羊毛战记 Part 3 Casting Off 24

　　24,　　It was thirty-three levels down to IT. Juliette skipped down the steps so swiftly, she had to keep ahand on the inner railing to keep from flying outward into the occasional up-bound traffic. Sheovertook a porter near six, who was startled by being passed. By the tenth floor, she was beginning tofeel dizzy from the round and round. She wondered how Holston and Marnes had ever responded totrouble with any degree of urgency. The other two deputy stations, the one in the mids and the one inthe down deep, were nicely situated ¹ near the dead center of their forty-eight floors, a far superiorarrangement. She passed into the twenties thinking about this: that her office was not ideallypositioned to respond to the far edge of her precinct. Instead, it had been located by the airlock andthe holding cell, close to the highest form of the silo’s capital punishment. She cursed this decision asshe considered the long slog back up.,　　In the high twenties, she practically bowled a man over who wasn’t watching where he was going.,　　She wrapped one arm around him and gripped the railing, keeping them both from a nasty tumble. Heapologized while she swallowed a curse. And then she saw it was Lukas, his lapboard strapped ² to hisback, nubs of charcoal ³ sticking out of his overalls ⁴.,　　“Oh,” he said. “Hello. ”,　　He smiled at seeing her, but his lips drooped ⁵ into a frown when he realized she’d been hurrying inthe opposite direction.,　　“Of course.
”,　　He stood out of the way, and Juliette finally took her hand off his ribs ⁶. She nodded, not sure whatto say, her thoughts only on Scottie, and then she continued her run down, moving too fast to chancea glance back.,　　When she finally got to thirty-four, she paused on the landing to catch her breath and let thedizziness fade. Checking her overalls—that her star was in place and the flash drive still in her pocket—she pulled open the main doors to IT and tried to stroll in as if she belonged there.,　　She sized up the entrance room quickly. To her right, a glass window looked into a conferenceroom. The light was on, even though it was now the middle of the night. A handful of heads werevisible through the glass, a meeting taking place. She thought she heard Bernard’s voice, loud andnasal, leeching ⁷ through the door.,　　Ahead of her stood the low-security gates leading back to IT’s labyrinth ⁸ of apartments, offices,and workshops. Juliette could imagine the floor plan; she’d heard the three levels shared much incommon with Mechanical, only without the fun.,She is awkwardly situated.她的处境困难。,Make sure that the child is strapped tightly into the buggy. 一定要把孩子牢牢地拴在婴儿车上 。 来自《简明英汉词典》