“You know, caffeine can improve your manual dexterity,” Gert suggested. “I could do this a lot faster if I—”
“No,” Caxton said, and snapped another pair of joined restraints.
Eventually they had a rope.
Caxton led Gert out into the hospital ward, where the empty beds lay on either side of a narrow aisle. Together they looked up at the ceiling. The hospital wing was the same height as the other buildings that comprised the prison, but unlike the other buildings only had one floor. That meant the ceiling of the ward was twenty-five feet above their heads. A complicated tangle of pipes and lighting fixtures ran along the ceiling, suspended from thick metal brackets every few feet. Almost hidden among the lights were a row of skylights. There were no bars on the skylights—the architects of the prison had probably thought no prisoner would ever be able to get up there, not without a stepladder. Caxton had searched the infirmary from end to end and had completely failed to find a stepladder of any kind.
Her rope was going to have to do instead. She hoped it would hold her weight.
“Find me something heavy but small to use as a weight,” Caxton said, unreeling her makeshift rope length by length. Gert came back with a metal bedpan. “Fair enough,” Caxton said. There was a hole punched in one side of the bedpan, perhaps so it could be drained or attached to a catheter. Caxton fed the end of her rope through the hole, then tied it tight.
She looked up at the skylight closest to her. There was a thick pipe running alongside it, as well as a cluster of light fixtures. Caxton paid out a little line, got a good swing going, and cast for the pipe.
The bedpan sailed up between the lights and clanged off the side of the pipe. Gert ran madly to avoid getting hit as it came back down.
Caxton hadn’t really expected to get the range right the first time. She took a step back, gathered her line, and tried again.
The bedpan went over the pipe this time—and got stuck. It was wedged between the pipe and the ceiling.
Gert started to cheer, but Caxton shook her head and pulled hard on the rope. The bedpan came loose and fell down to hit one of the beds. It bounced off and clanged on the floor. “Third time’s the charm,” Caxton promised. She reeled in her line, swung, and cast. This time the bedpan went right through the gap between the pipe and the ceiling and came down the far side, dropping like a stone. Caxton let the line play out between her hands, then grabbed it before it could get away from her.
“Tie that end to one of the beds. That should be heavy enough to act as a counterweight,” Caxton told Gert. When her celly had done as she asked, Caxton grabbed hold of the other end of the rope and started climbing.
The buckles creaked. The nylon straps groaned. It held. It was even better than a real rope, because it had hand-and footholds every few feet along its length. She was feeling pretty good about herself when she reached the pipe and got an arm around it. Getting what leverage she could, she swung and kicked at the skylight. It was made of dirty, sun-damaged transparent plastic and it cracked when she hit it, even with her bare feet. One more swing and she knocked it right out of its frame. The way to the roof was clear.
“Gert, your turn,” she called. “It’s an easy climb. You know how to climb a rope, right?”
There was no answer. Caxton looked down and couldn’t see Gert anywhere in the ward.
“Gert!” she shouted. “Gert! You get out here right now, or I’ll leave you behind!”
Gert came running out of the dispensary when she heard that. She looked up at Caxton with the eyes of an innocent fawn, who had definitely not been doing anything bad.
There was nothing Caxton could do about it. She told Gert how to climb the rope, and waited for her celly to join her up by the pipe.