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gravity in places you shouldn’t be able to. Friction – perfectly calibrated pressure between two surfaces – can keep your hand on a wall, or your fingers on an edge for the extra half-second you need to pull yourself over. Friction keeps us alive.
    I try to keep my movements smooth. When I’m on a run, sprinting through the station, I don’t worry too much about making noise – matter of fact, the more I make, the longer people have to see me coming, and get out of the way. But if I make a sound now, I’m dead.
    “If anybody’s back here, come out now,” Anton says again, the word given a metallic edge in the tight space. “We won’t hurt you.”
    I’m ten feet up, but it’s not enough – he’ll see me. I force myself to keep sliding upwards. A foot. Another. The muscles in my thighs are starting to burn.
    Anton comes into view. He’s a tall man, heavily muscled, wearing a ragged blue jumpsuit. He’s right underneath me. I can feel sweat pooling in the small of my back. If he looks up, he can’t possibly miss me. He won’t even have to aim. I feel a burning need to look at Carver, to see if he’s still there, but I don’t dare turn my head.
    Just as these thoughts run through my mind, my shoe slips on the metal wall, giving off a tiny screech.
    He had to have heard that. He must have. Any second now, he’s going to look up and put a bullet into me.
    But he doesn’t. He looks everywhere, except above his head.
    The burn in my thighs has become a raging fire, adding to the ache in my knees and ankles. I can’t stay where I am – if I don’t go up, or slide down, I’m going to fall right on top of him.
    I will my legs to stay locked, keeping me in place.
    He turns, and begins to walk the other way, intending to check behind the other vats. If Carver doesn’t move, the man is going to trip right over him.
    Carefully, I look to my left. Carver isn’t there. He’s moved away, slipping down the vats. I can just see him at the far corner of the room. “I’m OK,” he says, his voice barely audible on my SPOCS.
    My lungs feel like they’re going to rip through my torso, but I exhale as quietly as I dare. I’m about to slide down when I stop.
    Climbing is quiet. Getting down is always noisy. No matter how carefully you do it, there’s always sound. I might bring the man back this way, even more determined.
    But if I go up, I can stay quiet, and get an even better view of the plant
    Slowly, ever so slowly, I begin sliding up the vat, walking up the wall, treating each step as if there’s crushed glass under my feet.
    “What are you doing?” Carver says. I don’t answer.
    It seems like hours before I reach the top of the vat. Getting onto it isn’t easy – I have to stretch out as I come over the lip, and for a minute the edge digs painfully into my lower back. But then I slide onto it, face-up, pulling my feet off the wall.
    The air up here is just as dank, slick with the stink of human waste. The voices below me are muffled. Not knowing what’s happening in here must be driving Royo insane. He’ll be pacing, furious at us for going silent on him.
    You’re in a world of shit , I think, and have to force myself not laugh.
    “Carver,” I whisper.
    Carver speaks almost immediately, frantic with worry, abandoning SPOCS protocol. “Riley, talk to me.”
    “I’m up on one of the waste vats. They haven’t seen me.”
    “You need to stay where you are. They’ve got two of them looking for us now. They know something’s wrong.”
    Royo must have been listening in. “Tracers, report. We’re ready to go out here. Give me hostile positions, now .”
    “Standby,” I whisper. I slide across the top of the vat as I talk. The surface is convex, and as I near the edge I have to work to keep myself in place, but I finally get a good view of the plant.
    The waste vats line the walls, surrounded by a ganglia of pipes and valves. The hostage takers are spread across the floor, talking in low