Parkour Mystery

"Kill the light."

"I can't see anything, Glenn."

"Just kill it. They fly past every six minutes."

Sam tapped her phone screen. The glass had a spiderweb crack over the front camera lens. The flashlight app clicked off. The interior of the community center went completely black. Or, mostly black. The spring thaw was in full effect outside, and a watery gray street lamp bled through the gaps where the eastern wall used to be. The demolition crew had torn down half the building on Friday before knocking off for the weekend, leaving the rec center looking like a cracked-open dollhouse.

It smelled like wet plaster, mold, and decades of sweat. Water dripped. It was a constant, irritating sound. Drip, drop, splash. The snow on the ruined roof was melting fast, turning the concrete floor into a shallow pool of gray slush.

"This is stupid," Sam said. Her voice echoed off the cinder blocks. "There's nothing here. DevCorp already stripped the copper. They stripped the aluminum. They probably stripped the asbestos just to sell it to someone else."

"It's not about scrap," Glenn said. He ran his hand along the exposed brickwork behind what used to be the basketball court's backboard. The plaster here was peeling away in thick, soggy chunks. His fingers were numb from the cold. He wasn't wearing gloves. Gloves ruined his grip.

"Then what are we looking for?"

"My grandfather said the original block charter was buried in the foundation. Or the walls. The neighborhood association put it there in the twenties. If we find it, it proves the land was deeded to the city in perpetuity for public recreation. DevCorp can't build their luxury condos."

"Glenn. The bulldozers are literally parked outside."

"They don't have the legal right until the deadline tomorrow."

Glenn kicked a pile of broken drywall out of the way. His wet sneakers squeaked on the floor. He wedged a rusted piece of rebar into a crack in the old masonry and leaned his weight on it. The brick shifted. Muddy water oozed from the mortar. He pushed harder. His shoulder clicked.

With a grinding scrape, a square block of brickwork gave way, tumbling backward into a dark cavity.

Glenn dropped the rebar. He reached into the hole. The edges of the brick were sharp, scraping the back of his hand, but he didn't care. His fingers brushed against something cold and smooth. Not brick. Not wood.

He pulled it out.

It was a heavy brass cylinder, about a foot long, capped at both ends. It was green with tarnish and slick with condensation.

"Got it," Glenn said, his chest tight. He wiped the dirt off the metal with his sleeve.

Sam stepped closer, her boots splashing in the puddles. "No way. You actually found it. Open it."

Glenn twisted the top cap. It was stuck. He gritted his teeth, gripping the cylinder tight against his chest, and forced the cap counter-clockwise. Metal shrieked against metal. The cap popped off.

Inside, rolled tight, was a thick sheaf of paper. He slid it out. It wasn't a single deed. It was a map. The paper was heavy, yellowed, and smelled like dust and dried ink. He unrolled it halfway. It was a hand-drawn schematic of the neighborhood, but the streets were different.

Before he could read the text at the bottom, a high-pitched whine cut through the damp air.

It sounded like a massive mosquito.

Sam froze. "Drone."

A red laser grid suddenly painted the floor, sweeping through the open wall of the ruined building. The grid climbed the cinderblocks, scanning the rubble.

"DevCorp security," Glenn said, shoving the map back into the brass tube and jamming the cap on. He shoved the cylinder into his backpack and zipped it tight. "Go. Out the back. Stay low."

"What about you?" Sam asked, already moving toward the rear stairwell.

"I'm going up. I'll draw them off. Meet me at the park. By the bronze guys."

"Don't break your neck, idiot," she said, and vanished into the dark.

Glenn didn't wait. He turned toward the exposed eastern wall. The whine of the drone grew louder. A bright white spotlight clicked on, cutting through the misty spring night, illuminating the falling rain and the piles of brick.

He ran.

He didn't run toward the door. He ran toward a stack of wooden pallets, stepped off the top one, and launched himself at the wall. His rubber soles gripped the raw cinderblock for a split second. He reached up, his fingers catching the lip of the second-floor balcony.

He pulled himself up just as the white spotlight swept across the floor where he had been standing seconds ago.

The DevCorp quadcopter drifted into the building. It was the size of a pizza box, wrapped in white plastic, with a heavy camera gimbal hanging underneath. A red light blinked on its chassis. It turned, the camera lens rotating upward, locking onto Glenn's position on the balcony.

The drone emitted a sharp, automated chirp.

Glenn sprinted down the ruined hallway. The floorboards were rotting. His foot went through a soft spot, his knee slamming into the wood. Pain flared in his joint, sharp and hot. He yanked his leg free, ignored the blood seeping into his torn jeans, and kept moving.

He hit the emergency exit door at the end of the hall. It was chained shut. He didn't break stride. He jumped, planting his foot on the crash bar, pushed off, and grabbed the rusted frame of the transom window above the door. He kicked the glass out. It shattered, raining down on the fire escape outside.

Glenn squeezed through the frame and dropped onto the iron grate of the fire escape. The metal was wet and freezing.

Behind him, the drone buzzed angrily, too large to fit through the narrow transom window. It backed up to find another route. Glenn didn't wait to see which way it went.

He took the metal stairs three at a time. The alley below was a canyon of shadows and wet garbage. The roofs above were flat, tar-papered, and slick with spring rain. He chose up.

He vaulted over the top railing of the fire escape and landed on the roof of the adjacent apartment building. The impact sent a shockwave up his shins. He rolled to distribute the weight, his jacket soaking up the icy slush pooled on the tar paper.

He scrambled to his feet. The city stretched out around him. It wasn't beautiful. It was a mess of sodium lights, gray clouds, and the skeletal frames of half-built condos. The wind ripped across the roof, smelling of exhaust and wet concrete.

To his left, another high-pitched whine. A second drone rose over the edge of the roof. Then a third.

DevCorp wasn't playing around.

Glenn ran for the far edge of the roof. The gap between this building and the next was about ten feet. Usually, an easy jump. Tonight, the takeoff point was covered in melting ice, and his knee throbbed with every step.

He pumped his arms, building momentum. The drones closed in, their spotlights converging on him, casting three long, intersecting shadows ahead of him.

He hit the edge. His left foot slipped on a patch of wet moss growing on the parapet.

His stomach dropped. The physical sensation of falling hit him before he even left the wall. He threw his weight forward, extending his arms desperately.

He cleared the gap but came in low. His chest slammed into the brick parapet of the next building. All the air left his lungs in a violent rush. His fingers scrambled against the rough brick, finding a groove in the mortar. His legs dangled over the alley, three stories down.

He hung there, gasping. His ribs burned. His fingers felt like they were ripping out of their sockets.

The drones hovered above the gap, their white lights blinding him. A synthesized voice blared from a speaker on the lead drone.

"TRESPASSING DETECTED. REMAIN IN PLACE. SECURITY HAS BEEN DISPATCHED."

"Screw you," Glenn wheezed.

He swung his right leg up, hooked his heel over the top of the parapet, and hauled himself over. He collapsed onto the roof, coughing, tasting copper in the back of his throat.

He didn't stay down. He forced himself up. The roof was a maze of HVAC units and exhaust vents. He ducked behind a massive metal air conditioner just as the drones swept the roof with their lights. The machine hummed loudly, vibrating against his back. It was warm.

He checked his phone. No service. DevCorp was probably jamming the local cell towers again. They did that when they were doing illegal evictions.

He peeked around the side of the HVAC unit. The drones were sweeping in a grid pattern. They were methodical. They wouldn't stop until they found him or their batteries died.

Glenn looked at the next building. It was lower. A commercial building, maybe a bakery based on the exhaust stacks. Beyond that was an alley leading to the street.

He timed the drones' sweep. One turned left, the other right. A gap in the light.

He bolted from his cover, sprinting across the roof, sliding down a slanted skylight, and dropping six feet onto the bakery roof. He hit the tar paper hard, rolled, and kept moving. He reached the edge of the roof facing the alley.

Below was a dumpster. The lid was open. It was full of flattened cardboard boxes and plastic bags.

It was a three-story drop. Too far for a clean landing. But there was a rusted gutter pipe running down the brick wall.

He swung over the edge, grabbing the pipe with both hands. The metal was freezing and coated in slime. He clamped his legs around the pipe and started to slide.

The pipe groaned. The mounting brackets were old. Halfway down, the top bracket snapped. The pipe pulled away from the wall, leaning backward into empty space.

Glenn let go.

He fell the last fifteen feet in freefall. He aimed for the dumpster. He crashed into the pile of cardboard, the impact knocking the wind out of him again. The cardboard was wet and smelled like rotting yeast and stale sugar.

He lay there in the garbage, staring up at the narrow strip of gray sky between the buildings. A drone flew past, its white light cutting through the rain, but it didn't look down.

Glenn stayed still for a long time. His chest heaved. His knee throbbed. He waited until the buzzing sound faded completely into the background noise of the city.

He climbed out of the dumpster, wiping wet cardboard off his jacket. He pulled his hood up and limped out of the alley.

Ten minutes later, he reached the city park.

The park was a depressing square of land surrounded by chain-link fences and traffic. The spring thaw had turned the grass into a lake of thick brown mud. The cherry blossom trees were starting to bloom, but the pink petals were already coated in gray soot from the street traffic.

Sam was waiting by the central fountain. The fountain hadn't had water in it for five years. It was filled with dead leaves and empty energy drink cans. In the center of the fountain stood three bronze statues. 'The Founders'. Three guys in 19th-century coats pointing in different directions. Usually, they were buried in snow, but the thaw had exposed them, their bronze faces streaked with green oxidation.

Sam was pacing, checking her cracked phone. She looked up when Glenn approached.

"You look like garbage," she said.

"Thanks. I feel like it." Glenn dropped his backpack on the edge of the concrete fountain. He unzipped it and pulled out the brass cylinder.

"Drones lose you?" she asked, looking over his shoulder at the street.

"Yeah. They're stupid. They only look for motion on rooftops. Once you hit the ground, they lose the algorithm."

Glenn pulled the map out of the tube. The wind tried to snatch it. Sam helped him pin the corners down on the cold concrete of the fountain.

They shined their phone flashlights on the heavy paper.

It was definitely a map of their neighborhood, but heavily annotated. There were circles and intersecting lines drawn in faded red ink.

"Look at this," Glenn said, pointing a dirty finger at the center of the map. "This is the park. And these three marks..."

"The statues," Sam said.

"Right. But look at the lines coming off them. They aren't just pointing randomly. The lines intersect."

Glenn traced the lines with his finger. The statue facing north, the statue facing east, and the statue facing south. The lines drawn from their extended bronze fingers converged on a specific block two streets over.

"What's there?" Sam asked.

Glenn frowned. He looked up, trying to orient himself in the dark, rainy park. He looked at the real statues. He followed their eyelines.

He looked past the park, past the chain-link fence, past the low-income apartments, to the massive construction site dominating the skyline.

"The DevCorp site," Glenn said. "The new high-rise. That's where the lines meet."

"Wait," Sam said, leaning closer to the map. "There's text here. Small print."

Glenn squinted. The ink was faded, but he could make out the cursive script. 'The true charter rests beneath the iron root, where the watchers gaze.'

"The iron root," Glenn repeated.

He looked back at the construction site. Towering over the neighborhood, painted a sickly industrial yellow, was a massive construction crane. It was rooted deep into the foundation of the old block.

"They built the crane on top of the old foundation block," Glenn realized. "The cornerstone. That's the iron root."

"Glenn, no," Sam said, grabbing his arm. "You are not climbing that thing. It's pouring rain. It's covered in security."

"If I don't get the charter out of that cornerstone tonight, they pour the concrete tomorrow morning. The deed gets buried forever. The neighborhood is gone."

"You're bleeding," she said, pointing to his knee.

"I'm fine." He wasn't. His leg hurt worse than before. But the adrenaline was masking the worst of it. He rolled the map up, shoved it back in the tube, and tossed it to Sam. "Keep this safe. If I don't come back, give it to the local news. Maybe they can do something with it."

"Glenn..."

"I'm going."

He left the park, jogging to keep his muscles warm. The rain was picking up, turning the city streets into slick black rivers.

The DevCorp construction site was surrounded by a ten-foot plywood fence. Glenn found a section where the plywood was warped from the damp. He wedged his fingers into the gap, pulled hard, and squeezed through.

Inside, the site was a mud pit. Giant treads from excavators had chewed the earth into deep trenches. Puddles the size of small ponds reflected the harsh glare of the security floodlights.

He moved quietly, keeping to the shadows of the stacked steel beams and shipping containers.

He reached the base of the yellow tower crane. It was massive. The steel lattice work was thick and bolted together with industrial hardware. At the base, sitting on a massive concrete slab, was a pile of rubble they had dug up from the old foundation.

And there, sitting off to the side, was a square block of gray stone. The original cornerstone. It had a hollowed-out section in the top.

Glenn ran to it. He dropped to his knees in the mud. He looked inside the hollow section.

Empty.

Panic spiked in his chest. "No. No, no, no."

He swept his hands around the stone. Nothing.

He looked up. The crane stretched hundreds of feet into the sky. The operator's cab was dark. But behind the cab, on the counterweight deck, a small light was shining.

Someone was up there.

Glenn gripped the cold, wet steel of the crane's access ladder. He didn't think about the height. He didn't think about his knee. He just climbed.

The wind was stronger the higher he went. It whipped his wet hair into his eyes. The steel rungs were coated in grease and rainwater, making them treacherous. His hands cramped. His boots slipped twice, his heart hammering against his ribs as he hung by just his fingers for a terrifying second before finding his footing again.

Fifty feet. A hundred feet. Two hundred feet.

The city opened up below him, a grid of wet, blinking lights. The noise of the street faded, replaced by the howling of the wind through the steel lattice.

He reached the top hatch. He pushed it open and pulled himself onto the metal grating of the counterweight deck.

Standing there, holding a small metal lockbox, was Mr. Edgewhite.

Edgewhite was DevCorp's local fixer. He wasn't a corporate shark in a tailored suit. He was a tired guy in his fifties wearing a cheap gray raincoat over a bulky sweater. He had a receding hairline and a vape pen clamped between his teeth. He looked miserable.

Edgewhite turned as Glenn pulled himself onto the deck. He didn't look surprised. He just looked annoyed.

"I told them kids were getting in here," Edgewhite muttered, pocketing the vape. He held the lockbox in his left hand. His right hand rested on his belt, near a yellow plastic taser.

"Give me the box," Glenn said, his voice shaking. He tried to sound tough, but he was out of breath and freezing.

"Go home, kid," Edgewhite said. "You're going to fall and die, and the paperwork will ruin my weekend."

"That's the block charter. It belongs to the city."

"It belongs to whoever owns the land. DevCorp owns the land."

"They don't own it if that paper says it's public land."

Edgewhite sighed. A heavy, exhausted sigh. "Look around you, kid. You think a piece of paper from a hundred years ago stops progress? They have billions of dollars. You have wet shoes. Go home."

Edgewhite turned away, walking toward the access panel of the crane's machinery housing. He was going to drop the box into the grease pit, destroying it.

Glenn lunged.

He tackled Edgewhite around the waist. It wasn't a clean, cinematic hit. It was clumsy. They both slipped on the wet metal grating and crashed hard against the guardrail.

Edgewhite grunted, his elbow slamming into Glenn's back. "Get off me, you little punk!"

Glenn scrambled, grabbing for the metal lockbox. His fingers found the cold steel handle. He pulled.

Edgewhite held on. He shoved Glenn backward. Glenn lost his footing and fell hard onto his back. The wind knocked out of him again.

Edgewhite stood up, breathing heavily. He unclipped the taser from his belt. "I don't want to tase a kid, but I will."

Glenn looked at the yellow plastic weapon. Then he looked at the lockbox in Edgewhite's other hand.

Glenn didn't try to stand up. Instead, he kicked out with his good leg. His heavy wet boot connected squarely with Edgewhite's shin.

Edgewhite yelled in pain, his leg buckling. He stumbled forward, dropping the taser. It skittered across the wet grating and fell through the gap, disappearing into the dark drop below.

Edgewhite lost his balance. He pitched forward, his hands flying out to catch himself.

He hit the guardrail hard. His feet slipped on the slick metal. He went over the top wire.

"Help!" Edgewhite screamed, dropping the lockbox. It hit the grating with a loud clang.

Glenn scrambled forward. He grabbed Edgewhite's gray raincoat just as the older man slid off the edge of the deck.

Glenn slammed his boots against the base of the railing, using it for leverage. He pulled with everything he had. The raincoat fabric strained. Edgewhite was heavy.

"Don't let go!" Edgewhite yelled, his face pale, his legs kicking over the three-hundred-foot drop.

"I got you," Glenn grunted through his teeth. His shoulder muscles burned. His bad knee screamed in protest.

He hauled backward. Inch by inch, he pulled Edgewhite up. Edgewhite managed to grab the bottom wire of the railing, then the middle. Together, they dragged him back onto the metal grating.

They both collapsed onto their backs, gasping for air. The rain fell on their faces.

For a long minute, neither of them moved. The only sound was the wind and the creaking of the massive crane.

Finally, Edgewhite sat up. He wiped the rain from his face with a trembling hand. He looked at Glenn, then at the metal lockbox resting inches from Glenn's leg.

Edgewhite didn't say anything. He just looked at the box, then looked away. He pulled his vape pen from his pocket. It was cracked. He threw it over the edge of the crane.

"I'm taking it," Glenn said, sitting up slowly. He grabbed the lockbox.

Edgewhite didn't look at him. "I didn't see anything. It fell in the grease pit. That's what I'll put in the report."

Glenn stood up. His whole body ached. He looked at the tired man sitting on the wet metal. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me. You saved my life. We're even. Now get off my site before the morning shift arrives."

Glenn climbed down the ladder. It took twice as long going down. His arms felt like lead. But he held the lockbox tight against his chest.

By the time he reached the ground, the sky in the east was beginning to turn a pale, bruised purple. Morning was coming.

***

The block party was loud, messy, and smelled like burning charcoal and cheap hotdogs.

It was Sunday afternoon. The rain had stopped, but the streets were still full of muddy puddles. The city had sent an injunction at nine in the morning, officially halting the DevCorp demolition. The news crews had been out for an hour, filming the old community center and interviewing neighbors.

Glenn sat on the hood of Sam's rusted sedan, a paper plate in his lap. He had a massive bandage wrapped around his knee, secured with duct tape. He was eating a hotdog and watching the neighborhood celebrate.

Someone had dragged massive speakers out onto the sidewalk, blasting bass-heavy music that rattled the windows. Kids were running through the puddles, splashing mud on everything. It wasn't pretty, but it was theirs.

Sam walked over, carrying two cans of soda. She handed one to Glenn and hopped up onto the hood next to him.

"You're famous," she said, nodding toward a group of neighbors pointing at him.

"I'm tired," Glenn said. He cracked the soda. It was warm. He drank it anyway.

"The lawyers say the charter is ironclad," Sam said. "The land has to stay a community space. DevCorp is already pulling their equipment out. The crane is coming down next week."

Glenn nodded. He felt a weird sense of emptiness. The adrenaline crash was brutal. He had spent the last twenty-four hours fighting for his life, and now... he was just sitting on a car, eating a hotdog.

Sam reached into her large jacket pocket. She pulled out the brass cylinder they had found in the community center wall.

"So," she said, turning the heavy metal tube over in her hands. "I was looking at this thing while you were talking to the reporters."

"It's empty," Glenn said. "The map was the only thing in it."

"That's what I thought," Sam said. She tapped the bottom cap of the cylinder. "But the weight is wrong. It's too heavy at the base."

Glenn stopped chewing. He looked at the brass tube.

Sam twisted the bottom cap. It didn't unscrew. She pushed in, then twisted. There was a sharp click.

The bottom of the cylinder popped open. It was a false bottom.

Inside the small hidden compartment was a single, folded piece of thick vellum paper, and a heavy, tarnished iron key.

Sam pulled the paper out and unfolded it. It wasn't a map of the neighborhood. It was a topographical map of the state, covered in the same faded red ink.

At the top of the page, written in bold, hurried script, were three words.

'The Second Vault.'

Glenn stared at the map. Then he looked at the iron key in Sam's hand. The fatigue in his muscles vanished, replaced by a sudden, sharp spike of electricity in his chest.

He grinned.

A new quest begins.