“How so?”
“Well, the ‘up’ control works okay, but the ‘altitude’ is shaky so you’re never sure how much you can lift or how high it will go. The real problem, though, is the ‘down’ control. There’s no tapering-off effect, so it’s either on or off.”
I was never particularly good at technical jargon, but flying was something I knew so I could almost follow her.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” I said. “When you go up, you aren’t sure how much power you’ll have, and when you land. …”
“. . .it ain’t gentle,” she finished for me. “Basically, you fall from whatever height you’re at to the ground.”
“I don’t know much about this magic stuff,” Guido commented dryly, “but that doesn’t sound so good. Why would you use a rig like that, anyway?”
“I don’t … at least not for flying,” Massha said. “Remember, I told you I think it makes me look silly? All I use it for is a utility belt . . . you know, like Batman? I mean, it’s kind of pretty, and it isn’t easy to find belts in my size.”
“Whatever,” I said, breaking into their fashion discussion. “We’re going to use it tonight to get up to the cell even if it means rigging some kind of ballast system. Now all we need to figure out is how to open the cell window and a getaway plan. Guido, it occurs to me that we might pick up a few lessons on jailbreaks from your experiences even if they were unsuccessful. I mean, negative examples can be as instructive as positive examples. So tell me, in your opinion what went wrong in the plans you followed in the past?”