You’re drowning in your own air. Your lungs are burning, heart’s pounding not in your chest, but in your throat. Your temples beat like double bass drums and the blood speeds through your veins so fast, you feel like you’re on fire. You’re lightheaded enough you could pass out at any moment. The air on the high-rise rooftop is cool, if not downright cold, even in late August, but you are burning up inside and out, the sweat coating your body and soaking your brown dress.

Coming from above, the chop-chop-chop of helicopter rotors. Two, maybe three of them circling the rooftop. Black beasts with dark, tinted windshields that obscure the militant, jack-booted corporate men and women who are coming for you. Joining the helicopters are two, maybe three, drones. The drones record your every move.

Some police chase you on foot, others on 4X4 quads. They are twenty-five floors down in the street, but they are coming for you.

Despite your elevated pulse pounding inside your head, you’re able to make out shouted orders. The police carry weapons. Automatic rifles, high-powered pistols, knives, and stun guns. They are the best equipped military police force in the world. They are the police force of the mighty Everest Corporation, and you are their prime target. And sooner rather than later, they will catch up to you. It’s just a matter of time.

Still you run, managing to jump from rooftop to rooftop.

You run and jump with every ounce of energy you have in your veins, every fiber of strength you have left in your muscles, ever bit of spirit remaining in your heart and soul.

When you were a little girl, your father would tell you to never quit, no matter how much you were hurting. No matter the tears falling from swelled eyes. You recall one of the many times he wouldn’t let you quit. You were playing sixth grade soccer on a Saturday morning in the fields behind your grammar school. It was the red team versus the blue. You were on the blue team and you were getting beat. One of the red team girls tripped you and you fell flat on your face. The other kids laughed at you. You broke out in tears and ran off the field into the arms of your mother. The embarrassment was too much. But your dad took a knee before you. He wiped the tears from your eyes with the tips of his fingers.

“I know it hurts, Scout,” he said, using the nickname you and he loved so much from your favorite movie and book, To Kill a Mockingbird. “Speaking of Scout? What would she do?”

You sniffled, tried your hardest to hold back the tears.

“She would keep on playing,” you said under your breath and through your tears.

“Exactly, kiddo,” your dad said with a proud smile. “Now, you get right back out there and kick some serious butt.”

Your dad never expected you to take him literally, but when you tripped the girl who’d tripped you, and then went on to score the winning goal, he couldn’t have been prouder. All the way home, the former Gulf War vet spoke about the girl who picked herself up, dusted herself off, and took no prisoners.

Now, as the Everest Police close in on you from all sides, you can’t help but think of your father. You can’t help but see the face of the much younger man he used to be, before the Everest Corp., or what’s also known as Everest.com, took over everything. Before they declared Primary Termination on your parents. Before the police stole them from their own home. Before the Everest Corporation made them slaves.

You come to the final building. Correction, there is one more building—the brand-new Everest Corp. Upstate Headquarters—but it’s much too far away. At least three-hundred feet away, to be precise. There’s nowhere to go but down.

The choppers circle and begin to descend. You know that soon, the police will descend on rope ladders from out of the cargo bays. Or worse, they will shoot you with a tranquilizer like they would a wild animal on the planes of Africa. If you can’t escape them, the hordes of riot gear clad Everest police will close in around you. There’s nowhere to turn, nowhere to run.

You stand on the edge of the parapet, looking down at the solid ground twenty-five floors below. You look over your shoulder. You spot the police. They’re coming for you. They leap the narrow distance between the buildings as if it’s child’s play. Overhead, the choppers swarm. Directly before you, nothing but open air and solid ground. Sure death.

“Stop right where you are!” bellows a booming voice over one of the helicopter loudspeakers. “Don’t move, or you will be shot!”

The police shout orders as they approach your rooftop position.

“Down on your stomach!” a policewoman screams. “Primary Termination is initiated! Do you understand me?! This is Primary Termination!”

Gazing up, you see the doors on the first helicopter open and the rope ladders release. The doors on the second helicopter open and a gun barrel emerges. Drones circle you like oversized insects.

“Stop where you are, or we’ll shoot,” blares the loudspeaker voice.

Your heart is beating rapidly, your brain swimming in so much adrenaline you’re convinced you will black out at any moment.

“Get down now!” the same policewoman screams from no more than twenty yards away. “This is Primary Termination!”

“No one comes back from Primary Termination,” you whisper to yourself.

A shot rings out and fragments of rubber roof explode at your feet. They’re not using tranquilizer darts. They’re using real bullets. Bullets, no doubt, purchased from Everest.com with Everest credits. You scream, but no one is around to hear you. No one human, that is. No one who cares or dares to care.

Staring into the distance, you see nothing but blue sky.

“Down on your face!” the policewoman screams again as she closes in on you. “Primary Termination has been initiated!”

“There’s got to be some place to go,” you whisper. “Some place free of the corporation.” Then, you feel yourself smiling. “What would Scout do?”

You know what she would do, Tanya. You know exactly what she would do, even if it costs you your life . . .

You swallow something bitter and dry. You shift your feet forward. Closing your eyes, you inch your toes over the edge of the parapet.

You jump.