Fish & Chips (Cut & Run 3)

“You don"t get seasick, do you? Even on a ship this size, I"m pretty sure you"ll feel the roll up there.”

“I have no idea,” Zane said honestly, setting his hands on his hips.

“I guess we"ll find out.”

Even though they"d been settling into their roles on board quite comfortably for the last two days, it was still a slight surprise when Ty stepped closer and gave him a quick, chaste kiss on the lips before turning toward the gray wall covered with red, yellow, green, and black handholds, marking the varying degrees of climbing difficulty.

Zane stood there smiling like an idiot as Manny made certain the belay device attached to Zane"s harness was operating properly, telling Zane that he was Ty"s counterweight and instructing him how to use the simple device the rope passed through. It could be easily secured in case of a fall, using Zane"s weight to counter Ty"s if he slipped. Zane looked up the length of the rope to the anchor at the top of the wall and figured he"d need to keep the rope close to taut, just in case. Knowing Ty, he"d fall and swing free like an acrobat just to make Zane"s harness abuse his fun parts.

“Okay, Extreme Sports Ken, go for it,” Zane said after resettling his sunglasses.

Ty looked back at him in exasperation, one hand on a notch in the rock wall. “Here"s where I ask, „on belay?", and if you"re prepared to catch me if and when I fall to my possible doom, you reply, „belay on",” Ty told him.

“Belay on,” Zane reported dutifully, a few of his academy memories filtering back. He"d had a short course in rappelling way back when, but it hadn"t stuck with him, and it wasn"t quite the same as rock climbing. The commands sounded familiar, though.

Ty cleared his throat against a laugh and said, “Climbing,” before hefting himself up onto the wall. Manny leaned over and murmured to Zane, and Zane obediently announced, “Climb on,” as he watched Ty"s every move.

Ty wore a pair of green athletic shorts and a navy blue sleeveless shirt this morning, both relatively tight to avoid loose clothing getting caught in the ropes or snagging on the wall, and it was easy to see his defined muscles flexing as he deftly moved from one grip to the next. It was obvious he had done this before, and not just on the odd weekend excursion. Force Recon probably got pretty familiar with this kind of thing.

Ty climbed with efficiency and precision of movement, making decisions about which handhold or foothold he would move to quickly and scaling the wall like a spider monkey. It was common sense: the longer he stayed clinging to one spot, the more fatigued his muscles would be and the more difficult it would be to continue upward.

Ty didn"t dally. He was heading steadily toward the middle of the wall and the large outcropping there.

“Great,” Zane muttered. “He would decide to take the toughest route.” As the rope grew taut in Zane"s hands, he carefully let loose some length so Ty could keep moving diagonally. The higher Ty got, the more Zane wished he"d been more insistent about staying in bed this morning, although he knew it was silly. Ty was a highly trained Marine, and a little rock wall like this was amateur hour to him. The thought really didn"t help Zane feel any better, though. Again he thought of Ty swinging around like a circus clown, and he pulled at his harness uncomfortably.

“Your friend"s a good climber,” Manny said appreciatively as he watched Ty"s agile ascent.

Ty slowed to a stop, briefly fussing with the line that had gotten tangled. “Tension!” he called down.

Zane pulled carefully on the line to tighten it up. “Yeah, he loves this kind of stuff,” he replied absently, not taking his eyes off his partner.

As soon as the slack was taken up, Ty started up and over again.

He was definitely moving toward the outcropping because it offered a more difficult climb. The outward incline meant the rope would take less of his weight as he went, and it was more taxing on his limbs as he pulled himself higher. Even from twenty-five to thirty feet below, Zane could see the muscles of Ty"s shoulders and forearms bulging as he neared the tip of the outcrop. It then occurred to Zane that he hadn"t even thought about Ty"s fingers. The surgery on Ty"s hand hadn"t been all that long ago, and Zane hadn"t asked if Ty had regained the strength and flexibility he was used to.

As if in answer to his question, Ty gave a short shout of frustration from above as he tried to grip one of the outermost notches with that hand. He pulled it back and shook it, looking down at them as he clung to the underside of the outcropping. He leaned much of his weight on the harness, more hanging in mid-air as he kept his hand on the wall than relying on the holds. Zane thought he might be grinning.

“Fingers!” Ty called down, shaking them.

Zane snorted. “Try using them!” he yelled back up, just to be annoying.

“I did! They didn"t like it!” Ty called down.

Zane could see him searching for a different hold, probably one that wouldn"t tax those weak fingers quite so much. Ty looked down at his harness suddenly, and at the same time Zane felt the rope lose tension in his hand. Zane pulled down on the rope to take up the slack, figuring Ty was preoccupied enough with his fingers not to call out.

Ty looked down at them in consternation. “Tension!” he shouted down, even as the rope grew slack once again in Zane"s hands. If Ty"s end was slack, Zane"s should have been getting tauter, not the other way around.

“What"s with the rope?” Zane asked Manny as he kept pulling on it without finding any resistance. He saw Ty glance down at him and then look up sharply, his entire body jerking in alarm at some warning that Zane couldn"t hear or see. Ty"s free hand scrabbled at his harness, almost in a panic that was highly uncharacteristic of him.

“Rock!” Ty called out, his voice just as panicked as his actions.

The warning that an object was falling confused Zane just as much as realizing Ty was trying to untie the securing knot that bound the rope to his harness. The rope in Zane"s hand suddenly thumped to the ground at his feet, and there was a whipping noise as dozens of feet of the heavy blue nylon rope fell from the heights of the rock wall.

“Hold on!” Zane yelled as he realized the anchor rope had just snapped. There was nothing he could do but watch, shocked and sick and scared as Ty fought to find purchase on the wall more than thirty feet above him.

As the rope fell, Ty was still trying to free himself from it. People waiting in line for their turn at the wall began to scream as they saw the two halves of the rope falling. The shorter end of the broken rope, the one still attached to Ty, fell past him just as he whipped the knot loose and threw it away from his body. But the weight of the heavy, falling rope was enough to pull at him even as he let it go, and Zane watched in horror as it dragged his body away from the outcropping.