by M. T Hill
Freya closes her eyes again. The commission. The commission from Dalle. ‘Pull your socks up, Frey,’ her father might say. Be grateful for the editor’s kindness and this opportunity. ‘Crack on with it,’ her father would say. Be grateful the editor is one of the few people who know what she screwed up for so little gain, and still gives her time. Then she’s on to Shep, where he might be now, and whether he’s climbing some tower, infected by the bunker and drinking himself into oblivion, climbing a scaffold gantry and falling to his death—
Freya wants to be there to watch. To find him lying in his viscera and slap him and ask him: What did you do to me, you bastard? What did you open?
As the plane starts its descent towards Iceland, Freya decides she’ll spend her first night in Reykjavik getting so drunk on expenses that the financial controller will have no choice but to go beyond appalled to impressed.
The Steeplejack
Shep and the crew see the space elevator’s beta scaffold before the edges of Vertex Island emerge from the horizon. Through the helicopter’s curved glass, the scaffold is an impossible spire, so thin and strange that it looks pasted onto the sky. Closer, a considered silence in the cabin, and its details resolve: a latticed obelisk with four tapering sides and a pyramidal cap, a platform at its apex, standing a kilometre tall.
The sun swings behind the tower as the transfer helicopter nears. Even at this altitude – two-and-a-half thousand feet, and dropping – they fly in the tower’s long shadow. Down on the ocean surface, the tower’s fractal twin spreads across azure and emerald. The spectral outlines of reef formations create a third, darker layer beneath.
Shep is at the front of the cabin, dead centre. A happy fluke, given the view. The chopper’s pilot is only slightly ahead of him. A number of others, including the abseilers who shared his taxi back in London, are piled in behind him.
‘We’re only ten out, folks,’ the pilot tells them. He has a soft southern American accent, dry and deliberate, and teeth that had positively shone in the hangar. His cheeks ripple as he speaks. ‘Time we did some facts.’
The helicopter tilts forward on its Y-axis, nimble despite its bulbous fuel tanks, and the pilot switches on a panel above Shep’s head. A nosecam feed, slaved to the pilot’s helmet. The island’s rugged form fills the panel as well as the chopper’s chin-bubble. The scaffold blinks with lights and beacons. At various heights of its frame, the tower sprouts immense guy-lines that stretch down to evenly spaced points on the island’s rim. These cables alone must count as marvels, and it reminds Shep that hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been on site already. He tries to imagine the lifters going up and down the tower’s central stem. What the same journey would be like on a snow- and wind-blasted peak.
‘Unlike the gold site, Vertex lies in US territory,’ the pilot says with reverence. ‘A small but perfectly formed atoll of the equatorial Pacific, only two miles north of the equator and three thousand south-west of Hawaii. I know you’ll have come a ways for this project, but I call it a home from home.’
‘A ways’ is an understatement. From LA it was another six hours inside a cramped chartered jet to Honolulu, Hawaii, where the plane was refuelled and sent on to a second, unnamed island. By the look of it – outbuildings, security fencing, military and support vehicles – it was a navy staging post, whose workings were never fully revealed. Here they were disembarked and marched inside a hangar, fed what might have been rations, and given an hour’s rest on bunk beds before they boarded their transfer helicopter. The whole journey seemed purposely dislocating, as if each leg was designed to further alienate you from civilisation itself. But it didn’t matter. To Shep, it didn’t figure. He might as well have floated here.
Scaffold feet aside, the island is a concrete reservoir, terrainless and flat. No sandy beaches or verdant shores, only scrubby green fringes that stop abruptly and drop into water. The effect is stark, as if the island’s edges have been sliced clean away. Innumerable cranes, masts and antennae stand in conference. A runway teems with cargo containers and support vehicles. Docked ships bear enormous sections of formed steel and equipment. An unlit pyre of hacked vegetation the closest thing to a natural feature.
The helicopter is noticeably lower, and the beta scaffold looms. Soon only the patterns of steel formwork fill the windscreen. Then the pilot says, ‘Entering isolation volume,’ and points off to one side. ‘We’re under navy watch, now. Big-ass destroyer out there on control. You can’t see her, but she’s always there. Give us a signal if you’re listening, gang!’ The pilot grins to himself. ‘Now – see under the south face of the tower? The runway? Vertex was once a staging base for the Pacific campaign, and that old concrete has kept its core, God bless – it could still take a Hercules. And over to your left, see the warehouse? That’s the navy’s drone hangar.’ The pilot chuckles again. ‘I hear some of you guys are charged with making sure the Vaughans don’t have to pay DARPA any compensation…
‘Next up, the western dock,’ the pilot goes on. ‘Deliveries arrive by boat once every week. Parts mostly, and food when we need it. Tropical storms occasionally disrupt shipping routes, though we’re well adapted for rainfall on Vertex. There are no freshwater sources here. Seawater treatment happens offshore on desalination vessels on the east side. They’re some big ships, oh man. Big.’
‘What about the nightlife?’ someone chirps from the back. The crew sniggers.
The pilot clears his throat. ‘How you like roaches, son? We got those. Invasive exotics in most shades, come to that. You’re better off-structure. The reef is mostly healthy. I snorkel when I can.
‘Latterly we have your sleeping zones, out there by the sat and radio masts. That’s your village. The quarters. What do you Brits call this shit? Garrison? The Vaughans shipped two goddamned Michelin-starred chefs to your rec-room…’
Inside, Shep is ecstatic. But not about the food or fauna. The beta structure has an odd magnetism that plays in him like abstract music. It shifts between his legs and ears. It fills him with childish awe, a giddiness, just to look at it. It isn’t just the bones of an orbital tower; it seems to him, as a climber, as an explorer, the perfect mission. He wishes old Mallory could see him here. That Mo, his partner for Jodrell Bank, could know what lust seizes him now. Because if you actually scaled this thing, if you somehow got right to the top, what would you actually see? He stares wide-eyed. The air around Vertex has taken on a heavenly brightness.
‘All you pale guys,’ the pilot says. ‘I hope you brought hats.’
* * *
Shep sleeps roughly during his first night in the cabin, possibly owing to a delayed comedown from the sloth pill, the bunk’s hardness, the bitterness of mosquito spray or even simple jet lag. Since their transfer touched down on Vertex he’d dealt with waves of nausea, a nagging pain in his wrists and chest, and several times he’s staggered to a toilet block expecting diarrhoea. The island’s intense humidity doesn’t help. Even though it drops to the mid-twenties by early evening, the air pressure is disparaging. Even with the air-con going, the constant perspiration makes it hard to get comfy. Harder still to get himself back out of the bunk when his bowels grumble. As the night lumbers on, he can only stare at the roof and try to make sense of his journey – comparing over there with inside here, the gulf between. He feels now like he has been teleported. Like England – and everything there – has vanished forever.
He tries to order the day. Earlier that evening, the transfer crew had driven Shep to the cabins on this, the ‘civilised’ side of the tower. They’d handed him a keycard and cabin number, told him to drop his stuff and make hay before collecting his contact sun-lenses, harness, helmet and hydration packs. There, Shep had walked between the parallel ditches left by heavy plant, the ground rubbly from whatever was cleared to make way for their accommodation. Pillboxes or concrete fortifications. War echoes.
The cabins would clearly have no shade come the morning. On the roof of his cabin stands a barometer a
nd weather station, a flaccid windsock. He’d opened the cabin’s sheet-metal door to campsite grade sleeping quarters: a space a few metres square containing a bunk, a rack of hooks in a flimsy wardrobe, a plastic one-piece bathroom pod complete with a sink, shower unit and toilet. The floor is covered in sawdust, whose bleachy smell mixes with the island’s elements: heat, steel, salt. A large mosquito net across him on the bunk.
After he signed for his harness and helmet, Shep sat on the cabin doorstep as the sun slipped beyond the tower. The whole structure glowed, backlit, more impressive than any chimney he’d looked out from, any stack he’d climbed. Its impermanence made it all the more surreal. It was hard to think this whole thing might be pointless, a fake, a Babel sprung by a family with more money than sense. When the sun was gone, Shep went and sat on the toilet until he felt sure he was empty.
The next morning his cabin door rattles at eight o’clock sharp. Shep opens it to a man in a leather Stetson. The sun is up and already powerful, and the scaffold is glistening.
‘Billy?’
Shep rubs his arms. Despite the net, his arms are riddled with mosquito bites. ‘Shep,’ he says weakly.
‘Billy,’ the man repeats. ‘I’m Eddy, your foreman. You’re rota’d for beacon installs with me.’ Eddy has a clean English accent, like an army officer.
‘Right,’ Shep says, and coughs.
‘Get yourself together while I round up the others,’ Eddy says, motioning to a little electric cart on the path. ‘Labour pool going this morning.’
Shep dresses and pushes in his sun-lenses. The cabin dims. When he opens the door again, Eddy is waiting for him in the cart, the Stetson pulled down to his brow.
* * *
‘Thought I had more on your block,’ he calls. ‘Lenses in? Mood killer, aren’t they?’
The foreman drives to the base pad beneath the beta with Shep leaning out of the cart with his mouth open. On stepping down from the cart he immediately stumbles, too busy gawping up into the guts of the scaffold, a bewildering mesh of platforms, ladders and joists. He sucks on the line from his hydration pack to try and control himself. Near the top of the tower – where the weave tightens – the connections look like gold thread. Eddy says nothing, like he understands.
‘How long did it take?’ Shep asks. He speaks out of the corner of his mouth, still sucking on the tube.
Eddy shrugs. ‘Three years?’ He lights a cigarette, points at it, then cups it close. ‘Don’t grass me up.’
Shep shrugs. They stand in silence until the foreman points over his shoulder. ‘You’re late!’ he shouts. Shep turns round to see the rest of the team pulling gear from a luggage tug.
‘Get a move on,’ Eddy shouts. ‘We’re way behind.’
Six more men and two women join Shep and Eddy on the pad. Shep shuffles into the shade of a support beam. He recognises no one from training in Portsmouth. Their darkened sun-lenses make them all look dead.
‘That makes nine of you,’ Eddy says, tallying them. ‘Where’s our tenth?’
Shep is also scanning to see whose height and body mass best match his. Working out who he might be paired with. To install the drone warning beacons, you need a partner to manage a specially made belay-and-brake system designed to lock you on to the guy-line, so you won’t slide off if your main protection fails. They’d nicknamed this new system a biter in Portsmouth, where Shep trained with a guy who kept reeling off the beacons’ features – ‘ultraviolet pulse, echo ping, chaff-splash for emergency proximity aversion’ – like a salesman practising his patter.
‘We’d better crack on,’ Eddy says, pacing. ‘I trust you’ve prayed to the Stack Gods this morning. This may be your first ascent, but we don’t have the luxury of time. The navy’s low-level tests start in a week, and our service level agreement says we should be halfway by then. Full tests start the week after, by which time we’ll be done. I can’t imagine…’ Eddy trails off and adjusts his Stetson. The group look among themselves. The foreman stares past them. ‘Joining us after all?’ he says.
The crew turn in unison. The latecomer is crossing a patch of bulrush remains, sand crunching under his boots. A stringy man, chipped-at and leathery, with a gait that makes him seem taller than he really is. He has a canvas kit bag over one shoulder, a cantina of water on his toolbelt, and his harness already secured at the waist. Its many dangling carabiners and attachments make it look like a mechanical hula skirt.
When the man takes off his sunglasses, Shep’s stomach twinges. It’s the man from the plane to LA.
‘Alarm didn’t go,’ the man announces. The way he stands – legs wide, chest out – says he doesn’t care whether the engineer believes him or not.
Eddy shakes his head. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Kapper,’ the man says.
Shep recognises that, too. The lead jack at Manchester Airport had mentioned him.
The foreman stares him down. ‘Kapper. Want to apologise to your crew?’
Kapper spits heavily on the dry earth and drops his kit bag.
Shep steps out of the shade. He wants Kapper to see him. Even in the heat, with his back wet and temples running, the weakness in him, he wants Kapper to notice.
‘Sorry, lads,’ Kapper says.
One of the women tuts.
Shep coughs a laugh into his fist. Kapper stares at him – pretends to stare straight through him.
Shep turns away at the perfect moment. Conceited as anything, like the beta is his. And suddenly the sickness, his cramps, have gone.
‘What’s up with you?’ Eddy asks, meaning Shep. ‘What’s funny?’
Shep doesn’t answer. He smiles. He loves that Kapper’s still staring. Cocky green Shep on the island. Cocky green Shep who’s going to run rings round you all—
Shep’s ears start to buzz. A steady whine. The pain in his wrists comes on strong. His bad finger throbs.
‘Enough dicking about,’ Eddy says. ‘Helmets tight. There’s a lot to get through.’
Kapper shakes his head.
‘You two,’ Eddy says, gesturing to the women, ‘will partner up and work ground today. No ifs or buts – the referee’s decision is final. Get these winches prepped and divvy up the beacons. For kick-off I want four teams on each quadrant to cover from here to a hundred metres up.
* * *
Rotating daily like this will improve our work rate. This goes to plan, you’ll get a day’s leave before the second test flights in a fortnight.’
‘But—’ one of the women protests.
‘You and you,’ Eddy says, ignoring her and pointing at two of the men. He goes round the group. ‘You and you. You and you.’
Shep swallows.
‘And you two,’ Eddy says, motioning to Shep and Kapper.
‘Fuck’s sakes,’ Kapper mutters.
‘Billy?’ the foreman says. ‘You with us?’
The buzzing in Shep’s ears turns to a roar. ‘Shep,’ he says, holding out a hand for Kapper. The bites on his arm look wretched.
‘Don’t fuck this up,’ Kapper says, leaving Shep hanging.
* * *
Shep and Kapper enter their quadrant through a tight access hatch. As the senior, Kapper has the scaffold schematics and a temp monitor on his watch. He knows where they are, where they get out, and when they should top up on fluids.
‘I’ll go first,’ Shep says at the load-point, keen to prove himself. Kapper grunts, so Shep slides in and starts climbing. There’s no natural light inside the ladder tube, and no let-up. While the rungs are rubberised, the sun-lenses make it even harder to see. Shep closes his eyes and climbs by feel alone, satisfied to hear Kapper’s laboured breathing beneath him.
At sixty metres, the wind begins to whistle through the tube enclosing them. ‘You train at Portsmouth?’ Shep shouts past his boots.
‘What?’
‘Portsmouth. On the alpha.’
‘Can’t hear you.’
‘For this job. Biters? Beacons?’
‘
Piss off,’ Kapper says. ‘What do you think?’
The hundred-metre hatch brings them into harsh sunlight. They stand sweating in the bounds of a cube-shaped opening in the beta scaffold’s face, boundless ocean below. They take off their helmets at the same time.
‘Clip in, then,’ Kapper says.
Shep snaps his fall arrest to the railings that line the inside wall of the platform. Kapper leans out over the edge protection to get eyes on the first guy-line they’re rigging with beacons.
‘You’d think they’d have realised,’ Shep says.
‘What?’
‘Could’ve just integrated the beacons and saved a packet. Could’ve had the flights out sooner…’
Kapper glares at him. ‘No one knew the navy’s specs till they started the build. That’s the whole fucking point. Testing. Don’t you listen?’
Shep takes out his sunblock. The staging creaks under their feet. Shep senses the load of the tower bearing down. A hint of the climbing still to come. If only he were wearing a headcam to capture the water’s sprawl. Some distraction from the draining humidity.
Bag open and tools laid out, Kapper double-checks his helmet and reties his boots. ‘You’re going on first,’ he tells Shep. ‘So we can find out how useless you really are.’
Shep grins as he slathers his face and neck in cream. Then he unclips his own bag from his rear carabiners and unpacks his beacons, cable clamps and tooling. The biter from its moulded foam at the bottom.
‘Sharpish,’ Kapper says.
Shep nods. All harnessed up. Checks and rechecks his tools. Slings a rack of beacons over his shoulder like a bandolier. Puts his helmet back on.
‘Have at it,’ Kapper says.
Shep comes off the railing and clips into the anchor points on the platform’s edge.
‘Rope out,’ Kapper says, and the height becomes tangible, a thing you can almost taste. Kapper has the biter controls slotted in next to his main belay device. With both systems together, he now protects Shep’s life in two ways: standard drop protection and fine controls for the biter. When Shep’s out there on the line, these systems will be all that keep him from pancaking it.
