“Dude, not here. My parents would kill me if they thought I was smoking.”
“Right,” Kieran said. “You're a good little boy, aren't you? Just with a dangerous hobby.” We both laughed.
“That's basically right.”
“Hey,” Kieran said. “Let's go on a run together. The Harborhead Bridge, tomorrow night. We'll start from the marina, go all the way up.”
Okay, that sounded interesting. I'd explored the bridge before but never tried to climb it from the bottom. I could bring my ropes and climbing gear, show him some of the moves I'd been practicing at the climbing gym.
“Awesome,” I agreed.
“One more thing,” he said as he got up to leave. “Let's make it interesting. I'll race you to the top.”
The next night, I looked up at the bridge towering above me. I'd been here before. Harborhead Bridge was a dinosaur, really big and at least a hundred years old. It carried four lanes of traffic running over the bay. I'd spent a fair amount of time messing around here with my friends, crawling over and under it to see what we could find. But I'd never climbed bottom to top, like Kieran had suggested.
Next to me, a big concrete column soared up to join with a massive nest of metal girders beneath the main traffic level. From where I stood, that main level seemed really far away. It must have been about nine stories above the water, because pretty big ships could sail underneath it. I could hear the gentle knock of the boats in the marina against the docks. And from way up, there was a steady roar of traffic crossing over the bridge.
I didn't see Kieran in the shadows until he lit up a cigarette.
“You know, you continue to surprise me,” he said.
I walked over to where he was sitting and dropped my heavy backpack in front of him. The climbing gear inside made a muffled clank. “Why?”
“I totally figured you'd chicken out.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let's just do this,” I said.
“Not so fast. There are a few rules you need to understand before we play this game. First, the winner is the one who makes it to the upper room of the bridge tower first. You been up there before?”
“A few times.” Well, once. The big concrete column that stood in front of us stretched up past the main level of the road, turning into a smaller tower that held the suspension cables. I'd been up there once but hadn't stuck around to explore much. The wind had been a killer. The well-lit ladders and metal-work leading up there had felt way too exposed to the cars going by below. I liked a few more shadows, a little less danger of falling.
“All right, rule two.” Kieran stood up and ground out his cigarette with his boot. Then, with one fluid motion, he reached down and scooped up my backpack. “No gear.”
He chucked the backpack into the dark, and I heard a muffled plop as it hit the water.
And sank. Kieran had a big shit-eating grin on his face.
“Game on,” he said. He turned and took off around the side of the column. I stared into the dark where my back-pack had vanished. Then I pulled it together.
“Screw you!” I finally yelled, but Kieran was out of sight. There was a hundred bucks of my best equipment in that bag! I ran after him, sprinting hard around the corner. But I'd lost Kieran alreadyâno sign. Then I heard a scuffling sound from above. He was already heading up the bridge column using a service ladder. But that ladder started about ten feet off the groundâhow did he get up there so fast? By the time I figured it out, he'd be too far ahead. I'd have to find another way.
I sprinted around the base of the bridge column and almost slammed into a small shed built against the side of the column. It must have been some kind of electrical room. There was a cluster of pipes and plastic tubes leading from the top of the shed and into the girders high above. All right, this was a start.
I grabbed the roof of the shed and pulled myself up. My hoodie caught on the edge of the sheet-metal roof, but I let it tear and kept going. Standing on the flat roof, I checked out the pipes leading up. There must have been a dozen of them in different sizes. What looked like giant metal staples held the whole mess to the concrete column. They were spaced regularly, a little thin and sharp, but nothing my gloves couldn't handle. Not a great ladder, but good enough. Maybe thirty feet of free climbing, up to where the girders began. Then I'd have more options for climbing, with bigger handholds.
My gut clenched. This was not my style. I was the cautious, methodical one. But my fury at Kieran burned through the nerves. Hand over hand, I went up. After about ten feet, my shoulders started to ache. I just hoped I wouldn't burn out before I made it to the girders. Once I was up there, I could find a place to catch my breath. Until then, I had to keep going or fall. Occasionally, I could hear Kieran somewhere out there in the dark above me.
“Screw. You. Kieran.” I grunted, each word punctuated by climbing up one more rung of my improvised ladder.
Then I was there. I crawled onto a support beam and sat, chest heaving and arms shaking. Traffic rumbled overhead. Looking around, I could see Kieran resting on another girder about twenty feet away. He looked wiped out. He might have given himself a head start, but he clearly wasn't as strong a climber as me. I had a chance to beat him. And make him pay for my gear.
My heart still slamming in my chest, I started across the metal girders like a tightrope walker. One foot in front of the other, arms outstretched. I didn't let myself look down, but the distant sound of the waves told me I was very high up. The girders were wider than my shoes but not by much. I was still unsteady from the fast climb up the column, and I started to wobble. I knew that I was asking for trouble, rushing like this.
It happened when I tried to transfer from one girder to another. Most of these metal beams had been pretty dry, but some grease or water must have leaked through from the traffic deck just above me. As I shifted my weight from one girder to the next, my front foot went out from underneath me.
You hear people say that in a life-or-death situation, time seems to go into slow motion. It didn't for me. Way too quickly, I slid off the girder, reaching out for nothing but air.
I was lucky. Kind of. Totally off balance, both feet went right off the girder. Which meant that as I went down, I spun and hit the steel beam with my chest. I felt a flash of intense pain as all the air was knocked out of my lungs. Just by reflex, both hands grabbed onto the far edge of the I-shaped girder. But right away, my fingers started slipping. And I still couldn't squeeze in a full breath. I'd only delayed my long fall into the harbor. And from this high up, hitting the water would kill me.
For a minute there was just the sound of the waves, the traffic above me and my ragged breathing. The steady wind was making me feel cold and clammy. I started to shiver.
“Gimme your hand.”
I looked up and there was Kieran, sitting next to me with his arm outstretched. His long hair was out of the ponytail and was matted with sweat to his forehead. He must have somehow spidered across the girders to get here. Now he was the only thing that could keep me from dropping like a rock.
I released my left hand and held it out to him. He locked onto my wrist with two hands. Slowly, carefully, we worked to get me back into a sitting position on the girder.
Now Kieran and I looked like two kids facing each other on a playground teeter-totter, legs dangling almost a hundred feet above the water. I laughed, kind of high-pitched and nervous.
“You think that was funny?” said Kieran, but he was smiling. “You're crazier than me, man.”
“I'm crazy? You're the one who pitched my gear into the bay. You're the one who got us up here.” Despite my relief, the anger started to seep back in.
“I saved your life too.”
“Yeah. I guess you did,” I admitted.
“But that thing with your backpack, that was an asshole move. I get carried away sometimes, kind of lose control, you know? I'm sorry.” Kieran was looking straight at me like he meant it.
“There was a hundred bucks of climbing gear in that bag. I don't have that kind of money to lose.” More than angry, I was just feeling sorry for myself all of a sudden. I was shivering pretty badly now. I was starting to hurt. Kieran was staring at me.
“Let's get down from here. You look like crap. Then you tell me how much you need and I'll take care of it.”
By the time we carefully picked our way down off the bridge, it was about 11:00 pm. I'd told my parents I was hanging at Jake's tonight. On Friday nights they usually let me stay out until midnight. So I agreed when Kieran offered to buy me a coffee before I headed home.
We found a place that was still open. The sour-faced waitress didn't look impressed by our appearance when we walked in. Two dirty, tired teenagers in ripped-up clothes. But she took our order without complaint. We settled into a brown vinyl-covered booth at the back. I watched as Kieran dug some pills out his pocket, washing them down with his coffee. Kieran saw my look.
“Headache,” he explained. “So money's an issue for you?” I was working on a donut with one hand and cradling my mug of hot coffee with the other. My fingers were starting to thaw out.
“It's not that big a deal. Both my parents are working now. It's not like we're poor. But, yeah, I need to find my own cash. And I don't have a job right now. Or anything lined up for the summer.” That brought back memories of Asha. I was pretty sure she'd been avoiding me after our conversation in the lab.
“Fair enough. Like I said, I feel bad about chucking your gear in the bay,” said Kieran. “Is this enough to cover it?” He pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off a couple of fifties. He slid them across the table. I just stared at them.
“Where'd you get that kind of cash?” I said. Kieran laughed.
“You want it or not?” he said. I did. So I took the money. Like Kieran had said, fair enough. He might act crazy, but at least he knew how to make things right again.
“You know, I might be able to help you earn some serious scratch,” Kieran said. He leaned back in the booth and squinted at me. “Despite your slipup there, you were pretty awesome. I still don't know how you got ahead of me. I gave myself a pretty good head start.”
“I've had a lot of practice,” I answered. “My parents are always busy, and I don't have any brothers or sisters. So there's no one to look over my shoulder. Which means I've been crawling all over the city since I was, like, twelve.”
“It shows. You're good,” he said. Then he leaned across the table. “I want your help. I need to get in somewhere, and I don't know how to do it. You figure it out, and there's money in it for you.”
“What, you'd hire me to be your tour guide? You messing with me?” I said.
“No, I'm dead serious,” he said, dropping his voice. “It's like this. My dad works at a company called DMA. They do high-tech stuff for the military. Building drone planes, putting satellites together. My dad said that they even used to build rockets for NASA back in the 1960s. They used to be a huge company, but now they've cut back.
“A couple of months ago, my dad transferred to this branch of DMA. Then, after we moved, there was about a week before I could start school. So my dad decided to bring me to work. Didn't want to leave me alone in the house, he said. Like I needed a babysitter. Anyways, I was able to explore around some of the DMA buildings while I was there. It's like a small city out there, big gate around the whole thing. Here, take a look at this.” He pulled out his smartphone, swiped at it for a moment, then handed it to me. There was a series of pictures on itâa bunch of big ware-houses, clearly unused for a long time. The inside of some kind of lab, lots of wiring and computers, crazy-looking equipment scattered around. It looked like an abandoned mad scientist's lab. It looked totally amazing.
“So I had this idea,” Kieran continued. “The company owns a ton of space with all these warehouses and labs. But they only use a tiny part of it now. Most of that place is basically abandoned.”
“But your dad still works there, right? So it's not all abandoned. Doesn't that mean there's security? If it's military, pretty serious security?”
Kieran looked smug. He lowered his voice.
“My dad is the head of security for the DMA site. That's why I've got blueprints, plans of the entire place. Everything we need to figure out how to get in.”
“You stole them from him?”
“Copied them from his laptop to mine,” said Kieran. He pulled out his lighter and started fiddling with it. “So what do you think?”
“What if your dad figures out you stole stuff from him?”
“Whatever. Forget about my dad. We won't get caught. It's not like he'll suspect me. He barely knows I'm around most of the time.”
Kieran's cold blue eyes studied me. The whole situation seemed seriously sketchy.
“You just want to get in there to explore? It doesn't seem worth the risk,” I said at last. I drained the last cold puddle of coffee from my mug.