“So… it is safe?” I tried to lead Karla on, but she wasn’t picking up on my hints. “There’s nothing that could go wrong if we do it that way? Nothing at all?”
Of course there are things that could go wrong, Karla scoffed. Your ropes could snap or the reactor could be turned on while you’re descending or the mutants could be waiting for you inside of the reactor structure itself. But you’re a Wayfarer, Hunter. You can’t be dissuaded by a little bit of risk.
I’d hardly call this a “little bit of risk,” but she was right.
If that was going to be the safest option for getting us through this mission in one piece, then that’s what we needed to do.
“She loves the idea,” I announced to Natalie. “Lead the way.”
Natalie couldn’t contain her excitement as she jumped up and down and grinned. Then she recomposed herself, readied her AK-47, and crouched down so she wasn’t as easily visible. She motioned for me to follow her, and we began to head around the building using the tree line as our cover.
Finally, we came to a point in the forest where we were straight across from the rungs that crawled up the side of the reactor, and Natalie took a deep breath as she looked around cautiously.
“There’s absolutely nothing out there in terms of cover,” the Scavenger warned. “If one of those ugly fuckers comes around the corner and sees us, the only option we have is to keep running and hope they aren’t a good shot. Are you ready?”
My heart was in my throat, but we didn’t really have much of a choice at this point. So, I gulped loudly, nodded, and then slung my shotgun back over my shoulder.
Natalie threw her AK-47 onto her back, held up three fingers, and then started to count down from three.
Three… Two… One.
We both took off in a full sprint toward the side of the building, and the entire time I ran, I swore I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye.
But we couldn’t stop.
Even if that was a whole horde of Rubberfaces armed to the gills with rifles and shotguns and rocket launchers, we couldn’t stop.
If we stopped, we’d be dead.
Our footfalls echoed loudly across the dirt and gravel of the ground, but we finally made it to the edge of the reactor building.
Without breaking stride, Natalie leapt up, grabbed onto the rungs that jutted from the side of the building, and began to climb.
I was right behind her, though I was much less graceful. I stopped at the bottom of the ladder, grabbed the rungs in front of me, hoisted my feet up onto the lowest ones, and then began my ascent.
The rungs of the ladder were old and crusty, and specks of dirty rust flaked off onto my hands with each move I made. I swore I heard the metal creak underneath me as I shifted my weight onto them, but I didn’t have any time to worry. There was still a long way to the top, and I was running on pure adrenaline.
I just had to keep reminding myself not to look down.
Dear god, Hunter, don’t look down.
We moved up the ladder as quickly as our bodies would take us. As we got closer to the top of the structure, the wind became stronger and frigid as it threatened to knock us both off the decrepit rungs. However, I forced myself to do nothing but look straight ahead.
Not down at the ground far below or up, where I’d see nothing but sky.
Just straight ahead, at the pocked, dull gray concrete before me.
My leg and arm muscles screamed from the stress of the long climb, but my adrenaline kept them from turning to complete mush. I had to keep going. Finally, just when my whole body started to ache, I felt my right hand hit a flat surface.
The rooftop.
Holy crap, we’d made it.
Almost.
The crumbling concrete gave out from beneath Natalie’s footing, and the Scavenger let out a gasp as she began to fall backwards off the building.
I threw out my hands swiftly, caught the falling woman by the wrist, and then let out a grunt of frustration as I willed every muscle in my body to hold on for dear life.
Natalie’s body slammed into the side of the concrete silo, and gravity threatened to pull her out of my grip.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I gritted my teeth as I gave a hearty tug, and soon I felt the weight lift from my hands.
Natalie was now back up to safety, and she looked like she had just seen a ghost.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she stood to her feet.
“H-Holy shit,” I panted. “That was inten-”
Before I could finish, Natalie put her hand over my mouth and gave me a sharp “shhh.”
“Don’t move,” she warned as quietly as she could. “And definitely don’t talk.”
Soon, I found out why. From all the way down at the ground, there was a loud clang.
We both froze in place as we waited for the angry calls of the Rubberface guard. A tense moment went by where neither of us moved, spoke, or even breathed.
Then, when I finally found my courage once more, I slowly crawled over to the side of the rooftop and peered over.
Sure enough, the Rubberface guard was down below inspecting the fallen rung.
Not good.
My heartbeat jumped to the levels of an Olympic sprinter as I watched him look around for whoever threw the metal piece. Then he looked upward, and I only had seconds to pull away before he saw me.
“He’s down there,” I whispered to Natalie. “And he just looked up.”
“Did he see you?” she hissed and pulled her AK-47 over her shoulder.
“I don’t know… ” I admitted. “I wasn’t going to stick around and find out.”
Natalie’s eyes were nearly crazed as she slowly slunk over to the edge of the rooftop. The blonde woman cautiously looked out over the side, and I prepared to hear gunshots.
However, they never came.
Instead, Natalie let out a sigh of relief and crawled back over to my position.
“He’s gone,” she announced. “Or, at least, he didn’t think the fallen rubble was worth investigating.”
“Whew.” I rubbed the sweat from my brow. “I’m really sorry about that, Natalie.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about, Hunter.” She shrugged and put her AK-47 back over her shoulder. “I’m the one who wasn’t paying attention to my footing. It was just a freak accident. I’m just glad you were there to catch me, or that guard would have found a lot more than a pile of rubble at the bottom of the ladder. Now, could you hand me that spool of rope that you brought along?”
I pulled the bag off my back, sat it down on the concrete, and then opened it up. The spool of rope was still at the top, so I pulled it out and handed it over to Natalie.
“Are you sure that’s enough?” I questioned.
Natalie walked over to the hole at the center of the roof, looked down into the structure, and then shrugged.
“Obviously, we don’t have enough to get us all the way down to the floor,” she noted, “but we don’t need that much. There’s a large, circular catwalk about fifty feet below us, and it appears to have ladders that will take us down to the next layer and then so on and so forth until we’re at the bottom.”
“Uh… those spools say ‘one-hundred feet’ each,” I explained. “Now, I’m not a mathematician, but by my calculations that’s not going to be enough to get us down there.”
“Oh, it won’t be,” Natalie admitted. “We also have to take into account the ten feet I’ll need to get it from the hole to the tie off. We’ll probably both only have about… thirty-five feet to work with when all’s said and done.”
“That’s still a fifteen-foot drop,” I gulped.
“And that’s a drop that’s survivable without injury.” Natalie shrugged, and then she walked over to the thick concrete pillars that jutted up off the edges of the roof.