Sky Stitchers

Cass Hale liked the precise part of the job—the instant the harness accepted her weight and the cliff of glass became a corridor. Tonight the building’s façade gleamed under festival lights; strings of paper kites stitched with LEDs hovered like a slow constellation between roofs. She set her descender, fed rope through the device with the practiced flick of a pianist, and let the city whisper past the lenses of her goggles. Her boots scraped a hairline of rain-slick silicone, the sound swallowed by the hum of a dozen rooftop kitchens below.
She checked anchors the way some people check their pulse: quick, clinical. A bolt hidden behind a maintenance grille, a scaffold clamp formed into a temporary cradle, a loop of webbing doubled and kissed with tape. Her hands moved in a grammar of knots and metal—figure-eight follow-through, a backup prusik tied for patience, a cow’s tail clipped like a secret. On the pavement far below, a vendor shouted about skewers brushed with lime and molasses; the scent climbed and braided with the exhaust of a tram that threaded the harbor.
When she eased off the façade, the descender made a small, satisfied hiss. The work was tidy; light reflected in the glass like applause. Cass unhooked, shrugged the harness into its bag, and let herself dangle for a second’s private view. The city was a ragged orchestra; a balloon—Benny the Balloon Badger, all ridiculous snout and promotional banner—floated in the square like an embarrassed mascot, tethered but tugging. Above it, a municipal drone shaped like a rubber duck, Peep, blinked its navigation LEDs and buzzed in an uncertain orbit. The world tolerated absurdity; it made everything less sharp.
A building manager materialized at the roof access, collar up against the wind, clipboard a barricade against his own boredom. “All set, Cass?” he called.
Cass thumbed a grin. “All set. Tighten the bottom seal in panel seven like we talked. And tell the florist not to nail anything to the mullions.”
He barked something that might have been gratitude and then retreated. She packed gear with the casual care of someone who liked her tools to be both reliable and anonymous. There was an economy to safety; it fit her like a second skin. She rubbed chalk off her palms, the white lines like notes. On the bench by the rooftop café, a paper container of soup steamed—lemongrass and ginger—and the night warmed around it. Cass ate with one hand, the other occupied with untangling paracord, and watched the festival take its first breath.