see the beads of sweat on his upper lip. His mouth brushed her hair as he hissed, “I’m going in this way. I want you to follow those condensers until you find the service entrance to the compressor. You’re as small as some of our maintenance robots. You’ll fit. Get inside the compressor room and look for any other explosives. If you find the gas, try to disconnect it.”
More nervous than she had ever been in her life, she nodded shakily. “Yes, sir.”
“Brook.” He grabbed her upper arm and forced her to meet the stare of his single eye. “If we fuck this up, everyone dies. You. Me. Cipher. Our friends.”
The reality hit her like a load of bricks to the chest. Lifting her chin, she promised, “I won’t fuck this up.”
“Good girl.” He roughly patted her back. “Go.”
With shaking limbs, she grabbed onto the first bracket securing the huge condenser lines and hauled herself off the deck. Her lungs weren’t happy with all the exertion required to climb without ropes or a ladder. The treatments had helped, but she felt herself breathing harder and harder as she ascended. Her arms started to burn, and her fingers ached from grasping the hard metal brackets. She didn’t even want to think about her throbbing feet. She could feel the blood smudging the cold metal of the condensers.
When she finally saw the flat top of the compressor room, she heaved a grateful sigh. She glanced down, but Terror had vanished from sight. Certain he was about to put the hurt on Rake, she pushed him from her mind. She was about to drop into a room that might be rigged with explosives and poisonous gas. She didn’t have enough space in her brain to worry about him, too.
There was a grated cover over the ventilation space similar to the ones she had encountered in the mine. It was so heavy, and she had to strain every muscle in her body to lift it a few inches out of its grooved seat. Panting and sweating, she pushed it as hard as she could to slide it out of the way and make enough room. When it was out of the way, she stuck her head through the slim opening to check out the situation. Terror was right. It was a very small space, but she could fit. For once, her thin figure was going to be very useful.
With trembling arms, she lowered herself through the hole and grabbed onto a beam. It was so noisy inside the compressor room, and the smell of grease and dust made her wrinkle her nose. Worried she was damaging her hearing being so close to all that noise, she cautiously swung her feet forward until she felt a bracket strong enough to hold her. She stretched out her right arm and took hold of another beam. She was barely tall enough to keep her toes on the bracket and her fingers on the beam. She cursed her petite stature and prayed to any deity listening that she wasn’t about to fall and break her neck.
Seeing a spot where she could descend, she lowered her arms to her sides and took a steadying breath. Her bloody feet protested as she stepped from the bracket onto a thin beam running parallel to the floor. Trying to stay as balanced as possible, she walked the unnervingly long length of the beam. She wobbled three different times, and her heart clattered in her chest.
Don’t fall. Don’t fall.
Somehow, she managed to make it safely to the other side. She crouched down carefully, her thighs shaking and her stomach lurching with fear, and took hold of the beam under her feet. Not very gracefully, she lowered one leg and then the other. Dangling too high from the ground to jump without hurting herself badly, she stretched out her left arm toward a ladder-like structure of welded metal holding up various pieces of the compressor.
It was so loud next to the compressor that she could feel her brain rattling in her skull. She clenched her jaw and growled as she swung herself to the metal bars. Her hands slipped as she grabbed hold, and she only just managed to catch herself. Panting and clinging to the metal as if her life depended on it, she carefully climbed down until she made it to the floor.
Wincing at the incredibly loud cacophony from the machine, she started examining every place she could see for any signs