U. Fairy Wings - Part 11

Adrielle stretched to manage the final set of stairs,
unusually not designed with little people in mind. Normally it would
have irritated her but right now she was just pleased to get out of
that claustrophobic lift and a little excited at being this high,
further up the tower than she had ever been before.

She emerged, finally, onto the top platform. A vast
flat disc open entirely to the (closer than usual) sky and encircled by
a transparent safety wall that was interrupted periodically to allow
access to the six gantries that supported the skyhook interception
equipment. Above her rose one colossal steel pylon, peppered with radio
aerials and meteorological equipment. Beneath her was the top ring
containing the bar and the launch stations from which hapless punters
threw themselves into space, safely tethered to the skyhooks. It looked
like there were two hooks in at the moment, one preparing to go. She
saw Wallace standing on the gantry with nothing but an aluminium
walkway between him and the perilous drop to the unforgiving
ground.

As she stepped out from the safety of the doorway
she felt the wind tug on her suit and was suddenly aware of how small
she was and how easy it would be for such a slight creature to be
picked up and carried away by a strong gust. Gathering her jacket about
her with one hand while leaving the other arm free to help her balance
she moved swiftly but cautiously over to the gnome.

She shouted hello before he had seen her, he stopped
what he was doing and turned around.

"Oh hello." He shouted. "You're early."

He kept talking but Adrielle wasn't listening, she
had seen the view.

It was a clear, cloudless day and the vista was
phenomenal, the tower road wound through the vivid green of the park
and into the forest that rolled backwards for miles. In the foreground
birds swooped and dived above the tops of the trees, the highest nearly
level with herself. She spotted a hawk picked out distinctly against
the slight blue of the horizontal sky, wings motionless as it circled
and rode upwards on the thermals, it's tail feathers flogging in the
breeze. In the far distance the mountains rose and met the sky, the
deep green, almost black, of their evergreen jacket scared by grey
rocky escarpments and finally surrendering to the crisp white of snowy
caps, all unnaturally static and clear. Rising from the forest, at the
mountains base, was the city, densely packed suburbs surrounding
skyscrapers that looked for all the world like natural monuments in
their own right. The whole sliced in half by the slow blade of the wide
and tightly twisting river, it's muddy browns given a silver glaze by
the glinting sun.

"What?"

Wallace shouted over the roar of the wind. "I said,
its amazing isn't it."

"Yeah." She replied, dumbfounded by the sight.

"Come out here if you want."

She looked at him, suspended over the clear drop on
the interception gantry, supported by a mechanical artifice no Dryad
would consider worth a spit in the rain.

"I couldn't" she said.

"Come on." He beckoned, "There's a harness by the
handrail, you'll be perfectly safe."

"Okay." She said and edged her way past the comfort
boundary of the high safety wall. The wind pulled at her jacket
frighteningly hard till she backed off, clinging with white knuckles to
the hand rail.

"Come on Adrielle." Wallace shouted to her.

"Come on Adrielle." She whispered to herself.

She took off the pinstripe jacket, bundled it up
tight so that it would not blow away and wedged it down by the wall.
Wallace had moved back towards the tower and handed her the harness
which she put on over a thin white cotton blouse that flapped in a
rapid wave motion across her body betraying the green of her skin where
it touched. Slowly, keeping tight hold of the rail with both hands, she
crept out above the precipice. The drop from the top ring was almost
straight down to the ground, as she got further out from the perimeter
she could see the edges of the other three rings and below that the
smooth sides of the gently tapering tower plunging all the way down to
the entrance foyer. Immediately beneath her was the launching station,
a small room with a full length, open window. A nervous looking human
male in a flight suit was pulling, suspiciously, at a flight harness
and a gnome was leaning fearlessly over the edge and looking up.

"Hello love." He shouted. "Could you tell Wallace
that we're ready to go."

Adrielle looked up and immediately felt dizzy. She
hugged the rail and relayed the message.

Wallace fiddled with the machines, checked a couple
of shackles were secure and stretched up and twanged the wire with his
fingers to test the tension before leaning over the edge and giving the
thumbs up to the gnome below. Adrielle watched as the human was half
beckoned and half pushed to the edge of the platform, the gnome below
signed 'OK' to Wallace who pulled a lever releasing the wire entirely
from the gantry. The human, taking Adrielle completely by surprise,
swan dived into the empty air. He seemed to fall away horizontally,
accelerating rapidly towards the horizon, she watched with her keen
eyes as he arched his back into the airflow and stabilised himself with
his arms, in no time he was no more distinct than the hawk with whom he
shared the sky.

Wallace turned to face her. "Nice launch." He
said.

Adrielle nodded her head.

"Unfortunately your friend Mr Schmitt had cancelled
his appointment so we don't actually have a hook for him."

"No?"

"But I figure he won't want to go flying anyway so I
had a word with Colin" he gestured to the gnome below, " and we can use
station C. We're holding a hook in it at the moment to correct timings
so nothing should look suspicious."

Adrielle said. "OK."

"And there's something else."