The lights are dim. Flickering and snapping. The stairway is painted in a swimming pool blue. Nora heads up the steps, feet echoing. Ten flights. It will be a hard walk but not an impossible one. Washington Heights is already on a steep-ass hill. And you don’t live in New York without learning to walk some stairs. When she first moved here, she was used to life in the burbs – walking three floors sucked the life right out of her. Left her wheezing. Made her look like a real rube, total amateur hour, lost her some cred right out of the gate. Thank god she had a lot of cred to lose. Getting her father to clear out that entrenched gobbo nest at the restaurant earned her big ups around the city. People knew what she could do, then.

But she blew it. She didn’t have the people. She remembers reading about the Iraq War and how when America kicked the stuffing out of Baghdad how the biggest issue in getting everything back to normal was infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Not just putting streets and water and sewage back in order, but also putting people in place.

She didn’t have people. Didn’t have a coalition.

That’s what this is about. She has an opportunity. An opportunity that’s different today than it was a week ago but ever since…

Well.

Let’s just say it’s time to evolve. Like a good animal she survives through adaptation.

Four flights. Now five. Heart and feet pounding in alternating rhythms.

She could use some Blue. That would keep her moving. But she’s only got a few more hits and doesn’t want to waste them here. That’s OK, she tells herself. Soon as this all shakes loose she’ll be in control of her own supply. Hell, her own resupply. Maybe after all is said and done her father will finally see what she is. What she’s capable of. He won’t ignore her anymore. The reality of the situation will hit him full in that confused gorilla face of his, and then he’ll come work for her.

That’s the prize. The one that makes her feel like a kid on Christmas morning. Waiting to open the present you’ve always wanted.