Chapter Twenty-Eight

Thrill Bill used his flashlight to point out a screened, three-by-three-foot rectangle set just under the shaft's ceiling on the wall opposite. "Where we've got to get is over there," he said.
There was a twenty-foot gap between the beam they sat on and the wall, and it was another eight feet up to the vent.
"Tricky is putting it mildly," Damm said, "considering that none of us can fly."
Nara was just as upset. "How did you expect us to get across?" she asked the warlord. "Even if we didn't have all this fucking gear, there's no way we could jump that far."
"I was hoping you'd have some suggestions once we got here," Thrill Bill said.
Nara looked down at the seemingly endless drop and shook her head. "Oh, man"
Ryan swung his leg over the I-beam, straddling it as he pondered the problem.
"We could wait until the next car comes up," Damm said, "jump down through the trap, and search the top floor for another way into the vent shaft."
"If we did that, we'd alert the security force," Nara said. "They'd seal us in, and we'd never get off the floor alive."
The four of them sat in silence for a long time.
Ryan didn't speak up until he had the whole thing figured out and was pretty sure it would work. "I've got an idea," he said. "First thing, let's get rid of that screen."
He unslung his pulse rifle, put the selector switch on sustain and fired from the hip. The pencil line of green struck the corner of the grate, instantly melting it. Ryan followed the perimeter of the opening, cutting away the metal mesh, which dropped away into the dark.
They all held their breath, waiting for it to hit bottom. After thirty seconds, Ryan gave up. He decided either the sound had been so faint that they'd missed it, or the shaft went to the bottom of the earth.
Ryan adjusted the blaster's beam to the slowest pulse. Then he said, "What we need next are some foot- and handholds."
"I think he's got something," Thrill Bill said delightedly.
Ryan took a one-handed aim and began blasting a series of holes in the concrete at the far end of the beam. It took him several tries to figure out how many bursts it took to make a proper niche, one that was deep enough without being too wide.
Once he had refined his technique, he started manufacturing a line of holes about a foot apart at shoulder height above the beam. He cut them all the way to the corner of the shaft, then across the facing wall, angling slightly upward to meet the vent opening.
When he was done, he swung the laser rifle back toward the end of the beam and started burning out the footholds. He bored them about five feet below the first set. Because they had to accommodate the toes of their boots, he made them both deeper and wider than the ones above.
"I knew we'd come up with something," Thrill Bill said when the process was complete.
"Going to be a bitch scuttling around that wall carrying packs and weapons," Damm said.
"Well, we can't leave them here," Nara snapped. "We're going to need them in the complex."
"Look," Thrill Bill said, "I'm not carrying anything but my tribarrel. We can shift the loads around and make things a little easier for everybody."
It took them a while to decide how to divide the weaponry. When they were done, Ryan said, "Since it's my idea, I get to go first."
Nobody gave him any argument.
Ryan pushed to his feet and tightrope-walked along the beam to the wall. He put his hand flat against the cool concrete and measured the distance to the first foothold. No point in putting it off, he thought. He reached out with his right hand and slipped his fingers into the niche, then he cautiously extended his right foot.
The first step off the beam was the toughest. All his weight came down on his right toe, and he had to dig his fingers in hard to keep his body from being pulled over backward by the pack.
"Balance is a little funny with the weight on my back," he told the others. "Seems okay, though. I'm going to take it nice and slow."
He moved methodically along the wall, first hand, then foot, hand then foot. He had to concentrate not just on grip, but on relaxing his hand and arm as he reached out, otherwise he was sure to cramp up. And a cramp was the ticket to a very long fall.
When he reached the corner of the shaft, he paused, one foot braced on either side, and shook out the tension in his fingers. The facing wall was a little more difficult, as he had to pull himself up to take each slightly higher step. When he reached the vent opening, he unslung the pulse rifle and subgun and chucked them into the hole. Then he grabbed hold of the edge and pulled himself inside.
"All right, Shadow Man!" Damm said.
The vent duct ahead of him was dark. Ryan pushed his weapons down the passage. With difficulty in the narrow space, he shrugged out of his pack and kicked it out of the way, after the blasters.
"Go ahead, Captain," Thrill Bill said. "You're next."
The blonde traversed the narrow beam, then crawled around the inside of the shaft. She moved much faster than Ryan had, though not recklessly. She took fewer pauses to shake out her hands. When she reached the vent, Ryan grabbed her weapons, then he grabbed her by the pack straps. As he pulled her in, he had to back up to get her legs inside.
"That was hairy," she gasped, nose to nose with him. "I don't think I've ever been so scared."
"You did good," he told her. "Real quick, no hesitation."
"I had no choice," she said. "I was afraid my arms would give out if I took too long."
Nara squeezed past him and moved deeper in the passage.
Thrill Bill came around next, then Damm, who moved very slowly. The mercie was drenched with sweat when Ryan lugged him into the vent opening, but he was smiling.
Thrill Bill passed Nara his flashlight, and with her in the lead, they crawled on hands and knees another thirty feet.
"Got a vertical turn in the shaft," she said over her shoulder.
They paused while she examined it with the light.
"It's a straight shaft that runs about six feet up," she said. "It's got a cap on it. Looks like our exit. I'm going to melt it off."
Nara rolled to her back and aimed her pulse rifle up the shaft. Green flashed as she sheared off the ventilator cap. She scooted back out of the way as molten drops of metal rained.
"That's got it," she said, then rolled back to her knees and stood in the vertical duct. Her boots disappeared as she climbed up and out.
Thrill Bill followed her. Ryan moved forward, then stood in the narrow passage. From the cutaway vent cap, Thrill Bill reached down for his pack and blasters. Then Ryan pulled himself out through the opening.
Overhead there were no stars. The sky was covered by a thick blanket of clouds tinted yellow by the strings of lights on the sides of the huge concrete cones that surrounded them.
"They're cooling towers," Nara said, anticipating his question. "Cooling towers for the nuclear power plants."
Ryan looked around. They stood roughly in the middle of an acre of flat roof. It was like a plateau. Red warning lights glowed in all four corners. Similar lights stretched off into the distance. As he turned, Ryan saw a solid mass of enormous rooftops, all of various heights and shapes. The chaos was unbroken by canyons; the buildings were built against one another. In all directions the city appeared to reach the horizon line. The smell of petrochemicals made him choke.
"How far is it to the Totality Concept complex?" he asked.
"Not too far," Thrill Bill said, "but it's too dangerous to try and make the crossing in the dark. We could trip an alarm and have FIVE on our backs in no time."
"He's right," Nara stated. "It's best if we go after first light. It's not more than a couple of hours away."
They all sat down on the concrete roof by the ventilator and waited for the sun to come up. After a while the wind started to pick up and it got bitterly cold. There was no shelter. When Nara leaned against Ryan, he could feel her shivering through her thin lab coat. He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer.
"Thanks," she said, looking up at him. "I'm about frozen."
"No problem. It's warming me up, too."
The blonde snuggled in, getting as comfortable as she could. After a moment she said, "Ryan, don't worry. We're going to get back. We're going to make it. We've got to."
Ryan didn't reply. It was a waste of breath. He closed his eye, lowered his head and tried to rest.