real soon. Why wait?”

The orange bucket stopped in front of them. Penrick and Otto dropped their valuables into the mix. Brett looked down at the floor. Penrick followed his gaze to Otto’s combat boots, still laced around his feet. “Those will have to come off, too,” the manager said meekly.

Otto shook his head. “No, sir. I’m wearing these boots for a reason.”

Penrick tuned them out. In all his years of jumping, he had never once encountered a criminal. Most jumpers were like him—reserved, quiet and dealing with the weight of the world in the best way they knew how: by escaping it, by becoming weightless. Only now did he feel like his hobby had been dirtied, and Penrick wondered how he hadn’t come across a criminal at an event before. Because this is a final jump, he answered himself. And who needs a final jump more than a criminal on the run?

“That’s all very good,” Brett said, “but your own rules stipulate that you must remove shoes reinforced with steel caps. Didn’t you read the rules of your society?”

The manager yelped as Otto grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. “Look, you posey fuckwad,” Otto pursed his quivering lips, a volley of new insults threatening to spill forth, but then he smiled and let out a bloodcurdling laugh. “I like feeling tall, okay, chief? I’m keeping the boots on, and if you ask me to remove them again, I’m throwing you over first, got it?”

Brett gulped and nodded. Penrick’s heart beat wildly in his chest. This is all wrong, he thought. This is all so wrong. Farther up the line, people were trading nervous glances with one another. The hotel manager read out the terms and conditions from a clipboard and then came the grace period. For the next ten minutes, anyone was free to collect their things from the bucket and go home. No judgment. That was the way it was written in the jumper’s code of ethics.

Three people broke away from the line during the grace period. They gathered their things and hurried down the stairs, their sobbing breaths echoing behind them. Penrick kept deathly still. Any minute now, he thought. The sirens will start any minute now.

“Do they know you’re here?” Penrick asked. “The cops, I mean.”

“If they don’t, it won’t take them long to figure out,” Otto replied. “And that’s on you and your society’s paperwork and emails. How many hurdles does a guy gotta jump through just to fall off a building?”

Shitshitshitshit. Penrick surveyed the line. Nobody else wavered. Abi and Jason were there, the latter wiping his brow, as was the woman with one leg. Those ten minutes tolled on for a lifetime. When the grace period finally ended, the hotel manager explained the rules:

“You will each volunteer to jump,” Brett said. “You will fall for roughly five seconds and then you’ll hit the pavement. There is a, um, cleaning crew below to hose you off. Everyone step forward two feet to look.”

They peered over the edge. Two men, as small as insects, waited below. They wore white hazmats and held high-pressure hoses. Landing sites for every jump—especially final jumps—were positioned near drains. A small blue van was parked nearby; the vans didn’t have official names, but Penrick had heard them referred to as corpse-vans. Any bits that couldn’t get flushed down the drain got scraped up and loaded into the van. Where they went after that was a mystery.

“Once the jump is over, your society will anonymously inform your relatives and loved ones.” The manager made another sign of the cross and then wiped two slug-trails of water from his cheeks. “Mother of Christ. Who wants to jump first?”

Everyone stiffened. Something about being the first splat of red on the pavement was very intimidating. You had to wait for things to get in motion, had to wait for things to get warmed up.

The one-legged woman was the first to go. She hopped toward the edge of the hotel and closed her eyes. The breeze played around her hair in a moment of pre-death serenity before Otto jumped on the spot and yelled, “LET’S HEAR YOU SPLATTER, BITCH!”

The woman’s eyes snapped open and for the first time she seemed to consider the horror of her situation. Her face creased up in terror.

Not supposed to be like this, Penrick thought, wiping sweat from his forehead. He no longer felt the cool September wind. Not supposed to be this clumsy. Where was the finesse, where was the artistry?

The woman shook her head and regained composure. Her eyes rolled shut as she returned to that trance-like state. She breathed out, her chest moving like a piston, and then jumped. She whistled for four seconds, and then there was a thunk! that sounded oddly metallic. The hoses snapped on, making a quiet rain on the pavement below.

“Heavens above!” Brett cried. He made a sign of the cross again and sank to his knees, eyes streaming. “Sick! All of you! Sick sons of bitches!” The words devolved into a discordant babble as he cradled his face and muttered something about how all the money in the world wasn’t worth this.

The jumps continued. Each of them offset by Otto’s depraved wailing. Penrick found himself torn in two: he wanted to jump, but another part of him wanted to wait until Otto went over. He wanted to hear the asshole hit the pavement. His heart ticked like a metronome as he listened, listened, listened for the screaming of police sirens.

Whistle . . . whistle

Thunk!

Whistle . . . whistle

Thunk!

At some point, Otto said, “Since you’re such a fuckin’ expert, how important is the landing?”

Penrick laughed nervously. “Landing? It’s a final jump. You’re not getting out of it alive.” By now there were five jumpers left. Abi and Jason hadn’t jumped yet, neither had an old man dressed in a tweed jacket.

“I know that, fuckwad,” Otto spat. “But I’m talking about landing, the way your body hits the ground, the way you . . . you look. Know what I heard once? There’s this dude, this black fella who jumped off The Empire State Building. When he hits the ground, his insides probably look like a tin of Heinz beans, but he’s still in one piece. He’s still standing. Like a statue. Two feet on the ground. I call that a perfect landing.”

He licked his lips as the old man took two steps up to the edge of the hotel, spread his arms like a bird and kicked off from the rooftop as though he were taking flight. He made a sound like a broken antique when he hit the pavement. The cleaning crew radioed the quivering manager to request a pause. It took a while to scrape the old man into the van.

“That’s what I want,” Otto said. “When the cops come, I wanna be standing on my tippy-toes with my middle finger yanked right the fuck up. That’s why I’m wearing my boots. The fella I just told you about, he was wearing his boots. I want to be the image that haunts those bastards.” He flipped the bird and said, “whaddya think?”

“I think the story about that guy falling is bullshit,” Penrick said. “Nobody takes landing into consideration in these jumps. It’s the jump that’s the art. The highest art.”

“I guess we’ll see,” Otto said. The devilish smile never left his lips.

When the cleaning crew gave the all clear, Abi put herself forward. “Except I want to jump with Jason,” she said to the hotel manager. Brett whimpered and said, “Whatever gets this over with.”

There was a strained look on Abi’s face as she walked forward in her faded Christmas socks. No nose ring now. “Right to the edge,” she said, leading Jason up to the thin border that separated life from death. She lifted her face to Jason, but he took two steps backwards before their lips could touch.

“No,” he said, without any detectable hum? “No, I won’t do it. Fuck this.”

Abi looked at her husband. “Jason.”

The man shook his head again. “Fuck this. I’m twenty-eight. I have a life to live, Abi. Before was fine, but this is too far. I don’t want the thrill this much.” He bowed his head. “This isn’t worth it. None of this is worth it.”

Abi sounded like a burst dam. “I wanted to share the thrill with you. Do you want me to jump on my own?” Her legs wobbled beneath her. “You’re breaking my heart.”

Jason shook his head vehemently, like an angered bull in a bullfight. “Abi . . . I want a life. I want a house. I want kids. I want a future. That’s the thrill for me. That’s the—”

“You don’t love me?”

Jason wiped his eyes. “You know I do. And if you loved me, you’d step away from the fucking edge, Abigail.”

Abi looked out at the drop, her toes twitching as though she might genuinely be about to jump, and then sighed. She took one step away from the edge. Brett called out, “No refunds! I can’t give any refunds!” And then the manager’s eyes widened. She never made it to the second step. Otto was there first. He placed his palm against Abi’s chest and gave a forceful push that choked the air out of her windpipe. She went over backwards, ungraceful, and hit the pavement four seconds later.

“WHOOOOOOOOOO! FUCKING ACE, MAN!” screamed Otto, beating his chest at Jason, who stood gobsmacked and vacant. “I FEEL SO ALIVE! DON’T YOU FEEL SO FUCKING—”

Jason tackled Otto around the waist, bringing him down to the asphalt and pinning him beneath a knee. Otto struggled, but Jason kept him still and began throwing his fists into the wild man’s face with the force of a bolt-action rifle. The impact made a gross, fleshy sound: a thwack thwack thwack. Otto spat out teeth like a ticket machine at the arcades.

“SHE WAS BACKING AWAY!” Jason sobbed.

Penrick felt his stoicism tested. On one hand, Otto had broken the code. The first rule of the code stated that nobody should interfere with another jump-in-progress. But on the other hand, Jason had tried to back out after the grace period; and while there was no rule against it, cowardice was anathema to the community and usually ended with the swift termination of the coward’s membership. Penrick doubted, however, that either of them cared much about code and etiquette just then.

Any minute, the cops will arrive. Any minute . . .

Otto yanked on Jason’s head and forced his remaining teeth around an ear. A thin arc of blood spurted between the two as he clamped down. Jason screamed in agony and leapt away, feet spraying grit from the asphalt as he stumbled backwards. Otto wasted no time in pushing himself up and propelling a knee into Jason’s abdomen. Jason tumbled to the ground, still clutching at the tattered flesh of his lobe.

“TIME TO GO SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEELAAAAAAAAAAT.” Otto dug his knuckles into the fabric of Jason’s shirt and dragged the man over the edge. Penrick felt his heart drop when Otto let go. The hoses snapped on several seconds later.

Penrick raised his fists, but Otto simply laughed at him as he bounced up and down in defiance. A basketball of vomit mimicked the movement at the back of Penrick’s throat. They were the final two. “Who’s next?” Penrick’s voice was shaky.

The world shook with the thunder of sirens. They turned in unison toward the stream of red-and-blue lights heading toward the hotel. The cleaning crew radioed the hotel manager, but Brett was too far gone to hear it; he was sobbing against the generator and continually working his hands into the sign of the cross. Penrick wondered if the man had gone insane. The radio crackled from the floor: “END THE JUMP! END THE JUMP NOW!” Penrick peered over the edge and saw the corpse van speeding away. There was a gross splatter of ketchup at the bottom of the building.

When he turned back, Otto was already preparing to jump. “I guess that solves it, huh? Now it’s my turn. And you know what? I don’t feel . . . anything. Ain’t that a nice way to be?” His smile was a bloody scythe.

Penrick found himself returning the smile. “Enjoy the thrill.”

Otto screamed, “GERONIMO!” and leapt into the air. The scream followed him down, whistled with him, until he crumpled far below. Like a Coke can, Penrick thought, and suddenly couldn’t bring himself to look over the edge. He crumpled like a damn Coke can. To look over the edge was to forfeit the whole jump. To look over the edge was to bawl and vomit and call for Mummy.

Sirens whooped outside the lobby. Penrick heard the hustle of policemen tearing through the building. He took a deep breath and walked until his toes balanced on thin air. He thought of Jimmy Neutron; he thought of all the jumps he’d undertaken. All of them leading to this. One final jump, a thrill that would last for eternity.

He could already hear the whistle in his ears. He closed his eyes and jumped.

The gravity of the pavement pulled him down, but Penrick never fell. A multitude of hands branched out from behind his shoulders, tugging at the roots of his hair and the neck of his t-shirt. His eyes snapped open and Penrick found himself flying, suspended above the vast spread of the world, heart fluttering wildly in his chest, before he was hauled back onto the rooftop, ass burning against his cargoes. A wellspring of emotion broke inside him as he looked up into the concerned faces of a dozen policemen. He cried for the first time since he started jumping. The faces became blurs.

They dragged him through the lobby and into a police car. Brett went into another, still bawling and working his hands into signs of the cross. Penrick immediately thought of Rule Forty-Five in the code: never give up the sport to the police, but what did the code matter anymore? The driver grunted like he was trying to avoid seeing his lunch for a second time and said, “We’re going to have to drive past the jump-site. You might want to close your eyes.”

Penrick kept them open the whole time. He pressed his face against the cool glass of the window and saw the sprayed-red walls and the blood spilling into the drain, and in the centre of it all he saw Otto Kerrick, standing upright, the middle finger of his right hand raised at the passing police car. His eyes were burst bags trailing from empty sockets and his mouth was a bloody cave; the shoulder blades ran parallel with the top of the neck, and the legs bowed outward like frog’s legs. It was like someone had squeezed him around the middle. Like a Coke can, Penrick thought.

It was the perfect landing. Penrick had never seen anything like it. Jumpers had never taken landing into account, but standing right there was what jumping was all about; there was the expression, there was the artistry, there was a whole new level of thrill. Next time, he thought. His heart hammered with excitement. He could hardly wait.