Sean Rodman - Infiltration

“All right, rule two.” Kieran stood up and ground out his cigarette with his boot. Then, with one fluid motion, he reached down and scooped up my backpack. “No gear.”

He chucked the backpack into the dark, and I heard a muffled plop as it hit the water.

And sank. Kieran had a big shit-eating grin on his face.

“Game on,” he said. He turned and took off around the side of the column. I stared into the dark where my back-pack had vanished. Then I pulled it together.

“Screw you!” I finally yelled, but Kieran was out of sight. There was a hundred bucks of my best equipment in that bag! I ran after him, sprinting hard around the corner. But I’d lost Kieran already-no sign. Then I heard a scuffling sound from above. He was already heading up the bridge column using a service ladder. But that ladder started about ten feet off the ground-how did he get up there so fast? By the time I figured it out, he’d be too far ahead. I’d have to find another way.

I sprinted around the base of the bridge column and almost slammed into a small shed built against the side of the column. It must have been some kind of electrical room. There was a cluster of pipes and plastic tubes leading from the top of the shed and into the girders high above. All right, this was a start.

I grabbed the roof of the shed and pulled myself up. My hoodie caught on the edge of the sheet-metal roof, but I let it tear and kept going. Standing on the flat roof, I checked out the pipes leading up. There must have been a dozen of them in different sizes. What looked like giant metal staples held the whole mess to the concrete column. They were spaced regularly, a little thin and sharp, but nothing my gloves couldn’t handle. Not a great ladder, but good enough. Maybe thirty feet of free climbing, up to where the girders began. Then I’d have more options for climbing, with bigger handholds.

My gut clenched. This was not my style. I was the cautious, methodical one. But my fury at Kieran burned through the nerves. Hand over hand, I went up. After about ten feet, my shoulders started to ache. I just hoped I wouldn’t burn out before I made it to the girders. Once I was up there, I could find a place to catch my breath. Until then, I had to keep going or fall. Occasionally, I could hear Kieran somewhere out there in the dark above me.

“Screw. You. Kieran.” I grunted, each word punctuated by climbing up one more rung of my improvised ladder.

Then I was there. I crawled onto a support beam and sat, chest heaving and arms shaking. Traffic rumbled overhead. Looking around, I could see Kieran resting on another girder about twenty feet away. He looked wiped out. He might have given himself a head start, but he clearly wasn’t as strong a climber as me. I had a chance to beat him. And make him pay for my gear.

My heart still slamming in my chest, I started across the metal girders like a tightrope walker. One foot in front of the other, arms outstretched. I didn’t let myself look down, but the distant sound of the waves told me I was very high up. The girders were wider than my shoes but not by much. I was still unsteady from the fast climb up the column, and I started to wobble. I knew that I was asking for trouble, rushing like this.

It happened when I tried to transfer from one girder to another. Most of these metal beams had been pretty dry, but some grease or water must have leaked through from the traffic deck just above me. As I shifted my weight from one girder to the next, my front foot went out from underneath me.

You hear people say that in a life-or-death situation, time seems to go into slow motion. It didn’t for me. Way too quickly, I slid off the girder, reaching out for nothing but air.

I was lucky. Kind of. Totally off balance, both feet went right off the girder. Which meant that as I went down, I spun and hit the steel beam with my chest. I felt a flash of intense pain as all the air was knocked out of my lungs. Just by reflex, both hands grabbed onto the far edge of the I-shaped girder. But right away, my fingers started slipping. And I still couldn’t squeeze in a full breath. I’d only delayed my long fall into the harbor. And from this high up, hitting the water would kill me.

For a minute there was just the sound of the waves, the traffic above me and my ragged breathing. The steady wind was making me feel cold and clammy. I started to shiver.

“Gimme your hand.”

I looked up and there was Kieran, sitting next to me with his arm outstretched. His long hair was out of the ponytail and was matted with sweat to his forehead. He must have somehow spidered across the girders to get here. Now he was the only thing that could keep me from dropping like a rock.

I released my left hand and held it out to him. He locked onto my wrist with two hands. Slowly, carefully, we worked to get me back into a sitting position on the girder.

Now Kieran and I looked like two kids facing each other on a playground teeter-totter, legs dangling almost a hundred feet above the water. I laughed, kind of high-pitched and nervous.

“You think that was funny?” said Kieran, but he was smiling. “You’re crazier than me, man.”

“I’m crazy? You’re the one who pitched my gear into the bay. You’re the one who got us up here.” Despite my relief, the anger started to seep back in.

“I saved your life too.”

“Yeah. I guess you did,” I admitted.

“But that thing with your backpack, that was an asshole move. I get carried away sometimes, kind of lose control, you know? I’m sorry.” Kieran was looking straight at me like he meant it.

“There was a hundred bucks of climbing gear in that bag. I don’t have that kind of money to lose.” More than angry, I was just feeling sorry for myself all of a sudden. I was shivering pretty badly now. I was starting to hurt. Kieran was staring at me.

“Let’s get down from here. You look like crap. Then you tell me how much you need and I’ll take care of it.”

By the time we carefully picked our way down off the bridge, it was about 11:00 pm. I’d told my parents I was hanging at Jake’s tonight. On Friday nights they usually let me stay out until midnight. So I agreed when Kieran offered to buy me a coffee before I headed home.

We found a place that was still open. The sour-faced waitress didn’t look impressed by our appearance when we walked in. Two dirty, tired teenagers in ripped-up clothes. But she took our order without complaint. We settled into a brown vinyl-covered booth at the back. I watched as Kieran dug some pills out his pocket, washing them down with his coffee. Kieran saw my look.

“Headache,” he explained. “So money’s an issue for you?” I was working on a donut with one hand and cradling my mug of hot coffee with the other. My fingers were starting to thaw out.

“It’s not that big a deal. Both my parents are working now. It’s not like we’re poor. But, yeah, I need to find my own cash. And I don’t have a job right now. Or anything lined up for the summer.” That brought back memories of Asha. I was pretty sure she’d been avoiding me after our conversation in the lab.

“Fair enough. Like I said, I feel bad about chucking your gear in the bay,” said Kieran. “Is this enough to cover it?” He pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off a couple of fifties. He slid them across the table. I just stared at them.

“Where’d you get that kind of cash?” I said. Kieran laughed.

“You want it or not?” he said. I did. So I took the money. Like Kieran had said, fair enough. He might act crazy, but at least he knew how to make things right again.

“You know, I might be able to help you earn some serious scratch,” Kieran said. He leaned back in the booth and squinted at me. “Despite your slipup there, you were pretty awesome. I still don’t know how you got ahead of me. I gave myself a pretty good head start.”