NPC:_Test 1.5

X.

"Well, this is different," Rilur says, staring up into the tangle of catwalks and tiny beams of red light, crisscrossing between two tall buildings.  We rounded a corner, and it was just... there.
   "Shit," I finally say.  "I seriously hope you're good at puzzles.  If I lead, I'll somehow get us killed."  I snap my fingers.  "Just like that.  But with more blood."
   He clucks his tongue and shakes his head.  "Cael, you have got to learn some patience."
    "It takes too long to learn," I mutter.  "So do you think they'll ambush us while we're trying to deal with this?"
    "This is their ambush.  See?"  He stands behind me, points his arm over my shoulder.
   I follow where he's pointing.  I'm about to complain that I can't see anything special, but then I do.  Pointing out windows are the darkly glinting muzzles of guns, aiming in various directions.  "Awesome.  And how much do you want to bet the other streets are blocked, so we can't walk around?" I say flatly.
   He crosses to a nearby pile of shattered cement, picks up a fist-sized piece.  He chucks it overhand into the road ahead.  Every time it crosses a laser or even bounces against the ground, the guns open fire, reducing the chunk to dust in ten seconds.
    "Or through, apparently," he says.
    "Ooh.  That's nasty."  I stare at the jumble of grating and lasers, but it looks completely chaotic.  "So, um... you go first."
   He snorts, but he continues scanning the maze.  Finally, he points out a fire escape whose ladder dangles several feet above the ground.  "There.  That's where we start."
   He actually does go first.  I'd kinda feel bad about that, but I'm too busy being relieved.  He wouldn't feel the dozen volleys of bullets raining down on him at a misstep, after all.
   He jumps, manages to grab the lowest rung of the ladder.  His weight pulls it down to where he can actually climb it.  He climbs up a few feet, then looks back.  "Can you make that?"  I roll my eyes, grip the sides of the ladder, hoist myself up.  "Pardon my chivalry," he grumbles.
    "You're pardoned," I quip.  "Now climb."  He chuckles, but quickly ascends the rest of the ladder.  He still offers me a hand up to the catwalk.  I look at him flatly, but allow him to help me-- these stupid boots are slippery, after all.
   There are a half-dozen paths connecting the myriad branches of catwalks.  Ladders link some, firemen's poles link others, still others appear to have nothing but brief ledges from the brickwork between them.  I can see a handful from here whose gaps look like they just have to be jumped.  All the paths from our little segment of metal mesh appear to be covered with trip-lasers. "Now what?" I say.
   He studies the different pathways, the walkways, the gaps.  Suddenly, he grins.  "Cute," he says.  "I get it."
    "That makes one of us," I mutter.
    "Stay here," he says.  I oblige, and he trots down one of the laser-free pathways.  Pretty soon, he arrives at what looks like a dead end.  But as soon as he walks to the edge of the railing, lasers cross over the path he took.  Others scattered through the maze switch off.
    "Oh," I say, loud enough that my voice will carry to him.  "I see how this works.  Do I go left?"
    "No," he calls.  "Go right instead."  I decide to just not even try.  So I follow the directions he calls out, taking the different branches, ascending a short ladder.  At the end, there's a square plate of grating that moves slightly when I step on it, switching around the lasers yet again.
   We take turns moving through the maze.  Sometimes our paths are five stories apart, completely across the street, so far that gestures and shouting are how I know which way to go.  Other times, we pass right over the other's head, or travel walkways only a foot apart.  We jump gaps, inch our way across ledges, slide down poles to other levels, climb ladders to yet others, constantly change the arrangement of the lasers. Only rarely do we have to double back.
   Finally, he's at the top, standing on a pressure plate near a pathway that will take us to the roof of a building and hopefully out of this damn maze.  Just one gap remains for me to cross before I can join him.  "Oh, my," I joke, pretending extreme confusion.  "Whichever way shall I go now?"  He chuckles, shakes his head.  I start to run, building up momentum.  Just as I'm about to take the jump, the heel of my boot skids slightly, throwing me off-step.  I can't stop-- I'm quickly running out of walkway, so I make the jump anyway.
   Mid-air, I suddenly realize the angle of my jump is all wrong, that that one half-slip completely jacked up my momentum.  I don't even have enough time to make a full noise of shock; it's this weird strangled squeak, like stepping on a mouse.  It's cut off with a grunt as my abdomen hits the opposite catwalk, knocking the wind out of me.  I'm stunned for a half-second too long.  My legs pedal the air as though it'll somehow help; I desperately make a frenzied grab at the grating, palms slapping against the metal.  My fingers scrabble wildly, but the mesh is too small for even my long nails to find purchase as I keep slipping backwards.  Rilur is too far away to help; it takes him seconds to shout, step off the pressure plate, run towards me, but it's only that long until I'll slide over, too.
   But the edge of the catwalk is welded to a metal bar a few inches thick, something I can barely hold on to for dear life.  And I do, so hard my knuckles turn white and my hands tremble.  Not from fear of dying just like a bug on a windshield, except vertically.  Of course not.
   I notice I don't hear running anymore.  "Rilur?" I say shakily once I can form words.
    "Right here," he says immediately.  He sounds like he's a few feet away.  I've stopped kicking, finally realizing that with the array of trip-lasers, I might be dead even before I lose my grip.
   I speak carefully, as though just breathing will be enough to send me over.  "I think I could use some chivalry about now."  My voice is at least an octave higher than normal.
    "Okay, hang on.  Literally."  I'm about to make a snarky comment, but he takes a step toward me, and even just that movement shakes the suspended walkway enough to make my tenuous grip slip that much more.  I squeak instead, and he stops.  "Shit," he mutters.  "Can you pull yourself up?"
    "No," I say.
    "Okay."  I hear a slight rustling.  I'd look, but my eyes are locked on my hands, as though I can keep them hanging on by the sheer force of my gaze.  "Okay," he says again.  "I'm going to try to slide over to you."
   It's nerve-wracking.  He can't move too fast, or he shakes the catwalk, and I slip; he can't move too slowly, because my hands are slick with sweat and I'm slipping anyway.  My legs sway gently as I dangle.  I try not to think of trip lasers near my ankles, of the way the ground would look so very far away between the toes of my boots.
    "Just hang on," he repeats.  This is probably supposed to be reassuring, letting me know that he hasn't gone to get a soda or something.
    "What the hell else am I going to do?" I snap.  Finally, at the edges of my vision, I see motion.  He gradually wriggles into my field of view.  It feels like hours later when his hands clasp around the backs of my wrists.
    "I've got you," he says needlessly, looking down at me earnestly.  "Now, I need you to let go."
    "What?! " I screech.  He winces a bit.  It suddenly comes to me that it might be a bad idea to startle the guy who's playing a big part in my fight against gravity.
    "If you let go, I'll be able to swing you up," he explains patiently.  "I think," he adds.
    "You think?" I repeat.  I'm understandably edgy-- I don't remember dying from falling a dozen stories, and I don't particularly want to add such a death to my collection.  "You had better be goddamn certain before I f--"
    "Just shut up and trust me," he interrupts.
   Weirdly, this rare show of his temper calms me slightly.  Enough so that my voice sounds almost normal when I say, "If you drop me, I swear to God I will end you."   
   He snorts.  "Ready?" I say.  He nods, and I force my fingers to unclench.  I exhale in relief when I don't drop any further.
    "I'm going to need you to swing."  I'm past the ability to say much at this point, so I just nod.  I pump my legs forward and backward, wobbling at first, gradually building up momentum so I'm even more like a pendulum.  "On three," he says.  "One.  Two." His counts sound in time with the furthest point of my swing away from him.  I feel like I should have asked him what was going to happen on three, but it's too late--
    "Three!" he says, and yanks me up.  I'm pulled about halfway up by the time of my backswing, and my ribs smack into the catwalk.  I try to pull myself up to help, even though my arms are shaking violently by this point.  He keeps up his efforts, and soon enough I can wedge a knee between my body and the edge of the grating.  I propel myself up as he gives one final hard pull, and we both clatter back onto the metal mesh.  As I'm turned by momentum, my back smacks against a pole of the railing, but I vastly prefer that to the cement.
   It's all I can do to just lie there, listen to my breathing, my pounding heart.  "That was worse than actually dying," I say at last.
    "This whole thing wouldn't have taken so long if you weren't so fat," he says.  "Jesus, what do you eat-- lead?"
   My jaw drops.  I push myself up and glare at him.  He cracks up at my expression.  I punch him in the shoulder, and he just laughs harder.