Hardcase

Three catwalks on this level co

Fuck it, thought Kurtz and began climbing again.

The high catwalk was half the width of the one he had climbed from. Kurtz's elbows almost slipped over the side as he began crawling out toward the center of the open space. He could feel the narrow catwalk sway to his movement, so he kept his motion as fluid as possible.

It was so damned dark up here that someone could be sitting on the same catwalk ten feet in front of him, and he wouldn't see him. Kurtz thumbed the hammer of the.38 back as he crawled, pistol extended.

Don't be an asshole, came the condescending thought. Nobody else would be stupid enough to come up this high.

It was high. Kurtz tried not to look down, but it was impossible not to see through the open metal grate of the catwalk. He could see the filthy, littered tops of the floor-level office roofs to his right, the mounds of dark rock heaped like sandbox piles littering the main floor, and the black spiderweb of catwalks and cables below. Kurtz felt a pang of sympathy for the mill workers who would have to crawl out on this exposed, wobbly catwalk to work on the high cranes.

Fuck them. They were probably paid hazardous-duty pay. Halfway out, Kurtz noticed that the catwalk was so unstable primarily because the company had ripped out the crane itself, obviously selling it and its motors and primary support equipment. The catwalks ended thirty feet above and twenty feet beyond the control tower in… nothing.

How much support did the crane and its superstructure provide? Kurtz paused and tilted his neck, looking up at where the pitifully few and thin steel cables ended in the ceiling just ten feet or so above him. It was too dark to see cracks or missing bolts, but it was obvious that the cables alone had not been designed to support this catwalk system.

He kept crawling.