Book Five, Chapter 33: Rodeo
"I'll test it out," Antoine said. We had left Bobby's room and had gone up ahead of the NPCs to scout and see if there was anything tricky about the Phase Ballast.
I didn't know if IBECS would have a problem with us walking through its halls, but it didn't seem to. All of our tropes designed to help us with stealth seemed wasted—we weren't part of the movie; we were just around.
When we reached the part of the ship where everything bottlenecked and a giant locked door prevented us from using the Cross-Ark Hall, we found a human-sized ventilation shaft that would allow a person to enter the Phase Ballast matrix.
"I could get that thing off of there," Antoine said, staring at the cover of the ventilation shaft. At first, it appeared to be an obstacle in and of itself.
"Yes, but then it wouldn't make sense why the ventilation shaft was already broken open," I said.
The solution was far more straightforward. We had brought a screwdriver from Bobby's workshop.
It wasn't difficult to get into the ventilation shaft—in movies, it never is.
"Here goes nothing," Antoine said.
He was eager to help. So far, all we had done was guide people around and come up with ideas. He didn't feel like he was really contributing as much as he could. But testing out a potentially suicidal jungle gym? He felt that he could do that.