14 A fighting chance
'Let's see what do we have here.'
Leo's situation was shit.
He stood below a narrow ledge at the bottom of the cliff, with nothing but open plain stretching in front of him and a steep face of the cliff rising right behind his back.
And to make matters worse, the day has now fully begun with the sun showering the face of this planet with its rich, bright presence.
The rays of the sun made all the colors of the nearby forest and the plain more vivid. The green of the grass, the brown of the trees, and even the gray of the jagged stone that made up the cliff's face were all… more vibrant.
Which was the last thing Leo could currently ask for.
Leo was undoubtedly in a deep shit and was self-aware enough to know it. And yet…
When he pulled down at the zipper of his back, he couldn't help but feel excited.
'I guess men never grow up, they just change what toys they want to play with,' Leo thought, trying to use some humor to lift his morale. And the insides of the backpack now revealing themselves to the young man was the greatest boost to his mood that he could ask for.
'Broken, broken, broken,' Leo thought as he moved the stuff around, putting all the faulty equipment to one side while sorting what appeared to be still in working order to the other side.
'Oh?'
Upon reaching the bottom of the bag, Leo finally found something that was far less impressive than all of the tools that survived the harsh fall and lack of maintenance over the past few days… yet something that could allow him to bridge the gap of the cliff's face that still kept him away from the truck, and ultimately, the return device.
A coordinate-holding anchor that would soon, in just one more day, open up a path for him to return home. And upon reaching the very bottom of the bag, Leo found something that was both unassuming…
And also extremely tragic. For while its presence finally gave Leo a fighting chance, it forced him on a path he really didn't want to follow.
'A stealth blanket package,' Leo thought to himself, carefully pulling the sealed plastic bag out before tearing the package and taking a look at its contents.
The plastic bag contained a set of three, relatively simple blankets, one in the colors of the forest's brown and green mixing in irregular patterns, the other covered in all sorts of yellow patches…
And a blanket kept in a gray, made up of chaotically interweaved tones of darker and lighter gray.
On the outside of the blanket, there were some tiny imperfections, breaking the otherwise perfect canvas of various shades of gray.
'And it just so happens,' Leo turned his eyes to the side, staring at the very rock he was hiding at, 'to be pretty much the same color as this cliff…'
With this cloak, stealthy climbing the cliff's face became possible. With the assumption locals didn't have any sort of extraordinary means to detect him, no sound, visual, or even heat signature would betray his presence while hidden beneath this blanket. '
'But that means,' Leo thought, gulping his saliva down as he looked up, reaching with the eyes of his imagination beyond the ledge he was hiding below.
'Do I have to climb this nearly vertical wall?'
Leo wasn't a climber. And while moving around construction sites and the labyrinths of trash was his forte… the skills he gained while working could hardly be of any use when it came to actually crawling up an extremely steep face of a cliff!
'But do I even have a choice?'
The gray blanket offered Leo an opportunity to possibly climb up the cliff's face while avoiding detection. It wasn't going to make such a perilous climb any easier, though.
'This is going to be tough,' Leo gritted his teeth and turned to face the stone wall before looking along the cliff's base, searching for the easiest approach.
Leo's eyes twitched when he noticed an area with a conveniently huge number of things to grab on and step at. And it was only a few meters away…
'Don't waste time. Even with the clock, if I want to climb this, I will have to do it a millimeter at a time.'
This was the dreadful reality Leo struggled to face. An ordeal that was well above and beyond his physical means to achieve. For if climbing such a huge cliff was still within Leo's desperate means… Doing so throughout the entire day while moving slow enough for the guards above not to notice him, though…
Leo stopped and took a deep breath… before quickly locking the blanket at the back of his ankles, his neck, the top of his forehead, and finally his writs. Secured at those six points, the blanket naturally fell down in a disorderly fashion, creating an illusion of a stray stone attached to the face of the cliff right where Leo stood.
'Still, before I go…' Daring not to bring the bulky backpack with him, Leo quickly fished out all of the surviving tools from the bag before messily attaching them all over his clothes.
Four universal charges, a set of smoke and stun grenades each, a balistic knife, operator's bracelet…
Yet, as massive of a crutch, as those items were, it was the last two items that Leo found that were the game-breakers.
First, the spare clock that was supposed to replace the one Leo has long since lost. Or, in other words, a tool that allowed him to precisely measure how much time he had left before the return device would ping out.
Secondly, a single vial gave Leo the fright of his life when, by stumbling around the insides of the backpack, produced quite a ringing noise.
'God damn,' Leo gritted his teeth not to whistle in happy shock. 'A vial of the nanites! Just what I fucking needed!'
Not even trying to steel himself for the unpleasant experience, Leo pulled the massive syringe out before tearing the cover off its disgustingly large needle. Then, without any wasteful hesitation, he gritted his teeth and slammed the dastardly piece of metal down his shoulder, around the same place where he remembered that vile corporate doctor stung him.
Leo pressed the piston and heaved a long, haggard breath. His body tensed up right as every cell of his flesh exploded in pain…
Only for the unpleasant experience to quickly waver and vanish, replaced with the relaxing bliss.
"Haaa…" Nearly stumbling down on his feet, Leo leaned himself against the cliff's face. A few moments of stabilizing his breath later, he took a look at the back to ensure the blanket stuck to its designated spots correctly…
'Okay, all set here.'
With a fresh dose of nanites filling his bloodstream, Leo regained some confidence in challenging the cliff right in the full glory of the early day. Yet, before taking a step towards the approach he noticed, he made sure to secure all of the other items and even think of all sorts of possible ways to use them on the go.
Still, no matter how much Leo sneakily tried to push the inevitable for later, he didn't really have the luxury to waste time.
Not when his entire stealth strategy was all about moving so slow, no eye of a guard above would ever notice even the tiniest movement!
'Come on, Leo, if you falter now, then all you did so far will be for nothing!'
Struggling to force himself to make the next step, Leo simply wiped his thoughts… before casually strolling out of the cover of the ledge and walking up to the spot he noticed as if he was taking a leisurely walk. Only upon reaching the designated area did he turn back towards the cliff's face before pressing his face and chest against it, as if he wanted to tightly hug the entire thing.
'Now, not a single hurried move,' Leo reminded himself, pulling his arms to the side to stretch the blanket a bit. Then, taking a whooping few minutes just to raise his arm an inch, he found the very first place for his fingers to latch on to.
'Here goes nothing,' with his heart in his mouth, Leo gritted his teeth… and slowly lifted his left leg before lowering it onto a foothold merely two inches above the ground. He followed with the right leg, simply pressing it against the stone as he was unable to find a convenient support for it.
'That took only like five minutes,' Leo thought, happy with the progress for a second before the cold realism of the moment struck him off his high, mental pedestal.
'Five minutes for two inches,' Leo thought, resisting the desire to look up and taking his time to slowly inspect the stone above with his now free hand in search of the next support. 'And I only have about a hundred and fifty meters to go!'
