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"And there's another reason, Jenine."
"You can't afford to pay for broken paving slabs?"
"There is that." He hesitated. "But the unimportant reason is that love
you too much to let you risk such a thing."
"We'll I'm going," said Jenine softly after they had separated from a
kiss. "Help me get kitted up."
9.
Jenine's feet touched the ground and she gave three sharp pulls on the
knotted cable to signal Ewen to haul it up. She melted easily into the shadows
because she was wearing a black one-piece stretch bodysuit. It had fitted her
well five-years previously as a child; now it was stretched to the point of
discomfort. She had forsaken the bandage that bound her breasts at Ewen's
suggestion so that if a guard did spot her, the chances were that she would be
mistaken for a female outsider who had somehow managed to enter the Centre, or
an employee. Her face had been smeared with grime, and a datapad in a black
sleeve hung from her belt. The large suction pads strapped to her knees, and
forearms just below elbows, added a note of incongruity to her otherwise
decidedly feminine outline.
She crouched at the side of the residential block, listening intently for
the slightest sound that indicated that her descent of the cable had been
seen. Satisfied that all was well, she darted imp-like around the building to
the front and waited in the shadow of Calen's car for a minute to get her
breath. She had to keep reminding herself that there was no hurry. There was
no point in overexerting herself before the assault on the building. She loped
easily and silently towards her target, avoiding the glass pyramid and
following a shadowy route under a line of palm trees that she and Ewen and
worked out from the bedroom window.
Senate House had a broad entrance canopy that luckily did not extend
around to that side of the building that she had selected for the climb. Other
than a low apron, the windows reached the ground. She reached the foot of
building and looked up. Its gloom-shrouded height nearly caused her to lose
her nerve. A few final adjustments of the suction pads and she was ready.
Without pausing for thought, she jumped onto the apron and pushed her left
elbow and right knee firmly against the glass to trigger the suction pads'
pressure sensors.
The solenoid motor in each pad yanked on the inner diaphragm causing the
suction pad to collapse against the glass with a soft sigh. The four pads in
the set were radio- linked to each so that two pads were always gripping
before the motors released the grip of the other two pads. Jenine set the
master control on her left elbow pad to auto and, literally, started crawling
up the side of the building. Once she was climbing, the jitters in her stomach
vanished.
By counting the glazing bars that separated each pane of glass, she was
able to keep a tally on her progress without the unnerving business of looking
up or down. With twenty of the tough glass panels traversed, she reckoned that
she had climbed two-thirds of the way up the seven floor building, and was
making remarkably good progress.
At the twenty-fifth pane she rested for a minute, allowing all four
suction pads to take her weight so that she could relax. She resumed climbing.
At the twenty-sixth pane she became aware that something was wrong: as she
pushed her knee or elbow against the glass, it flexed too much, causing the
suction pads to lose their grip slightly and slide down a little as she pushed
upwards. To her horror, an elbow pad suddenly lost all suction and came away.
Prompt action to shift her weight and reposition the pad quickly near the edge
of the pane saved the situation, but for a terrifying moment she had been
hanging by only the pad on her right knee. She realised what the problem was
and cursed herself for not anticipating it before the climb. To reduce weight
and loading, the building's architect had used a thinner gauge glass on the
upper floors. It was standard practice for high buildings.
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She was forced to change her climbing technique so that three suction
pads were always supporting her weight before she risked extending a free arm [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]