Chapter 17: The Gods Above, Part 2

When the chopper moved away, he lay still on the roof, ignored by the crowd. The helicopter flew toward Pranthi's building and the roofers followed. The railing stopped them, but the push of people in the back crushed the front row against the rail. Their faces should have twisted in pain. They ought to have been screaming for the push to stop. Instead they reached toward the helicopter with the rest.

The railing couldn't take the weight of the crowd. When it pulled up from the roof the mass of people surged forward and over the edge. Falling roofers still smiled and reached for the sky. Even when the pressure was off, people kept going over the edge, as if they would be the ones to defy gravity.

The news chopper flew closer to their building.

Run, climb, jump.

The need in her increased and only the agony of her leg braces kept her grounded. Even so, she tried to run and fell, rolling to protect her camera.

"C'mon," Jack helped her to her feet. "We have to get closer." His face shone with urgency, like Duckman trying to skate with a broken leg-white bone sticking through bloody denim, the image turned her stomach.

"No," Pranthi said. "Something's wrong." All around them people were lifting their hands and faces to the sky. The same, identical expression on each face. Ecstasy captured them, stealing their humanity. Not people at a festival, worshippers.

"What?" Jack said. "The gods are here for us."

He broke for the edge and Pranthi lunged to catch his arm. Jack rolled and kicked to escape her as they fell to the gravel. He screamed something about gods and needing to go to them. He worshipped too. He heard the voice, they all did.

Pranthi couldn't hold him. The crowd surged to the corner waving at the chopper. On this roof, too, young people stood higher on vents only to slip under the uncaring feet of the mob.

Jack climbed a vent, jumping and waving. Pranthi grabbed her camera and caught him high above the crowd. In the frame, he looked close enough to catch hold of the chopper. Tears ran down her face even while she laughed in what might have been joy.

The voice became a roar in her head.

She caught the moment when someone in the chopper saw the havoc from the building behind them. Horror filled the cameraman's face and he turned away from his camera. The chopper lifted and moved away.

The mob followed, crushed against the rail that kept them from whatever ecstatic goal had taken over their minds. Here, too, the railing couldn't hold. No one screamed as they fell. No one screamed when they watched someone fall.

The roar pulled at her and again her legs failed her, dooming her to this grounded existence. Pranthi's numb hands worked the camera as tears streamed down her face. She mopped them away with the sleeve of her hoodie.

Jack jumped off the vent, rolling like he'd missed a trick on his board, then sprinted toward what was left of the crowd on the edge of the building. He leapt up onto the heads and shoulders of the mob and dove out into space.

The sunlight caught him and made him look like a golden bird taking flight. Pranthi prayed that he'd be the one to catch the helicopter, to answer the gods' call.

Gravity pulled him down to pass far below the chopper, arms still spread out like wings. Jack plummeted out of sight. The chopper lifted and vanished into the blue sky.

A knife edge of pain drove into Pranthi's gut as the roar in her head stopped. She fell to the roof huddled around her camera. Her screams blended with the despairing wails of the few people left around her. The ecstasy had abandoned them with the disappearance of the helicopter.

Pranthi didn't care what happened now.

The gods had rejected her.

Only she stopped believing in gods the day the driver of the vegetable truck had carefully crushed her legs beneath the wheels of his truck. He'd collected his payment from her mother while her little brother sat beside Pranthi and held her hand, patting it occasionally as she wept.