Terminal Velocity

The blizzard hit at 10:00 PM.

The wind howled against the windows of the Quantum Lab. The snow was coming down in sheets, turning the world into a white void.

Oliver sat at his desk. He had his grant. He had his safety.

He looked at the whiteboard. He had erased the equations for the stunt. But he could still see them in his mind.

*Wind drag shifting North.*

*Ice accumulation on the gargoyle.*

He checked the campus security feed. The Dean had put guards at the base of the tower.

But Bex wouldn't go to the base. She would go to the maintenance hatch on the library roof that connected to the tower via a catwalk. A catwalk that was currently coated in two inches of ice.

Oliver looked at the probability model in his head.

If she tried to cross that catwalk in this wind, without a spotter, without the calculations for the lateral shear...

**Probability of Survival: 0%.**

Oliver stared at the wall.

He had spent his whole life calculating risk. He avoided variables he couldn't control. He minimized entropy.

But sitting here, safe and warm, he realized something.

A life with 0% risk was a life with 0% Bex.

And that was a variable he couldn't accept.

"Screw the grant," Oliver whispered.

He grabbed his coat. He grabbed the carabiners from his desk. He grabbed the tablet.

He ran.

He burst out of the science building into the storm. The wind nearly knocked him over. The snow blinded him.

He ran toward the library. He bypassed the locks—using the trick Bex had taught him with the bobby pin—and sprinted up the stairs to the roof access.

He kicked the door open.

The wind roared like a jet engine.

There she was.

Bex was on the catwalk, halfway to the tower. She was crawling on her hands and knees. The wind was whipping her body sideways. She was struggling with a frozen rigging clip on her harness.

"Bex!" Oliver screamed.

The wind swallowed his voice.

She slipped. Her hand lost its grip on the icy railing. She slid toward the edge of the catwalk.

Oliver didn't calculate. He didn't think about the friction coefficient.

He acted.

He ran onto the icy catwalk. He didn't have a harness. He didn't have safety gear. He just had desperation.

He slid on his knees, reaching out.

Bex was dangling by one hand, her other hand frantically clawing at the ice.

Oliver grabbed her wrist.

"I got you!" he yelled. "I got you!"

He hauled her up, straining against the wind, dragging her back onto the center of the metal grate.

They lay there for a second, the snow burying them.

"You came back," Bex shouted over the wind, staring at him. "You'll lose your grant!"

"I don't care!" Oliver yelled back. "The wind drag is shifting North! If you jump from the gargoyle, you'll smash into the wall!"

"So we abort?" Bex asked, shivering violently.

Oliver looked at her. He saw the fire in her eyes, even in the freezing cold. If he made her stop, he would save her life, but he would kill her spirit. She needed to fly.

"No!" Oliver shouted. He grabbed her harness and clipped a secondary line to the railing. "We adjust! You don't jump from the gargoyle! You jump from the catwalk railing! It compensates for the North shear!"

"That's a longer drop!" Bex yelled.

"I recalculated!" Oliver tapped his temple. "Trust the math! Trust me!"

Bex looked at him. She smiled, wild and terrified and in love.

"I trust you!"

She stood up. Oliver held her anchor line. He wrapped it around the railing, bracing his feet against the ice. He was the anchor.

"On my mark!" Oliver watched the wind gusts, counting the seconds between the surges.

"Wait for the downbeat!"

The wind howled... and then, for a split second, lulled.

"DROP!" Oliver screamed.

Bex didn't hesitate. She vaulted over the railing.

The line went taut. Oliver felt the jerk force slam into his arms, threatening to pull him over. He gritted his teeth, digging his heels in, screaming with the effort.

The silk held.

Below him, Bex plummeted. The silk caught her. She spun, a blur of neon blue and black against the white snow, defying gravity, defying death.

She swung in a perfect arc, clearing the tower wall by inches, and landed in the deep snowdrift of the quad below.

Oliver watched her land. He saw her stand up and wave a glow stick.

Safe.

Oliver collapsed onto the catwalk, laughing hysterically into the storm.

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