Datasets:
BlinAI
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Testo

Dataset card Data Studio Files
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"No, I don't think so. I'm doing okay here right now. But thanks for-"
He was cut off by a dull thunderclap. "What was that?" Stillman asked, glancing at the cloudless sky.
"Explosion," Jonny said curtly, eyes searching the southwest sky for evidence of fire. For an instant he was back on Adirondack. "A big one, southwest of us....
"The cesium extractor, I'll bet," Stillman muttered. "Damn! Come on, let's go."
The dija vu vanished. "I can't go with you," Jonny said.
"Never mind the shop. No one will steal anything." Stillman was already getting into his car
"But-" There would be crowds there! "I just can't."
"This is no time for shyness," the mayor snapped. "If that blast really was all the way over at the extraction plant, there's probably one hell of a fire the...
Jonny obeyed. The smoke plume, he noted, was growing darker by the second.
Stillman was right on all counts. The four-story cesium extraction plant was indeed burning furiously as they roared up to the edge of the growing crowd of s...
The two men had reached one of the patrollers now. "Keep back, folks-" he began.
"I'm Mayor Stillman," Stillman identified himself. "What can we do to help?"
"Just keep back-no, wait a second, you can help us string a cordon line. There could be another explosion any time and we've got to keep these people back. T...
The "stuff" consisted of thin, bottom-weighted poles and bright red cord to string between them. Stillman and Jonny joined three patrollers who were in the p...
"How'd it happen?" Stillman asked as they worked, shouting to make himself heard over the roar of the flames.
"Witnesses say a tank of iaphanine got ruptured somehow and ignited," one of the patrollers shouted back. "Before they could put it out, the heat set off ano...
"Anyone still in there?"
"Yeah. Half a dozen or so-third floor."
Jonny turned, squinting against the light. Sure enough, he could see two or three anxious faces at a partially open third-floor window. Directly below them C...
The blast was deafening, and Jonny's nanocomputer reacted by throwing him flat on the ground. Twisting around to face the building, he saw that a large chunk...
"Oh, hell," a patroller said as Jonny scrambled to his feet. "Look at that."
A piece of the wall had apparently winged the skyhooker's ladder on its way to oblivion. One of the uprights had been mangled, causing the whole structure to...
"Damn!" Stillman muttered. "Do they have another ladder long enough?"
"Not when it has to sit that far from the wall," the patroller gritted. "I don't think the Public Works talltrucks can reach that high either."
"Maybe we can get a hover-plane from Horizon City," Stillman said, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice.
"They haven't got time." Jonny pointed at the second-floor windows. "The fire's already on the second floor. Something has to be done right away."
The fireters had apparently come to the same conclusion and were pulling one of their other ladders from its rack on the skyhooker. "Looks like they're going...
"That's suicide," Stillman shook his head. "Isn't there any place they can set up airbags close enough to let the men jump?"
The answer to that was obvious and no one bothered to voice it: if the fireters could have done that, they would have already done so. Clearly, the flames ex...
"Do we have any strong rope?" Jonny asked suddenly. "I'm sure I could throw one end of it to them."
"But they'd slide down into the fire," Stillman pointed out.
"Not if you anchored the bottom end fifteen or twenty meters away; tied it to one of the fire trucks, say. Come on, let's go talk to one of the fireters."
They found the fire chief in the group trying to set up the new ladder. "It's a nice idea, but I doubt if all of the men up there could make it down a rope,"...
"Do you have anything like a breeches buoy?" Jonny asked. "It's like a sling with a pulley that slides on a rope."
The chief shook his head. "Look, I haven't got any more time to waste here. We've got to get our men inside right away."
"You can't send men into that," Stillman objected. "The whole second floor must be on fire by now."
"That's why we have to hurry, damn it!"
Jonny fought a brief battle with himself. But, as Stillman had said, this was no time to be shy. "There's another way. I can take a rope to them along the ou...
"What? How?"
"You'll see. I'll need at least thirty meters of rope, a pair of insulated gloves, and about ten strips of heavy cloth. Now!"
The tone of command, once learned, was not easily forgotten. Nor was was it easy to resist; and within a minute Jonny was standing beneath his third-floor ta...
Three years of practice had indeed made perfect. He caught the window ledge at the top of his arc, curled up feet taking the impact against red-hot brick. In...
The fire chief's guess about the heat and smoke had been correct. The seven men lying or sitting on the floor of the small room were so groggy they weren't e...
The first task was to get the window completely open. It was designed, Jonny saw, to only open halfway, the metal frame of the upper section firmly joined to...
Moving swiftly now, Jonny untied the rope from his waist and fastened it to a nearby stanchion, tugging three times on it to alert the fireters below to take...
Parts of the floor were beginning to smolder by the time the last man disappeared out the window. Tossing one more cloth strip over the rope, Jonny gripped b...
The crowd was cheering.
He turned to look at them, wondering, and finally it dawned on him that they were cheering for him. Unbidden, an embarrassed smile crept onto his face, and h...
And then Mayor Stillman was at his side, gripping Jonny's arm and smiling broadly. "You did it, Jonny; you did it!" he shouted over all the noise.
Jonny grinned back. With half of Cedar Lake watching he'd saved seven men, and had risked his life doing it. They'd seen that he wasn't a monster, that his a...