Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

“Plan for the worst, then expect it to be worse than that,” I said. “I think I know a way we can get over there without touching the ground. I'm pretty sure I can use my Jump ability to get over those roofs. We'll use that caving gear Rin made for us to build a highline and get over that way.”

“We don't have that much cable, do we?” Karalti scratched her chin.

“No, but if we string a line between here and one of those buildings, we can pull the cable out and do it again.” I looked to Suri. “Suri should be strong enough to pull out any rock mount we set up.”

“Yeah, and if I'm not, the three of us together will be.” She nodded. “Let's get it done.”

Chapter 47

The longer I lived in Archemi, the more I found myself grateful for the stuff I'd learned in the Army. Unlike some other branches of the service, the 72nd didn’t have any single specialization. Our job description had been 'everything'. Needed trenches dug? Army. Pylons laid? Army. Shield generators surveyed, installed, and protected? Guess who they called to go mountaineering.

This wasn't my first zipline installation, and it wasn't Suri's, either. We hammered pitons into the rock, set up harnesses ready to go, and when we were done, Suri handed me a length of coiled cable. I slung it over my shoulder and turned to face the open expanse of sand and tilted stone below.

“Alright, ladies. See you on the other side.” I nodded, tensed, and sprung out into a leap.

Jump V took me a full fifty feet into the air, some real Spider-Man-type shit. I Shadow Danced just before hitting the roof. It buffered the fall, cancelling out most of the impact damage and shaving off about twenty HP. We didn't have that much cable, and I had enough AP to use Jump about four times when not in combat, so I had to carefully pick which houses I leaped to. Suri and Karalti watched from above as I landed on an onion-domed roof close to the center of the complex, and used it to secure the other end of the line. It wasn't quite halfway over: ziplines couldn't be completely taut. I wasn't sure we had quite enough cable for a proper whippy zipline, but Archemi's physics - while realistic - were possibly slightly more forgiving than real life on that point: the same level of forgiveness that allowed Karalti to fly and me to jump around like Jiminy Cricket.

Once I tied the last knot, a little notification sprung up. [Zipline: Integrity 1000/1000]

“Oh. That's useful.” I jiggled the cable a bit. It rippled with a satisfying 'woob woob' sound, so I gave the girls the thumbs up and got ready to play catch.

Suri sent Karalti down first. She clamped a hand over her mouth and clung to her rope as she zoomed down, spinning the whole way. I opened my arms and caught her as she flew by, halting her before she rebounded.

“Wheee!” Her delight and her laughter both echoed through my mind. “That was fun!”

“Highlines are pretty great, second only to rappelling out of a chopper when you’re hovering over water,” I said. “Your dick grows to at least twice its normal size as soon as you jump out the door, and if you didn’t have a dick, you grow an honorary one.”

Suri was down next, riding the zipline and dropping a rappel like someone who'd done it a thousand times before. When she was down, she seized the cable, gave it an experimental tug, and then hauled on it. We had hammered it in pretty hard, and it didn't budge until Karalti and I took up behind her. With the three of us pulling, it snapped loose and flew over to us. Even that was enough to excite the baby sandworms: they began writhing over one another in the spot where the cable fell, mandibles snapping. They were only about eight feet long, their bodies white and soft, but their heads were armored with dark, glossy chitin.

“Gross.” I grimaced. “Why couldn't it have been lava? Or sharks?”

Karalti hissed. “Don’t jinx us.”

“We could probably take 'em,” Suri said. “Likely get some good EXP from killing these little buggers.”

“It's not the babies I'm worried about. Call it a hunch, but I bet they'll start screeching for help or letting out pheromones or something, and we get reamed by Momma Worm.” I coiled the cable up. “Let's just stick to the plan.”

It was trickier from here. We didn't have the benefit of elevation, and we didn't dare risk hammering supports into the roofs of the buildings. We had to tie and clamp them, which meant we weren't able to get as much tension on the lines. At the end of the path, we had to make a mountaineer’s tightrope, otherwise known as a Tyrolean Traverse. Karalti danced across it like a mayfly, but Suri hesitated on the other side, looking down at the thrashing mass of sandworm larvae below.

“Dex isn't my strong point,” she said.

“Then Tarzan it underneath.” I mimed going hand over hand.

“Right. Neither is Intelligence, apparently.” Suri cracked her neck, rolled her shoulders, then crouched down and swung on underneath the wire. She pulled herself along, legs linked over the top for stability.

“Sandworms can't jump, can they?” Karalti asked nervously.

“Guess we'll find out.” Even if she could take one or two by herself, there were probably about fifty of them following us. We held our breaths as she got closer.

There was a deep groan from underneath our feet.

“Uh oh.” Karalti tensed as a rumble passed through the building beneath our feet. “Suri!”

“Yep! Believe me, I’m on my way!” Suri picked up the pace, but began to rock wildly on the rope as the rumbling grew more intense.

Karalti and I crowded to the edge of the roof, reaching for her as the sand and larvae below us sucked away,