by wade coleman
A few nights ago, I bought a jet engine with Mark’s aviation account. It was due to be delivered at noon to a storage shed I rent under an alias. Dad was in charge of the pick-up and delivery.
“How did it go?”
He takes a swig of beer and belches. “The delivery truck had a tail, two blond elves in a car. A round from a fifty caliber took out their engine block. My crew blinded the drone overhead with a laser.” Leaning back in his rocking chair, Dad continues with his story: “We took the delivery at the storage lockers, got it out of its box and checked for tracking devices. It was clean, so the engine was put on the back of a half-ton truck, and it was delivered two hours ago.” He takes a sip and goes on. “Since I had the paperwork on the jet engine, my buyer paid ninety thousand credits.”
I raise my glass. “To crime,” I say and we clink our glasses.
The next hour Dad and I bask in our victory. Soon, Kim arrives, and we get ready for our trip to the airport.
We ride out at eight PM, heading west. We take the north fork to the boneyards and this time keep going north to the old town of Calistoga where the airport is located. Fuel became too expensive for commercial airlines, so air travel is now a limited luxury pursued only by the rich.
We ride through miles of rusted cars half buried in sand, passing within a few miles of Doctor Nick’s home. At sunset, we stop at the main gate to the Aviation Center, and I punch in a twelve-digit code. The fence rolls back.
Hangar Four is up ahead on the right. Driving up to the front door, I enter another password, then push open the door. Kim and I drive in, close the door and dismount. The lights come on automatically once we’re inside.
Six planes sit in the hangar, three on each side. Two bays sit empty. The walls are twelve inches of reinforced concrete. The international airport was destroyed during the Bio Wars, and the municipal airport was upgraded for military use.
Mark’s corporate jet is at Bay 6, a Learjet 35D. This model seats six. The cruise speed is 510 MPH with a range of five thousand miles.
Kim walks around the plane, pulling on the door latch. “It’s locked.”
“Let’s go to the office.”
Next to the maintenance bay is a reinforced bunker that served as a command center. They remodeled the space into small offices.
Walking down a narrow hall, I stop at the door and enter a code. The door unlocks, and we step in. There’s a bed against the back wall no bedding with lockers lying two of the walls.
Aviation Center sits on top of the Napa Valley grape orchards. The area was paved and a U.S. Air Force base was built from the ground up. When the base closed, the military disappeared and it was sold. The airport is so far out of the way that most pilots use the facility as a fueling stop. The pilots rent a locker space, so they have a place to sleep for the night.
I go to locker 187 and get out my lock-picks. It takes me more time to get the tools out and then put them away than it does to open the lock.
I open the locker and inside are two immersion helmets. Ones an old model belongs to Mark, Natasha previous owner.
I take out both helmets and then Kim searches the locker. She finds a set of keys. On the way out the door, Kim slaps my butt. “Don’t take too long.”
I sit on the bed and look at the full immersion device. The helmets are bullet shaped, one opening to breathe through, cameras instead of eye slits. Sliding on the new helmet, the spider silk lining inflates and conforms to my face. Then the helmet speaks to me: “This is the first initialization of a Sony 6.1 full immersion helmet. Our first task is to calibrate for light and sound.”
A series of questions follows: what color is this? Is this louder or softer…etc.
A screen comes on, and Natasha speaks: “Next, we calibrate external sensors.”
The room appears as a panoramic. I turn my head, and the image stays the same.
I feel dizzy. “What’s going on?”
“Just a minute… “Sorry. I just finished the tutorial.”
My vision narrows to normal human sight.
“Stand up slowly.”
I get up. There’s a half second delay before my eyes register the change in height. Natasha tells me to take a step. It’s a curious sensation, feeling your body move forward, but my eyes see half a second behind where my foot used to be.
“Natasha, what’s going on?”
“The helmet sends the video feed to me; then I send it to your brain. Give me a minute…Okay, try taking another step.”
This time my eyes and feet are in sync. From across the room, I can read the small print of a whiskey bottle sitting on the top of a locker.
I try walking around, “It’s so weird, but it feels so normal.”
“Then you’re going to love this, darling,” she says in a Russian accent.
A woman appears, standing next to me at a keyboard, dressed in a grey suit, heels, and glasses. Natasha’s avatar is in greyscale. She turns and shakes my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I feel her hand. “How is this possible?”
“I’m sending signals to the part of your brain that process touch.”
“Why are you calling me ‘darling’ and speaking with a Russian accent?”
“I have access to the helmet’s hardware and software. It allows me to upgrade my personality program. Do you like it, darling?”
“Ah…Yes, I don’t want to stand in the way of your self-expression, but could you dial the accent and darlings down a notch?”
She sashays her hips back and forth. “Of course, darling,” her voice sounds suggestive and sultry.
I take a deep breath, then let it out. Once an Artificial Intelligence adapts a personality, it’s impossible to change it. “Natasha, turn on the terminal and find all public records of Baron Enterprises for me, will you?”
“I don’t need a terminal. I can access the web directly.”
“There’s a lot of nasty software floating around, some of it I wrote. It’s safer with a terminal between you and the net as a buffer.”
“How thoughtful of you.” She walks over to the terminal, and the screen comes on.
“I’m downloading the information. “This is interesting…the Baron has a ten-year lease on the old army base to the east.”
She pulls up topological maps complete with buildings that I can feel with my hands.
“Darling, someone tried to turn on the camera mounted to the terminal. I’ve blocked them.”
I search Mark’s office. Grabbing the older model full immersion helmet, I head to the door and cross the hangar. “Natasha, download the names and pics of the department heads of the county Hall of Records.”
Walking up the steps of the Learjet, I notice a light on in the main cabin, three seats on one side, and storage lockers on the other. Kim’s pants are draped over the back of a seat. Lying back in the reclining chair, she takes a swig from an open bottle of wine from between her legs. She puts down the bottle and wiggles out of her panties.
I take off the helmet.
“Leave it on.”
“Someone knows we’re here.”
“Who?”
“Probably the people looking for Mark, the owner of this jet,” I say.
Kim puts on her pants, and I put my helmet back on.
A quick search of the plane reveals nothing but paragliding equipment and a stocked bar. Kim grabs a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch with each hand. Leaving the plane, we walk to our bikes.
“Darling, there is a drone overhead trying to tap into the cameras. If you want, I can force it to land.”
Kim punches my shoulder. “Hermes, what’s going on?”
“We have a drone overhead.”
“What do we do?”
The overhead lights cast deep shadows under the planes. Kim and I park our bikes in a patch of darkness under a single-engine Cessna.
“Natasha, turn off the lights and disconnect yourself from the web.”
She operates a switch remote
ly, and the hangar goes dark. Kim and I sit down, leaning against our bikes.
“Who’s after us?”
I take off the helmet. “Someone is looking for Mark, I’ve been spending his money.”
Five minutes pass and Kim sits up. “Someone’s at the door.”
I look at her, and she nods. I take hold of her hand, and the lights come on. Placing my hand into the shadow, I find the cold edge and wrap the darkness around us and our bikes. There’s a sensation of falling, and the colors fade to shades of blue and violet.
Two men come through the door with pistols drawn. The mutants look elfish, tall, and slender, making graceful movements as they walk silently to the offices.
One waits by the door and the other with long white hair goes inside. The elf emerges a few minutes later.
The two mutants head to the jet. This time the man with green hair and eyes takes point. He opens the door to the plane; the steps unfold, and he goes inside. A few minutes later, Green Eyes quietly walks down the stairs and makes a call. “Mark isn’t here…okay.” He puts away his phone. “We’re to stay here while they check the perimeter.”
The white-haired elf smokes while the other paces. He takes a drag and blows it out. “Who is this guy we’re after, anyway?”
“Some guy who got rich making algae that has more protein than meat.”
“What did he do, refuse a buyout?” the smoking man says.
Green Eyes shrugs, then his phone rings.
He answers, listens for a second, then nods. “Okay.” He puts away the phone. “We’re all clear. Let’s go.”
They head to the door.
“How in the hell did he get past us?” the white-haired man says. “We had a drone on this place three minutes after the terminal activated. No one could have got out of here without us seeing something.” He flicks his cigarette butt on the floor. “Seems like we’re chasing a ghost.”
“Ghosts don’t need immersion helmets,” Green Eyes replies. Standing by the exit, he takes a look around.
“Let’s go,” the white-haired elf says.
The door shuts, and the lights go off. Without the light, the shadows fade, and we sit there under the Cessna, waiting.
“What the fuck just happened?” Kim looks a little angry.
“Are you talking about the men or the shadows?”
“The shadows, then the men.”
We sit in the darkness while I form my thoughts, trying to figure out how to explain this phenomenon to Kim.
“Let’s say you blink your eyes so that for one second they’re open and the next one they’re closed. If I walked in front of you when your eyes are closed and darted away before you opened them, you’d never see me. Inside the shadows, our space is a little out of sync with the rest of the world. That’s why you feel sick. The timing is off, and things look distorted.”
Kim turns and sits so our backs touch, and we lean against each other.
“Fuck. I must be going crazy, ‘cause you’re making sense.”
We sit in silence, waiting for the people outside to leave.
Tell me about the men…who were they looking for?”
“They were looking for the CEO of Blue Algae Inc. His name is Mark Lukas. Natasha used to pilot his jet. I used his passwords to buy some equipment.”
“You’re a clever fuck,” Kim’s voice is filled with rare respect.
“They don’t know he’s dead yet. I had a dream that a Japanese man with jet-black eyes like a fly cut my head off.”
“Fuck me raw,” Kim exclaims. “That’s Mr. Fukui.”
“You know him?”
“He’s the leader of the Inner-City Gang. Fukui’s the one who put a price on my head for stealing the tablet. What are the fucking odds…?”
We sit in silence with our backs together.
“I calculate the odds between slim to none.”
“Hell, I could have done the math on that, and I only have a sixth-grade education, college boy.”
We snicker together. After an hour, I put on the immersion helmet and check in with Natasha. The drone is finally gone. Taking off the helmet, I duct tape it to the back of my bike. Kim does the same to Mark’s.
Putting on my goggles, I open the door and scan the horizon in infrared. I don’t see any heat sources.
We walk our bikes to the back gate, avoiding the main road just in case I missed something. With Kim in the lead with her superior vision, we head to the auto boneyard. We dodge the carcasses of metal cars and trucks that were built when gas was cheap.
After an hour of hard driving, we pass the boneyard and take the road east back home. I know we’re close when I can smell the water. We find a high spot and park. In the distance, a set of headlights drives down 101. I take off my helmet and enjoy the view.
I look up at the rising moon, “Life doesn’t get any better than this.”
Kim gives me a nod and a fist bump. Putting our helmets back on, we travel the half mile on a rabbit trail to the highway. Crossing a ditch, we get back on the main road and take the exit for Ceres.
Now that the Sons of Chaos were seen heading north, there’s no one manning the main gate. Kim and I pass through with our headlights off.
At the house, a light is on in the kitchen. Daniel emerges from the bedroom in a bathrobe once we walk inside.
“Everything alright?”
“Yeah, I’ll fill you in tomorrow.”
He nods and turns off the kitchen light, going back to bed. Kim and I go to my room. She lays on the bed while I take a shower.
When I’m done toweling off, Kim is staring at the ceiling.
“What’s wrong?”
“I bet Mark, the guy who owns that plane, knows the Jason Baron.”
“Why?”
“My angel said this was all connected like a spider web, so those two men must be connected.”
“How do you know it’s an angel? Couldn’t it be some other telepath communicating to you, or perhaps you don’t completely understand your telepathic abilities?”
Kim turns onto her side, curls a pillow into a ball and puts it under her head. She’s wearing underwear with no shirt; the pink scar across her breast is exposed. “Why don’t you believe in angels?”
I put my foot in the sink and clip my toenails. “Angel in Hebrew means messenger.” I put my other foot in the sink and start trimming my toe. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the messenger, the angel, sent to tell me about the virus.”
Kim sits up on the bed, giving me a quizzical look. “Getting a straight answer out of you is like holding onto a watermelon seed.” Kim leans back onto her elbows and kicks her legs playfully, enjoying the fact that I’m watching her. “So… you do believe in God?”
I walk out of the bathroom, sit on the corner of the bed and dry my feet.
“Well…do you?”
I take a deep breath and sigh. “My beliefs are rather abstract.”
Kim rolls onto her belly and pokes me in the ribs with her toes. “So, you think I’m not smart enough to understand? Is that it, college boy?”
I put on a pair of underwear and sit next to Kim. I trace my finger down her tattoo of the staff of Mercury, two intertwined snakes.
“I think the universe is alive and intelligent in its way.”
“Okay, let’s try this again…yes or no…do you believe in God?”
“Turn over.”
“I’m too beat to fuck, and you’re avoiding the question.”
“I don’t want sex, just want to lay my head on your belly until I fall asleep.”
“Then answer the question…do you believe in God or not?”
“I guess so. But I don’t know what the word ‘God’ means.” I push on her butt and whine. “Please…turn over.”
Kim turns over and sits up. “What? You don’t own a dictionary?”
I take a deep breath and let it out, resigned to having this conservation. “Okay, let me try again with a Bible quote, “For my thoughts are not you
r thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” That’s about the gist of what I believe. That God is beyond our ability to understand what it is.”
Kim's eyes flash yellow-green streaks, and she smiles. She lays down and turns off the light. “Okay, you can lay on me.”
Like a cat, I rub my head over her belly until I find the right spot, sink in, her belly conforming to my face.
Kim runs her fingers through my hair. “How come you know that verse?”
“Mom made me go to Bible School until they kicked me out. I used that verse to argue that their religion is flawed because their understanding of God is incomplete.”
Kim puts her hands on my head and interlaces her fingers. “In sixth grade, I asked my teacher, a Catholic priest, why God made me a mutant. He made the whole class memorize that verse from Isaiah.”
“So, college boy, what are the odds that we both memorized the same passage, and now here we are together?”
I ignore her and let the drone of the window fan and Kim’s cookie-dough scent lull me to sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s afternoon, and I feel rested when I get up. After eating, I head to the shop. In the corner is my work area, a five by eight room lined with copper foil.
Manufacturers build in alarms that send signals back via cell phone towers when you modify phones and other equipment. That’s why I lined my office with copper, to block electronic signals. I’m always tinkering with electronic devices, removing tracking hardware and software. It’s become a hobby of mine.
Turning on both helmets, I connect them with a USB cable. I slide on my immersion helmet, and Natasha appears with shoulder length dirty blonde hair, dark eyebrows, and blue eyes. She stands next to me, her mouth creasing when she smiles.
“Natasha, you look…real.”
“I am so glad you approve, darling.”
“Please tone down the ‘darling.’” but my tone is resigned. “How about using your lovely avatar to pull up all the records from Mark’s immersion helmet?”