The Last One (16 page)

“I’ve climbed wooden walls, but never a rock wall,” says Air Force. His short hair is oily and his skin shimmers with sweat. There’s a smear of dirt down his neck from where he scratched at a mosquito bite. He and Black Doctor are the only two who weren’t able to shower since the overnight Challenge. “We’ll see how it goes.” He pauses. “My ankle? It feels better. It’ll be fine.”

“And go!” says the host.

Air Force doesn’t have enough experience to race up the cliff face, and he knows this. He considers where to start. Any climbers watching will know what Banker already knows: This route is a 5.5—an easy 5.6, tops—a slab with juggy holds. This Challenge is more mental than physical.

Air Force touches the rock above his head, then steps onto a knee-high ridge. He’s off the ground. Biology yanks the rope’s slack through the belay device. She’s tense; she truly believes she has another’s life in her hands. Behind her, the guide keeps a brake hand on the rope. Air Force begins to move upward, clenching the rock and keeping his body close. He’s relying too much on his arms; soon his forearms are pumped and his fingers ache. He’s halfway up. He pauses with his cheek pressed to the cool rock face and looks down. The view doesn’t affect him; he’s out of his comfort zone, but steady. He shakes out his hands, one after the other, then creeps his fingers up to the next hold.

Five minutes and four seconds into the Challenge he swats the white-tape
X
at the top of the cliff with his gritty palm. Biology yanks out any last inch of slack, then Air Force sits back and lets go of the wall. Biology releases the brake and her partner walks his way back down the cliff face. She doesn’t breathe until he reaches the ground.

“Who’s next?” the host asks Zoo.

She points at the trio.

“And I will ascend to Heaven,” says Exorcist. He cracks his knuckles, then attacks the wall, scurrying up the rock like a beetle. Waitress is sitting out; Rancher struggles to take up the slack quickly enough. The motion is unfamiliar and he can’t quite keep pace.

Exorcist slips, scrabbling with hands and feet as he careens toward the ground. Waitress shrieks. Exorcist jolts to a stop halfway down; Rancher is lifted to his toes and jerked forward, both hands tight about the rope below his waist. His backup holds firm. Exorcist swings left, twirling and bashing his shoulder into the rock. When he finally stills, dangling loosely in his harness, there’s blood on his face and hands.

Viewers will now see Exorcist from above, as the camera drone swoops down from invisibility to zoom in on his pale, sweaty face. The blood on his forehead and left cheek is like war paint, smeared from his scraped palm and fingertips. His jaw is tight, his almond-brown eyes wide.

“Can you continue?” the host calls.

Exorcist nods stiffly. His God-given bravado is faltering. For the first time since taping began, he’s visibly scared. His fear makes him seem more real, like a person instead of a caricature. The producers are concerned; this isn’t why he was cast. But they give the editor the moment. They too are curious where it might go.

A full minute passes—a few seconds for the viewer—as Exorcist collects himself. When he resumes climbing, he moves with unaccustomed care.

“Wow,” says Carpenter Chick. “He’s got guts.”

Engineer nods; he doesn’t think he could keep climbing after a fall like that.

On the whole, the respect the contestants have for Exorcist ticks up a notch—from zero to one on a yet-to-be-determined scale.

Exorcist finishes with a time of nine minutes and thirty-two seconds.

Banker and Black Doctor are next. It’s clear from Banker’s first move that he’s an experienced climber. He glides up the wall, moving with smooth efficiency. His ascent will be intercut with a confessional: “You’ll find me in the Gunks most summer weekends, and I climbed El Cap last year. This is a great Challenge for my skill set. I’m pretty confident I’m going to kill it.” He slaps the white
X
after only one minute and forty-four seconds. He’s not even breathing hard. Black Doctor whoops as he lowers his partner. Exorcist’s eyes narrow.

“Wow,” says Zoo. “Nice.” She turns to Engineer and Carpenter Chick. “You’re up. Good luck.”

For the first time, a woman ties in to climb. “I don’t know,” says Carpenter Chick via confessional. “Heights have never really bothered me. I kind of like them. Some of my favorite days on the job have been on roofs. This looks fun.”

Carpenter Chick is short, which limits her reach, but she is also light and highly flexible—residue of a childhood passion for gymnastics. And though she doesn’t make it look as easy as Banker did, there is ease to her movements as she climbs. She taps the
X
at four minutes and thirteen seconds, placing her and Engineer in second place.

Zoo and Tracker are up. “Part of me feels like I should’ve volunteered to climb,” says Zoo, as Tracker ties in. “Like I should take on anything, no matter how scary or difficult. But you have to take strategy into consideration too, and in this case it’s clear that my partner’s going to be better at this than me. I mean, did you see him with that tree the other day? He’s like a monkey. Or a cat.” She laughs. “A monkey-cat. Sounds cute, right?” Accusations of racism will pepper the Internet—Zoo would be horrified if she knew. She meant only that he climbs well.

On the cliff face, Tracker lacks Banker’s experience, but he knows movement and he knows his body. He moves quickly and sleekly toward the top. The timer ticks. “One minute down,” says the host. Tracker has just passed the halfway point. He has forty-three seconds left if he wants to beat Banker. He does want to beat him—but he also knows his limits. His fingers are learning the rock, his eyes and brain working together to judge the best holds ahead of time. “One minute thirty!” He’s close to the top, but is he close enough? Black Doctor grips Banker’s shoulder.

“One forty-four,” says the host.

Black Doctor and Banker slap a high five.

Fourteen seconds later, Tracker reaches the
X.
He and Zoo finish in second place.

Between all the delays and transitions, this Challenge has lasted hours. The fruit provided in the log cabin was devoured long ago. Rancher has one burger still tucked in his pack, and Banker a fistful of limp asparagus. Tracker finished the last of his chicken this morning; he prefers calories now to calories later, always. “I’m starving,” says Engineer. Biology has only a few protein bars left and she’s no longer sharing.

The host had eggs and sausage for breakfast. There was no time for lunch, but he ate a Snickers bar and drank a Coke Zero between climbs, turning his back to the contestants as he ate. He’s looking forward to sending them off on the next leg of the Challenge so he can have a sandwich. But first, more down time. The contestants mill about, anxious to know what’s coming next. After a few minutes, an intern barrels in from the south, shouting, “Sorry, sorry!” He’s chubby and white, in his early twenties. He carries a large duffel bag, which he brings to the host.

“About time,” says the host, as the contestants are ordered to line up in front of him.

The duffel bag contains five rolled-up maps, one for each team. The host flourishes one. “The next phase of this Team Challenge is tougher than anything you’ve faced so far. And longer. Inside your map, you will find a printed Clue, which will lead you to a waypoint with another Clue. The third and final Clue will lead you to the Challenge’s finish.” He pauses. “You will
not
finish today.” Several of the contestants grumble, their murmurs an undertone to the host’s words as he continues, “The order in which you leave on this journey will be determined by how you finished your climbs.” He hands one of the rolled maps to Banker. “You two leave first, followed by the others in ten-minute intervals. Your time starts now.”

Banker and Black Doctor rush to collect their gear, then dart about twenty feet away to unfurl their map. The others mill about; Waitress sits, leaning against a tree and closing her eyes.

The new map is topographical, covering many more square miles than anything the contestants have been shown before. Rounded shapes, never quite concentric, and the
U
’s and
V
’s of running water tell the land’s tale. A You-Are-Here dot is settled near the bottom-left corner. Last night’s dirt road looks very close at this scale. A curl of paper tucked inside the map reads:

A boulder suns itself at a creek’s U-bend. As midday passes, the land’s tallest peak casts a blocking shadow. Tucked into the darkest dark, your next Clue waits.

“Okay,” says Black Doctor. “That’s pretty clear, right? We need to find a boulder along a creek to the east of the tallest mountain. Where’s that?”

Banker runs his forefinger along the map, scanning contour lines. “Here,” he says. “This one’s the tallest.”

“And there’s a blue line,” says Black Doctor. “But I don’t see the boulder.”

Banker swallows a laugh, not wanting to be rude. Black Doctor doesn’t see his smile, but viewers will. “I don’t think they’re going to show the boulder on here,” says Banker. “Not at this scale. We need to look for the bend.”

“Ah, right. So that’s…this?” Black Doctor jabs the map with his index finger. A comment thread will unexpectedly erupt on this topic—Black Doctor’s thick fingers.
How can he use a scaple with fingers like that?
one user will ask; the red line of misspelling obvious beneath as she hits
post,
but she doesn’t care. Another,
I don’t want those hairy nubs operating on me!
A lone voice of reason will tell people that one can’t actually determine an individual’s dexterity by looking at his fingers, and besides, they don’t even know what kind of doctor he is. And it’s true: Black Doctor is not a surgeon. He’s a radiologist and his stubby fingers get the job done.

“Looks like the bend to me,” says Banker. “Now, what’s the best way to get there?”

They take turns prodding at the map, exchanging ideas, and after a few minutes settle on a route that mostly involves following water upstream. They check their compasses, then strike out into the woods.

When Zoo and Tracker are given their map four minutes later, they determine the destination almost instantly, and Tracker notes something that Black Doctor and Banker did not: the giant swath of white cutting through the map’s abundant green east of the mountain creek. “I suggest we follow this clearing north, then shoot a bearing to the U-bend from its northern edge,” he says.

“Sounds great,” says Zoo with a laugh. “But will you tell me what ‘shoot a bearing’ means?”

Tracker doesn’t understand why she’s laughing. Neither her question nor her ignorance is funny. But they’re partners for now and so he answers, “It’s using the compass to determine what direction you should move in, then following your bearing landmark to landmark in an area where it would otherwise be very easy to lose your direction of travel.”

“Oh!” says Zoo. “We kind of did that last night.”

Tracker blinks at her, then takes out his compass and places it on the ground atop the map. He shifts the paper slightly so the map’s north aligns with his compass’s, then twists the compass housing to bring the north needle home. “Thirty-eight degrees,” he says, mostly to himself. “That’ll get us to the field. Although…” He scans the perimeter of the map.

“What are you looking for?” asks Zoo.

“Declination,” says Tracker. There’s small print, but not the small print he’s looking for. “Doesn’t say. Around here, it has to be at least five degrees. So, forty-three degrees. That’s our direction of travel.”

Zoo sets her compass to forty-three, then tucks it perpendicular to her chest. Tracker folds the map to leave their current location exposed.

“That dead tree?” asks Zoo. A decaying, toppled-over birch is as far as she can see along the line.

“Why not,” says Tracker.

They begin walking.

“I’ve heard of declination,” says Zoo, “but I have to be honest—I have no idea what it is.”

Tracker doesn’t reply. He’s already talked more than he’d like.

Zoo allows him a few steps of silence, then insists, “So, what
is
declination?”

“The difference between true north and magnetic north,” he relents. Zoo’s curious look prods him to further explanation. “Maps are set to true north—the North Pole—and compasses to magnetic north. Factoring in declination corrects for that difference.”

“Ah.” Zoo is trying and failing to move as quietly and smoothly as Tracker. A branch snaps under her foot and she grimaces. The cameraman following them is even louder than she is. He stumbles and nearly falls. Zoo starts to ask if he’s all right, then aborts the nicety. He’s not here, she reminds herself. And then she laughs again, thinking:
If a cameraman falls in the woods and no one turns to see, did he make a sound?

Tracker’s back and mouth curl ever so slightly.

The next team to receive their map is Carpenter Chick and Engineer. They’re on their way within moments, as are Air Force and Biology, once they receive theirs.

But the final group—the trio—struggles. Rancher is so thoroughly flummoxed by the map that he barely registers the Clue as Waitress reads it aloud. He knows his land, but his land is a single rolling vowel. The land here is a series of sharp consonants. Indecipherable lines burrow through his vision. Waitress is also far out of her depth. But the team’s biggest problem is Exorcist. His hands, shoulder, and pride still ache from his fall. By his reckoning, this Clue belongs to him and him alone—he was the one who climbed, the one who fell. He seethes and struggles not to rip the paper from Waitress’s hands. He is full of hateful thoughts—sexist thoughts, racist thoughts. The aftermath of his humanizing crash is the flaring of his most monstrous self.

Exorcist is well aware of this monstrous self, though he would never choose it. He wishes he could banish it. Every time he convinces a spurned mother or belt-whipped boy that their hatred is an outside invader, it helps. Converting another’s hatred into a demon and expelling it makes it possible for him to suffer his own. But there is no one here to exorcise. He’s taken the lay of the land and it is barren. This leaves Exorcist grasping at past experiences. The Clue echoes through his mind and he says, “Boulder. I knew a woman from Boulder once. She called on me to help with a certain situation.”