Chapter five

The apartment exploded into a cacophony of noise and action. Rose's mother was still stood up, sobbing hard as her dad attempted to sooth her. The other adults were animatedly yelling at one another, variously trying to make sense of the shuttle crash or work out why their links to the ultranet had gone down. It was too much for Rose; with most of the adults stood up she was mainly left looking at people's knees, a forest of legs surrounding her. She battled across to where her grandpa was still sat down, eyes focused on the screen in his lap, despite it being dead.

"Grandpa, what's wrong, why is mummy crying?"

"....those stupid idiots.....don't know what they're doing......why must we gamble with people's lives so freely?"

Rose didn't understand what he was talking about. It was like he didn't know she was there, mumbling quickly to himself. Rose turned back into the room, realising she didn't have her robin with her. She made her way to the spot she'd been sat down, the small purple cushion marking the spot. But where was the robin? Something glinted in the sunlight from the window, something metal. A wing. Rose hurried over to it, gently picking it up before another metallic glint caught her eye; a bent cog, this next two one of the red stones that had been the robin's eye. Other parts were spread around the floor, trodden on unknowingly in the melee that had followed the shuttle crash, bent and crushed beyond repair. Her own tears now, tracing lines down her cheeks.

She ran, jumping up to reach the door handle to the apartment and into the hallway. Lifts with an out of order message scrolling across the display above the doors, so she ran into the stairwell and started climbing upwards. Up one floor, then two, she was getting out of breath, but pushed on. Four floors up she ran out of stairs to climb. A fire exit led out onto the roof of the building. Here the residents association had grouped together to build a small patio and garden; numerous plant boxes and trellises sprouted a variety of boldly colour flowers. Rose squeezed down the side of a greenhouse and worked her way to the edge of the building. Here, among bags of compost and boxes of plant pots she sat down. It was here favourite spot for when she wanted to get out of the apartment, to be able to talk to her international friends without adult interruption, or to hide when she played hide and seek with her apartment friends. She climbed up and sat on the small wall which lined the roof, legs dangling down either side of a guard rail. She looked out over the Newcastle skyline.

Back in the apartment and Rose's uncle had noticed her absence. He had felt an uncomfortable lump poking through the sole of his right shoe. Looking down he discovered it to be the beak and head of the mechanical robin that he had brought Rose back from China. Glancing around the room and he couldn't see his niece. Nor was she in her bedroom or bathroom, then he saw that the door out to the hallway had been left ajar. He caught the eye of his wife, who was across the room with his sister and brother-in-law and nodded to the door and mouthed "going to get some air". She nodded in response and he slipped out.

The hallway was quiet, lights flickering slightly. He approached the lift, but it was out of action. Into the stairwell and he paused. "ROSE?" he shouted downwards, but was greeted instead by a dull banging noise above him. He set off up stairs. Four flights up he came to the source of the noise; the fire escape to the roof garden had been left open and was banging in the wind that blew strongly between the apartment blocks. A gust of wind caught some soil from a plant box and threw it into his face. He rubbed his eyes, the irritation drawing his attention back to the cornea IR, the red 'offline' light still blinking in the bottom corner of his vision. He ruefully shook his head and headed outside. "ROSE? YOU OUT HERE?"

Movement

A shadow near the greenhouse, was it the wind? He leant against the wind and started to move closer. It was a tight squeeze down the side of the greenhouse, but once at the back of it he was rewarded with the sight of his niece looking up at him with big teary eyes. He lent down and put an arm around her, "Hey little one, what are you doing up here?"

She sniffed and spoke quietly into his ear "My robin" she opened a hand to reveal the broken wing

"I know, but we can fix it, no need to run off like that, you scared me"

"Sorry" another sniff "Do you really think we can fix it Uncle Rob?

"We can try. Why don't we head back down an take a look?" this was greeted with a nod, Rose lifting her arms in the air as a signal that she was not adverse to being picked up. Rob obliged, hugging his niece close. He was about to turn back towards the fire exit when another movement caught his eye. Looking out over the edge of the apartment block there was a railway which snaked its way between the buildings in this part of town. The line turned close to his sister's apartment block; she often moaned about the noise if she had a window open, but its proximity kept the rent down. Further up the line something glinted in the sunlight, much like the robin on the floor of the apartment. It was a train, but seemed different to the commuter service which usually trundled past the building. Its nose was more aerodynamically shaped, the glass it was constructed of twinkling under the sun. It was one of the new hyper-trains. It was approaching the apartment.

It was approaching fast.

Rob ran, back past the greenhouse and onto the main part of the roof, heading for the fire escape. But the crash from below knocked him from his feet, Rose cried out, but he managed to turn to land on his shoulder rather than her. His arm rang out in pain and he rolled onto his back, Rose gripped tightly around his neck. She was sobbing again. The building creaking and rumbled. Rob wasn't sure if he'd bumped his head, or if the apartment block really was swaying. He unsteadily clambered back to his feet, stumbling uncertainly towards the fire exit once again.

The force of the fireball sent him back to the ground. The explosion channelled up through the stairwell and vented out at the top with a powerful boom. Rose gripped his neck even tighter as once again he tried to regain his feet. The heat made it impossible to get any closer to the fire exit, so Rob turned back towards the edge of the building. No escape made itself immediately obvious, so he started to edge his way round. Another shudder and the building released an alarming groan. Onto the northern side and Rob spotted some cables leading over the side. Looking over the edge and a little way down was one of the automatic window cleaners. He turned his attention back to the machinery on the roof, looking for a control panel.

Rose was still attached to him like a limpet, muffled sobs emanating from her head which was buried in the folds of his jacket. He attempted to shift her round a little, but that just resulted in Rose tightening her grip. "Rose, darling" he attempted to sooth her "I just need to take a look at this machine, I'm not going anywhere, I just need you to let go for a little while" no response "Rose?"

"The control panel is on the other side" she looked up at him

"What"?

"On the other side, I can show you" tears still fell from her cheeks, but Rose let go, sliding off him before grabbing a hand and leading round the machine. Sure enough, there was a small panel. Another red light blinked, much like the one from his IR. But it was an old machine. While the citynet controlled it, this command function was retroactively fitted. Prior to the central command it would have been a janitor's job to set the window cleaning machine off and working. Flipping up the control panel revealed a jumble of cables, but one looked newer than the rest and led to a small circuit board which had been plugged into the main motherboard. Small writing on the circuit board read 'citynet control ver:2.013b". With a little wiggle of the board, and a grunt of exertion from Rob, it came free. He threw it aside and put the control panel back down. The light flashing had turned green.

"Now we're talking" Rob muttered to himself, although any smugness was quickly snuffed out by another groan and shudder from the building "Rose, can you go round to the other side and call out what the window cleaner does when I ask" Rose nodded and disappeared back round the machine. Rob waited a second then pressed a button on the control panel, "ANYTHING HAPPENING"

"NO" came the reply from his niece, so another button was pressed "IT'S GOING DOWN" Rob sighed and tried another button "NOW ITS GOING TO THE LEFT" another button "IT'S COMING UP NOW UNCLE ROB!" More like it.

"TELL ME WHEN IT GETS TO THE TOP". After what felt like an eternity amid the rumbling, explosions and groans, Rose let him know that their way out had arrived. Back on the other side Rob surveyed their chariot. Unlike the more modern window crawlers used on the upmarket tall buildings, this older design actually had a small foot-plate to allow for manual operation. Rob tentatively clambered in, before reaching back across a small gap back to the building to pick Rose up and lift her on board. There was another control panel in front of him, the same as the one on the main roof unit. Using his new found window cleaner operating skills, he pressed the 'down' button and they began the descent.

Two floors down and Rob made Rose turn towards him so that she couldn't see the devastation caused by the train's impact. Four floors down, the floor containing his sister's apartment, and Rob himself had to turn away. All was left was a blackened shell, fires still sporadically burning. Before he turned away Rob had been able to see from one side of the building all the way through to the other. He wasn't sure what exactly was holding up the top floors of the apartment block. It was if the building was having the same dilemma, another load groan - this time accompanied by a cracking noise - implying that the upper floors weren't going to remain the upper floors for that much longer. Rob looked at the control panel, trying to figure if any of the other buttons would make it descend any quicker.

The building swayed, the window cleaner swinging out then banging back in to the building, causing Rose, and Rob, to yelp in alarm. Rob was rapidly coming to the conclusion that they weren't going to get down to ground level before the upper floors collapsed. Looking down and away from the building he saw a possible solution. His sister's block was one of the tallest in the area, but it was surrounded by its slightly shorter cousins. About 10 floors down from where they were currently loomed the roof of one of the other blocks. It would be quite a leap, but it looked doable, certainly worth the risk if the intensifying cracking noise of their own building was anything to go by.

When they got to about one floor above the height of the next door building, Rob stopped the window cleaner. He bent down to look Rose in the eye, "Now my darling, I need you to be a really brave girl, do you think you can be brave?". She nodded, but tentatively. "We need to jump onto that roof behind us" she peered out behind him and her eyes widened in nervous surprise. "I'm going to pick you up and we're going to swing round, like I did when you were a toddler. Remember? You used to love that" Rose frowned "Except this time I'm going to have to let go" he was starting to talk more quickly, as rubble had started to fall from above, coating them in dust. "Shall we give it a go?" Rose shook her head, but Rob picked her up regardless. She shrieked as he began to swing her.

Then he let go

Rose cried out, her stomach lurching as she briefly flew between the two buildings.

She landed hard on her backside, giving a yelp as she skidded across the hard surface, scratching her back and legs. Tears stung her eyes once again, but she was quickly back onto her feet, running to the edge of the building to see where uncle Rob was. He had clambered over the side of the window cleaner, perched precariously as it swung sickeningly in the space between the buildings.

With a crunch and a sickening lurch the top of Rose's apartment block began to collapse in on itself. The cables on the window cleaner went slack.

Rose screamed

Rob jumped.