«You don't know him.»
Max examined the layout, trying to figure out the best way to get him off the beam. Jason was about four feet away from him, but in Max's current position there was only air between him and the boy. «Let's talk about this once we're out of this hole.»
Jason didn't reply.
«How did you manage to get caught on the beam?»
«There used to be a bunch more, going all the way across to where you are now,' Jason calmly explained. «My bike landed on them. I could tell they weren't strong enough to hold it, so I jumped off. The bike went crashing down only a few minutes later. It sounds really far to the bottom.»
Eyeing the remaining beams that sagged under Jason's considerably lightweight body, Max could easily tell that they would not support the boy much longer. And it was also clear they could not handle his added weight, either. He would need Jason to slide over to the wall. The only problem was that Max had come down nowhere near the point where the beams met the wall.
«I'm going to have to come around to that side.» Max freed his right hand from the wall to point to the direction he was about to move. «Stay exactly where you are until I get there.»
«Okay,' Jason replied.
Instead of placing his hand back in the handhold he had taken it from, Max stretched as far as he could to the right to get another grip into the wall. He followed that
with his right foot. Then, he placed his left hand and left foot in the holes he had just vacated. The beam was now only about five or six feet away. Removing his right hand from the wall again, Max repeated his move, but instead of creating a small handhold, the dirt wall started to fall away in large chunks.
Throwing his weight back to the left, Max regained his balance, but the wall continued to crumble. Focusing his power through his hands, he tried to will the wall back into place, but he could not stop the natural displacement of dirt.
Both Max and Jason followed the dirt avalanche with their eyes wide as it slid closer to the point where the wooden beams met the wall.
«Jason, hold on!» Max yelled as he went back to the position he had been in before he started moving to the side.
Jason lay on his stomach and tightly hugged the beam he was on.
The dirt wall deteriorated at an alarming rate.
The end of the beam began to slide down the wall.
Max aimed his hand at a point several inches beneath the beam, readying himself to use his force field. He hoped he wouldn't have to deploy it in front of Jason, but he knew that exposing his powers to the boy was far more preferable to watching him fall to his death.
One of the wooden beams behind Jason slipped out of the wall and started a long fall to the bottom. Max could hear it hit ground, and agreed that Jason was right when he'd said it had been a considerable drop.
Fortunately the wall stopped crumbling and the beam
Jason was on came to rest after only sliding a few inches. Max stayed where he was, afraid to move either left or right. He knew that the part of the wall he was on was stable. He had seen to it as he climbed down by using his powers to manipulate the molecular structure of the wall, but he was afraid to touch the loose dirt to the side of him for fear of it all falling away once again.
«Okay, we're going to have to go to Plan B.» Max reached out his arm to check the distance between himself and Jason.
«I'm not going to like this, am I?» the boy asked.
«You'll be fine.» Max paused to convince himself that Plan B was, in fact, a viable option. He realized that there really was no other choice. «I'm going to need you to jump to me.»
«Are you crazy?»
Max tried to keep his voice calm, although his entire body was trembling as he considered what they were about to do. «It's only a couple feet. I've got a good hold on the wall. It will be okay.» He wasn't entirely telling the truth, because his body was beginning to tire from the strenuous activity, but he knew that he would have to keep going for Jason's sake as well as his own.
Jason looked down beneath them. Although Max knew the boy couldn't see the bottom, they both were aware of the minimum distance the drop had to be based on the length of time it had taken for the beam to crash to the ground. When Jason looked back up, Max could see even more fear in his eyes.
«I can't do it,' Jason said, still hugging the beam and shaking his head vigorously.
As if to help Max convince him, the beam slid another inch.
«You've got to,' Max said in a forced calm voice. «Trust me.»
Jason looked up at the teen he had hardly even met.
Max could only meet his gaze, trying to be both forceful and calming at the same time. He hoped that his face showed the look of someone Jason could trust.
«Okay,' Jason resolved. «I'll do it.»
Max let out a sigh of relief. «Good. Now, I need you to stand up slowly.»
Jason did as he was told, balancing himself on the unstable beam.
«All right,' Max said, continuing to use the ultra calming voice. «When you jump to me, you're going to have to use the wood to push yourself off. That means you're going to be adding extra pressure.»
«Which means the beam is going to collapse.» Jason completed the thought with his voice shaking.
«So you're going to have to move quickly,' Max concurred. «No hesitation. No turning back.»
«I can do it,' Jason said firmly as he obviously tried to convince himself to believe what he was saying. Although Max could still hear the hesitation, he knew that Jason was ready.
Max removed his right hand and foot from the wall and leaned back to the left so he could form a pocket for Jason to jump into. «I want you to throw yourself into my body. I'll grab you as soon as you hit.»
«Can't I just reach for your hand?» Jason asked.
But Max had considered that option and was afraid that
even if Jason did manage to clasp onto the small target, his skinny hand would slip right out of Max's grip. «This will work fine.»
Jason looked unsure, but determined.
«On three,' Max said, preparing his body to take the impact when Jason hit. «One… two… three!»
Jason launched himself off the beam.
The beam tore away from the wall.
The boy's body slammed into both Max and the wall at the same time.
Max threw his right arm around Jason and turned his own body into the wall.
The beam crashed down many, many feet below.
Jason was cradled in Max's body and pressed up against the wall. They were both breathing heavily and holding tightly onto the wall. As the realization struck them that they had been successful in what they had just done, both boys started laughing uncontrollably.
«Max! Jason! Is everything all right!» Liz screamed from above. Obviously she had heard the crash.
«We're fine!» Max hollered back up to her as the laughing subsided.
He looked to Jason to confirm that he was «fine,' and found him to be shaking and breathing heavily, but surprisingly unscathed.
«Time to make like Spider-Man,' Max said with a look of relief. «The hard part's over. Let's get out of here.»
Still cradling himself in Max's body,, Jason turned around to face the wall. Max instructed him on how to use the handholds and footholds that he had left behind on the way down, hoping that Jason just assumed they were a
part of the original shaft design. Either way, he did not question their escape route as they slowly made their ascent to freedom, thirty feet above.
«I don't know whether to hug you or hurt you,' Liz said with relief as she saw Jason's head pop out of the hole.
«I think he's been punished enough,' Max said, pulling himself up onto solid ground, still shaking.
