Look and Leap [1 of 2]

In the early years of the twentieth century, Great Britain suffered heavily from dramatically rising sea levels. At first, the population shifted to higher ground, but as it became clear that this as a resource was becoming increasingly scarce, the rich and powerful of the land made a more drastic move to save themselves and the institutions they loved. In what became known as the Rising, they constructed – or rather, paid for the construction of – huge airships and flying machines, with which they suspended their new homes in the air above the old ones.

Among those institutions saved from the floods was the University of Oxford. Each of its twenty-five constituent colleges, and each of its academic departments, was raised in its own airborne construction, every one a uniquely eccentric conglomeration of irregular cabins, zeppelin balloons and propellers. They were tethered, for the most part, to a single docking post above Carfax Tower in the city centre, and there they remained, despite their theoretical mobility.

•  •  •

She was falling.

The air rushed past her face, tugged at her clothes, pulled her hair backwards.

The dark surface came rushing up to meet her.

She slammed into it, tumbled into a roll. She skidded to a halt and rolled out to land on her back, laughing up at the great balloon above her head.

“Nice one, Dust!”

A grinning face appeared in her field of vision. A hand was offered; she grabbed it and pulled herself up to her feet.

“That was amazing!” she gasped.

They moved aside to clear the space for another leaper, and danced away down the nearby stairs, laughing.

•  •  •

“…but seriously, Dusty, you’re a natural. Jerry was saying, you looked right at home in the air. And you’ve made a month without breaking anything!”

“Really? Oh, wow.” Dusty stared at Toby, a forkful of food hovering forgotten above her plate. “It’s such a buzz! I want to go again, now!”

“There’s that newbie race on Saturday—going to go for it? I will be.”

“You still count as a newbie?”

“Well, I’ve only been doing this a term more than you…”

“Oh, I guess…”

Dusty finally moved the fork to her mouth, and wolfed its contents down, so that should could keep speaking.

“So do they have set routes for racing?”

“As far as I can tell,” Toby began, gesturing with his fork, “They usually give a set start point and a set end point, and the route is entirely up to you. But for the newbie ones, I think, they give suggested routes… because they don’t want people to overstretch their abilities so early on?”

“Oh, oh. Fair enough, I suppose…”

The end of the bench scraped backwards as Harper stood up. He picked up his bag and, without a word, stalked off down the length of the hall and out.

Dusty and Toby stared at his departing back.

“…Did we do something wrong?” Dusty ventured nervously.

Toby frowned, shrugged, and turned back to his meal. “He’s tired, perhaps. Give him a bit of time, he’ll be fine.”

“Okay…” She turned back to her meal, ate another forkful of food slowly. “So, Saturday, you said?”

•  •  •

But Harper wasn’t fine, it seemed. Or rather, he seemed to be fine the next morning, for the first few minutes. And then:

“So, Dusty, want to go practise for Saturday later?”

“Sure! Before dinner, again?”

Harper’s face, previously a mild smile, shut down into a carefully blank stare at the far wall. Jaw set, he lapsed into stony silence. Dusty noticed the sudden rise in tension, turned to him with a concerned frown.

“Harper, you ok?”

“Yeah, no, I’m fine. Fine.” He shook his head as though to dispel flies from around it, ducked down to grab his bag and sidled towards the door. “Anyway, I’ve got a lecture…”

“So have I—Harper, wait—!” Dusty leapt for the door as it swung shut behind him, called down the corridor. “Hey, wait up!”

He shook his head sharply, so he must have heard her, but neither slowed nor turned, just disappeared off around the corner.

“Oo-kay…” Dusty frowned.

Toby appeared in the doorway beside her.

“I think something’s bothering him, Tob…”

“Indeed.”

“You don’t think it’s this race thing…?”

“That’s a bloody daft thing to get het up about, if it is.” Toby shrugged. “He’ll get over it eventually. Anyway, you’ve got a lecture to get to, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Do you not?”

“Not for an hour. Get going, then,” he added with a grin. “See you back here later.”

“Yeah. Bye.”

•  •  •

Dusty floated through her day, high on the anticipation of more leaping later with Toby. She dropped from the ferries before they stopped moving, smiling at the little thrill that came with it. She was distracted all through her lectures, barely listening to the words as she scrawled down things off the board.

At a quarter to five, she was hovering around the Oriel dock, bouncing impatiently on the balls of her feet as Toby continued to not be there.

“Come on, Toby…”

When he finally came ambling out of the college, she bounded towards him, wrapped him in a hug.

“Hey, Dust.”

“Where shall we go today?”

“Trinity-Balliol?”

She pulled a face. “I’m getting bored of that…”

“Okay, then… Have you done Maths-Physics yet?”

“Nno…”

“Brilliant. Let’s go, then? Look, there’s a ferry just coming over from Christ Church…”

Dusty bounced excitably as the ferry drew over, and fidgeted impatiently for the whole journey. Toby laughed at her, poked her in the ribs.

“Calm down, kid. You need to be focused for this.”

She looked momentarily chastised, and tried to bounce a little less. For a moment, the consequences of a missed leap flashed through her mind, and seriousness settled over her excitement like a thick blanket.

“Is Maths-Physics tricky?”

“Oh, it’s ok. I’d done it within a month of starting. I wouldn’t try to make you do anything too dangerous!”

“Oh, no, of course.” Dusty nodded thoughtfully, lapsed into quiet.

The ferry pulled up to Maths at last, and they dropped out of it. Toby looked around, thoughtful for a moment, and then headed off through the main doors. “We’ll go up on the inside, I think…”

They squeezed past a crowd of first-years pouring out of an afternoon lecture, and turned off the main corridor. They twisted through side corridors, and up flights of stairs, until Toby paused in front of a discreet door at what looked otherwise like a dead end.

“Ok, I think it’s this one…”

He twisted the doorknob, pulled the door inwards, and a blast of cold air hit them. Dusty blinked, followed him out, pulling the door shut behind her. She leaned back on the wall of the ship, and caught hold of the outer door handle for security.

They were standing on a very narrow walkway that ran a short way around the ship. There was a handrail at waist height, but it was bent and twisted, from some past collision, perhaps. Dusty peered over the edge, gripping her hand-hold tightly.

Toby looked up at the wall of the building, which sloped away above them. There were ridges and dents all across its surface, and he leapt up, began to clamber sideways across the surface, using these as hand- and footholds.

Dusty followed, slowly, tracking in the path he was following. They seemed to go for ages, her hands slowly freezing against the metal holds, but eventually he let go and dropped a foot or two, onto another of the narrow ledges.

She didn’t drop quite as far as he did, feeling a smidgen of nervousness now. She lowered herself carefully, until the ledge was within leg-stretch reach, and then slid the last half-foot or so.

They had come around the curve of the Maths building, so that the Physics department was now in view, a great dark bulk facing them across what looked like a vast gulf of open space. The knot tightened in Dusty’s stomach.

“Ready?” Toby looked down at her. He turned around, leaned on the thin rail around their ledge. “Ok, you see that bit of frame that sticks out of the balloon?”

“Above that platform bit?”

“Exactly that.”

“Ok, yes.”

“Right, so you want to aim for the balloon next to it.”

“Just the balloon itself?”

“Yeah. There’s lots of space, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a little inaccurate, and—you can’t see from here, but—there’s a load of rope criss-crossed over its surface. So aim for the balloon, preferably higher up, and then grab hold of some rope before you slide down.”

“Got you.”

“Right. I’ll go first, show you what we’re doing?”

“Go for it.”

“Ok. Oh, and when you’re there, sort of shimmy sideways over to the frame, and go down to the platform. I’ll wait down there for you. Ok?”

“Ok.”

Toby nodded, squished her in a brief hug. “Let’s do this.”

He edged sideways along the platform, and stepped onto a small ladder at the edge of the ledge, for maintenance, presumably. Glancing over his shoulder to judge the distance, he brought his legs up tight underneath him, took a deep breath, and looked once more at the Physics ship.

He flung his arms backwards, driving down into the ladder with his legs.

He twisted around as he stretched out, flying through the air like a leaping cat.

For a handful of heartbeats, he flew through the air like a loosed arrow.

He slammed into the balloon of the Physics building, making the material ripple from the impact. He slid a few feet, before a grabbed rope pulled him up short, and then, glancing back across at Dusty, he waved and held up a thumbs-up.

She watched him slither across the balloon to the jutting frame, and clamber down that to the platform.

Now she mimicked his movements, stepping onto the ladder and curling up on it. Knees up to her chest like this, she felt like a coiled spring. She twisted around to look over her shoulder, saw Toby watching on the little platform. She blocked him out of her mind, focused all her thought on that patch of balloon on the other side, and the arc between her and it.

Judged the arc. She could do that. Shifted her hands on the ladder. Ok. One last glance backwards, then she curled up with her face against the next rung up. Three—two—one—

She slammed all the force she could summon into her legs and against the ladder. Flinging her arms backwards, she parted from the ladder, and suddenly there was nothing around her.

There was cold air, cold air and nothing else.

Arched like a diver, she twisted in free-fall.

The wall of balloon rushed up in front of her.

She slammed into its surface, and for a moment was too surprised to react. But then survival instincts kicked in, and she scrabbled for a hold before she slid right off the balloon. Her questing hand found a rope, and she came to a halt with a jerk that shook her bones.

She hung, for a moment, feeling the buzz flood through her veins.

“God damn!”

Slowly, her breathing slowed from the frantic gasp to something more manageable. She pulled up on the rope, and began to swing herself sideways. There was the frame, not too far away, and with a couple of swings she was there, gripping the metal struts.

Climbing down the frame was easy, or would have been if she hadn’t been shaking with the rush. She clambered down slowly, until she felt the solid platform at the bottom under her feet.

“Dusty, you are brilliant.”

Toby swept her up in a crushing hug that lifted her off her feet. She squished him back, laughing.

“Toby, this is just too amazing. I’m in for Saturday.”

•  •  •

Harper wasn’t at dinner.

Dusty found herself distracted with leaping talk again for most of it, but at the end as they were leaving, she realised his total absence, and began to feel a great deal more concerned than she had before.  It occurred to her that she hadn’t spared a single thought for him all afternoon, and she felt a spasm of guilt.

She hurried back to their room, striding ahead of Toby the whole way.

Harper wasn’t in the shared room, and his door was shut.

Dusty sidled up to it, knocked on it one, two, three times.

“Harper…?”

There was no reply. She tried the handle—it wasn’t locked. She pushed the door tentatively open.

He was in there, sat at his desk, bent over some work. His head was resting on one hand, hair sticking up through his fingers. With his other hand, he was tapping his pen against his teeth. He looked up as Dusty came in.

“Oh, hi.”

Dusty leant awkwardly on the door frame. “Harper, are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He glanced down at the page, scribbled a couple of numbers onto it.

“…are you sure? You seemed like you were… upset about something, this morning…” She shifted uncomfortably, glanced over her shoulder at Toby. He was perched on the edge of the table, looking far too relaxed.

“Yeah.”

“Okay…” Dusty frowned, started to edge out of the door, then stopped. “You know you missed dinner?”

“Yes.”

She ran one hand through her hair. “Look, Harper, is this something to do with Saturday?”

“Saturday?” The disaffected tone was slightly too casual to be believable.

“As in… the leaping…?”

“Oh.” And that tone was dark, definitely not impressed. Dusty cringed slightly inside, began to creep backwards out of the room.

“I’ll just… let you…”

She was about to let the door close when Harper’s voice cut across the awkward tension.

“You don’t bloody get it, do you?”

She froze, turned, pushed the door back open. “Get what?”

He was sitting straighter now, pen down and hand out of hair. “You don’t get what you’re doing. You don’t get what the consequences could be.”

“So this is about leaping.”

“You know what happens if you miss? If you get it slightly wrong? If you’re distracted, or not good enough? It’s not like you just land a bit funny and laugh it all off. It’s not like you can take another go and get it right this time. No, if you miss, you’re going to fall. All the way. And that’s a bloody long way.”

Dusty could only gape. It was Toby who responded, calling through from the other room.

“She’s not going to get it wrong, Harper.”

“You don’t know that, Toby!” Harper was on his feet now, suddenly in the doorway. Dusty stumbled back out of the way, as he stood glowering on the threshold. “You don’t know Dusty won’t miss. You don’t know you won’t miss. It’s all bloody chance, and you’re gambling with your lives.”

“Now hang on a minute—” Dusty began, but Toby cut across her.

“It’s not chance, any more than who wins your rowing is chance. It’s not like there’s no skill involved in it.”

“You still don’t get it!”

“Oh really?”

“The whole thing is bloody stupid, and bloody selfish! Oh, you won’t care that you missed, once you’ve hit the ground!”

“Selfish, is it now?” Toby got to his feet, face dark. “Oh, I see how it is…”

“No! No you bloody don’t! That’s the whole—bloody—point!”

With that, Harper slammed his door shut. The lock clicked, and Dusty and Toby were left standing staring at the wood.

Toby moved first. He pulled a face at the unresponsive door, shrugged, and stalked off into his own room.

Dusty remained staring at the blank wood for a few moments longer, a horrific tangle of misery, guilt and despair washing over her.

•  •  •