Damn excellent air tonight. Fresh, crisp, cool, just the right touch of humidity, like a perfectly balanced gin and tonic with exactly two ice cubes in the glass. I sit on the balcony railing, my legs dangling, the city sprawled below me fifty-two floors below. A measured northeastern breeze pushes past me, not anywhere near as frantic as air can get this high up.

  Behind me, through the glass door, is some piece of crazy modern art, all vertices and angles, hammering the point home that whoever lives here has money. I love these Billionaires Row needle towers. Some people say the way these new buildings, tall and thin, sway when the wind does get going is terrifying. I’d say it’s part of the package, if I could even begin to think about buying something in a building this expensive.

  This building is full of pied-a-terres or whatever they call rich-bastard investment properties, most uninhabited tonight like this one, forgotten like a low-ranking mistress the vast majority of the year. Fifty-two floors up, yet this view would’ve gone completely to waste, like the artwork I saw inside, if I wasn’t borrowing it.

  Glancing at the World Trade Center rising in the distant night, I think how that’s the last building in town I’d ever try. The challenge, though… the thought thrills me. How would I even pull that off?

  A sound as something hits glass behind me. With a startled yelp, I turn my head.

  A dog. A little white dog had run into the glass door behind me, and now is pawing at it, yapping excitedly.

  A dog, which means… oh no.

  Twisting, I let myself fall off the edge of the balcony, catching the railing with my hands, hanging over 50 stories up.

  Shouting in some foreign language, angry shouting. Pounding on the glass, yelling in what’s probably Russian. Well, shit. I wasn’t fast enough… last thing I ever want is to deal with angry homeowners… now what?

  I peek over the edge. Some fat, scowling guy in a shirt and tie, maybe in his 50s, is pointing at me, shouting still. Ok, how do I talk him down…

  A woman appears by his side, younger, in heels, a victim of one too many plastic surgeries. He suddenly turns to her, grabs her by the arm, shakes her while pointing at me, screaming in her face. She’s hollering right back at him, raising her hand as to slap him, the little dog yelping in their condo.

  Are they really arguing over who they think is cheating with me?

  I have to do something before one or both of them get hurt.

  With a grunt, I pull myself back over the balcony edge. The glass door creaks open and the fat man is suddenly on me, shouting in Russian, meaty hands grabbing at my hair, all frenetic movement, his wife’s angry yelling in the background. I fend him off.

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  “I’ve never seen either of you before–” I begin before he’s grabbing me under my shoulders, pushing me over the balcony edge.

  “Filthy dog!” he yells in English, holding me over the side, 57th Street far below me.

  “You don’t want to do this,” I tell him as he draws back one fist, the wind now picking up, whipping past us. With one arm, I block the blow before headbutting him, sending him staggering, blood now pouring out of his nose. The woman shouts something, pointing at me, and the man nods at her before turning to face me again.

  “I kill you!” he shouts.

  He propels his frame at me as I’m still staggered against the balcony railing. I time it, falling to one side just as he’s reaching me.

  But he doesn’t grab at the railing to stop himself. He grabs onto me.

  Next thing I know, we’re both in free fall.

  He’s screaming, clutching at me, the street below approaching way too fast. “Let go of me!” I shout, propelling one elbow into his forearm as hard as I can midfall, his hands now waving crazily in the air.

  There’s no way I can save him. He’s too heavy and falling way too fast. If I tried to catch him, my arms would get ripped out of my sockets.

  Banking hard to the left, I pull out of my fall at maybe ten floors up, climbing again through the air, arms to my side, already trying to get the sound of his impact out of my mind, racing back up the building but up the corner now with no windows to see me, as I look fearfully back down.

  He had landed on the street between two parked cars, not the sidewalk. Nobody else was hurt.

  Cursing myself for putting people in danger, I keep climbing until I’m just below the top floor. This building’s roof has cameras. Naturally, I’m in my hat and mask, but… I can’t risk footage of me winding up on a remote server somewhere.

  I fly west instead, above 57th Street, until I’m over the Hudson. Swooping to my right, I’m zooming down, down to the river below, now almost at water level as I fly past a container ship making its way downriver, chilly spray like a heavy freshwater spritzer, making me shiver. I normally love the feel of water spray adding to the bracing, crisp, slight chill of excellent air like tonight, but now I’m just feeling cold… and badly rattled, my mind racing, trying not to replay the death cry of the Russian.

  Any Russian able to afford a place like that is a bad man who’s done bad things.

  I’m rationalizing.

  I didn’t kill him. He killed himself in his rage.

  But I certainly helped him along, didn’t I?

  Soon, I’m flying under the George Washington Bridge, such thoughts chasing each other in my head. I finally land near my safe spot not far from the little red lighthouse in the park, the place deserted. I’m too out of sorts to risk landing right on my building.

  Now for the long walk home.

  Maybe the worst part is, I have nobody I can talk to about this. Never mind the whole potentially incriminating myself thing… none of my friends even know this crazy part of me. I’ve never heard of anyone else doing anything like me either, outside of anime and MCU movies. Just the vague rumor of the Flying Man of New York, more social media meme than serious conspiracy theory.

  A man is dead because of me.

  Clutching my jacket close, I trudge up the long park path.