Mountainside: Part Two

“Do you have my location?”

No answer.  After another long pause, “Location?”

“Yes.  We’ve got you sixty meters from the entry point.”

Arlo looked at his surroundings.  There wasn’t much room to maneuver the side of the cliff.  He took a good look at the mountainside and determined the location of the entry.  He had two options.  One was a straight ascent up the cliff and a difficult lateral path.  The other was a more jagged diagonal climb to the point. 

“Do you have a strategy, A-1?” said a voice from his communicator.

“Yeah Furmin, 63 up 12 over.”

This was not going to be his path.  Any time Arlo gave any information to the Pacifics he made damn sure to give some misdirection. He had little trust in them, even though they saved him and his crew.  Something didn’t seem right.  He did enjoy the equipment he was provided, though.  A nice Chamo suit kept him invisible on the ascent.  The body suit he was wearing blended him into the cliffside perfectly, and his communicator was cloaked with ancient radio frequencies that could easily be encrypted and hidden.

Arlo moved up the jagged mountain carefully and inched his way to his target.  Three hours into this careful mission, it was a game of patience and a journey of tiny moves.  He knew he was off his planned course, and within seconds…

“You’re off course, A-1. “

“This takes time and care, Furmin.”

Furmin was the communications and tech officer back at camp.  Her real name was Minnie Furlong, and she made it her personal mission to be Arlo’s pain in the ass.  Her bob-and-shave haircut immediately made him groan the first time they met at the rescue of his ship, the Fenix. 

“Be careful, A-1.  Watch out for kickers.  Furmin out.”

Arlo was relieved at this.  Micromanagement had been a part of his life for so many years, and it was nice to hear the queen of nitpicking had let him do his work.  Arlo estimated there were about forty five meters left until he reached his goal. 

Minnie was right, there were probably kickers in the mountain he needed to watch out for.  He had never seen a kicker in real life, but had heard some stories from the Pacifics and some of his fellow officers.  One soldier had stepped on one during a mission to Tokyo and blew his leg off.  Another climbed a mountain in South America and accidentally tapped on one when he was nearly at the top of a waterfall, only there to get intel on the area from an elevated perspective. 

Arlo noticed a spot on his current path that looked tampered with, and not exactly natural.  He activated his glance goggles.  They indicated to him a kicker charge, but could not detect the strength of it. It was five meters to his left and one meter up.  Go under it, he thought.  Give yourself a couple meters leeway.  He analyzed it, and if this was the only kicker within ten meters, he could scoot under it and then ascend directly.

“90 minutes, A-1. We have to plant and roll.”

This irritated Arlo.  He was not one to be reminded of the situation constantly, nor did he need play-by-play.  As careful a mission as this was, he just needed some silence to get the job done. He proceeded to do a lateral climb and give himself two meters of free space so as not to trigger the kicker, or any other item.  He was aware security measures such as cameras and radar were all around, and the only equipment keeping him hidden were the radio, Chamo, and his own careful movements. 

There was radio silence for another forty minutes, and this is all the time Arlo needed to get to the designated entry point.  From here, it was no longer a matter of careful steps on a cliff, it was about planting the bomb and timing an escape that didn’t result in death or disaster.  Arlo took a deep breath and prepared.  The Chamo went down the side of the mountain, the communicator was set on fire, and the glance goggles were turned off and buried in a pile of debris at the entry.  Arlo was only left with a dressy outfit, and the destruction of the communicator was a signal to the Pacifics that he had reached his destination safely.

The last radio transmission came from A-1. “I’m in. Let it go.”