SUNGLASSES AND ROCKETS Part 1 : New Moon

LEAP OF DEATH

How could I refuse the desires of that enchanting woman? I shot out of the control room. I instinctively ran to the end of the corridor. I reached the stairs. I ran up them at full speed.

Another stretching hallway appeared before my eyes. Fortunately, so to speak, I found Felix at once. He was hurrying through one of the doors, about halfway down the passageway. Thick rolls of rope and wire hung from his shoulders. He held a black box in one hand.

I wasted no time catching up to him. It was obviously time to leave protocol behind; however, I thought it was a good time to let him know that I was there to give him my full support during this last segment of his mission on Earth. Probably the most crucial part.

"Felix," I blustered with a snort, "I..."

He turned around. He read my mind. He unloaded a thick roll of wire from his shoulder and threw it to me. I nimbly went for it, and the wire and I ended up on the floor.

"Can you carry it?" he asked me, slowing his pace a little.

"I..."

"Good," he said before giving me time to finish what I was saying.

"...don't think I can," I completed in a tiny voice.

He immediately sped up and took off at a jog, his footsteps echoing sharply throughout the corridor. I made every effort to pull myself together as soon as possible. It was a low-caliber wire; that is, it was thick. Heavy.

As I was making a valiant effort managing to arrange the overwhelming load on some part of my body in order to get going, I realized that in spite of Felix's slight build, his bony frame had to be extraordinarily solid. Such a rigid and compact skeleton was no doubt one in a million. It was an anthropological wonder. He was carrying three rolls of the thick wire; they hung from his shoulders and he seemed to be running with no bother at all.

Such observations distracted me from the hardship it took to catch up with him. Even my eyes felt like they were burning. It was sweat. It was running down my body in absolute waves, from head to toe.

Felix got to the end of the corridor. He swiftly mounted the stairs and was gone from sight.

I sped up.

I clutched on to my heavy load with two hands. My arms were starting to ache. It was really hard for me to keep going, but even so I managed to quickly get up to the next level.

After a few minutes we ended up on a wide metal platform. You could say that it was the ceiling of the building.

In reality, I didn't know what Felix had in mind, I just kept running after him.

Just a little later, noticed that we were running in the direction of the rocket. The enormous nose cone loomed before us about 170 feet away.

It didn't take Felix very long to reach the edge. He ground to a halt right at the border. He ran some paces to the right, as if he were looking to get aligned with the head of the Bat. He started to unload his tools, rolls of rope and wire and the black box, and almost at the same time he picked up a roll, retraced his steps, ran forward, and threw the roll into the emptiness.

Then, an echo of metallic vibrations rebounded throughout the vault.

During this time I had approached Felix, who impassively continued with his task of flinging rolls of wire. I let go of my cargo and timidly leaned out over the edge. I looked down. I saw the upper part of the take-off tower that was topped by a rectangular cubicle, where the 50-foot long bridge spanned out, joining it to the rocket.

I realized that the tower was quite close: about 15 feet below the level we were on, and separated by scarcely some 20 feet or so from our building. Readjusting my gaze towards the blackened base of the reddish launch tower, I saw Darwin and the doctor standing on some kind of scaffolding to one side of the Bat. They looked so tiny! I took a step backwards, as if by reflex. Just then Felix threw the plastic box. Another scrape could be heard.

For sure, the equipment had fallen onto the bridge. It was clear, then, that Felix's intention was to reach the bridge. How are we going to get there? I said to myself.

Before giving me time to answer my question, Felix picked the roll of rope up from the floor. Seeing it up close, I noticed that it was actually a rope ladder with two hooks on either end. It wasn't hard to figure out that he would somehow use the ladder to get off the platform we were on, and onto the upper part of the tower.

I went up to Felix.

"Where do we fasten the hooks to?" I asked anxiously.

"Not yet," he answered, and threw the roll of rope towards the bridge.

I got worried. What was he up to?

"And...how do we get to the other side?" I dared to ask.

We're going to jump," was his response as he turned around.