Routine

It must be about 10 or so in the morning, around the time the sun tucks behind the shroud of Zalem, strangely dark hours where the walls nearby don their evening hues while the horizon beyond burns with the day's youth. You aren't much of a timekeeper — never even owned a watch — but those funny little landmarks on the wheel keep you well enough appraised. Same goes for most everyone. Who lives by the hands on a clock in Iron City, anyhow? Market opens at dawn, Motorball kicks off at dusk, barman starts serving whenever the hell he feels like it. Intuition is schedule, and vice versa.

So it might be about 9 in the morning when you clamber up the fire escape of the old midtown mill that shut down one day because the Factory decided it ought be shut down, and that was that. It's more rust now than steel, sticking to your hand like sharp orange confetti as you grip the handrail. By the sound of it you're certain the thing is disintegrating behind you, so it's eyes forward all the way up. Too early in the day to tempt fate, you defy the last step with a quick hop.

If the stairs are bad, the roof's worse. A thick layer of trash and detritus blankets every spare inch, no doubt Scrapyard castaways carried on by the wind. Mangled rebar curls down through gaping holes in the surface, to your eye punched through rather than collapsed in. Something dropped from above? You aren't sure what Zalemites do for fun, but it's an amusing thought.

"Nice place for some exercise, Alita. Great call."

With a sound like sandpaper, you slide a testing foot across the stairwell threshold, half-expecting the whole roof to come crashing down at first touch. It doesn't, but you don't make your second move any quicker. Where is she, anyway?

After a few more light steps you have your answer. A familiar pair of arms, all purple and silver and much too strong for their size, hook underneath your own from behind and lift you into the air like a ragdoll. The breath rushes from your lungs and you make the kind of stupid sound anyone would make given the circumstance. You hope she didn't hear it. The laugh tells you she did.

"I'm glad you brought your sarcasm, but you didn't bring it to the right place."

She spins you to face the adjacent rooftop, separated from the mill by a few feet of wooden skybridge. It's all there for a morning exercise: water bottles, towels, a few crude weapons, and best of all, no trash.

"Across from the tincture shop, I could have sworn you—"

She brings her elbows together tight and the words die in your throat. You tell yourself to write the directions down next time.

***

She's wearing her usual workout attire, a fact that doesn't make it any less striking: baggy blue sweatpants with print running longways down the side and a plain cropped tank that leaves little to the imagination. You've got a healthy one and run with it anyway. It's not easy to do upside-down but a person learns to find space for the important things.

"Straighten your legs out; you're bowing. Watch."

From a standing position she rolls forward and inverts on one hand, legs locking out straight at Zalem. Slowly she brings them apart, first to parallel and then beyond, settling into an impossible arch that hurts to even look at.

"Oh, that's all? Shoulda said—"

You can't even get the dumb comment out before your quivering arm buckles and you drop down hard on the concrete. You aren't bad at taking a fall but that doesn't mean much after the first ten.

Alita doesn't seem to be paying much attention; either that or she isn't surprised enough to say anything. Still holding the pose, she rises now on three fingers, then two, then finally on just the one, the whole of her bodyweight resting on the very tip of her index finger. You rub your shoulder to work out a growing swell as you watch and can't help but feel terribly common.

"Try it again, just like this. You can do it."

It takes you a moment to shake off the soreness and give it another go. You can't do it, obviously — you know that and she knows that and both of you know actually doing it isn't the point. Exercising for the body was something you could do just fine by yourself or with one of your flesh-and-bone friends. Exercising with Alita had a different purpose. You pass a hand over your chin and ready yourself.

A few failures later you manage to get yourself back in a stable inverted position, though this time with both palms firmly on the ground. Even maintaining this stance is miserably difficult work as half the muscles in your body scream out for reprieve. The reprieve would be another meeting with the concrete, but they didn't know any better.

Sweat stings your eyes shut. You try to bring your legs apart, and even the slightest motion of it threatens to topple you. So you linger, blind and burning.

A different purpose.

With a tilt, you release your left hand and move in your mind's eye precisely as Alita did. Toes to a point, arcing across the sky, rending Zalem in two. Legs to parallel, past parallel, past any human's range of motion. Three fingers, two fingers, one. Hold.

You open your eyes expecting cold concrete and another bruise to nurse. Instead, you are as you had imagined yourself to be. Through salted eyes you fixate on the point where your finger, dead straight, touches the ground, holding your entire frame aloft. For a moment you wonder if you've done something impossible.

"Told you."

Alita's hands rest near your hips, imparting just enough strength to keep you from falling. She always did, and always would.