Persepolis Rising CH 1 through 17

Prologue page 10

Its thirty years in the future.  Duarte, the former martian that's now in charge of Laconia is trying to become immortal by injecting purified proto molecules into himself.

Chapter One: Drummer pg 22

Drummer is the head of the belt.  Technically she's the head of the transport guild.  Some ship did an a hole thing with the gates and flitted from one hole to another without clearance.  Do you give the OK top blow up the next ship that tries that shit?  No you levy fines against the two systems involved.  She's at a big fancy to do about a new space station opening up in Earth's orbit.  She calls Holden (can't wait to hear how Holden's constantly cancer ridden body is holding up thirty years in the future.)  To ask/tell him to go basically give the system the ship came from some shit.

Chapter Two: Bobbie pg 32

They're going to the system that's the source of the ship.  Alex is old and bald.  Bobbie is old and her body hurts all the time.  Clarissa Mao is old and I think she's dying.  Amos is old and he's trimmer than he used to be.  They talk about the sentence the trade federation has handed down to the colony.  Three years and no portal travel.  They only have food for six more months so this is basically a death sentence.  Also they're big on having guns.  So Holden is gonna go down there, tell them they're all gonna die and then they're gonna shoot him with their guns.

Chapter Three: Santiago Jilie Singh pg 42

Singh is a newly appointed captain in the Laconian navy.  He has been summoned to meet with High Consul/Admiral Duarte.  They talk about how Singh ratted out his old captain for not being strict enough.  Duarte instituted some harsher punishments and the old captain didn't enforce those new harsher punishments cause he thought they were too harsh.  He sounds like a good dude.  Singh sounds Like a follow the rules to the letter boot licking dhipshit.  That was a typo, but I like it.  D-hip shit.  For being as such, Duarte is giving him command of the new ship and tells him “We’ve been hidden away from the rest of humanity long enough. Time we showed them what we’ve been doing.”

That sounds ominous as fuck.

Chapter Four: Holden pg 52

Man, I was kinda hoping Bobbie was just gonna be the viewpoint for the Roci this book, but no, we gotra have a Holden Viewpoint or it wouldn't back an expanse book would it.

Holden goes to this settlement and tells them of the death sentence the union has bestowed upon them.  But there's a twist.  He also gives them the option to turn over the governor and he'll go to prison for these crimes.  They bring the governor strapped to a wheel borough.  

Chapter Five: Drummer pg 63

Drummer's job as president of the trade vederation is hard.

She doesn't like what Holden did and sends him a message saying that's not gonna work.

chapter six: holden pg 74

The crew is debating how they feel about Drummer's response to their actions.  Naomi tells Holden maybe it's time to retire to a beach on Titan.  Then the ship stops all of a sudden.  Nobody knows why.  This is bad.  Also the governor isn't in his cell anymore.  So really bad.

chapter seven: Bobbie   pg 84

They figure out their prisoner is in engineering and very food at space ship stuff.  They're gonna storm the castle.  Bobbie going in from behind via the hatch from outside thebship and Amos blowing up the interior door if it comes to that.  Bobbie makes her way in and for her efforts she's rewarded with a fire extinguisher to the head.  She recovers and ends up taking Houston out with an elbow to the chin.

Holden tells her he's seriously considering retirement and would Like her to be the new captain.  She gets a little emotional.

chapter eight: Singh    pg 95

Singh and his ship have joined up with an admiral on the super fancy ship.  The plan in to go through the ring gate, disable the station rail guns and take over Medina station.  Singh feels real good about this part of the plan.  His big problem is that when earth and mars come with their famcy new ships to take it back, they're going to have a lot more battle tested personnel.  Laconia hasn't had any actual fighting.  Barely any of their navy has actually been in a battle.  Admiral isn't worried about it.  Their new ship The Tempest will put anything the earthers or martians have to shame.

chapter nine: Bobbie    pg 109

Holden gives his retirement speech.  Largely everyone is cool with it.  When they get back to Medina, Naomi and Holden will get off and Bobbie is gonna bring on some hired hands.  Alex is pretty enfatic about it.  Bobbie has a talk with Amos to double check.  He's good, but he suggests Bobbie have a talk with Clarissa Mao.  They do, its good.  It's emotional cause not only is Holden leaving but they also have a very serious talk about Clarissa's end of life plans, something Bobbie is a bit shocked and disappointed that Holden never had this talk with Clarrisa.

chapter ten: Drummer    pg 119

There's a message coming from the long dormant laconian gate.  They come in peace.  Drummer is thinking the best thing to do is to make this Mars' problem.  Their old deserters are coming back and maybe Mars will want to do something about it so Drummer won't have to.

Chapter eleven: Bobbie  pg 129

Medina station sent the Roci a message.  Mandatory meeting to discuss the Laconia situation.  There are only two gun ships in the slow zone.   The Roci is gonna be the backup ship while the other ship takes point. A HUGE ship comes through the laconian ring gate.  But doesn't respond to hails.  The other gun ship gets a target lock and all of a sudden iT's just gone.  Near as they can tell it wasn't shot.  Nothing was fired from the Laconian ship.  Bobbie calls the station rail guns and tells them to open fire.

Chapter twelve: Holden  pg 140

The Laconians have some kind of magnet beam weapon that destroyed the other gun ship and made quick work of the railguns positioned on the station.  The trade union is hopelessly outmatched.  Immediate surrender is the only option.  They have taken over Medina station and the admiral gives a speech that amounts to join us or die.  Also.please tell Earth and Mars not to attack so we don't have to kill them.

chapter thirteen: Drummer   PG 152

Things are real bad.  Duarte has taken over the ring gates and at the Moment there's nothing they can do about it.  Avasarala is still alive and she shows up and says they gotta rally their forces on this side of the gate and she knows people and hints that she can communicate with people in the ring gate.

Chapter fourteen:   Singh   pg 163

Singh in the governor of Medina station now.  He's doing his best to get people in line.  He's finding it to be a trying task, but he's a dipshit so I suppose I like that he's having a hard time trying to force his authoritarian BS on the belters.  It gets interesting when the current better head of security Onni comes in and Singh tells him there's no job for him anymore.  Hoping to ingratiate himself with Singh he tells him that when they used their fancy new ship to shoot their fancy new magnet gun at the station to take care of the rail guns it had an interesting side effect.  It spewed gamma radiation out of the other side of the rings.  It took out four ships that were incoming.  Singh is intrigued by this news but does not care for Onni and tells him to fuck off.

Chapter fifteen: Bobbie pg 176

Bobbie is waiting in a long line to talk to an authority figure.  The Laconians have taken the Roci.  There are forms she can fill out to try and get her property or money in Louie of property back.  The crew gets drunk at a bar.  A bunch of angry belters go by in big coats.  Amos knows shit is going down.  Bobbie drags alex and Clarissa to the ground to avoid getting shot.  Amos stays standing cause he wants to watch the shooting happen.  Bullets start flying but we can't see them cause we are Bobbie who is on the floor trying not to Get shot.

Chapter sixteen:    Singh   pg 187

Singh was the target of the angry belters.  It didn't work out for them.  They got shot a bunch by laconian marines and died.  One Laconian died.  Singh finds this whole situation unacceptable so he's gonna institute some oppressive new stuff.  His head of security doesn't think this is a good idea.  Singh gives her.  Also, he's super.psyched about this thing where they can shoot their magnet ray at the station and it spews gamma radiation out all the portals.  It gives them a pretty easy way to defend the ring gates.  You send a ship, we zap the station, your ship gets destroyed by gamma radiation. 

Chapter seventeen:  Holden  pg 198

Holden does not care for being oppressed.  He and Naomi decide they gotta get the band back together and be part of the revolution.  Its a simple enough plan.  They talk to a lady as they watch the laconians building prison cells.  She says her ship has been comundeered and at the moment she and her crew are homeless.  Holden realizes this is super bad for his plan.   The crew won't be on the Roci.  They could be anywhere on Medina station and he has no idea where or how he would even start looking for them.  His best bad idea is to just go room to room till he finds them.  This strikes him as funny and he let's out an involuntary laugh.  “It’s just not very long ago I was thinking how small Medina felt.”

project hail mary CH 26 to the end

Ch 26 pg 428

Flashback to narrator being imprisoned by Stratt.  She's trying.to explain herself to him.  He really doesn't care.

Back in the present narrator is lonely.  He turns on the spextrazcope so he can look at Rocky's ship's exhaust trail.

He's gonna distract himself by working on the Beatles.  He opens one up and disaster.  It's not full of astrophage, its full of predator poop.

CH 27 pg 438

Narrator is shutting off all possible access to the astrophage to make sure the predator doesn't infect the fuel he needs to get home.  He floods the crew cabin with nitrogen to kill any predators that might be in there.  He does something similar with the tanks he has the nitrogen resistant predators in.  He's trying to figure out which one has the.leak.

Ch 28 pg 443

Narrator figures out the problem with the predators is that they can somehow make their way through xeonite.  Nbd, make sure all the predators are in metal boxes, problem solved.

Then narrator freaks out when he realizes Rocky has the Same problem only way worse cause his whole ship is made of xeonite and the predators are gonna eat up his whole fuel supply and he'll die and so will his whole planet.

Ch 29 pg 453

narrator does some cool science to figure out where Rocky's ship is.  it wasnt quick or easy but evwntually he makes it over thete.  he gets rocky back on the ship.  je tells Rocky that hes gonna starve to death.  rocky has an idea that maybe narrator can eat something from the astrophages home planet.  cant eat astrophage, way too hot.  maybe he can eat the predator.  rocky says . “I have twenty-two million kilograms of Taumoeba in fuel bays. How much you want, question?”

ch 30 pg 470

narrator is on Rocky's home planet of Erid.  its super cute, the chapter number is an Eridian number Vℓ.  i suppose hes been there for a long time cause he talks about how hard the first few years were.

he has been here 16 years.  but hes much older than his years due to both malnutrition (suicide missions usually dont include a large supply of multi vitamins) and the impact of Erid's much higher gravity.  he was able to live off of the predator for his caloric needs but Erid scientists were able to make vitamins so he wouldnt die.  then they were able to synthasize other food he can eat.  the best is they were able to do cloning and they cloned him and now he has meat.  it doesnt count as canabalism if its me.  he eats what he calls a Me burger every day. the scientists have been able to observe our sun.  they can see its back at full strength.  Rocky delivered the news and narrator cried and they're still best friends.  Rocky brings up the idea that maube theres other stars out there with planets with intelligent life.  maybe there will be a sequel where they go out on some kinda star trek.   The super cute ending is that narrator is teaching science to young Eridians.  hes a middle school teacher again.

project hail Mary CH 21 through 25

CH 21 pg 342

Flashback to awkward meeting where everyone talks about how they want to commit suicide when the mission is over.  Back to the present, Rocky is still alive.  They're doing experiments with asteophage and other microorganisms they find in the sample from the planet.  Trying to find the predator.  They do.

Flashback to prep for launch.  There's been an explosion.  Both the science people for the mission are dead.

Back to the ship, they're doing science that mimics the atmospheres of the planet they're near and Venus and the.planet in Rocky's solar system where the astrophage is reproducing.  They're gonna do some science and see if under those conditions the predator can feed and reproduce.

Ch 22 Pg 363

The lights have gone out.  Its pitch black.

Narrator makes his way to the control room where he finds one lit control panel and is able to turn on the backup battery power for life support systems so eh doesn't die.  He makes his way to the power generator and finds instead of it being full of astrophage like he expects its full of fowl smelling gunk.  The predator has some how made it into the fuel tanks and eaten and pooped out all the astrophage.  

Rocky is able to clean it out and put in enough astrophage to power the ship.  But not anywhere near enough to propel the ship.  If they can get back to Rocky's ship they can get all the astropage they need.  Narrator has an idea.  Use the small ships that are there to send word back to earth to get them back to Rocky's ship.

They do that.

CH 23  Pg 382

Flashback to talking an out the scientists that blew up.  Then telling narrator that he's the best replacement.

In the present they're setting up the beatles to take them back to Rocky's ship.  They're gonna accelerate for three hours and then coast for 11 days.  Narrator wants to use the gravity for that three hours to do science.   He does science with the Venus and the other planets atmosphere and he finds that the astrophage is alive and well.  Somehow the predator can't survive in those environments.  It sucks and Rocky is pissed.

Flash back to narrator telling Stratt to get someone else cause he doesn't wanna go on the mission.  Stratt says she doesn't care, he's going anyway.  She's gonna drug him and put him on the ship and by the time he wakes up from the coma it'll be too late.  But as an extra fuck you from Stratt to narrator she explains that she will additionally be giving him drugs that cause a temporary amnesia so he won't remember any of this.

Now I'm glad that the Venus experiment failed.  Maybe they can figure out a way to save Rocky's planet and everyone on earth can die.

Ch 24 pg 395

Narrator is bumbed that he got Shanghai'd but he's here so he's still gonna try yo save earth.  They figure out that the problem with the predator is the nitrogen.  It dies when nitrogen is introduced to its atmosphere.  Narrator has an idea, what if they can breed nitrogen resistant predators.  We have antibiotic resistant gonorrhea, why not predators that can handle nitrogen.  

They're done thrusting so they spin up the centrophuge so they can keep doing science.  They're a little successful with the nitrogen resistant predators.  They've got some that resistant to up to a 1.5 % nitrogen environment.

Ch 25 pg 409

We have huge success with the nitrogen resistant predators.  They've bred predators that are capable of living in up to 8% nitrogen.  We're at the point where its time to say goodbye.  But there's drama.  Narrator doesn't have enough food for the trip back.  Of course he doesn't, this was meant to be a one way trip.  He only has the amount of food he does cause two people died on the way here.  The problem is fixed by Rocky making narrator some extra fuel tanks so he can get home faster.

Now it's really time to say good bye.  It's very emotional.  Rocky is narrator's best friend and they are never going to see each other again.

you feel it just below the ribs

CH 1 pg 7

Foundanuscript from Dr Miriam Gregory.  She lived before the reckoning.  Back when people had families.  Her family (dad, mom and brother) died in the war.

CH 2 pg 19

This is an alternate universe where world war 1 went really bad.

People rioted in the midst of the war and the plague and society collapsed around the world.

Miriam is living all alone in the world.  She scavenges and runs away whenever she sees people and she survives that way.  But one night she's sleeping in what she thinks is an empty house and she's confronted by a group of girls.  They say she can stay for a few days.  But then it starts snowing and she just becomes part of the group.

CH 3 pg 29

The group of girls goes around from place to place searching for food.  There's plenty of clothing and shelter, but food is hard to come by.  Girls come and go from the group.  Some leave to army recruiters, some leave to other groups.  There's one girl named Naija who always cleans up the dead bodies when the house they find to stay in has them.

There's also a man that they periodically run into who gives them food for their stories.  We think he was a spy.

The army finds them at one point and declares that they're all enemy spies and arrests them.

CH 4 pg 39

into thin air CH 15 through epilogue

CH 15 pg 205

This chapter would be really dramatic if I cared if these people lived or died.  With the storm that came in after narrator headed down to camp 4 everyone is in real bad shape.  You couldn't see more than a few yards ahead of you.  As a result, everyone is lost.  The eastern European guide tried to bring up few oxygen tanks, but nobody has radios to tell him where they are so his efforts are for naught.  The Japanese lady dies.  So do some less remarkable people.

CH 16 pg 225

The south Africans had the only radio at camp 4 and wouldn't share even though people were dying up the mountain.  Narrator was all confused when he got near the tents at camp 4 and misidentified someone he thought he saw die.

CH 17 pg 233

Rob Hall didn't make it.  He was trying to get Doug and Andy back down and they didn't make it he went by himself.  That didn't turn out so great.  He has a perfectly working radio and he was able to talk to base camp and the folks at camp 4 and through some sort of radio sat phone transfer at base camp his wife.  They tried to send some Sherpas up to bring him down but the freezing wind was too strong.  Their summit day was May 10th, they found his body on May 12th.

CH 18 pg 249

This chapter has some tidbits about some Indian and Japanese teams that were climbing everest from the Tibetan side the same day.  It went badly for most of them.

CH 19 pg 255

Turns out there were a couple they thought were dead that it turns out were still alive.  But just barely and they were in no shape to make it back down to camp 3.  So they left them.  Also, the wind has pretty much destroyed the tents, so the able boddied folks have no choice but to take the trip down to camp 3.  This means having to leave behind anyone that needs help.  29,000 feet is no place for morality, just survival.  There are no more guides left to take them down.  A guy from Montreal takes the lead.

Narrator volunteers to take up the rear.

CH 20 pg 269

They make it down to camp 2 but a couple of the climbers have severe frostbite.  There's a couple real dramatic helicopter rescues and the frost bitten are rescued.  And thank goodness cause in between camp 2 and 1 is the ice shelf.  It's inconceivable to think that you could head down the ice shelf dragging a couple of frostbitten guys.  So the able bodied are gonna head down to camp 1.  They might be able  boddied, but they're sure not able minded.  Everyone has to check everyone elses masks and harnesses and what not cause none of them are doing a great job of doing their own stuff.

CH 21 pg 277

This is the crying chapter.  Narrator makes it to base camp and they have a beer and they cry.  He flies back to Seattle and he cries.  Loved ones of people that died on the mountain call him and he cries.  A week later the IMAX team and what's left of the south African team go up the mountain and people cry because at the very least its disrespectful to the people that died the previous week.  But also cause it's just really dangerous.  One guy dies.

Epilogue pg 293

Narrator and others involved in the climb get a lot of hate mail.

project hail Mary CH 16 through 20

CH 16 pg 262

Narrator tells rocky an out his suicide mission.  Rocky asks him how much astrophage it took to get him here.  Rocky says he can easily spare that much.  So narrator isn't on a suicide mission anymore.  There's a flashback to a bit where the astronauts for the hail Mary mission are being introduced.  Narrator isn't one of them.  Talking to the astronauts one of them tells him that he also has the coma gene and he's a little uppity that Stratt didn't tell him.

He watches Rocky eat and its gross.  He basically opens up his belly carapace and puts chopped up meat inside and passes out.

  

Ch 17 pg 277

Narrator and Rocky make their way to the planet that the astrophage is going to from this solar system's sun.  They have a thing that can capture astrohphage.  They do that.  There's a flashback to narrator training the science officers on the astrophage.  The fun thing is that the primary and secondary science officers are having an affair.  

They examine the astrophage and they find a couple interesting things.  The first is that there's less astrophage than expected.  The second is that there's a bunch of other little animals in the sample.  The theory is that one of these is the natural predator of the astrophage and that's why this star isn't dwindling like outs is.  So the idea is that if we can introduce said predator to our solar systems it will eat the astrophage and the problem will be solved.

Ch 18 pg 292

Rocky and narrator are looking at the samples and they don't find the predator they're looking for.  They come up with the idea that the predator must not be in the apostrophage line,  but deeper down in the atmosphere.  They do some science and figure out it's 9 kilometres deeper than the ship can go.  So they're gonna build a chain that is 9 kilometres long to collect the predator.  

Also they talk about why rocky has so much extra astrophage.  The answer is that rocky and his people were basing their calculations based on newtonian physics, not Einstein's models so no relativity.

Then theres a flashback to the aircraft carrier and everyone is telling narrator hes Stratts number two and hes like, nah, im just another scientist.  Allso he talks to the guy that's working on the little ships to send back data to earth.  He calls them the beattles and the one hes using for earth testing is named Pete.

Jokes about the Beatles give me joy.  Thats what made the powerpuff girls so great.

Ch 19 pg 308 

Narrator and rocky have come up with a great system to lower the chain with the sampler down to the planet in the hopes of getting a sample of the astrophage predator.  They lower down and attach new links 50 meters at a time while having just the right amount of thrust at just the right angle to keep in close orbit.  The crank back up is more complicated.  They can't just pull up the whole chain cause it would wrap around the ship or trail behind and get destroyed by the ships exhaust or whatever and it'd be real bad.  So they come up with a system that pulls up the chain link by link and then removes the links individually so they fall harmlessly down to the planet.

That part seems to work OK and he gets the sample back inside.  But theres a hole in the fuel tank and he ejects a couple tanks but all the while he's being crushed by the force of the thrust.  He is saved by Rocky.  The problems has been solved, but Rocky is freezing to death in earth's atmosphere on the ship and tells narrator top save his planet.

Ch 20 pg 326

Through a lot of hard work and pain narrator gets Rocky into his containment unit with his alien atmosphere.  He's doing other science stuff with the samples he got from the planet.  He doesn't feel real good about any of this.  He's hurt and he's tired and he's not thinking straight but he's trying to save rocky and two solar systems so he keeps at it.  He basically creates a leaf blower and puts it in Rocky's area and he's able to blow a bunch of smoke and dust and what not out of what he refers to as Rocky's vents.

into thin air CH 8 - 14

Ch 8 pg 105

Aclimitizing is a lot of work.  You repeatedly have to climb up from base camp to camp one and then up to camp two and then back down and back up.  Some groups are real organized in their approach to this.  Other folks are kinda loosely goosey.  One example of the loosey goosey approach ended up with a Sherpa suffering from altitude sickness up at base two without any professionals.  The amateur climbers up there did their best to help and got him back down to base camp.  At base camp there was a bit of an oddly similar situation and there was a lack of urgency to treat the Sherpa.  The result was his tragic death.  

This chapter also talks a lot about a rich lady.

CH 9 pg 125

In this chapter they were supposed to go up to camp 3, but a storm rolled in and they went back to camp 2.  

There'a a lot of talk about how the Sherpas believe that premarital sex on the mountain, especially at higher altitudes makes the gods angry and then people die as punishment.

CH 10 pg 137

Going from camp two to camp 3 is hard.  Lots of virticle ice climbing. Camp 3 itself is a narrow ice shelf with some tents.  Up at that altitude there's lots of worry about the different high altitude sicknesses.  But they did it and acclimatization appears to have been accomplished as narrator is able to breathe easy going back down to base camp.  Every climbing team seems to be ready and they're talking turkey about who is gonna go when.  Except for the dick from south Africa.  He says hell go whenever he damn well pleases.  This pisses narrator's guide Hall right off.

Also the dipshit from Texas isn't that bad I guess. 

CH 11 pg 149

Camp 3 is cold and ice and the air is to thin to support life, so you breath canned air.  At least you should.  But narrator gets claustrophobic and sleeps without it.  Camp 3 is really icey.  So much so that I'd you aren't careful when you go out to do your business you can slide down the mountain and into a crevasse and they find you and they pull you out, but your condition worsens and you die.  

CH 12 pg 165

Going from camp 4 to the col is serious business.  Guide tells narrator he needs to stick with the group.  Narrator is not a team player.  He's all pissed off that he has to wait for people.  There's a famous lady being led by the group with the guide from seattle that narrator knows from toher climbs and he's real dedicated to getting her to the top.  So much that he has a sherpa short line her (this involvles tying her to himself with a 3 foot rope, basically dragging her along) and it kinda sucks cause as narator is being a dick and trying to stomp to the head of the pack to get to the south ridge that they'll then climb to get to the summit, said sherpa is puking his guts out.

Ch 13 pg 179

This chapter is all about rope.  Or rather, the lack there of.  Usually before any paying guest gets anywhere near the summit, sherpas or guides or someone decides to be in charge and lays out rope so that everyone has something to hook onto so that when they're trying to breath the super thin air at 29,000 feet and they take a bad step, they don't plunge 7,000 feet to their doom.  But due to confusion or whatever narrator gets to that spot near the top where you really need rope and there isn't any.  So he volunteers to help a couple other guides set up the ropes.  Then when he's close enough he's like "hey, is it cool if I just go to the top" and the guide is like "sure, I'll finish up the ropes" and so he makes it to the top of Mount Everest.  In theory one should be overjoyed at this accomplishment.  But narrator has been listening to his guide and also has a bit of experience submitting mountains to know that making it to the top isn't really getting to the end.  It's getting to the half way point cause you gotta get back down.  The Southeast ridge of Everest is littered with the bodies of people that made it to the top but couldn't make it back down to camp 4.

ch 14 pg 191

On the way down narrator runs into a traffic jam he talks about at the beginning of the book.  He helps someone with their oxygen tank, which has frozen over and he asks them to close up his tank a bit so he can conserve his oxygen for later when the traffic jam has cleared up and he can get on the move.  But instead of closing it, this other person opens it up and then after 10 minutes of standing around, narrator's oxygen is out.

Narrator is looking forward to going back down after the traffic jam and getting a fresh bottle of oxygen.  One of the guides has kinda lost it and tells him that there isn't any.  That there's just a pile of empty bottles.  But narrator gets down there and hooks up a bottle and it's sure full of breathable oxygen.  Hindsight being 20/20 narrator feels like he should have raised some sort of alarm at that point so the guide knew there was something wrong with his breathing regulator or his brain or whatever it was that made him think all those tanks were empty.  

narrator runs into a guy on the team that basically can't see anymore and at that point he should have insisted he bring him down to the south col with him.  But narrator's not really a team player so he's like, there's a guide coming down with another person on our team and so the guy that can't see will just wait for them.  Narrator, being a selfish dick is psyched to go down alone.  And this is where the storm starts to get bad.  Narrator once again runs out of oxygen.  But he's able to clip onto a rope that takes him most of the way to the south col.  He runs into the guide the has already lost it but they keep moving and both of them make it safely into their tents on the south col.  Which is great for them, but not so great for the 19 people still trying to make their way down with the storm getting worse every second.