The Tower

"License, please." The inspector was looking down at papers on his desk, bored, hand extended, palm upward.

Beyond the desk, past the dull, boyish face, were the huge glass doors that led into the core of what was once World Trade Center Tower 1 -- now the International Indoor Sport Climbing Center, also known as The Tower Club.

The climber frowned. His slim, athletically deformed hand slipped into his waist pouch and produced an ID. The card was gold.

The inspector glanced up. An attendant leaned down beside him. "That's Henri Marchand." The inspector shrugged. "Go on in." He looked back at the attendant. "So?"

The climber stalked past. The doors swung open, admitting him, releasing the sounds of hundreds of climbers, then closed again, leaving only a sight of roped parties high on the vast artificial cliffs.

"He's the top competition climber. Also, the owner."

Marchand stopped by the briefing wallscreen, waiting for his partner. Above, chatter and calls echoed in the vast prism, as the artificial voice of the briefing repeated.

"...Today, the cloud deck is at the fifth pitch, with light snow and twenty mile an hour winds at the eighth through tenth pitch. Clear weather and ice from there to the ceiling, with the South Dihedral having formed espcially well. However, all upper sectors are closed due to icefall danger for the next two days. In addition, sectors N456 through NS34555 are shut down for bolt replacement over the next several days. Parties entering those sectors, please traverse to the West Left area, and be careful of parties entering on rappel from above. Please remember that according to Federal regulations, no soloing is allowed, and only licensed leaders may clip bolts outside the training area..."

While, high above, a climber leaned out from the flap of his portaledge at a sound from the wall. A section beside him swung open. A man wearing a cap leaned through, grinning. "Hi," he said. "Bono's large cheese pizza for Petrocelli."

Marchand slipped a small pair of binoculars from his pack. He squinted through them, scanning the wall up to the clouds high above.

His face was not classically good-looking. It was thin, with prominent creases bordering a razor-lipped mouth. Deep black hair was artifically curled, piling asymetrically down on his shoulders, past a jaw that looked perpetually unshaven. A small gold earring nestled in his earlobe, relic of his stint as a cargo ship crewman sailing around the Horn.

He watched a pair of Feds rap down toward two climbers hanging at belay just below the clouds. Even through binoculars, Marchand could see the climbers weren't wearing this year's licenses on their chalk bags -- and he knew what would happen next. They would be ordered off the wall, taken through a hatch to the Federal Climbing Commission offices, and suspended for a year. Probably fined some outrageous amount, too.

He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. He sensed his pack beside his leg as if it were warm, or glowing. But he pushed it from his mind. He wasn't going to think about the special mission. Not yet.

The clouds captured his attention. If only they would clear through. He wanted a sight of the objective... something to brace his determination.

There was a tap on his shoulder.

He whirled. It was short, stocky, Ray Haveford, grinning like a maniac. "Ready, Henri?" he asked. His voice was rough and gravelly. He wore his hair short, but the flecks of grey still showed.

Marchand's smile crept up the thin lines that bracketed it. "Yeah. It's time for our celebration. As of this morning, my old friend, I own one hundred percent of the Tower Club. And my ownership includes that part up there." He pointed into the lowering clouds.

"To use an' dispose of as ya wish, eh?"

"They haven't taken this away from us yet."

"...No, not yet. They haven't. Let's go."

You can imagine them, an apparently mismatched pair -- one thin like a rail, the other short and broad with muscle knotting in his arms -- a coil of rope, carabiners clicking metal on metal, reaching the base of the immense plastic wall. Ray flaking out the rope, while Henri links quickdraws to the waist of his harness. Henri tying in, Ray checking the knot. Henri taking a breath, glancing over his shoulder at his partner and grinning, and then taking the first hold in hand. A step, a layaway, pull, hang, first clip. Then the next fine high step...

At the end of the eighth pitch, Henri hung from the belay anchors, watching Ray. He thought about the plan and felt the pack weigh on his back. He thought about how he and Ray had read the old books, looked at the old pictures. He remembered wondering at the sight of great mountains. But he had never climbed them. It was too late for that. The governments had closed all of the parks to climbing after the flurry of bolt failure accidents in the twenty-forties; and there were no large mountains outside the government parks, anymore.

Except here, in the Tower.

But adventure here was the way the government liked it -- regulated, patrolled; controlled. Easy to monitor with cameras and police.

For now.

Haveford watched Henri leading up toward the cloud deck. It was a great feeling, hanging from the wall, hundreds of feet in the air. He loved the high reaches. And Henri was certainly a leader far beyond him. The plan... well, the plan was the only way to go. He had no illusions. It might kill them both, swiftly, or slowly. But everything else was safe, after all. Too safe. Regulated speeds, regulated, licensed leaders. To be free was to take risks boldly in hand.

Henri was the best -- on the Tower. But the true best were the illegals. Ray knew it, and knew he had, until now, lacked their courage. The illegals slipped through the border guards and rangers. They soloed in Yosemite, like Bachar and Croft had once done. They led bold new routes in Washington, Alaska, and Nepal, but few would write about them, because that would be condoning ecological damage, encouraging the young to devote themselves to the selfish pursuit of dangerous adventures of no conceivable benefit to others.

Ray saw achievement on its deathbed, gasping under the weight of the parasites on its chest. He wanted some real, thumbing the nose, extending the finger adventure. And when Henri finally provided one...

Life was good.

They lunched on a ledge above the cloud layer. The flourescent lights were harsh and blue this high, but the voices were quieter -- fewer came here, and few who did had much to say. The walls stretched into the blued distance, above and below, wrinkled and grey with holds, bulges and fantastic roofs. It was colder, and the wind was noticable.

Henri noticed his hand straying over the large plastic capsules in his pack as he brought out the food. He wasn't sure if his reluctance to touch them was fear or desire. There was a big price that might have to be paid for this. And the outcome was so uncertain. Most likely, it would be the end of him, slowly, or quickly.

Wind tugged at them as they reached the Forbidden Line. Holds above glowed red, rejecting their presence. They paused at the belay, and Henri produced a pair of maintenance badges which they hung on their harnesses. The maintenance badges disabled the broadcast of their intrusion. They were now free to step into the upper levels. Upper levels which Henri had carefully ensured would be empty of traffic while the plan was executed.

Outside, sunset painted the buildings in sombre silence, raising twilight from the streets. But the club was open all night. Even though the floor was cleared, there were parties on the wall.

They had reached the roof by the time the lights began to dim, mimicking in their scheduled artificiality the progress of the day outside. Far below, the clouds were their floor. It was beautiful, in its way as beautiful as the mountains in the evening. The only sounds were the quiet whisper of ventilation, and their movement, and the gear like soft bells as they tied in. It was cold.

"It's time..." Henri smiled.

"Do it, or not?" Ray asked.

Henri looked out over the vastness of the club he owned.

"Do it."

He climbed inverted across the roof. There was no other climber who had ever attempted it, through the holds were there, unused, and dusty. He shifted to create counterpressure, hinging; he pinned his feet behind holds, and strained every muscle again and again. He could have aided it, but he wanted to do it free. It was symbolic.

Finally, he locked off to clip the last bolt near the center. He gasped, chest heaving, and threw a leg and an arm over a beam, to rest. He clipped his pack to the beam with a sling and carabiner, and slipped out of it. Then he removed the explosive capsules and fixed them to the main crossbeam. He set the primary timer.

He looked down hundreds of feet into the dimness, his sense of space and orientation completely changed. Outside, he knew the stars decorated the skies. He checked his watch. By now, the Feds had gone home, and only a few climbers remained on the walls.

Slowly he retraced his course, unclipping the quickdraws as he passed, saving them on his bandolier -- for later. Just in case he got a chance to use them.

A red rose became orange and unfolded across the roof. It shed light, and then, distant, closer, surrounding -- sound. The compression wave battered them where they clung, tied, to the belay stance, hands clamped across ears. Henri and Ray screamed and laughed as the roof disintegrated, shedding blunted fiery fragments across the cube of space. The echoes died, and the clouds below stirred, clearing. Henri and Ray began the first of a long series of rappels to the base of the wall.

"No," Henri said to the Feds at the door that morning. The sun slanted pale with dawn past him, coming down from the opening in the tower above. "I'm sorry, but there's no reason for you to come here any longer. You see, this isn't an indoor climbing club any longer, and it's not subject to your regulations. Of course, you're welcome to climb here, as private citizens, but this club is going to abide by nothing more than its own rules, now."

He grinned back at Ray, whose face seemed almost ready to burst with joy.

Then he returned his clear gaze to the bureaucrats.

"Have a nice day."

He closed the door firmly in their faces.