The Thief and the Globetrotter

Chapter Three: The Escape

It was all about looking natural, like he belonged and there was absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing. He was asthmatic and needed the air. Or maybe he was a smoker and needed the privacy.

Neither of those were good excuses. He didn't have an inhaler or a lighter.

But no one called out to him. No one stopped him from climbing up the spiral staircase one step at a time. The thunder of his heart didn't overwhelm the party music or conversation. He just pushed open the trapdoor above the last step and let himself onto the roof.

A little sanctuary. Most of it was green, paths forged between the planter boxes that gave ferns somewhere to root. A garden high above the city.

Very high. Very, very high. That was always a reality Baz thought he was prepared to face, and it said something about him that he preferred that threat to the threat of explaining himself to party-goers, but knowing Rei Collingwood lived on the 35th floor of her building was very different than being there.

The plan was 'simple'. It was simple in the way that the problem could be summed up in two words: get down. There were only fifteen floors between him and the point where the condo tower leveled into the larger body of the building that made up 19 levels of office buildings, and retail businesses.

The website had really been so helpful for number crunching. Straight math had seemed so much more manageable in the comfort of his warehouse. Hundred feet this and 'Tom Cruise could do it' that.

It was fine. Everything would be fine. He could find his way down the building with only equipment he could manage to conceal under a tuxedo. He came prepared.

Baz kicked off his shoes first, right over the edge of the building. An ultra low-profile martial arts shoe fit inside as long as he wore a dress shoe a size bigger than he normally would. A silicon sole would keep traction, even against glass.

The tux came off like an uncomfortable snakeskin, leaving him in the snug compression layers and the rope wrapped around his waist as many times as he could feasibly have without outwardly looking like he was trying to smuggle a snake into the party. The drawstring bag he'd worn the entire night under his jacket only had his gloves inside and he swapped them out and rolled the inlaid box in his dress shirt and tux before slipping it back in.

Every building had anchor points. Baz found his starting point at the ledge, looking over the lower level. He tied the rope around himself first, a makeshift safety harness that would probably save him from a splattery death, but would still hurt like hell if he lost his footing. He looped rope through the anchor and tied it to his harness loop. Doubling the rope back lost him a lot of length, but it was also the best way to recover the rope.

There was only an 80% chance he'd die. It was somehow better than the 97% chance he'd get caught trying to walk out the front door.

He took a deep breath. Everything was secure. There was nothing to do but go for it.

His life was in his own hands and that was the best-case scenario for any given situation. Baz stepped over the ledge, death grip on the rope. He lowered himself far enough that he could get his feet up against the wall. The silicon gripped even the smooth surface of marble and glass. All he needed to do was breathe, not die, and make it to the balcony rail below. One step... another... Baz resisted the urge to count the steps to the balcony. There was too much distance between him and the ground. Mumbling numbers to himself into the thousands wouldn't help.

The length of rope ran out just as he reached the balcony. The next step was more terrifying than lowering himself. He unknotted the rope, giving himself a free end to pull through the anchor high above. For a heart-pounding minute, there was nothing stopping him from dropping if he slipped. He wrapped one leg around the railing, both hands furiously pulling the rope back and around a post in the balcony. The end found its way back into his hands and he knotted it back to himself, hands shaking, not daring to breathe in case someone inside heard him.