Rapping crab

Well I dunno. I went to work, didn't feel good, and even though I stayed until 2:00 took myself off the clock for the day. And called in sick today. Probably not the virus. Feels familiar. Sometimes my gas line just gets some water in it and experience says the best thing to do is rest and wait for it to go away.

***

Moved my Animals and did some other minor edits but most of yesterday was doing a cover-to-current-point re-read of the whole text. This time, the politics stood out and some of the history was repetitive. It's a timing thing. I wanted to have the diary-writer give her W.W.II experiences but I wasn't able to set it up so that's the primary account.

This morning's task is to work out the mechanics for the abseil scene.

Here's the setup. The infiltrators are abseiling down into Battersea Power Station. Fawkes is showing off, makes a stupid mistake, and Penny has to put her own life at risk to save him.

My constraints, then, is I have to describe this so it sells the beats to the reader; that Penny knows what she is doing and Fawkes doesn't and the only choice open to her is a risky stunt. It would kill the scene if the reader has constructed it differently enough in their mind that they are yelling, "Just grab the rope, you idiot!"

It has to be concise, both for flow and to avoid the conservation of detail trap (aka the Chekhov's Gun problem). And for extra points; it should adhere to standard practice if any part of it reaches the standard of reproducibility (don't tell the kids how to make explosives at home), and it shouldn't require bad-naming manufacturers or products.

I was playing with having him set up for an Australian, but that just adds too much time and detail to the moment (even though it simplifies the rescue tremendously). Same goes for Dülfersitz technique.

I was tempted to use a gri-gri. A backwards gri-gri is an easy-to-make real world mistake, and they occupy that perfect place where they are suspiciously new and high-tech and novice climbers very much are attracted to it's auto-lock and ease of use and, as a result, put themselves and others at risk through not understanding it properly.

But that's too much explanation, and it puts too much emphasis on the particular tool and manufacturer thereof.

So I'm still flirting with a double-carabiner setup, wrapped incorrectly. The big problem with this is that the rope is still there and that confuses a lot of the rescue. (We call it rapping/rappelling here and shorten carabiner to 'biner. Europe prefers abseilling and shortens it to a crab.)

The best I've come up with so far is the basic tubular belay device (I'd call it a Reverso to make the text flow more smoothly but, again, Petzl.)

And this is where I feel my kind of detail is the right choice. Because this isn't a Wikipedia vomit. Sure, you probably could construct the mechanics of this with enough time reading up and watching videos. That's more or less how I learned. Except that I've actually done it. I've done standard, Australian, I've even used a gri-gri. And I've gotten it wrong. Nearly hurt myself bad at least once (used a belay device on a line that was too thin for it to grip properly and nearly burned my hand as well as pancaking).

Here's the trick, and I hope I can describe it with economy in the actual scene. The typical tubular belay device (sigh) has a wire loop that keeps it from sliding up the bight and also makes it easier to carry around. When you rig for belay (or abseil) you form a bend or bight in the rope and shove it into the device. Then you take a crab and clip it through the loop of rope and the wire loop as well.

I've done it a dozen times. It is always so obvious I've never gotten in even the slightest danger over it. You clip the wire loop (which is kind of in the way, especially if you are fumbling at this with gloves on) ...and miss the rope.

The clean way to do it is to unclip everything, attach the belay device to the rope, then bring the crab back to your harness and clip it to the belay loop. Then of course you do a buddy check, but Fawkes' arrogance in omitting that is easy to describe.

The lazy way, especially if you already have the thing clipped on for easy storage, is to pull the rope to you, shove the loop in and feel for it with your fingers so you open the crab and close it again without losing the wire loop. Spin the lock closed on the crab and you are done.

Now I just have to write the scene.

***

That scene is done and I count a thousand words of new material but yesterday was mostly editing to that knocks the average down to five hundred. Unless I can figure out the NEXT fun sequence. Penny knows that one of the guys on this infiltration shot at her. What I want to do is having her sneak around the turbine hall or something trying to get behind him without giving him a chance to get the drop on her...and without being sure which guy it is!

Well, the turbine hall is gutted. The electrical rooms are still there and I might be able to plausibly do some sneaking. I suspect it will come out less exciting in print than it was in my imagination. That's what happened to the Highgate sequence.

Man, there's still a lot to go. The sword fight may take some figuring. And then the solo hack into the tunnel is going to be a few pages.