by Jack L Knapp
I was unlikely to ever become as strong as T in regards to Talent, but perhaps I could take a different approach?
Ana Maria’s greeting was quite warm; the hug lasted considerably longer than a simple greeting between friends would have done. We chatted during the meal but when I made an oblique reference to her coming back, she didn’t seem interested.
We finished lunch and made the trip into the center of the city. The old man who owned the shop appeared dubious at first, but when I offered to pay half the cost up front, he brightened. He promised to have my purchase ready in ten days or less, perhaps even a week if he could obtain the materials he needed. Kevlar…that wasn’t readily available now, but if that’s what I wanted, he would do his best to have it ready for me. I handed him six hundred-dollar bills and we left. It was slightly more than half of the thousand dollars we’d agreed on, but I felt good about it. The old man would telephone Ana Maria when he finished and I would meet her before picking up my purchase. She might even decide that she wanted one for herself!
Chapter Twenty
T:
T made a number of contacts at the symposium, as well as sounding out the scientists regarding the conclusions they’d come to. The consensus was that the relatively-sudden spate of activity was worrisome, and that they felt the need for more monitoring stations at various places from Wyoming to Texas.
Unfortunately, they had no money just yet to set up the stations. Would T and R LLC be willing to do some of the work on spec, that is, to speculate on getting paid after the grants were approved? Assuming, of course, that the grants were approved, which the scientists seemed to think was a lock. It only took time, and surely as soon as the government understood the urgency the money would begin to flow.
T finally agreed in principal to do at least some of the necessary work, but balked at agreeing to travel long distances to emplace the monitoring stations. ‘Fuel’ for the ‘helicopter drones’ was a consideration, he said. T and R would need letters of authorization from various agencies, not only the universities involved but government agencies as well. T pointed out that some of the locations might be on military reservations, so they’d need authorization from the Department of Defense and the departments of the Army and Air Force too.
Professor Goodfellow and Doctor Chew would serve as primary contacts for the loose assembly of academics and would pass information back and forth as necessary.
The prospect of entry to various far-flung government installations caused T to barely conceal his satisfaction until he had reached his truck. A number of other locations for prospecting had aroused his interest, but he’d settled on the edge of White Sands because the peak was near the reservation’s boundary. Now, if he were found inside the fence, he had an excuse: “We need to recover our drone. It’s a scientific model, not yet released, and we were using it for geologic surveying. It went down near here, so if you see it, would you give us a call?”
But for now, he had other things to do.
T brought Ray up to date on what he’d agreed to do for the scientists before discussing his next activity.
He came back in a moment.
I read off the altitude reading and coordinates I’d copied from the GPS as T copied them down.
#
Ray:
I had more to do than I realized.
The TV news kept breaking in with updates. A family of three, father, mother, and a child in a backpack-type carrier were trapped in the Franklins. According to the news reports, the father had slipped on loose rock and fallen. He likely had a broken arm and might also have other injuries. The mother had just switched the baby from the father’s backpack to her own to spell him for a time when a ledge crumbled and dumped the father. The mother and child were trapped for now, but uninjured; the ledge had crumbled behind them and left them with no way to return. Authorities knew where they were because the mother had used her cell phone to call for help, but it was going to take time to get a rescue party in. And the rescuers would have to bring the man out by stretcher for at least part of the way, as well as hike over unimproved mountainside to get the mother and child to a point where they could be airlifted.
Helicopters wouldn’t be able to winch the injured man up because of tricky air currents and ledges that made it dangerous to bring the rotors close to the cliff’s face. The chopper could land the rescue party closer than if they’d had to hike around the trail, saving time, but the rescue would take hours, and the injured man might not have much time. According to the news reports, the wife said her husband kept slipping in and out of consciousness. He might be in shock, and it was possible that he would fall even further if he rolled off the ledge he was lying on now.
I suspect I expended a few choice curses as I grabbed my new purchase from the closet. I added a daypack and drove around Scenic drive to McKelligon Canyon park.
I parked the Volvo among other cars at a parking lot just outside the canyon. My new purchase and the backpack went with me as I began hiking up the road into the canyon.
I was soon out of sight of people and I turned off the road. My packaged purchase was soon opened and I began pulling it on over my camouflaged uniform. The cuffs had snaps as did the legs, and the coverall was quickly adjusted by means of the straps. It was a tight, but comfortable, fit. I stretched my arms to full extension, then collapsed them. The backpack attached to the back of the coverall.
Time to go. I levitated straight up and as soon as I had a clear view, I rotated until I was facing the west side of the Franklins. The goggles would get a real workout now.
I extended my arms and immediately felt the panels of the wingsuit lift. My booted feet were now extended and spread behind me as I accelerated across Smuggler’s Gap and then passed over Trans-Mountain Road. Ahead I could see a news chopper, slowly circling around a part of the mountains. There was another one off in the distance.
It couldn’t be helped. I had intended to use the wingsuit as camouflage in case anyone saw me or took a photo, and then realized that it would also give me some of the abilities that T could use without a suit at all. I might even be able to maneuver faster than he could.
Now my plans would begin to unravel. The news copters would have powerful cameras and I’d no longer be able to avoid recognition. The wingsuit might help keep some of my abilities secret, but my need for secrecy was trumped by the moral question I faced. Simply put, I had the ability to act, and no legitimate excuse for not doing so.
I got close to the mountain and finally spotted three people approaching along the trail the family of hikers had followed into the mountains. A helicopter north of where the news chopper was flying had also just begun lifting. There was a party of five on a trail below the aircraft and a huge cloud of dust to show they’d just been landed. I looked ahead of this group, between it and the other group I’d spotted, and finally spotted a bright yellow jacket. This was the mother and child. I couldn’t see the injured father.
Well, first things first. I landed on the trail ahead of the woman. I unbuckled the wrist connection and let the wings fold against my side before I spoke.
“I’m here to help. I need you to do something now. Make sure your child is secure in the carrier, then close your eyes.”
“He’s strapped in, and he’s asleep now anyway. Why do I need to close my eyes?”
“Please, just do it. What do you have to lose?”
She looked inclined to argue, but finally closed her eyes. She might peek, but I had done all I could do.
I lifted her gently and moved her across the broken ledge. Now she could go with the approaching rescue party and I could bring her husband up from the ledge. I set the woman down gently and left her facing away from me as I stepped off the trail and drifted down the face of the mountain.
The man had lodged against a thick shrub, mountain mahogany I thought. I held my position and thought about what I needed to d
o.
Not easy; but I could do it. I gently lifted the man, trying to keep him in the same position he’d been in. He seemed to be in one of his unconscious periods, and that helped. I slowly rose up the mountainside, bringing the man with me. I gently deposited his unconscious form on the ground behind his wife, still standing with her eyes closed.
I grinned for the first time. Well, I hadn’t told her to open her eyes, had I? I buckled the wing straps to the wrists of the coverall and spoke.
“OK, ma’am. You can open your eyes now.”
She shrieked in surprise, then glanced around and gasped when she saw her husband on the ground behind her. And then she really shrieked as I dived off the trail. I spread my arms, extending the wings of the suit, and coasted away down the mountainside. I needed only a bit of push from my Talent to continue flying and set a course for McKelligon Canyon.
Forty minutes later found me hiking down the road from the canyon. The Volvo was just ahead and the wingsuit was back in its carry bag. I had my daypack on and lugged the wingsuit bag in my hand, just another hiker coming back from visiting the canyon. The wingsuit and daypack went into the rear of the car and I took time to drink a bottle of water before I drove away.
The radio was full of reports about a man in a wingsuit by the time I reached Scenic Drive on my way home, but that topic was soon dropped as new information came in.
The wife and child had been taken to a hospital for observation, but not her husband.
The rescue party got him to where the helicopter could land and make the pickup, but he died on the way to the hospital.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ray:
“You just never know, man.”
T was speaking. We had been planting sensors around New Mexico for a week now. The scientists had advanced us money for expenses and had found the sensors somewhere. These weren’t the state-of-the-art units we’d planted around Valles Caldera. Most of them looked considerably older and they might have been pulled from a storeroom someplace, given a brief refurbishing, and handed over to us.