Kusanagi is already in gunfight mode, her body moving with inhuman speed that to her seems agonizingly slow. Her mind races ahead at computer speeds, the augmenting display flashing oxygen readings and diffusion rates, outlining the corpses in red and every living body and tether in shining greens and blues. She doesn't speak, but snatches the lifeline and digs on against the pressure.

Once, she held back a helicopter with her weight as it attempted a tug of war. Now she applies that same attitude against the sudden weight of those tethered to her. One step back. Another. She's panting but not for breath, but to store any excess oxygen she can manage, already delegating hordes of inactive micromachines in her systems to snatching and holing all she can. She can store perhaps fifteen minutes of it. Not enough. Better than none.

The tether holds, but her grip is tenuous, so the Major drops to grip with her hands as she slides a centimeter under the tumbling jerk of weight against the line. The floor wasn't glass, so she dented it with a kick and crouched there, using her sheer mass as an anchor. Milliseconds passed as she watched the others react in slow motion.

"Anchor on me, if you need," came the terse radio-transmission, mirrored aloud though it was an oddly tinny sound through the thinning atmosphere, "The gravity hasn't cut out. Don't panic, exhale against the decompression and get back to the causeway!"