Craig's grip loosened with the nerve failures and as he fell from the ledge he was immediately overcome with fear. The air rush seemed a noisy fantasy pulling at his ear drums as he plummeted. The face above vanished and to Craig the end seemed overly simplified, the punishment not severe enough. He smacked into a solid surface, slid down it some way taking the pain in his shoulder and back, and fell again off of the structure he had hit.

Again the air accelerated as he fell, that sick stomach-pit ache rising – exhilarating as he realised what was happening. He managed to rotate his body to face downwards with his back to the wall, and could see his path momentarily before the rush of air forced his eyes closed. He thumped harder this time into another sloping structure; smooth plastic guided him down quickly at a steep angle. He scrabbled against the surface trying desperately to get some purchase. His nails broke at every half-established grip and edge. He kept on sliding inexorably. Fortunately, the architect had provided Craig with a building whose slope gradually faded to a saddle point. The angle grew shallower, the friction greater, and he managed to brake himself to an eventual halt with one hand gripping the latest in a series of painful bumps. He pushed his heels together around the composite beam on which he now slid, with his knees at right angles. The building fell away on both sides of his body and rose up ahead and behind. He laid in an uneasy position.

Craig looked around manically. He saw the dark shapes of towers with billions of lights across them. He saw the dark sky with no stars and no weather reaching out to the upside horizon. He looked at where he had fallen and could not conceive more than a glimmer of the building’s height before it connected with the plate. He turned to swing his other arm, his right arm, around to grab the ledge with both hands and roll onto his stomach.

‘Fuck,’ he grunted into the wall. What the hell could he do from here but eventually let go and fall again, probably to his death this time. The slope on which he laid was mostly windows, and all of them around were dark. Not that anyone could help him: whoever might come couldn’t open the polymer glass from the inside or smash it with anything less than a bullet from a large calibre rifle.

‘FUCK,’ he shouted into the wall, and let go.

***

Vries walked away from the edge, having watched enough of a bouncing corpse. He pocketed the simple knife and went back inside, it was getting chilly out. He took the lift down, exited the building, hopped into a taxi to a bar and sat at a booth there with a drink clasped between his thumbs, fists on the table. He looked solemnly into the murky froth, his face hidden by shrouding waves of emerald hood, scorpion patterned.

A lanky figure stumbled through the door, brushed his longcoat down and came over to Vries’s table.

‘Yit done?’ A stranger alien. Vries’s contact must have been trained almost from birth to achieve this level of natural human speech, but its English would never be perfect.
‘Yes’
‘Yeegoo,’ the tall creature looked like a standard human with a mask and a hat covering the face. It - he - wobbled around and sat down in the booth, next to Vries. ‘Confirmation?’ he asked, with sobering accuracy. ‘You do another yoob aftar confirmation?’
‘Payment first,’ Vries looked up at the messenger.
‘Noo, confir-mation?’
‘The body was dropped from a tall building, the corpse will be deep.  I have no confirmation but the report of this missing will be sure.’
‘These we did not want. Wee wished for confirmation, as eescussed, Vrr.’
‘He is dead, there’s nothing else to say.’
‘Then I must leave, greetings to your farmily.’ The alien began to rise.
‘Wait.’
‘Yee?’ He paused a moment; Vries didn't speak; he resumed leaving.
‘I have his ring.’
The alien turned and sat back down quickly, clearly satisfied with his counterpart’s honesty, ‘Yaa, yes, yes.’ He began whispering, ‘I give yoo thees,’ he passed a small cotton drawstring bag under the table. Vries opened it slightly, seeing the device inside.
‘Geev now.’
Vries passed him the short cylinder of metal. ‘Alright, what else do you want me for?’
He was looking at the ring, ‘Yeee -’ He stopped and looked around, leaning sideways so he could see behind himself. ‘Yaah, the Copaan wishes for your footh target to eee Primary Graan, of the Solitaary Molk organee. Yee.’ He again passed something under the table, a piece of card with writing on it.
‘I’ll see it and give you the signal either way.’
'Seeee that you do. The deviss is to be programmed with the consooltation of Enser. I cold not fine him. Fine him.'
The alien got up, wavering slightly, and walked out of the busy bar. Vries drained his glass of froth and sat for a moment, fingering the flimsy plastic buttons of his powerful new toy before exiting.