Authors: Eric Walters
“And he doesn’t like to follow orders or have much respect for authority and thinks he knows everything.”
“And those things sort of go together with the other characteristics. But he already was all of those things. This has allowed him simply the chance to be who he is, for you to see it.”
“But he always seemed so respectful, you know, especially to the higher-ranking officers and my mother.”
“‘Seemed’ is the right word. He never had much respect for anybody, and now he can show how he really feels.”
“So maybe that’s why I don’t trust him.”
“Trust comes from being able to predict. I can predict him, so I can trust him. Because I know how he will react, I can control him. Besides, there is a need for him. Can you think of anybody else who could lead the away teams?”
I tried to think of somebody but couldn’t.
“What he’s doing is important, essential, for the survival of the neighborhood.”
“We can survive without him,” I argued.
“He’s doing a vital job. As long as he’s directed, controlled, and supervised he is an asset. In times like this, we need people like him.”
“People like him? How about people like you?”
“And like me. I know him because I’ve been him.”
“And you were needed before for things that needed to be done?” I asked.
“They were done,” he said matter-of-factly.
“I just don’t know what he’s capable of doing,” I said. “And I don’t mean that in a good way.”
“He’s capable of doing almost anything. And I mean that in both a good and bad way.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“He’s the sort of person you’d rather
aim
than have aimed at you. In 400 BC the Chinese general Sun-tzu said, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”
We got hit by a sudden burst of side wind. The plane bucked and I saw Herb stiffen up beside me and dig his fingers into the seat. He was so good at hiding his emotions that I’d forgotten he was afraid of heights.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“Not your fault.”
“Back to what you mentioned. Are you saying Brett is an enemy?”
“Not an enemy and not a friend. I’m not sure Brett has friends.”
“He’s friendly with a couple of the guys.”
“Friendly isn’t the same as having a friend. I can be friendly to people I despise if it serves a purpose. Brett is an asset to be used to help all of us.”
“Were you used?” I blurted out before I thought better.
“I was almost used up.” He turned to me. “When we get there I want you to land right on Burnham, by the gate.”
“Roger, that. I’ll put it— Whoa! Do you see that?” I asked.
“See what?” Herb asked. There was alarm in his voice.
“There on the horizon, it’s not much more than a dot, but it looks like a plane.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“In that case follow it,” Herb said.
“Really? What about the meeting?”
“This is more important. How fast can this thing go?” Herb asked.
“Not fast enough to catch anything else except another ultralight.”
“Maybe that’s what it is. Try,” Herb said. “Open it up.”
I opened the throttle and pushed forward on the stick at the same time, nosing us into a descent to use gravity to increase our air speed. It responded quickly.
“I still don’t see anything,” Herb said.
“It’s about twenty degrees above the horizon, at ten o’clock, moving north to south.”
“You’ve got younger eyes. I can’t see anything, but as long as you can see it … What do you think it is?”
“It’s small and can’t be too complicated. I don’t think I’d be able to see it if it was an ultralight. Maybe it’s the Cessna. That’s the only thing we’ve seen in the air since this all happened.”
We passed over the top of Olde Burnham. They’d been expecting us so probably were surprised when we didn’t stop and went shooting by. We were so low that there was no question that they could see us, because we could see them clear enough—not just houses and cars but people on the streets.
They’d been following our lead, and more and more of their yards were being put into cultivation, a couple of greenhouses were being built, and in the center of the development a well was being dug—I could see the pile of freshly excavated soil. People waved as we passed, and I waved back.
I focused again on what was in front of me. Now, where was that plane? I did a quick scan of the horizon and couldn’t pick it up immediately. Then I saw it, still moving from the north toward the south. It was going to cross our path but way, way in the distance. I couldn’t even guess how far ahead—that depended on its height, its speed, and the course it had plotted.
“How far have you gone in this direction before?” Herb asked.
“I’ve gone to the edge of the city and then south from there and down to the lake.”
“Perhaps since we’re racing along in this direction we should go right into the city.”
“Really?”
“We have our body armor, weapons, and more than enough fuel. It’s well within your range, isn’t it?”
“We could do five round-trips to the city.”
The dot on the horizon wasn’t getting any bigger, but it didn’t seem to be getting any smaller. I knew that the Cessna had a low stall speed. If he wanted to save fuel or was scouting the ground he could have been deliberately cruising just above that speed—which was a lot slower than my top speed.
I followed the path of the plane with one eye and kept a second on our route. We were less than a hundred feet in elevation, with Burnham just below us. There were still abandoned cars on the pavement and people moving between them, walking, carrying water, pushing carts, or pulling wagons. One of the wagons was being pulled by a horse. All of the people below looked up; some stopped walking and waved. I could see that many of them were carrying weapons. There was an occasional vehicle moving along beneath us.
We passed over a stretch of parkland that formed the rough dividing line between the suburbs and the city. Here was a big expanse of open land that could have been used to grow food, but nothing was being grown. I guess unless you could defend it there was no point in growing it.
In the far, far distance were the office towers of the downtown core, so tall that they were visible even from this distance. Closer now were the houses, apartments, and smaller office buildings that seemed to occupy every inch of the ground. Numerous blackened buildings—houses and apartments—dotted the landscape. I was close enough to the ground to see the shattered windows of stores, the vandalized cars, all sorts of destruction.
Here, too, was no sign of any cultivation. I didn’t know how many people were still down there, but none of them seemed to be trying to grow food. If communities were coming together, they weren’t visible from the air.
The airplane ahead was descending, getting lower and lower. That was why it wasn’t moving that fast—it was coming in for a landing. I knew the city well enough to know that there was no airport downtown, so I had to assume that the Cessna was doing what I’d been doing, using a stretch of road as a runway.
As it continued to descend I started to gain elevation to keep it in sight. That wouldn’t last much longer. It was definitely landing. If I could mark the spot where it set down and continued in that direction, I could pass right over. Even if I couldn’t immediately see the plane, I couldn’t miss a runway from this height, whether it was a dirt strip or, more likely, a road. Who knows? I thought. Maybe I could even set down and we could— No, I didn’t need Herb to tell me we weren’t going to do that. It would be far too dangerous to land not knowing who the people were.
But once I knew where it was we could always go back, drop a message, establish communication the way we had with Olde Burnham. That had worked out well, so we could hope that this could work out, too. It would be great to have another pilot on our side, not to be alone and vulnerable in the air.
“I’ve lost it,” I said as the plane dropped below the horizon. “I’m going to aim for the last spot I saw it go down.”
I adjusted course, dead-reckoning to a location I thought was about five miles east and a mile south of our present location.
“I’m disappointed in what I see,” Herb said. “I thought there would be more, and instead there’s much less. I’m not sure how people are able to survive down there.”
“How many people do you think are still living in the city?”
“It would have been almost a quarter of a million people before this happened. Now it might only be thirty or forty thousand.”
“That few?”
“Possibly even less. But unless there’s more than that here, I just don’t see enough development to support ongoing survival.”
“I’ve noticed that, too. Nobody seems to be growing anything. Where did all the people go?” I asked.
“You’ve seen them stream by our walls, migrating out of the city,” Herb said. “You’ve also seen the bodies. The death rate has undoubtedly continued to soar.”
I couldn’t help but think how we’d managed to escape that in the neighborhood. There had been three deaths: one on the wall—that first shooting—and two from natural causes, a man who’d had a heart attack, and an elderly woman.
“Up ahead, do you see it?” Herb asked.
I did. There was a long, wide stretch of pavement and on it was an airplane. It was a shiny white Cessna. It looked like the one I’d seen overhead before.
“We found it … and more.”
All along both sides of the pavement were vehicles—trucks and cars—and people, lots and lots of people. The place looked like an industrial compound surrounded by a high metal fence, and it seemed like a whole army of—
I saw the flash of a muzzle and then felt a bullet rip into the wing above my head.
“Turn!” Herb yelled.
Before the word had escaped his lips I’d already started to bank sharply to the right. I heard another bullet whiz by my head and I pushed down on the stick, dropping behind the row of stores that lined the street. I was so low I was practically skimming along the asphalt.
“They shot at us! Why would they shoot at us?” I screamed.
“Just stay focused, stay calm. We have to get away.”
“We’re safe now—they can’t even see us,” I said.
“What if they send the plane back up to get us?” Herb asked.
“It’s a Cessna, not a fighter jet.”
“Do you think we’re the only ones who carry a rifle?” Herb asked.
I hadn’t even thought of that. I pulled up enough to be above the level of the rooftops but not high enough to be visible. If that plane was coming after us I couldn’t outrun it, but I could try to hide among the buildings.
Quickly I had to figure this out. The Cessna had landed coming from the north. If it was going to take off they’d have to taxi it around and aim back into the wind, taking off to the north. I banked to the south, putting more space between us and where it was going to have to make its turn. How long would it take to get it back into the air? Probably the pilot had already left, so they’d have to scramble him back into the cockpit. If the plane had been out for a while they’d have to refuel, and even if they didn’t have to refuel I’d still have a good five minutes before it could get to where I was now. I pressed against the throttle, trying to eke a little more speed out of the engine.
I caught sight of Herb looking backward.
“Do you see anything?”
“Nothing. Not yet anyway. How much faster is the Cessna than we are?”
“At least twice as fast.”
“What’s its range? How far can it fly?”
“With a full tank it can go three times as far as my ultralight.”
“What can you do better?” Herb asked.
“Not much. It can carry more people and more cargo, can handle more g-force, has a much higher ceiling, and can go up in weather that would keep me on the ground.”
“There must be some advantage.”
“Because I’m so much slower, I can make tighter turns.”
“So you’re more maneuverable.”
“I guess so, and my stall speed is much slower.”
“Explain that to me. Quick,” Herb said.
“I can go slower without stalling out, without crashing.”
“Interesting. So the Cessna is much faster, but it can’t go as slow. That could be an advantage.”
I didn’t see how going slower was much of an advantage.
“What else?” Herb asked.
“I can also land or take off on a much shorter strip.”
“Again an advantage, but right now our best advantage is probably not being seen. Can you take us down even lower?”
“I could, but I think the best thing to do is take evasive action—and I need to be higher than the houses for that.”
“Do whatever you feel is best. You’re the captain.”
I banked us sharply to the west. I was going to make a big looping sweep and come back toward the neighborhood from the west. I had enough fuel.
I glanced over at Herb. He was looking up at the wing, and I noticed what he was doing. He had his finger in a hole in the wing, the bullet hole.
“That is a really big hole,” I said.
“It was a large bullet. I think it came from a fifty-caliber rifle.”
“That is big … bigger than anything we have.”
“I have two rifles that match that caliber.”
“Did you pick those up at the shopping mall?”
“They’re from my personal collection. I have a few interesting weapons in my basement, including some grenades.”
“Where did you get grenades?”
“I have—I
had
—certain connections. I just wish I had utilized those connections more. Those weapons I saw on the ground in that brief pass looked to be military grade,” Herb said.
“I didn’t see much except men and vehicles.”
“Including two armored vehicles, and lots of weapons. Obviously they have large-caliber firearms. I wonder if they have rocket launchers.”
“Like what was used to destroy the police station?” I asked.
“Exactly. I didn’t see any, but they had some heavy-duty equipment.”
“Where would they get stuff like that?”
“I guess they have their connections, too. The army has weaponry like that, and I’m sure they weren’t able to keep custody and control over all of their equipment. Or who knows? They could be members of the armed forces who’ve gone rogue.”