Present Time...
Lance and Adam landed on the next roof in an almost synchronized roll and kept running once they were back on their feet. They ran and leapt across again, the next building being a much closer jump than the first.
“There is a bit of a climb coming up,” informed Lance. “Use the grappler.”
They drew their launchers as they ran, jumping again across the next alleyway. They fired in mid-air at the height of the taller building before them, the mechanism kicked in as soon as the grapple took hold. Almost as soon as they hit the ground, they were whisked up the side of the building. They climbed the last bit to the roof’s ledge and ran towards the middle, then turned right. Once more, they jumped across a gap between the apartments along the plotted course. They rolled as before, using the momentum to keep going.
Ahead of them to the side was a couple in a romantic embrace, enjoying the night sky and city lights.
“Nice night out, isn’t it?” asked Adam as they passed, jumping off the ledge near to which the pair were leaning on.
The couple jumped back in surprise and turned just as Lance and Adam turned behind the roof entrance on the building across from them.
“Dude, you’re lucky they didn’t fall off,” laughed Lance.
“Did you see their faces though?” asked Adam. “It was hilarious!”
After another moment Adam reminisced of the training they went through to accomplish what they were doing.
“Remember that last time we raced Rick and the others?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Lance as they made use of their grapple lines again. “They were not too happy with us beating them again. They just wouldn’t accept the fact that we all had gotten better than them.”
“All of this right now reminds me of those times,” continued Adam. “But then again, this is what the parkour training was for in the first place. Then again, you seemed to already have had the hang of it.”
"You picked it up quickly enough yourself," noted Lance. "You had the build, just needed a bit of muscle toning and practice."
They pulled themselves up and over yet another ledge and a green arrow appeared on their screens, marking a location several rooftops ahead.
“What is that?” asked Adam.
“Way-point,” answered Lance. “It is partly to test out marking specific locations or addresses. There is a pack there to pick up at your marker.”
The arrow grew as they neared the point until Adam could see what appeared to be a pair of backpacks. Without stopping, the two scooped them up and promptly put them on. Each had a set of buckles between the straps which were quickly fastened to avoid dropping the packs while running.
“Almost there,” informed Lance, both still running at a reasonable pace.
They made one more jump when Adam was suddenly met mid-air with a blast of steam.
“HEY!” he yelled, disoriented as his vision blurred from the hot air.
Lance reached and grabbed Adam’s arm just in enough time as he slid onto the other side. Hanging over the ledge, Adam hit the thick wall below.
“Ouch...” he said.
“You okay?” asked Lance.
“Yeah, just hanging out over a life-threatening drop from one of the city’s tallest buildings,” stated Adam with enthusiasm.
He reached up with his free hand and grabbed the ledge to climb as Lance pulled him up.
“At least the armor is lighter than it could’ve been...” grunted Lance as he finished assisting Adam.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” chuckled Adam, taking feign offense.
“Well, we almost made a clean run...” noted Lance, not paying mind to the comment.
Turning from the way they came, Lance deactivated the path from his HUD. Adam mimicked the action as they walked across the rooftop.
“What’s next?” inquired Adam. Looking out, before them lay the massive campus of New Atlantis University.
“Stealth,” informed Lance without turning around.
He reached behind to Adam’s pack and flipped a red handled pull string to his friend’s front side.
“Count to five, then pull this,” he stated quickly before taking a step back, then running and leaping off the side.
Adam panicked for a split second, peering off the side just in time to see a chute-like device deploy from Lance’s pack, slowing his descent.
“Okay then...”
Adam stepped back and took in a deep breath. Exhaling, he sprinted for the edge of the roof and jumped off. He counted in his head:
“One... Two... Three... Four... FIVE!”
He tugged on the red tag. The black material on his pack seemed to unfold behind him and his fall quickly decelerated. He tried to look back, but not only couldn’t he see much, but his whole glide suddenly dipped to the side. Surprised, Adam pushed himself to regain control and tilted the other way to balance out again. He wasn’t quite floating as he would a parachute, but rather seemed to be gliding just slowly enough that falling wouldn’t hurt too much once he reached the ground. Adam noticed where Lance had already landed and steered his descent in that direction.
As he got closer Lance’s voice piped up in his helmet: “When you reach the distance to the ground approximately twice your height, push back on the frame with your elbows,” he commanded.
Adam did as he was told and put his feet in front of him to land. He impacted the pavement with a slightly jarring halt, his knees bending to absorb the shock. Carefully standing up, he spun around to find Lance standing behind him.
“Why didn’t you tell me we were jumping?” scolded Adam.
“It was a last-minute idea,” stated Lance casually. “Turn back around.”
Adam sighed as he did a one-eighty, after which Lance began adjusting something on Adam’s glider.
“Pretty cool, aren’t they?”
“Did you make these too?” asked Adam as he tried to turn to see what it looked like.
“Stop moving!” ordered Lance as he grabbed the glider frame to hold it still. “I’m trying to fold it back up.”
Adam stopped fidgeting as Lance finally managed to unlock the frame, folding the dark cloth into its compact form.
“No, I didn’t make these. I found them at the store where I purchased the armor sets, but I did modify them to make collapsing them easier.”
Lance finished resetting Adam’s rig, then picked up his own which had already been packed and lay nearby on the ground.
“Ready?”
“How are we going to test out stealth here?” asked Adam.
Lance pointed to the other side of the campus’ parking lot at a recent construction site nearby.
“There are robotic constructors with a few human operators still working there tonight,” he informed. “When we get over there, we’ll start a similar program as the rooftop run: the difference is that you can’t be spotted by the robots or the workers.”
“Sounds like fun,” stated Adam. “Let’s go.”
The ebony-armored duo sprinted across the empty parking lot towards the building site, which was more of a renovation to the complex which already stood on that block. A high fence made of a series of panels obscured their view of the ground level but failed to prevent their entry as they climbed and vaulted over with ease. Immediately they encountered a ground-based constructor drone, which resembled a miniaturized dump truck. It was carrying a load of metasteel beams, its oversized wheels toting the heavy load with little effort. Luckily for the two it was turned away from them, heading around the perimeter of the wall away from them. Adam and Lance ran in the opposite direction, diving behind inactive machinery and piles of building material to avoid being detected by the active workers.
Sidling beside a huge crane, Lance hand-signaled Adam to wait. He peered around the corner to see a man in a hard hat and a bright orange vest walking by. Lance pulled back only seconds before the man turned and would have seen him. The foreman paused, scratching the back of his head.
“I’m sure I saw something....” he muttered to himself.
He turned the corner to find nothing but the profile of the crane. He crouched to look underneath, but coming to a similar discovery, he decided to ignore it and carry on.
“Probably just some kids messing around....” he decided.
Lance and Adam watched from the lower end of the crane’s boom and laughed quietly to themselves.
“If only he knew....” said Adam.
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