Pushing the Barriers
by Firerose
(1)
The contents of the locker assigned to me: a tangled assemblage
of nylon webbing straps in electric blue spangled with purple. As
I picked it up, the tangle resolved itself into a wide adjustable
belt with a softly padded inner side, with two circles of webbing
attached, also padded. Various plastic loops -- four large, one
small -- at what would be the back if this were worn as a
conventional buckled belt. At the front a sort of doubled loop
affair in webbing, which rather defied description, to which was
attached an odd metal contraption, which definitely defied
description.
Some sort of harness, perhaps? It looked rather serious,
professional even.
The associations my mind threw up were inappropriate here,
surely? To this garish nylon concoction? Not a hint of leather or
studs in sight.
Although where did I get that image from? Surely I'd never...? It
was always frustrating having surrendered so much of my past, but
never so much as when provocative isolated images floated back,
their context irretrievably lost.
Was this Avon's idea of a joke? The man certainly had the ability
to manipulate Orac into providing his own fantasy ideas. And that
quickly suppressed look on his face when we'd drawn each other as
partners in this little game had been ... interesting.
But then what were the other contents of the locker, these
strange shoes? The colors alone were bizarre: maroon suede with
olive green laces. Then that slightly inward curved shape. But
strangest of all, this smooth hard rubber: not just for the sole
but also covering the heel area and forming a broad band around
the side of the whole shoe. And they looked far too small. Unlike
Orac to have got that little detail wrong.
Oh well, no backing out now. This had after all been my idea.
Teleport. See what Orac had lined up for us now....
(2)
Once the teleport disorientation disappeared a new disorientation
took over. The rock-strewn sloping ground on which I landed
awkwardly was the least of my worries. I reversed slowly till my
back was against the rock, then eased myself gently down into a
sitting position. Yes, that seemed to help. I tried to calm my
breathing, ordered my pulse to slow down. I was on a ledge.
Halfway up a fucking mountain. If I liked panoramic views there
were plenty to enjoy. I didn't. Concentrate. Where the hell was
Avon?
Then he was loping towards me, as if my thought had summoned him.
Seeming utterly at ease, damn him. I couldn't even bear to watch
his rapid progress, knee deep in heather, silhouetted against the
blue sky.
"Blake!" he called. "So what did Orac issue you
with?"
"Come and see!" I was certainly not going to move until
I had to.
"Is that all? I got an assortment of bits of metal attached
to mine. Oh, and a coil of rope."
The sick sensation in my stomach was not going to go away. The
objective of this particular game was all too obvious. Had Orac
known my weakness?
"So our mission must be to reach the top of this
mountain." Thankfully I appeared to retain some control over
my voice. I assayed a smile. "If we choose to accept
it."
"We have a choice? I seem to recall that the absence of
retreat options was supposed to be one of the merits of this
little team-building exercise of yours."
An ideal way to keep fit and build team spirit, I had thought --
and probably voiced -- when I first realized that Orac could
access the infamous Teal--Vandor combat computer and recreate the
simulated environments. Certainly the Liberator crew had
its weak links. Vila might be an amusing drinking companion and a
highly talented lock-picker but sometimes I worried that his open
displays of cowardice might somehow prove infectious. And Avon.
The man operated in a team of one: if he could even trust
himself, that is.
Reluctantly I shifted my legs in an attempt to stand. Grasped the
outstretched hand unthinking and was on my feet before fully
realizing that it could only be Avon who was assisting me.
"Thanks." Perhaps there was something in the
team-building idea after all.
"I had time to investigate before you arrived. There seems
to be no way off the terrace. The easiest way up appears to be
over here."
I followed him, trailing my hand against the rock face. The
nausea redoubled at the mere idea of ascending this vertical
expanse of sullen gray rock. I focused simply on reaching the
splash of violent color among the natural purple green tones of
the heather which must be the rope. Luminous orange with
turquoise stripes. Orac must be color blind.
"I've already estimated the length of the rope," he
said. "About forty arm spans, so probably a little over
fifty meters."
We both looked up at the crags hanging over our heads. A lot
higher than fifty meters.
"If we ascend here," he continued, "we might be
able to stop there, in that niche." I disliked the way in
which Avon appeared to be taking control of the situation, but
had to admit I could hardly bear to look upwards let alone plan
rationally. The route he appeared to be pointing out followed a
deep fissure in the rock about the width of my hand, accompanied
by several much narrower cracks that wandered freely over the
near-vertical face, repeatedly splitting and rejoining. The
fissure petered out some distance below a triangular indent --
presumably Avon's niche. Above this point the angle appeared to
relent somewhat and the crag was cut by regular grassy breaks.
"The harnesses are obvious enough, and the rope. But what
are these for?" I said, kicking at the rubber-soled shoes.
Avon picked one up and rested it carefully on the steeply angled
face of a nearby boulder. Astonishingly the shoe clung there.
"Static friction is proportional to force: they should be
even more adhesive under a man's weight."
A bizarre collection of ironmongery hung from the belt loops on
the second harness. Twenty or so irregular bilaterally
symmetrical polygons of assorted sizes ranging from fingernail to
great toe, all attached to loops of stiff twisted wire. Several
larger metal tubes, hexagonal in cross-section, the largest the
size of my clenched fist, attached to thin nylon rope of the same
garish color mix and tight weave as the coil of climbing rope.
Strangest of all, a collection of sprung gadgets like
four-petalled metallic flowers.
"And these?"
"Well, I had been wondering about those. Let us assume that
the equipment we have been provided is both necessary and
sufficient for a safe ascent."
"Agreed."
"I think these might ...." Avon was fiddling around
with one of the smaller metal polygons, inserting it in various
orientations into one of the narrow cracks. "Look," he
said proudly, giving it a hard tug. It appeared to have stuck
fast. "So all we need now to complete the system is some
sort of a friction device." He picked up the gadget, like a
miniature bucket with two holes, that was attached to my harness
and turned it over in his hands.
Sitting again seemed to be the best way to control my mounting
unease. I pulled off my boots, loosened the laces of one of the
rubber-soled shoes and tried to prize my foot inside. Several
minutes of vain effort later I realized that Avon was standing
over me, laughing. "Actually I think these are meant for
bare feet."
He had already removed both boots and socks, placing them neatly
beneath his heavy jacket, which now swung casually from a rock
spike. Orac would no doubt retrieve them later. I could not take
my eyes off him in that tight black polo-neck as he started to
slowly ease on one shoe: a tantalizing line of black hair ran up
the center of each foot. I tried to get a grip on myself. For
Christ's sake, I must have seen the man naked, on the London,
surely, if nowhere else.
Minus socks the shoes eventually capitulated. The feeling was
odd, constricting my feet in all directions, yet instilling an
almost comforting sense of readiness.
The harness was another matter. On close inspection the webbing
appeared slightly worn and carried a hint of a salty-sweaty tang.
Given the strange associations my brain had dredged up earlier,
it felt inherently embarrassing, and the wriggling needed to pull
the belt over my hips just seemed to emphasize the size of my
stomach. And surely only Avon could continue to appear graceful
while hopping about on one leg trying to insert the other into
one of the leg loops.
Once on, the way the electric-blue diagonal straps framed Avon's
cock and balls made me abruptly aware of the effect those same
straps seemed to be having on that portion of my own anatomy. Not
that anything directly touched, of course, but by then it didn't
really need to. And as for the effect when Avon leaned towards me
and grabbed the mini-bucket device still attached to the front
harness loop.... Well, I could only hope desperately that he
hadn't noticed. At least it seemed to be banishing my nausea.
"I believe this is how it's meant to work," was all he
said, pushing a loop of the rope through one of the bucket holes
and then passing it through the harness clip. "There,"
giving me the free part. "If you hold that bit forwards then
the rope runs smoothly. Pull it backwards and the additional
friction from the S-bend means the rope stops."
Concentration was difficult, but the system seemed simple enough.
He attached the near end of the rope through his harness and
handed me the other. "Now tie that securely in a loop round
your belt."
Without another word he turned to the rock face and ran his hands
up and down the fissure. I guessed perhaps that he too was
nervous. He jammed his left foot experimentally into the crack
and tried his weight on it, then leant out rightwards, caressing
the rock, and seemed to find invisible balancing hand and foot
holds. Then progressed upwards, slowly, carefully, until I
realized with envy that Avon climbed like he did everything else,
with a deliberate grace.
If I'm honest, this was not the first time I'd noticed that Avon
was more than the pure machine-like intellect he so clearly
wished the world to focus on. More than once I'd admired the play
of muscles under those skin-tight leather trousers when his
concentration was safely elsewhere. But what was the use? The man
had the poisonous line in sarcasm of a scorpion at bay. And he
shrugged off affection as if his exoskeleton were equally thick.
He climbed to three or four meters, then stopped and fished
around one-handed, trying out one piece of metal after another
from his harness in the crack. From below I couldn't see his face
but imagined his lips slightly parted, tongue between teeth, with
that look of absorbed concentration I'd seen so many times when
he was playing around in the depths of some electronic Liberator
system with a laser probe. So different from the studied
indifference that his human crewmates usually elicited.
Eventually, he hooked the rope through, then continued on
upwards.
(3)
The sun had swung round far enough by now to strike the rock face
directly. For a moment, the folds and billows of rock above me
looked magnificent rather than threatening. Close up, the rock
was crinkly, rippled, abrasive to the touch. Warm, not cold as
I'd imagined. Just about nose height, a pocket sported a
forlorn-looking heather, which still managed to poke up a couple
of purple flower spikes. The shadowed depths of the fissure
supported damp mosses, while the face was sprinkled with little
outcrops of white lichen and an abundance of tiny bright red
mites.
In the sun, the rock looked almost inviting. In another of those
free-floating memories, I suddenly recalled scrambling around
those chalky escarpments with Inga. How many years ago?
Flooded with a whole range of primitive, almost childish urges, I
tried to remember how Avon had got off the ground. He'd made it
look so easy. He'd started with one foot in the fissure -- like
that? Yes.... Now what? At this close range, the rock no longer
looked bare; indeed its teeming opportunities seemed to inveigle
my fingers. As I inched up that vertical fissure, the rope above
my head remained reassuringly taut. An
orange-and-turquoise-striped umbilical cord connecting me to
safety. Well, to Avon, but that might be the nearest approach to
safety on offer. Strange thought. Just don't look down.
And then that comforting fissure ran out.
And there I was pressed against the rock, the ground so far away
as to be almost invisible, the next move clearly impossible. The
rock bulging outwards at me, pushing me off-balance. There
just isn't a hold. Shaking all over. Looked down between my
feet. Bad idea. Shit. Waves of nausea running through
me.
"Shit. Tight rope, Avon!", I shouted upwards, "I
can't do this, I'm going to fall off. Shiiiit!"
"Of course you can do it," floated down from far above
me, out of sight.
"I can't. I really can't. I'm going to fall off." Why
the fuck did you take me on this route? You must have known I
couldn't do it. "Shiiit! Can't you get that rope a bit
tighter?"
Left foot shaking so much that I could hardly keep it on the
hold. Fingers cramped with hanging on for grim life. If I
don't move soon I really will fall. Hyperventilating,
breaths coming like sobs.
"I'm falling...!"
"Fucking get on with it, can't you? I'm not hauling you up
here, Blake, you're too damned heavy. I've got you. Just give it
a go, you can do it. Just relax, reach out slowly
rightwards."
Just can't take it any more. Reaching tentatively
rightwards, edging over the rock. Off balance, terror taking over
-- retreat.
"I can't. I just can't. Shit. I'm going to fall!"
"You can. Just get on with it! I've got you, Roj,"
floated down reassuringly.
And somehow, with the words, the courage to reach rightwards
again, fingers finding not a hold but something -- enough?
Sliding balance slightly over rightwards. That's better, now
it's working. Then god knows how, but my feet have moved up
a bit. Explosive fusion of rock and sun and me and Avon. Magic.
I didn't fall. Shit. That was close.
Crux over, coasting to the top on pure adrenaline. And then I was
sitting on the ledge, still hyperventilating, leaning back
against Avon's warm body, his strong arms wrapped around my
chest, the solidity of his support a counterpoint to the breeze
on my face. I could feel his breath against my neck, smell the
unique smell of his sweat mingling with my own. Every millimeter
down my spine all too aware of him, my cock uncomfortably
constrained by the harness. For once he did not come up with some
flip line. I've no idea how long we sat there. Probably minutes;
it felt like a lifetime.
Eventually he said gently, almost wonderingly, "You suffer
from vertigo. I hadn't realized."
And suddenly I wanted to offer him something. Something more.
I opened my eyes. The blue of the sky merged into the blue of the
lake, maybe seven or eight hundred meters below. I shut my eyes
hastily then forced them open again, focused on the immediate
surroundings. Tufts of grass, rock rather crumbly, one straggling
heather protruding through the untidy loops of orange rope which
occupied most of the tiny ledge.
Turned round so that I could see his face.
"Thank you, Avon."
And Avon smiled.
And perhaps I knew the lesson Orac was trying to teach me.
END
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