Tightrope
Chapter One
"You want me to WHAT?" Jaime asked incredulously. "Oscar, have you lost every single one of your brain cells?"
Steve grinned. "I think you'll make a darn cute tightrope walker."
"Don't help. Besides, you just wanna see me in one of those teeny little skirts."
"Well, yeah, but -"
Jaime smiled at him, but her words were serious. "So...don't help." She looked at her boss, who immediately stifled his own smile. "Aside from the fact that heights are not on my list of 10,000 favorite things, I have no clue how to walk across a thread-sized rope without breaking my neck!"
"You'll have a net," Steve said lightly, before losing his own smile as well, with one single fleeting glare from Jaime. "Sorry."
Oscar tried to be reassuring. "Babe, I've arranged for you to be trained by one of the biggest stars in the business."
"What - one whole lesson? You already told me I'm leaving tomorrow." She didn't give him a chance to answer. "Oscar, I have never turned down a mission; you tell me where I'm needed and I'm always there. But I really, seriously don't want to do this! I don't think I can do it!" Jaime looked to Steve for support, but he'd slipped quietly from the room.
Oscar sighed. He'd never had to force her into an assignment before. "Jaime, the President himself called me on this, and he specifically asked me to send you. This job is crucial in maintaining U.S./Soviet relations, and only someone with your special skills - in particular, your hearing - can pull it off."
"How 'bout if I do something a little less risky, like stick my head in a lion's mouth or fly out of a cannon?"
"Miss Lucretia - call her Lucy - will meet you in Hangar Four at Andrews in an hour. I think you'll feel a lot better about this once you see it isn't as difficult as you think. Do you have any questions?"
"No," Jaime replied sullenly.
"You probably won't have to be there very long," Oscar said, trying to make it a little easier. "Just find out who's been buying and selling our government secrets all along the circus route, and you'll be out of there."
"Do I wanna know why there's an opening for a tightrope walker, in the first place?"
"Aahh...no."
"I have no choice here, do I?"
"You'll be fine, Jaime. I'm not worried in the least," he lied.
"That makes one of us," she muttered, on her way out the door.
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A very pleasant woman in her early fifties met Jaime inside Hanger Four. "Jaime? Hi. I'm Lucretia, but call me that and I likely won't answer, since everyone calls me Lucy." Behind her were a series of three ropes strung at different heights. The first was merely inches from the floor, the second, about 30 feet up, and the third was standard circus height with a net underneath it. She saw Jaime's wide-eyed, fearful glances at the ropes and smiled warmly. "It's nowhere near as difficult as it appears. You'll do fine."
Jaime smiled back, but her voice was shaky. "I'm...not real fond of heights."
"Depending how strong your arms are, we can make it virtually impossible for you to fall."
This, Jaime liked. "Really? I've got some pretty serious muscles, and I like that thought a lot."
"First, I'll show you the basics, and we'll go from there, ok?" Lucy moved to the lowest "wire" - actually a tautly-stretched rope, about 1/2-inch in diameter. "Think of the rope as an axis, and your own center of mass has the potential to rotate around this axis," she explained, making a circle in the air with her hand.
"It's the lower half of that rotation that scares the hell outta me," Jaime noted.
"That's why your objective is to keep your center of mass - some people call it center of gravity - directly above the wire. If you fail, you will have a split second or two to correct your position as your body begins to rotate, before a fall would occur." She kept on smiling. "Why don't you try stepping onto this one, just to try it out?"
"Guess I can't break my neck from three inches up, right?" Jaime put one tentative foot onto the rope and, as she lifted the other foot, lost her balance and stumbled.
"Start from the platform at the end of the rope," Lucy told her, "that way you'll be stepping out, instead of up."
Jaime did as instructed and managed about three steps before her feet re-joined the floor. Lucy picked up a very long, floppy metal tube from its resting spot and handed it to Jaime. "This is a balancing pole. Carrying it lowers your center of gravity, giving you more time to adjust a faulty position. The ends can be weighted, lowering that center even further. In fact, with enough weight on the ends, the center of mass moves below the height of the rope and it is next to impossible for you to fall."
"Now that, I like," Jaime exclaimed.
"Try it with just the pole first. I think you'll find it much easier than before," Lucy instructed.
To Jaime's amazement, she made it all the way across the low rope. "I did it!"
"Very good; now try walking halfway out and turning back in the other direction. Then we'll move to the next rope."
"Oh, joy."
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When Jaime finally left Hanger Four, hours later, Steve was waiting for her. "Hey, Pretty Lady - need a ride?"
"I was gonna run home, to try and get rid of some of this tension, but since you're offering," she said, sinking gratefully into his embrace, "I'm all yours."
"All mine, huh?" Steve grinned wickedly. "Now that puts some interesting ideas in my head!"
"I don't have the little skirt yet; not 'til I get there."
"Damn."
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