The Fall (4 page)

Jack tried to respond but the arresting pressure on his chest prevented him from articulating a single word, though he could still read the displays, could still see the firestorm rapidly consuming his first ablation layer.

Forty-two miles high now.

Mach 2.3.

Outside temperature a dash over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Jack narrowed his eyes as he scanned the telemetry, blinking once at the okay icon that Angela had incorporated into the helmet display for precisely this kind of situation.

“Phoenix, KSC. We read you're okay. Looking good at forty-one miles. Eject first heat shield.”

The compression wave slowing him down chemically blasted away at his thermal protection system, reducing his first micro honeycomb ablation layer to ten percent in fifty seconds. He focused his eyes on an icon, blinked, and the spent layer of reinforced carbon-carbon on his helmet and shoulder pads jettisoned off with a burst of compressed helium, vanishing in the scorching slipstream, exposing the second ablation shield.

“Phoenix, KSC. First shield is off.”

Jack blinked okay while mustering savage control to focus on his deceleration stats.

Thirty-nine miles high.

Mach 1.9.

Temperature soaring to 1,100 degrees.

G-meter at 10.2.

The laws of physics were certainly at work as his speed plummeted, turning vertical velocity into the charring furnace that chipped away at his new set of shields.

Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed,
he recalled Angela telling him as he struggled to stay focused, to keep his mind frosty. But despite his forced concentration, thoughts slowly gravitated to the periphery of his consciousness.

Jack fought vehemently for control, to remain awake, refusing to let the autopilot take charge of this mission.

He jammed the suit's gel pressure control into the red, feeling the compression against his legs where swelling bladders fought to deliver precious blood to the capillaries lacing his brain.

Just hold on a little longer.

Thirty-four miles high.

Mach 1.5.

Temperature 1,150 degrees.

G-meter at 10.9.

Shields at forty percent.

The forces pummeling his body were approaching the G-suit design, threatening to breach his physical limits, pushing him to the brink of his endurance through a dazzling violet halo that increased in intensity as he continued to fall, plunging at a maddening speed.

“Phoenix, KSC, pod video terminated. We're picking you up on the balloons now. All systems nominal.”

Nominal my ass,
he thought, nearly paralyzed now, unable to even blink the okay icon.

“Thirty miles high, Phoenix. Switching to feet.”

The same forces that had smoked that four-ton titanium and silica capsule were starting to put a serious dent in Angela's masterpiece.

Altitude 150,000 feet.

Mach 1.3.

Temperature almost at 1,200 degrees.

G-meter at 11.6.

Ablation shields at ten percent.

The blinding violet light swallowed his thoughts, his mind, engulfing his very core as Jack started to lose consciousness, but he managed one final reading of his instruments, somehow managing to blast off his scorched second set of reinforced carbon-carbon shields in a burst of helium while hoping—praying—that his third and last set of thermal protection would see him through this.

Altitude 130,000 feet.

Mach 1.24.

Temperature 1,180 degrees.

G-meter at 11.6.

Ablation shields at ninety-eight percent.

The Earth and cosmos seemed to swap places somewhere in a remote corner of his mind.

That's impossible.

Jack tried to regain focus. He couldn't be tumbling, not now, with soaring temperatures and while still supersonic as he careened down to Earth like a blazing comet right through the altitude where Felix Baumgartner had jumped in 2012.

Confused, disoriented, his mind rapidly becoming as dark as the space above him, Jack reached deep into his reserves and pushed his body to perform one final task, staring at the autopilot icon and blinking once as atmospheric forces overwhelmed him.

But just as he dropped below 120,000 feet—just as the G-meter displayed 12.0, outside temperature reading 1200 degrees, and the Mach meter reported 1.2, the heat, the pressure, the blinding glare and deafening noise all faded away, and Jack felt engulfed by the most amazing, comforting, and warm violet haze.

His display began to flash that last set of readings in bright red to the rhythm of the vibrating light that had engulfed him.

MACH 1.2

G-METER 12.0

TEMPERATURE 1200 DEGREES

ALTITUDE 120,
000 FEET

What … is … happening?

The violet haze enveloped him, infusing him with warmth while propelling him through a labyrinth of colors. Dazzling. Blinding.

Intoxicating.

“Phoenix, KSC, how do you copy?”

Pete's voice suddenly seemed distant, echoing lightly inside his helmet.

Jack found the okay icon and blinked on it.

“Phoenix … how … copy?”

Wondering why they couldn't get his response, Jack blinked on the icon again as he fought for control in this surreal world, where up and down had no meaning, no significance.

“Phoenix … copy…”

He tumbled over and over again, unable to restore his descent profile, unable to use his suit's thrusters to arrest the spin while his display continued flashing the same readings.

MACH 1.2

G-METER 12.0

TEMPERATURE 1200 DEGREES

ALTITUDE 120,000 FEET

But that was impossible.

Jack could sense his rapid fall, could feel the vertical drop in his gut.

“Phoenix…”

Pete's voice was a mere whisper now as Jack continued to drop out of the heavens while he scanned his displays, searching past the stubborn telemetry, finding his emergency icon, the one Angela had incorporated in this design in case of extreme disorientation.

He blinked on it, trying to activate the emergency gyro to recover from his uncontrollable fall while signaling to Pete that he was in trouble.

But he got no reply from KSC as he plunged into what looked like a storm, alive with sheet lightning.

And then it hit him.

Did I … drift … to the … storm?

Realizing he was dropping right on top of Claudette, Jack closed his eyes a second before impacting the pulsating bolts of lightning, thunder crashing around him as he felt immense pressure against his chest, his head.

Unable to breathe from the force squeezing his pressure suit, Jack struck what felt like a layer of gel, stretching under his downward momentum, arresting his fall like a tri-dimensional bungee cord while the pressure peaked.

Colors exploded in his mind as the membrane crushing him trembled and extended like a soft trampoline, forks of lightning gleaming under the stress before bursting as he finally punched through.

And in the same instance, his telemetry stopped flashing red, returning to normal.

MACH 0.7

G-METER 4.3

TEMPERATURE 350 DEGREES

ALTITUDE 108,000 FEET

What the … fuck … just happened?

Confused, still disoriented, on the edge of blacking out, Jack tried to figure out how he could have dropped that much that fast, but the sunlight …

He placed a gloved hand against his faceplate as blinding sunlight gleamed around him, clouds and blue skies magically replacing the storm.

But how … is that … possible?

He closed his eyes, momentarily drifting away, before shivering back into consciousness, his eyes blinking to remain awake, focusing on the telemetry.

MACH 0.52

G-METER 1.8

TEMPERATURE 185 DEGREES

ALTITUDE 65,000 FEET

Feeling nauseous, light-headed, Jack tried to speak, to call out to the Cape, but his body had been pushed beyond endurance as his thoughts gravitated to the periphery of his mind, and he faded away again, only to force himself back into consciousness, if only to read his telemetry one more time.

MACH 0.3

G-METER 1.5

TEMPERATURE 167 DEGREES

ALTITUDE 32,000 FEET

Time passed.

Then somewhere in this state of semiconsciousness, Jack felt the autopilot deploying the main canopy, snapping and tugging as it blossomed above him, breaking his fall, jerking him skyways.

And that was the final straw, the final shove that propelled him over the edge as Jack heard the suit automatically venting into the atmosphere the moment it reached ten thousand feet, but he could control nothing—could say nothing. The wild ride had paralyzed him, like the frozen icons on his faceplate display.

But the autopilot is still operational,
he thought, dizzy, disoriented, his mind blurring before everything turned black.

*   *   *

Angela's vision tunneled to the middle of her flat-screen display, which no longer showed her husband descending through the ionosphere.

“Phoenix, KSC, how do you copy?” asked Pete Flaherty for the tenth time in his best attempt at a controlled voice.

Silence. Nothing. Just like the clear image of the ionosphere captured by the high-resolution cameras.

“Phoenix, KSC, how do you copy?” he repeated.

“Phoenix, how do you copy?”

A few seconds later, Jack's vital signs via the TDRSS link flat-lined with a chilling high-pitch alarm that froze Angela's fingers to her keyboard.

This is impossi—

“Could someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Pete continued while General Hastings stood behind him but remained eerily calm, exchanging whispers with the two Alamo gurus consulting their tablets. Captain Riggs stood behind him stoically, skin glistening like a marble statue, hands behind his back while his men guarded the doors in similar military style.

“Are the cameras malfunctioning?” Pete shouted.

“Negative, sir,” replied a woman two rows ahead of Angela. “Just ran diagnostics on the video equipment. All balloons report nominal readings.”

“Confirming loss of vitals,” reported the flight surgeon, a middle-aged man to Pete's right.

“Looks like a major malfunction,” replied the descent controller sitting next to the flight surgeon.

“Concur,” replied the TDRSS controller in the front row. “We have a mishap.”

Jack, what the hell?
Angela thought, tuning out Mission Control as her fingers miraculously began to move again, almost on muscle memory, pulling back the replay from the closest high-altitude balloon, showing Jack in perfect vertical pose, diving through 120,000 feet one instant and gone the next. He had just expelled the second set of heat shields before engaging the autopilot, an action that told her he had been right on the edge of succumbing to the pressure and heat.

But then again, the G-meter was pegged at twelve. This prototype version of the OSS was designed to keep the wearer conscious up to eleven Gs. Beyond that, it was up to the jumper's physical resistance. Jack had tested well up to thirteen Gs in simulated drops, but when you compounded the stress factors of the real thing, Angela wasn't that surprised that he hadn't reached the simulation level.

But that didn't explain why he had vanished. The OSS's autopilot was designed to take him down the rest of the way, and again, the imagery showed him in a perfect reentry profile well within the suit's design specs.

While Hastings continued his eerily calm observation of the flurry of activity in Mission Control with Pete at the helm going through various equipment checks while trying to make contact with Jack, Angela rewound the high-resolution video on her screen again and advanced it frame by frame, watching the ablation layer jettison in a puff of compressed helium, followed by dozens of frames showing Jack descending through the ionosphere, shields glowing.

Before simply vanishing.

She stared at the last two frames in disbelief.

That's … impossible.

From one frame to the next, Jack was gone. He didn't burn up in the atmosphere. He didn't lose control and enter a potentially deadly supersonic tumble, like Felix Baumgartner did during his jump. And the OSS certainly didn't fail. Had the latter been the case, the frame-by-frame would have shown Jack turning into a fireball before dissolving into thin air.

Jack had just disappeared. There had been no fireball, no explosion, no breakup, no reentry burn-up like Space Shuttle
Columbia.

Angela felt pressure on her wrist and realized that General Hastings had just grabbed her and was slowly but quite firmly lifting her light frame from her seat with incredible ease. His massive freckled hand covered her wrist and almost half of the Triumph tattoo on her forearm.

“Hey! Let me go!”

“Where is it, Dr. Taylor?” he asked in a low and calm voice, nearly whispering, eyes narrowed beneath his thick orange eyebrows. “Where is my damned suit?”

Angela burned him with her stare. “
Your
suit, General? You want to know what happened to
your
damned suit?” she hissed, turning her wrist and pulling back to break his hold, just like Jack had taught her.

The red-haired general blinked.

Before he could react, Angela took a step back, turned sideways to him, and got ready to kick him in the balls if he got near her again. “
Fuck
the suit, General. What about my
husband
?”

Hastings leered at her as the Alamo scientists approached them. Everyone in Mission Control was silent and looking in their direction.

But all Angela could notice was how the two gurus also didn't seem alarmed, almost as if they had expected this. The man readjusted the glasses on his nose while speaking in a low voice to the woman fingering her tablet computer.