Molly carefully squirted some oil on the three large hinges and watched Walter work the key into the mechanism.
It opened with a small click.
“Come,” he whispered.
“Wait here,” Molly said. She rushed off to the left on silent feet, concealed by the sounds of alien snores. Fifty meters down the hallway she came to a gate with a massive lock. She could see more gates beyond.
Several of her plans ground instantly to dust.
She rushed back to Walter, who seemed agitated by the delay.
“Forget him,” he said. “Come.”
Molly followed him back through the same gates she’d been dragged through earlier that day; they left them open as they hurried along. When they got to a flight of steps, Walter continued straight ahead and Molly hesitated. This had to be the way she’d been brought down.
“Come,” he said.
She did, following him down another dark corridor and through several more gates. Then, without warning, Walter darted to the side and disappeared into a solid wall. When Molly caught up she saw there was a nook in the stone. A rusty ladder was fastened to the back side of the indention leading through holes above and below.
Walter’s bare, grey feet disappeared through the passage above. Molly remembered what he’d said about the “room below” where Cole was kept. She wanted to go down and explore, but this place was full of gates and she had no key. All she had was a guide that didn’t seem to care whether Cole lived or died.
Her heart sank. Grudgingly, she ascended the ladder after Walter as more of her rescue plans melted away.
At several holes, the rusted iron ladder went through small round gates. Each of them hung open, smelling of Walter’s oil. After a few minutes of climbing, Molly emerged into the fresh air of a cool evening, but she couldn’t feel good about being free while Cole awaited execution. She crouched next to Walter, who was peering into the black. Only one plan really remained.
“Where’s the ship?” she asked.
“Near,” he said. “They moved it after Drummond tried to ssteal it. There iss a docking platform at the bottom of the canyon. It iss there. I checked it today, full of energy. Not much food.” He turned to look at her and she spotted the dull glow in his eyes. “You can fly?”
She nodded. Oh, yes… I can fly, she thought.
He dipped his head once and sneered. Then he stole across the packed ground toward the sound of wind and water. Molly stayed in a low crouch and tried to keep up.
When Walter came to a sudden stop at the end of the path, Molly bumped into him and they both leaned forward, regaining their balance.
“Watch it!” he hissed, and she could see why. They were poised at the edge of a canyon that moonlight could not fully penetrate nor cross. It was even bigger in the dark with her imagination filling the void. It would take them forever to work their way down.
“Put it on.” Walter held something out to her. It looked like the flight harnesses sewn on top of Academy jumpsuits. It had the same sort of D-rings and layout. It was hard to figure out exactly what went where, but Walter seemed eager to assist her. His touch made her shiver as the leggings were worked up over her pant legs. She returned his sneer with a half-hearted smile.
Once they were both in and before she could ask what they were doing, Walter clipped something onto her back with a loud snick. He contorted his body to do the same to himself. Then he gave her one last wicked grin before shoving her over the edge.
Molly couldn’t help it—she screamed. As loud as she could.
She dropped three meters straight down before the harness yanked at her chest and sent her zipping away from the ledge. The webbing around her thighs pinched her viciously, but before she could register the pain, she was hurtling forward into a stiff breeze, flying toward the far side of the canyon. Something mechanical screamed above her, steadily increasing its pitch. A wheel on a wire, spinning.
It was impossible to see in the wan moonlight. Even so, Molly could sense the bulk of the other side approaching, as if a different sort of blackness loomed ahead. She braced for impact, pulling her hands above her exposed head, but none came. She continued to fly at near-terminal velocity as the large wall of dark hardly got closer. It was huge.
She flew further, the bitter wind stinging her eyes and chill bumps popping out on exposed skin. A gust of wind tore through the canyon, whipping the slack wire sideways and eliciting another wild scream of pure terror. Molly tucked her knees to her chest and wrapped her hands around them, shivering and terrified.
She wanted it to stop.
Gently.
She could barely hear the whine of the wheel above her over the deafening wind, but she noticed a shift in its pitch, a blessed lowering. Her stomach dropped as she started gaining altitude, having reached the bottom of the drooping wire that stretched across the canyon. As she slid up toward the other side, her speed slowed to something only moderately insane. She urged it to reduce even further when a new danger occured to her: not enough speed and she’d drift back to the center of the canyon. Toward Walter, if he’d been crazy enough to follow.
She blinked the tears out of her eyes and squinted into the darkness, straining to see what was ahead, to see if that wall of black was getting any nearer.
Without warning, something appeared below her: a rock ledge of some sort. She pulled into an even tighter ball, scared of hitting something, but the platform was several meters below. She glided above it, still moving dangerously fast, when two vertical nets of webbing began slanting in from both sides. She was flying into a wedge of some sort, still rising up and losing speed. As soon as they squeezed in close enough, Molly reached out and grabbed at them. Her right elbow snagged itself in one of the loops, twisting her violently to the side as the crazy ride came to an end.
Then Walter slammed into her back, forcing the air out of both of them with a combination of grunt and hiss.
Walter won his breath back first. “Fun, no?” He laughed. It was the sound of air escaping a balloon.
Molly would have slapped him if it didn’t mean letting go of the webbing. “Maybe if you told me first, you jerk.”
Her complaint just increased the air pressure of the balloon. “People pay good money to do thisss.”
Molly climbed up the netting to take the slack out of her tether. It was awkward, but she was able to reach around to unhook herself. She climbed down until she reached the bottom of the netting and to the walkway below. Above her, Walter made noises as he struggled to free himself.
She reached out and tested the platform before letting go of the webbing. Solid rock, probably carved out of the cliff. She didn’t need directions from Walter—one way led out to emptiness—so she hurried toward the face of the canyon, the sounds of a descending waterfall working through the ringing in her ears.
Walter caught up to her and ran past, huffing for breath. When they got to the end of the walk, he led her over a turnstile and pushed through a flimsy door leading into the canyon wall. The hallway beyond was wider than the ones in the prison. The soft glow of electric lights illuminated their passage through a room full of harnesses and a waiting area with benches. No rusty gates barred their way as they wound down a flight of steps. Molly followed Walter through a large room with lots of tables and chairs and a small stage, and then into some mechanical spaces. A loud humming emanated from somewhere nearby.
“Generatorss,” Walter explained, as if he could smell her confusion.
Hydroelectric, she figured, remembering the ribbons of water cascading down. She followed along through more mechanical rooms and toward the dull roaring. Every piece of machinery they passed had the look of obsolescence. It all seemed cobbled together and poorly maintained, with wires snaking from one point to another along the ground rather than properly routed through ductwork or the ceiling. Tools lay scattered by one large electrical cabinet, probably left there until something else broke. Wouldn’t be long, she surmised. Tape seemed to hold much of the equipment together. It was as if things were fixed just enough to get them running and no more. Why do preventive maintenance and help out whichever clan took over next?