“Anchor!” Rook shouted, already braced. He leaned into the line with both boots, arms straight like a human winch. The teenager in the hoodie—laundry basket abandoned—threw his weight on as if he’d been rehearsing for a sport no one had named yet.
The surge didn’t last long—it had the rude impatience of something that only wants to make a point—but it had enough for one bad second. Luke’s shoulder kissed the pillar. He did the small, right thing—turned the soft parts away—and the rope snapped taut. The firefighter belayed with a slow step back, the rope hissed across wet concrete, and Luke came around the pillar into a pocket where the river exhaled.
“Bring him,” Doc said, calm as a metronome, sliding into position at the edge. The chain—the human one, not nylon—reassembled sideways: firefighter to Rook to business-suit man to me. We pulled slow, then slower. When Luke’s palms found the curb, he didn’t try to be a story about strength. He let six small physics problems solve him.
