Ark Angel

that it was no good. The plane was too high up. It was already too dark. And the smoke was too thick.
    He hurried back to the door. He would have to head down again and hope that the upper corridors were still passable. Maybe he could try the other side of the building. He pulled the door open carefully. It seemed impossible that Combat Jacket would have followed him all the way up, but he wasn’t taking any chances. But as the door swung wide, he realized that Combat Jacket was the least of his problems.
    A fist of flame punched at him. The stairs had become an inferno. At the same moment, there was an explosion and Alex was hurled backwards by a thousand fragments of burning, splintered wood which had been blasted up from below. He landed painfully on his back, and when he next looked up he saw that the door itself was now on fire. It was the only way off the roof. He was trapped.

    Alex stood up. The tarmac was definitely getting hotter. He could no longer stay too long on one foot.
    Black smoke was pouring out of the stairwell, billowing into the sky. Now he heard the sound he had been hoping for—the wail of sirens. But he knew that by the time they got to him, it would be too late. There was another explosion below him. The windows were beginning to shatter, unable to take the heat. No way down. What could he do? The banner.
    It was twenty metres long, about a hundred metres above the ground, a lifeline between this building and the next. The advertisement for Hornchurch Towers was suspended between two steel cables; the top cable was level with the roof, bolted into the brickwork. Alex ran over to it. Could he stand on the lower cable and hold onto the higher one? It would be like a swing bridge in the jungle. He could slowly inch his way across to the other side and safety. But the cables were too far apart—and the material was flapping in the wind. It would knock him off before he was even halfway.
    Could he somehow crawl across on his hands and knees? No. The cable was about two centimetres thick. It wasn’t wide enough to support him. He would lose his balance and fall. That was certain. So how? The answer came to him in an instant. Everything he needed was there in front of him. But it only worked when he put it all together. Could he do it? Another window shattered. Behind him, the exit had disappeared in a whirlwind of flames and smoke. He was standing on a giant hot plate and it was becoming more unbearable with every passing second. Alex could see the fire engines, the size of toys, speeding along about half a mile away. He had to try. There was no other way.
    He snatched up one of the lengths of plastic piping, weighing it in his hands. It was about six metres long and light enough for him to carry without feeling any strain. He had to make it heavier. Moving more quickly, he examined the steel buckets. They were half full of hardened cement, and weighed about the same. Somehow he had to attach them to the piping. But there was no rope. He choked and wiped sweat and tears from his eyes. What could he use? Then he looked down and saw the bandages flapping around his chest. He grabbed an end and began to tear them off. Sixty seconds later he was ready. It was Ian Rider he had to thank, of course. A visit to a circus in Vienna six years ago when Alex was only eight. It had been his birthday. And he still remembered his favourite act. The tightrope walkers.
    “Funambulism,” Ian Rider said.
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s Latin, Alex. Funis means rope. And ambulare is to walk. Funambulism is the art of tightrope walking.”
    “Is it difficult?”
    “Well, it’s a lot easier than it looks. Not many people realize it, but there’s a trick involved…”
    Alex lifted the plastic pole, the middle pressed against his chest, about three metres stretching out each side. There was a heavy steel bucket attached to each end, tied in place with a torn bandage. Every second he waited he could feel the heat increasing. His soles were already blistering and he knew he couldn’t wait any more. He walked to the edge of the roof. The metal cable running above the advertisement stretched out into the distance. Suddenly the other tower block seemed a very long way away. He tried not to look down. He knew that would make it impossible for him even to begin.
    This was how it was meant to work. This was what Ian Rider had explained.
    The wire acts as an axis. If you try to walk across the wire, you will fall the