Flightsuit

by Deaderick, Tom

  The suit was as destructive as it was irreplaceable. If he could take it now, with only this handful of witnesses, the government could easily keep its prize secret. The people in this clearing were the only ones who'd seen it. They'd all be victims of some unfortunate accident.

  If the kid escaped with the suit though, his team would be crucial to the search – the only direct witnesses of its capabilities and in the meantime, more people might see it. Hopefully more people than the government could easily remove from the board.

  Just a normal day, Hack thought. He'd survived terrorist standoffs and multiple missions. No one else had survived two. He was good at quick life-or-death responses. Comes in handy, he thought. If I let them go, we'll still get the suit eventually, and maybe everyone here will live through it. Maybe not everyone, he thought. The kid and his friend's chances aren't good either way. If we do capture them, assuming that's even possible, we're dead. I'm sure of that.

  Let them escape without making it look like there was any choice.

  "Keep back," Hack told his team. They'd closed within ten feet. The suit shone in the sunlight. There didn't seem to be a crack on it. How is that possible? It must have been blown apart for us to find a piece of it. Self-repairing systems? I'm standing within reach of something greater than the pyramids or the Rosetta stone. It changes everything we believe. People will never see the world the same again. Like growing up, there'll be no way back.

  If everyone knows about it, we'll have no choice but to share it. If we take it today, and no one outside this clearing knows about it, it will be kept secret and used by the government. They aren't known for good decisions. Hack was.

  "Lower your weapons. We are going to talk this out. No one else is getting killed."

  His team lowered their rifles but kept them ready. Good. Hack looked at Sowyer to make sure he complied. He had, but he was still acting strangely. He stared at the kid like he was ready to kill him. Deal with Sowyer later.

  Now, plant the seed before he tries something else. "You don't think we're going to just let you walk out of here," Hack said. Come on kid, figure it out. It's all on you.

  After a pause, Leo replied "I don't think there is anything you can do to stop us."

  Perfect. Smart kid. Now make sure the team gets our alibis straight. Have to hope the kid stays calm and doesn't react instead. "We can shoot you. That would stop you." And the key part, "Wouldn't it?" In debrief later, he'd make it sound like a pronouncement, not a question.

  Come on kid. Say it. Be smart.

  Leo hesitated. Ethan was ready to act, but didn't see any way they could escape.

  "You tried shooting," Leo said, "and it didn't work. I don't think you want to try it again. Something bad might happen. Worse than last time."

  Kid's got backbone. Good.

  Leo wrapped Ethan in the suit's arms and leaped from the edge.

  "No! Kid!" Hack reached out and felt the smooth surface of the suit's shoulder as it dropped out of reach. Oh crap. He leaned out to watch them fall.

  60

  Leo saw the ground rushing up. His initial reaction was to spread one hand out to soften the landing while holding Ethan tight, but not so tight that the flightsuit crushed him. The suit had taken control though, and it repositioned its arms underneath Ethan as they dropped. It was getting closer to the cliff wall as it fell. Leo watched the rocks flashing past, too fast to recognize detail. Too close to the wall, he thought, steeling himself in the suit for the impact.

  The suit scraped against rock and kept falling. Most of the contact was through the boots, which the suit stretched out and drew back with each impact. It hit a jutting outcrop with the right leg stretched out to meet it first. When it hit the outcrop, Leo realized it was trying to convert the fall into something like a skiing descent, by hitting the sloping rock edges. It seemed to be working, they were bouncing back and forth between the walls of a wide vertical channel. They were falling sideways and down now, but still too fast. Here it comes, Leo thought.

  The suit rebounded like a spring as its control systems converted crushing vertical kinetic energy into a survivable deceleration. At impact, it lowered Ethan in its arms almost to the ground, using the distance from its chest to the ground to further decelerate him. Then it sprang forward launching itself into the middle branches of rhododendrons, twisting in midair like a cat and shielding Ethan as it crashed backward into the branches. The suit rolled as it hit the branches and launched Ethan away. He landed in high weeds and briars.

  The suit rolled over backward to land on its feet, knees bent. The arms reached out to each side for balance. It stood up and released control back to Leo.

  "Wow." Leo ran to the weeds. "Are you ok?"

  Ethan looked down at himself, unsure. Everything had happened so fast. "I'm going to be sore and scratched, but I can walk. I was sure we were going to die." Leo helped him stand. The both looked up. They'd fallen far enough from the cliff that they could see over the outcrops to the top. They saw the soldiers peering over. Leo waved.

  "How did you know the suit could survive a fall like that?"

  "I didn't," Leo said still staring up the cliff, "I just figured that it would probably not let me do something that it couldn't protect me from."

  Ethan looked at him without saying anything.

  After a few seconds, Leo said, "Come on, we've got to hurry."

  Ethan spread his hands, "Where?"

  "There's something we need, I'll explain on the way. Right now we need to get moving before it's too late. I'm going to pick you up and carry you, like it did on the fall. Is that ok?"

  Ethan didn't like the plan, but there was no doubt they needed to get moving. He held his arms out so Leo could reach around him. As the arms brought him up, he said, "Now I know where the bruises are. Right under my back where it held me in the fall. Ouch, that hurts." He winced and grit his teeth as the arms settled underneath him. "Ok, ready I guess."

  The suit was amazingly agile and fast. It amplified Leo's movements, sensing intentions like his own muscles. At first his amplified movements were clumsy and jerky. Now either he was already becoming more comfortable with it, or it was compensating and smoothing out his movement. Inside the helmet, Leo mumbled to himself, "Now where's his car?" Although he was only thinking aloud, the suit responded with a faint map of blue lines projected into the inside of the glass bubble. Leo saw the suit's orange pinpoint and a line that was the nearest shore of the river. When he looked at the river, numbers appeared in each spot as his eye moved. There were two numbers at each point, one over the other with a bar between. Leo didn't know what the numbers meant. Another orange pinpoint blipped onto the map near the river. Is that another piece of the suit or the car? As he considered this, he came to the edge of small crease where rainfall cut into the hillside, creating a deep ravine. A tree had fallen across it. Leo glanced at it, considering whether he could run across on the log. A red outline projected in the helmet. He looked at the log more closely, and the display flashed numbers across it. He looked back over the shallow ravine and gauged the distance across. A lifetime's experience with his own legs made it easy to estimate how safely he could make a leap, but he'd had only a few minute's experience with the suit and no way to know how far it could leap. It had, so far, prevented him from doing anything it couldn't survive. Leo thought the cliff jump might have been pretty close though, since it had to convert the straight jump into a controlled slide.

  Ethan said, "You're not going to jump are you?" "Just walk down the edge and back up the other side."

  It was good advice, Leo knew the suit could quickly get across that way. That's no fun, he thought, and besides how will I learn what it can do without trying? He was already running toward the ravine as he made up his mind. Ethan frowned at him through the helmet and threw his arm around Leo's shoulder. He, or the suit, timed his stride perfectly with his left foot springing forward inches from the edge. His right foot landed two feet from the other edge, and
he kept running. When Ethan saw his smile, he couldn't help smiling himself. Still don't know if it could have jumped further, Leo realized. It might have just jumped as far as it needed. He concentrated on running without tumbling over the rocks that lay below the ferns and rotten leaves, watching the orange pinpoints get closer.

  Close enough, he thought, stopping in a patch of chest-high, amber grass. He let Ethan's legs down. Ethan arched his back, glad to get his weight off the bruises on his back and thighs. Leo whispered, hoping the suit wouldn't amplify his voice. "I think his car is right down there, but there are a bunch of red dots moving around it. Let's crawl forward and see."

  Ethan nodded, "Ok". They crept forward. Ethan hardly moved the grass. Leo looked like a bear as his crawled on all fours. Ethan noticed that as they crawled, the glossy white surface became more reflective. The reflections of the grass beside him became increasingly distinct. He reached up to tap the suit. Leo tried to sit back on his haunches, but the suit's bulk wouldn't lean back far enough. He put one knee down and the other out in front to see what Ethan wanted.

  "It's camouflaging you. Leo held his hand up and saw only grasses himself for a moment. It was oddly disorienting to know his hand was in front of his eyes and not be able to actually see it. Then a blue outline traced his arm in the helmet glass. He still saw the grass right through his arm, but the outline let him know where it was. It was disorienting, and Leo thought, very cool.

  Now that they'd stopped, Ethan realized the suit wasn't reflecting the grass. There was no reflection of him. He looked at the small briar branch on the other side of Leo and then back down at the suit. The branch stem looked like it was in a glass of water, with just a faint distortion where Ethan knew the suit was. Rather than creating a reflection, Ethan decided the suit was projecting what was on the other side of Leo, as if the suit wasn't there at all. As Leo stopped moving, even the distortion vanished. He was completely invisible. Even the clear helmet seemed capable of camouflage projection. Ethan reached out to touch it. His fingers bumped but he couldn't see anything.

  Leo waved his arm to see the effect. Ethan saw a distortion warp the grass around the moving arm, but still couldn't see the rest of the suit.

  "As long as you don't move," he whispered to where he thought Leo's face was, "I can't see you at all. It's very weird."

  Leo smiled and almost laughed inside the helmet when Ethan whispered to his side rather than his face. "I know. What's it look like when I move? Can you see me clearly then?"

  "No, not clearly. I can just tell there's something there," Ethan assured him. "I catch the movement but can't find anything there."

  "Well, that should help," Leo said, "because I think there's a lot of police watching the car."

  61

  There were a lot of police watching the car. Three police cars were parked in one lane of the road. The police were only allowing cars to go through the open lane if their driver's license indicated they lived deeper in Bumpas Cove. Three of the cops were looking in the windows of Taylor's car, which was parked in the sandy gravel near the river's edge. Hack's call to the Sheriff warned them against opening the car doors. The Sheriff himself was on his way. They'd recognized Hack's name, and the Sheriff and two more deputies were on their way. They assumed that Hack was involved in another major terrorist infiltration and wanted in on the capture. One of the deputies printed an article on the Cane Creek terrorist raid and made copies for each of them in case they had a chance to get Hack's autograph.

  They hadn't yet arrived.

  Ethan and Leo agreed that Ethan would stay in the grass while Leo would sneak down to the car. Assuming the flightsuit's camouflage stayed on, it should be easy to sneak in undetected. Leo wasn't sure how he'd activated the camouflage, so he was a little concerned that it might turn itself back off again just as he walked down into the group of police. I hope this helmet is bulletproof. He thought about it, and added, I hope the rest of the suit is bulletproof too.

  He crawled away from Ethan. He wanted to get clear of him before he stood up just in case the camouflage deactivated. Twenty yards away, he looked at Ethan through the helmet. Ethan was scanning the area around him. Ha. He still can't see me. That's a good sign. Ok, here goes. Leo stood up, watching the cops closely for any sign they saw him. The three cops that were looking in the car windows were now talking beside it. A fourth was talking to the driver of a car that had pulled up as Leo crawled away from Ethan. None of them reacted. Leo thought they probably would have noticed someone just popping up in the weeds, so he assumed he was still camouflaged. Well, that's good. He stepped forward, trying to move the grass slowly as he passed. After a few steps, his boot came down on a stick. It broke with a SNAP! All four of the cops looked straight at him. Leo froze, as he watched them through the helmet. Please be on camouflage. Please be on.

  Apparently, it is, he thought after the cops started talking again a few seconds later. "Whew," he breathed out slowly, then clamped his lips, reminding himself not to make sounds. There was no way to know if the suit might decide he wanted to talk with the cops and amplify the sound so they could hear through the helmet.

  Leo looked down. He'd have to watch more closely where he stepped going forward. The next steps were quieter, although it was hard to tell how much noise he was making from inside the suit. He made it to the edge of the road. The cop waved the driver past and stood in the open lane watching in both directions. Leo stood for a moment. He kept expecting to be discovered. Any moment the cop was going to yell, "Hey you!" To Leo's surprise, he hadn't, yet.

  He stretched the toe of the boot out, making an exaggerated tiptoe step. Then another. He smiled, then grinned, thinking how ridiculous he'd look if he weren't invisible. A giant bear-sized suit tiptoeing directly in front of a cop. He was careful not to let himself laugh out loud.

  He reached the edge of the road and realized closing the distance to the car was going to be much harder. For one thing, he was close enough to the cops that they'd hear any sound his boots made. The river's edge was all sand, with smooth river-polished stones and grass patches. He could easily spot occasional sticks and dried leaves. The sand helped reduce his footfalls, but there was no way to avoid making footprints. Even an unobservant person would notice footsteps appearing in the sand, and he still wasn't sure how much movement the suit's camo system could handle. The cops would definitely notice a shimmery haze this close.

  He looked for a grass patch and put his foot just behind it, hoping the footprint would be hidden from the cop's view. He waited, balancing himself, watching for any reaction. Ok, next.

  He stepped behind another patch. One of the cops directly facing him looked down at the sand. He stepped away from the car and knelt down to look at the footprint. Leo was petrified and held his breath. The cop reached down to touch the footprint with Leo's foot still in it. His fingers jammed into the camouflaged boot, and he jerked them back.

  "Ouch," the cop said. "What the heck?" He reached his hand to the footprint more slowly the second time. His fingers touched the boot again. Mystified, he rapped on Leo's boot with his knuckles, making a heavy metal sound. The other two cops came over, standing behind the kneeling cop. They were huddled around Leo, oblivious to his presence, for the moment.

  The kneeling cop raised his fingertips from the boot tip up the shin of the suit and then sprang backward to sit on the sand. The two standing beside him jumped back a step and reached for their holsters. Leo jumped back too and ran around the back of Taylor's car.

  The cops jerked their pistols into two-hand grips and aimed directly at Leo, although they only saw a hazy, ghostlike distortion. In the weeds across the road, Ethan stood up, watching the scene unfold.

  Leo looked in the passenger window of Taylor's car with the cops aiming their guns directly at him. He tried to open the door, but couldn't get the gloves in the handle. It's probably locked anyway, he thought. He drew back his arm and held it for a moment, preparing to smash the window. They'll proba
bly shoot when I do this. He glanced up at Ethan standing in the grass and decided he'd better hurry before someone spotted him. He jabbed his arm forward. The suit took over, and his gloved fist impacted the window faster than his eye could follow. The passenger window imploded into glitter, spraying a lightshow of sunlight. The driver's-side window burst out in larger pieces. A twisted lightning-bolt crack ran across the front windshield.

  The cops ducked away from the explosion, shielding their eyes with elbows.

  Leo's fist was frozen within inches of the point of contact. The suit relinquished control, and Leo grabbed a thick green journal from the passenger seat. There was a wide rubber band around it holding loose pages. As Taylor packaged his thoughts, he couldn't put the book and the bag out of his mind. They were his prizes, at that point, all he had left, and they would provide his dreamt-of future. Leo saw them in the background as they'd communicated and knew Taylor was eager to rid himself of the alien and get back to them.

  Now the duffle bag, he thought. Then the first bullets hit him in the chest.

  62

  The exploding glass peppered the nearest cop when the car windows blew out. A dozen pieces cut through his blue shirt and embedded into his forearm. As they stumbled backward, he dropped his pistol into the sand and sat down staring at the outside of his forearm, trying awkwardly to see how badly he was injured. All three officers had been saved worse injury by their Kevlar vests. The other two were further from the car, and although later examination would find several pieces of glass in various locations, they'd not yet, in the excitement of the moment, realized they were injured.