Authors: Christopher McKitterick
“
He finally found an entranceway, just as another man, Liu Miru, had before them. So the Captain went inside, where he
. . .
found Miru. And then he kind of disappeared. Janus came later, I guess.” Pehr began to worry—
What happened to Janus? This is absurd to even wonder, but
. . .
where had Eyes sent her?
“
You talked with Project Hikosen Director Miru?” the girl asked, excitedly. She hurried to walk on his left now, the boy on his right. “What has he learned about the artifact?”
Pehr smiled. “Well, yes; the Captain and Miru
. . .
talked.” He dearly wished the memory were true. If it were, he had finally experienced friendship, and that beyond anything he had ever imagined.
“
What did you learn?” the girl asked.
“
Listen, I’m—”
But Pehr forgot what he was about to say when an EConautics Stratofighter lit up its engines in jet mode, filling the city with a mechanical scream.
“
What’s going on?” he asked. The boy laughed hard, holding his stomach as Pehr shielded his eyes with a forearm and backed away from the jet downwash.
“
You tell me,” Jonathan said, again wearing that blasted smirk.
“
An EarthCo warcraft is illegally landing, under its own power, in downtown Minneapolis,” Pehr said.
He shook his head, transfixed upon the trio of blue flames raging from the engines bulging along the sides of the white, dolphin-shaped fighter. His estimate of whoever was yanking his strings grew immensely. Only a few people in the world could get away with something as dangerous as this; everyone else had to obey the laws: Except in case of emergency, all spacecraft had to lock onto maglev channels and shut down engines. Local air-traffic control AIs even kept engines from firing in emergencies when a craft was so low as to damage property or people. They were instead dragged—even with the slipperiest, weakest grasp—away from populated areas as quickly as possible, usually resulting in vehicular demolition during the move or when the craft hit the ground in a safe zone.
The Stratofighter rumbled and popped as its engines slowed to shutdown. The turbines continued whining while Jonathan asked Pehr a question via headfeed; any intheflesh sound was obliterated by the noise only ten meters away.
“
Can you fly that?” the boy asked.
“
I’m just an actor playing Pehr Jackson. I can’t—”
“
Captain Jackson isn’t a retro softhead like you,” Jonathan said with a sneer.
“
Okay, you want to see if I can fly this machine, eh?” Pehr said, grabbing the boy just above the elbow and leading him toward the Stratofighter. His arm was thin and hard. “All right. You’ll accompany me, of course.”
“
Of course,” Jonathan answered, his face like stone. He shook his arm free.
The Stratofighter stood twelve meters on its tripod landing gear above the smoking asphalt street on, smooth-sided, as sharp-nosed as an arrowhead, darkened by heat at the leading edges of the stubby wings and along the engine shrouds. A streetlight shone through the cockpit canopy, revealing that no one had piloted the craft down. Overhead, a Coca-Cola adblimp pulsed with red and yellow light as it floated within the valley of skyscrapers, transforming the Stratofighter’s white hull into an animated toy, shadows moving along its sleek skin. It stank of hot oil, scorched heatshielding, burned alcohol, warm plastic and metals. The snub ends of lasers, pulseguns, and EMMAs drew a ring around the fuselage just ahead of the cockpit.
Beautiful
, Pehr thought. Adrenaline surged into his blood. A few spectators began to appear from alleys and the shells of wrecked cars.
He tried to think how to board such a vehicle. Any pleasure he had just experienced sagged instantly.
What a damned fool they’re making of me. I don’t even know how to open the blasted door!
But then, at his most frustrated, the answer simply floated free into the open of his mind. He knew exactly how to access the craft’s server and log in using his EConautics credentials. He knew how to gain authorization for entry, for launch, for everything. He pictured in his mind—flawlessly, no detail spared—the ship’s three-axis control-panel landscape overlay. He knew how to sort through the pilot files and locate various pre-programmed flight plans and battle sequences. He knew how to manually override the autopilot and fly by direct feedlink. He even knew how to locate secret passwords, a necessary skill for an EConaut to possess when he might need to use an unfamiliar craft during battle conditions and didn’t have time to seek Wing Boss authorization.
All this information flooded into his mind as if it had been penned in there all along, as if it were experience and not remnants from a show or dream. So he tested himself.
First: Call up ship server. A second later, dozens of gauges, readouts, control systems, and files flashed to life around Pehr, overlaying the smoking city street in a long, flat oval at chest-level.
“
Did you do that?” the boy asked. Pehr didn’t answer.
The kid’s able to sneak into my head
, he thought. No matter.
A hatch cracked open just above the fuel tanks, ten meters up, and a nearly weightless rope-ladder of malvar fiber unfurled, rebounding a few times until its elasticity settled down. He started climbing.
“
Are you two coming?” he asked. “Intheflesh, Jonathan?” The old thrill rose in him, and so good did it feel that he hadn’t the heart to remind himself any “old” sensation was probably the product of feed.
Probably
, he thought.
I just used the word probably
.
“
Yeah,” Jonathan said. “I’m not afraid of you, not with the Brain on my side.”
Pehr smiled to himself. He crawled in through the tight hatchway, pulling his body past the circular opening hand-over-hand using the shockplas rungs that lined the airlock. He waited in the space for the boy to join him—and the girl’s 3VRD—then wound up the ladder and ordered the hatch shut. A dull red light flicked on. Pehr cast a brief glance at Jonathan, who seemed to crouch against the wall, every muscle in his face clenched and his body nearly trembling with the effort to stand still. Pehr began to wonder who this kid was, how he had gotten to be such a frightened creature, and what he was gaining personally out of this business.
The airlock ventilators whirred momentarily, sensing no pressure differential, then the inner door opened. Pehr led the way into the confined central staircase which spiraled up steps made of the same ultralight, flexible material as the ladder—three meters from lock to cockpit. A dim yellow lumnistrip was set into the handrail, lighting the chamber and defining a spiral line as if it were rifling in a snub barrel. They passed several closed panels which, Pehr knew, housed fuseblocks, manual switches, spare cards, computer access keyboards; some allowed access to weapons systems or ammunition storage; some were empty stowage compartments. Standard Stratofighter configuration. Their feet fell as silently as breaths on the steps.
Curious, Pehr ran a user check. He stumbled when he found out this craft was registered to a Wing Sub-Boss, one Commodore Galette.
So EConautics is in on this scheme
, he thought.
Pehr reached the top of the stair and located the second password needed to enter the cockpit: “Coulant.” He squeezed inside and made way for Jonathan. The two-seat cabin was decorated mostly in multicolored wiring and black vinyl. Equipment cases, electronics access ports, and manual gauges crammed the space. Info-icons filled the air like a swarm of weightless marbles. A blue-lacquered medallion bearing the silver relief of a gibbous Earth and stars glinted as it swung from side to side on a silk ribbon. Plastic mesh upholstered the two seats, lightweight and breathable. A menagerie of city lights—adblimps, wall-mounted ads, streetlights—blinked and glared through the ultraglas. When the boy sat on his seat and the girl’s 3VRD stood between them, Pehr slapped the cockpit hatch shut—which made the boy jump—and got his bearings about the controls landscape-overlay.
“
Normally, we’d suit up now,” Pehr said to Jonathan while manually checking the systems. “But it seems the owner of this can left his suits at the cleaner.” He chuckled lightly while laying his ephemeral fingers on the virtual controls in a fashion that felt almost instinctive.
“
You’re not strapped in properly,” Pehr said, noting the boy’s loose belts.
“
Would you please get out of the way,” he told the girl. She shrunk to pixie-size and stood on a scratched black fivesen transmitter box. Pehr shook his head, smiling. He freed himself and adjusted the other, then belted himself back in.
Then he encountered his first problem. Every time Pehr tried to virtually pull a wafer out of its slot, his ephemeral fingers slipped and a two-tone note sounded.
“
Why can’t I run a programmed flight sequence?” he asked without looking at his companion—or tormentor; the future would reveal which.
“
I told Nooa to lock you out,” Jonathan answered. “This’ll prove if you’re really Captain Jackson.”
Pehr drew a deep breath and held it for a moment, composing himself as if to deliver a line. He noticed a crowd was gathering outside the craft but couldn’t tell how many were intheflesh and how many were 3VRD.
“
Captain Jackson,” Pehr began, “after he attained the rank of Captain, hardly ever piloted by himself. I know that much.” His resource of patience was running low.
“
So this will prove who you are without a doubt, won’t it?” The boy’s words sounded mocking, but his tone was strangely flat. Pehr heard a faint crash and rumble—modern music?—accompany everything Jonathan said.
“
They, whoever ‘they’ are, wouldn’t have stuck useless feed like how to pilot a spaceship in when they brainwashed you, right?” The boy wouldn’t shut up.
“
Okay,” Pehr said. “Okay. You want to die? I do—what the hell’s left on this miserable world, anyway?” He stared at the crowd, which was now beginning to include cops. An object rang against the hull.
“
EarthCo Stratofighter EEJ-008 ready for takeoff,” he commed to whomever might be listening.
“
Captain Jackson,” the pixie said, “we are currently operating under full blockout. No one is aware of us, nor our feed. I did not authorize this expedition, but Jonathan thought it somehow necessary, so I condescended to his wishes and chose a craft which is used only for exhibition. It is best to have no—”
“
Shit,” Pehr swore under his breath.
Fine, this is what you’re gonna get
.
He tapped a little black EConaut-only back-door icon, which supplied him with the backup password; this allowed him to initiate launch sequencing. He noticed that the fuel tank was at 67%—not promising unless they refueled in space. A Stratofighter was designed to be fueled mid-mission, and taking off with less than 90% was a way to assure the craft would stay in orbit or land only in flamer-mode until the maglev tunnels grabbed hold.
“
Get the fuck out of the downwash!” he commed on a general BW to which the people outside were certainly tuned. A few began to back away. When one man turned and ran, the milling crowd transformed into a stampede that thinned as each ran his or her separate way. Jonathan laughed. Soon the street was as empty as always. Only one face peered from around the brick facade of a building half a block away.
“
Idiots,” the boy mumbled.
Pehr wondered on that for a moment, then realized:
Even
the virtual people had run
. “Idiots,” he agreed.
Pumps growled to life far below, switches fired, the engine turbines shrieked up the harmonic scale, then fuel ignited and something heavy lay upon Pehr’s chest. Acceleration dragged a smile long across his face—a smile he hadn’t realized had formed. Out of the corners of his eyes, he watched the city shrink yet broaden as it fell away; the craft rose along a steep arc toward the freedom of space. He sighed as he realized that he hadn’t turned the vessel into a ball of fire. The Minneapolis/St. Paul sprawl became little more than a toylike collection of model buildings and pretty lights that stretched to the horizons in every direction. Farther, and Pehr could see the great dark area of Lake Superior—even that sprinkled with lights—like a void within a nearly continuous patchwork of glitter.
The engines clanged in the high stratosphere as the turbines flipped and changed the combustion chambers to rockets. He declined to call up maglev assist, which would have hurled them along a tunnel of electromagnetic accelerators in almost any direction at almost any velocity they chose. Right after the clang, a new set of pumps began feeding oxygen to the jets-cum-rockets. Pehr realized that he knew what every sound meant, and this knowledge gave him confidence that each next order he gave the ship would be correct. Little by little, he began to assume an identity. At least he’d act as if he had once been Captain Jackson, EConaut extraordinaire.
Maybe, if I act well enough, I can be him again
. . . .