Chapter One
And Now It Begins
heading into combat
I remember the golden globe in the vast courtyard between the two buildings and
a spattering fountain next to cold stone benches. Inside, I would look up in awe
at the cathedral like glass, the suspended walkways, and the grand, vaulted
ceilings rising ten stories, crowned with a diadem of crystal chandeliers. I
remember the large fabric hanging artwork. I can still smell the concourse
level's red carpets when they were new. I was eleven. I remember sitting on
those red carpets, reading my schoolbooks, imagining I was in the city's most
elegant reading room.
Now, up there on floors so high no hook and ladder could ever reach, a man in a
tattered and burned white business shirt stands in a broken window with flames
licking at him and smoke billowing around him. I see someone let go, briefly
f ...
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