Flynn and Bazz went up to the main cabin to get their jump suits and parachutes on while the printer worked away on Lurch’s new telescopic arm. Just in case.
Lauren relieved Rajid at the flight controls while he did the same.
“You know,” Rajid said, “I’m not sure what Bazz has planned, but before he starts, have everyone at the back of the plane with the tail ramp down. If that bomb goes off, we won’t be going down slowly, it will be much more in the realm of ‘blazing fireball’. I am going to delay Bazz starting until we are over Paro, I will fly in from the opposite direction than the normal landing approach. That way, we can cruise in at our current altitude and everyone can jump. Then, we will remove the bomb.”
Lauren could tell that there was something Rajid wasn’t saying, she looked at him with that ‘and’ expression.
“And” he said laughing. “We will only have ten minutes to get the bomb off the plane once you all jump. There is no way out of the Paro valley heading that way without being able to climb.”
Flynn and Bazz made the final adjustments to Lurch’s new arm. Lurch extended it and retracted it and found that he had an additional two metres of reach. He could also swap out the standard hand for other tools that Bazz had already developed in the lab. “Ok young fella,” said Bazz, “I will look after Lurch for you and make sure he gets to you safely once we have landed. He’s a grand invention. Will it be ok if I run him through the fabricator’s scanner while we wait for the drop zone? Just in case something goes wrong. We can upload the file to your flashnet cache. That way you won’t lose all of your work.”
Now Flynn was really worried. Inventors become very attached and protective of their inventions. “I really don’t want him to be put at risk. But I also know that this is a better way than risking a person, I do think of him as a person you know.”
“I understand completely young fella,” Bazz said. Think of it this way. You have created an invention that could save the whole mission. Yes, you might have to sacrifice him, but what a noble sacrifice. While he is in the scanner, do you want me to fix his eye colour and voice for you?”
Flynn thought about that for a moment. “It annoyed me that I couldn’t fix that, but the more I think about it, the more I believe that it means something. I’m not sure what it is, but no, let’s keep him the way he is. Thanks for offering Bazz, and thanks for copying him for me, that helps a lot.”
Bazz held his hand out for Flynn to shake it. “I feel like I’ve just met one of the greatest inventors of the future, young fella. I hope our paths cross again, soon. We are nearly at the jump zone, you had better head back to get ready. And I’ll get Lurch up the front and ready for bomb disposal.”
Flynn thanked Bazz again, then hurried up the stairs as Rajid commed everyone to get ready, “Five Minutes To Jump Zone,” he said, followed by five sharp notes on a klaxon.
Chapter 18
“The Synthetic Has Landed”
Bazz put his own jump suit on as the scanner finished with Lurch. He uploaded the file to Flynn, and indicated to Lurch that they should head to the nose of the plane and be ready to grab the bomb as soon as everyone else had jumped.
He commed to Rajid, “Ok Raj, we are in position at the fuel link hole. Let me know as soon as they jump, and we will get rid of this sucker.”
“Copy that Bazz,” Rajid said.
The two minute warning klaxon sounded.
At the rear of the cargo hold, the loading ramp started to lower, it was already cold from the hole in the nose of the plane. But now that the wind could rush right through, the temperature dropped, and everyone huddled together to keep warm.
David looked out through the opening ramp and was shocked to see that it was dark, he had no concept of what time it was. He just hadn’t imagined that they would be jumping out of a plane in the dark. How would we see where the ground was?
Lauren spoke up, “OK, two minutes to go. I need you all to trust your autopilot. Under no circumstances turn it off. This is not a long jump, we are flying at thirty five hundred metres and the LZ is at two one nine five. Jump time will only be about three minutes. Any questions?”
“What’s an LZ?” asked David.
“Sorry guys, army speak. An LZ is simply a Landing Zone. I have uploaded it to your autopilot, it is the main town square in Paro. It’s pretty much the only open flat place in the area that isn’t the airport. After landing, your autopilot will guide you by foot to the meeting point at one side of the square.”
The one minute warning klaxon sounded as the lowering ramp revealed a three quarter waxing moon rising above the mountain range behind them. The plane began banking through some tight turns as Rajid followed the valley. The moon turned out of sight.
The ramp stopped at the level position and Priscilla levelled out.
“We’ll jump in two groups. Jack, Wayne and Timothy first, then myself, Skye, Flynn and David. Five seconds between groups,” Lauren yelled above the wind and the roar of Priscilla’s engines.
David was shivering, he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold, or the fear of his first ever parachute jump being at night, somewhere in the Himalayas. He realised that two days ago, he was just an eleven year old kid who lived on a farm with his Grandfather.
The jump klaxon blared continuously, Rajid spoke calmly over the comms, “Jump Jump Jump.”
Grandpa Jack, Wayne and Timothy were huddled together on the ramp. They yelled loudly, high fived each other and then sprinted along the ramp, whooping and yelling like they were having the time of their lives. One metre from the end of the ramp, they leapt into the air and made a star jump pattern and then they were gone.
Skye yelled over the noise, “Well if they can do it, we can too right? One Two Three.”
Lauren commed privately to Rajid who was watching a camera feed of the cargo bay and now laughing his head off, “Wow, I really like these kids’ style. Here I was thinking I was going to have to drag them one by one and throw them off the ramp. Very Classy.”
They grabbed hold of each other’s hands, and on Skye’s ‘Three’ ran to the end of the ramp and jumped into the moonlit night.
David’s parachute opened only five seconds after they had left the plane. All of a sudden, after the noise of the plane, there was an amazing stillness. A calm serenity came over him, and he began to take in the incredible sight of the moonlight flooding over the Paro valley. Surrounded by forest covered mountains, he could see larger snow-capped mountains further up the valley that were simply massive. He now understood why Grandpa Jack, and his Grandfather loved these mountains. It was beautiful, on a grand scale.
Back on Priscilla, Lurch had a grip on the sticky bomb with the grab on the end of his new telescopic arm. He was trying hard to pull it off, it wasn’t going to let go easily. He said to Bazz, “I will have to get further out of the hatch Bazz. I need a different position in order to get more leverage.” Bazz held his legs as he went further out, just as Lurch had done for him and Flynn earlier.
With a final effort, Lurch pulled the bomb free of the cockpit windshield and retracted his arm as he worked his way back into the cabin.
Rajid breathed a sigh of relief and switched the loading ramp to close up, ready to get Priscilla climbing above the surrounding mountains.
Bazz looked down at the bomb in Lurch’s hand. “Oh shit Raj, the display has changed, it’s gone over to a timer, ten seconds, and the bloody thing is now stuck to Lurch’s hand.”
Bazz looked at Lurch. “Sorry mate, but you know what you have to do.”
Lurch bolted for the stair case and headed for the rear of the plane.
“Raj, don’t close the ramp.” Bazz yelled.
Bazz followed Lurch through the cabin just in time to see him jumping over the edge of the loading ramp and disappearing into the night. A few seconds later there was a bright flash followed by a blast wave that caused Priscilla to jump around a little. They were ok.
Bazz slumped on his back on the cargo bay floor, exhausted.
“Poor bastard, I was taking a liking to that fella.”
Rajid sent a message to Lauren, “Bomb clear. Climbing through five thousand now. Lurch KIA. Thank Flynn for us. Hope he is ok. Good Luck. Out.”
Lauren had seen the flash behind them and had been wondering what had happened. Flynn would be devastated.
Flynn, however, had been connected to Lurch via flashnet the whole time. As he had bolted through the cargo bay, he had grabbed a parachute from the open locker and slung it over his shoulder before jumping out the back. As soon as he cleared the ramp, Lurch had detached the new arm, the one the bomb was stuck to. He then flung it as far from him as possible. It exploded about twenty metres from him. He took the full blast and his software went off line.
All of a sudden, Lauren and Flynn both saw something plunging through between the groups’ open parachutes. It was Lurch, still blacked out with three hundred metres to go. His chute was still wrapped around his remaining arm, unopened and flapping around in the wind.
Flynn was trying to get Lurch to re-boot, he could still activate the chute, if he could just re-boot.
Lauren’s training kicked in. At the same time as Flynn was trying to re-boot him, she connected Lurch’s chute to the group. With that, the chute burst open, as it realised it should have opened much earlier and went into emergency mode. They lost sight of him as he hit the ground, and hoped that the chute had opened enough to save him.
As Lauren, Skye, Flynn and David floated to the ground they could hear hysterical laughing. They wrapped up their chutes, disconnected from them, and headed to the meeting point. They came across Wayne, Timothy and Grandpa Jack, sitting in a tangle of parachutes, surrounded by a group of cattle. This was where the laughing was coming from, all three of them.
“I had forgotten about the sacred cows of Paro, when you suggested this as a Landing Zone Lauren,” Grandpa Jack laughed. “They always congregate together at night in the town square to keep warm together. And of course, there is a lot of nice, soft, smelly cow poo for unsuspecting parachutists to land in. I am afraid you have three very smelly travelling companions.”
Everyone laughed as the cows just milled around, mooing their displeasure at being disturbed by these strange intruders.
Flynn was trying to work out where Lurch had gone down, it couldn’t be far away. He looked around, taking in the scene. He was getting a bit annoyed at all their laughing. This was no laughing matter.
Grandpa Jack continued laughing, “Don’t be so uptight Flynn.” A hand emerged in the middle of the group. Lurch crawled, covered in cow shit, out of a hole right in the middle of Grandpa Jack, Timothy and Wayne. He stood up and raised his one arm above his head in salute.
“The Synthetic Has Landed,” yelled Lurch, high fiving them all. “What a ride that was. Can we do it again?”
Chapter 19
“Umm, Guys?”
An old lady approached the group from the side of the town square. She was severely hunched over, leaning on a gnarly old walking stick. Every step seemed to take an age.
“Do you think that’s, you know, the lady from your story Grandpa Jack?” David whispered.
“I don’t know David,” replied Grandpa Jack. “But that stick looks remarkably familiar.”
As the old lady came closer, she ignored the adults and walked up to David. “Follow me now if you want to see the next sun rise. Only the children.” The old lady looked over at Jack and nodded, as if to acknowledge him. “I will shelter them until dawn and get them to the Lama at the Jowo Lhakang temple in the morning. You have your own mission now I believe, young Jack.”
Grandpa Jack laughed at the idea of being called young. But then thought, that if this is the old lady who had recruited his Grandfather all those years ago in Zurich, from her perspective, he probably was. But then there was the story about how after his Grandfather’s meeting with her, that she moved away with the spritely gate of a young person. Another mystery.
“I need a few minutes with them before we go,” Grandpa Jack said.
The old lady nodded, “I will wait at the edge of the square young Jack. But before I go, I have a gift for you.” She handed Grandpa Jack the old staff. “You left this behind all those years ago, it has been yours all along, at least since your Grandfather gave it to you. It is also yours to give away if you wish.”
The old lady looked deeply into Grandpa Jack’s eyes as if trying to impart some hidden meaning telepathically. Jack thought he understood her intent.
Jack looked down at the staff and read the inscription out loud, “This Stick Has Been Very Lonely”.
“The inscription is different,” Jack mused out loud.
“Yes, it is young Jack. Yes, it is,” she chuckled as she walked away towards the edge of the square.
The group huddled together as Grandpa Jack indicated for them to come close.
“It seems as though this is where we part,” he began. “I have a few things I would like to say.” Tears forming in the corner of his eyes. “You are safe among the people of Bhutan. But as you know, it is possible for intruders to be here as well. Go boldly, just like jumping out of the plane,” he winked at Wayne and Timothy. “But also, go carefully. Think about your next step and talk to each other. Even though David is the one who must activate the device, you are a team. You can help each other. Priscilla and her crew will not leave Bhutanese airspace while we are on the ground. But you must not, cannot, request or accept assistance from any adult, once you leave the Lama, for the Takstang Monastery.”
“Remember this,” he continued. “Treat this as a grand adventure. Have fun, and learn everything you can along the way. Bhutan is an amazing place of happiness and goodwill, embrace that.”
Grandpa Jack held out the old ‘lonely’ staff for David to take. “I think this was really meant for you. But I understand that it was only mine to give. Remember, this may not be the key as it was for me. Assume that everything will be different.”
“Lauren and I are off to visit your Grandmothers.” He patted the pocket of his jump suit. “And to plant a forest. Thank you David, for the greatest gift anyone could give me.” And with that he and Lauren stood up and walked the opposite way across the square, scattering sacred cows in the moonlight as they went quickly.
David, Skye, Flynn, Wayne and Timothy looked at each other with a fearful look. As they turned and tentatively headed towards the old lady waiting at the edge of the square, David looked down at the staff in his hands. He noticed that it seemed to be compelling him to look at it. When he did, it stopped him in his tracks. “Umm, guys?” David said. “You might want to check this out.”
They all gathered around David and the staff. “The inscription has changed, ‘Lets Go Climb A Mountain’,” it said.
They all looked at each other in awe, and at the edge of the square, the old lady smiled a relieved smile, and turned to start walking away.
Chapter 20
“Eat With The Right”
As they approached the old lady, she turned and walked across the street into a narrow laneway between two buildings.
“How can an old hunch backed lady walk so fast?” Wayne said quietly to the others, while trying to conserve his breath.
“I can hear you, you know. Just because I have a crooked back doesn’t mean I don’t have ears,” the old lady said. “It’s the altitude, we are at a bit over two thousand metres here. That’s not insignificant.”
“So does the altitude make you fast?” asked Timothy.
“Oh boy,” she said without turning around. “And to think you’ve been sent here to save the planet. Bright spark you are. The altitude doesn’t make me fast Timothy, it makes you slow, at least until you can acclimatise. Which you probably won’t have the time to do.”
Timothy felt admonished, but then thought “How did she know my name?”
She answered him without speaking, “I know much young man. One of the skills learned along the path to enlightenment involves knowing things, with
out having ever been told them.”
“Come, come, come,” the old lady said. “We have far to go.” She increased her pace as the others struggled to keep up.
As they twisted and turned through the back streets of Paro, they could see a lot of art painted on the outside of the buildings when the moonlight shone on them. Everyone was noticing, but Timothy couldn’t help it any longer. He was about to speak up when the old lady said, “Yes Timothy, the people of Bhutan like to paint large penises on their homes. They are actually called Phalluses, and the people of Bhutan believe that they bring good luck and ward off evil spirits.”
Wayne and Timothy were no different to most other teenage boys and couldn’t help but have a big laugh at that. Skye just rolled her eyes and wondered if they would ever grow up.
The pace seemed to quicken again. David noticed that he was the only one not gasping for breath. Other than the old lady of course.
“I will not tell you my name,” the old lady continued, “But if you keep thinking of me as the old lady, the pace will keep getting faster.”
“We are going to stop at a safe house,” she continued. “We need to get you into some warmer clothing,” looking over at Wayne and Timothy, “And it certainly won’t be appropriate to meet the Lama smelling like that, so a bath will be in order for you two, no arguments ok?”
Timothy was wondering why they would argue about washing the cow shit off, as they were led through a dark timber door into a poorly lit house, someone’s home. He and Wayne were ushered through a second door to a wet looking room with a large open tank full of water and a dipper. Looking at Wayne, Timothy dipped a finger into the water and gasped, it was freezing.
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