Patrick Lee: Ghost Country

Two minutes, thirty seconds.

Travis was standing upright, holding onto the doorway in the forward bulkhead just before the flight deck. Other than himself, the only people aboard were the pilot and co-pilot. Behind Travis was the cavernous troop bay. Its long side walls were lined with bench seats made of steel tubing and canvas. The walls themselves were just the structural ribs of the fuselage and the metal outer skin. Hydraulic lines and wiring conduits ran everywhere. Harsh overhead fluorescent panels lit the space.

The co-pilot turned in his seat and shouted over the thrum of the rotors and the turbines driving them. "Our orders are pretty damn specific. In addition to the phrase haul ass being emphasized about a dozen times, here's how I understand it. We land in the biggest clearing toward the south end. We leave the ramp closed. We face forward and we don't pay any attention to you for the next two minutes."

"That'll work," Travis said.

"What the fuck do we do after that?"

"Whatever you want," Travis said. "I'll be gone by then."

The guy stared at him a few seconds longer, waiting for the rest of the joke. When it didn't come, he just shook his head and faced forward again. He mouthed something Travis didn't catch.

They passed over Fifth Avenue at a diagonal, still doing just under two hundred miles per hour. The pilot started cutting the altitude, even as he kept the forward speed maxed. Travis saw the clearing ahead, coming up very fast. They covered most of the remaining distance to it in just a few seconds.

"All right, hang on tight," the pilot shouted.

Travis gripped the doorway with his right hand. He held the cylinder tight against himself with his left. He saw the pilot pull back hard on the stick, but for the next half second nothing happened. Then the park and the skyline, visible ahead through the windscreen, dropped away sickeningly as the chopper leaned back into a steep tilt. Nothing through the windows but blue sky. In the same moment its massive tail swung around like a boom, and when Travis saw the park again it was turning like a schoolyard seen from a merry-go-round. He saw people below, running like hell to get clear as the chopper descended fast.

Just before touchdown Travis looked at his watch. One minute, forty seconds. P aige was still thinking about Bethany's question when the sound started up. A heavy bass vibration through the trees, like a bank of concert amplifiers playing no music, but simply cranked to full volume and humming. There was a rhythm to the sound, as well. A cycling throb. Like helicopter rotors.

Bethany flinched and turned where she sat, looking for the sound source along with her. It was almost impossible to get a fix on. It was deep and diffused and everywhere.

Then they heard a man shouting, from very far away.

Travis.

Shouting for them to answer.

And shouting for them to run. T ravis ran to get clear of the iris, not because he knew which direction to go, but just to get away from the turbine sound-he needed to listen for Paige and Bethany. He looked back once, and through the opening he saw the fluorescent-lit interior of the Sea Stallion. On this side, the iris was surrounded by the massive pines and hardwoods that'd long since filled in the clearing.

He stopped fifty yards south.

He shouted for Paige and Bethany again.

He listened.

Nothing.

Nothing he could hear over the chopper, anyway. It'd never occurred to him to have the pilots shut the damn thing down. He just hadn't thought of it, against the clamor of everything else he'd been focused on. No time for it now. He looked at his watch.

Fifty seconds left.

He shouted again.

A second later he heard them. Far ahead and to the right. He broke into a sprint, holding the cylinder tight and dodging side to side through the trees. Their voices sounded very far away. Maybe far enough that there was no real chance, even with them closing the distance toward him. He ignored the thought. It didn't serve any purpose. He simply ran.

An even less welcome thought followed: his math on the timing could be off. Maybe by as much as ten seconds. He'd tried to nail it down as accurately as possible, and where he'd been forced to round off, he'd done so conservatively. It was possible that he had a few more seconds than he thought-but he could just as easily have fewer.

He glanced down at the cylinder as he ran. Its final blue light stared back at him impassively.

He kept shouting.

He could hear their replies now even over his own running footsteps.

Closer.

But only a little.

Thirty seconds.

He sprinted faster. Felt his leg muscles burn with acid, and welcomed the pain.

He listened for Paige and Bethany, and realized he could hear more than their voices. He could hear their bodies crashing through the trees. They were closer than he'd imagined. Much closer. There was still time.

Then he broke through the interlaced boughs of a pair of pines and saw the real source of the crashing sound.

Not Paige and Bethany.

A clutch of white-tailed deer. Thirty or forty of them, streaming through the trees, two or three abreast. Spooked by what they'd never heard before: human voices. The animals crossed his path just ahead at a diagonal, damn near running him down. Two hundred pounds apiece and moving at thirty miles an hour. Blocking his way like a train thundering across a road.

"Fuck!" he screamed. He saw the nearest of the animals draw hard aside from him, the formation bulging away but not slowing or scattering.

The instant they'd passed he began to sprint again, but even as he did, he heard Paige calling, and the sound was still agonizingly faint and distant.

He looked at his watch.

Ten seconds.

He stopped running.

He stared down at the blue light again.

He'd decided hours earlier, before he'd even left Arica, what he would do if it came to this. If time were almost up, and there were no chance of saving Paige and Bethany. If all he could do was get himself back through the iris.

It'd been no choice at all. Not then and not now.

Travis opened his hand and let the cylinder fall to the soft earth at his feet. It rolled a few inches and stopped, with the blue light facing him.

He sat down and rested his arms across his knees.

Five seconds. P aige ran as hard as she could. Bethany kept up beside her. They ducked branches, shoved others aside, vaulted deadfalls.

It hardly entered Paige's mind to wonder what the hurry was. There was no room in her thoughts for anything but exhilaration. A wild, animal joy. She couldn't recall ever experiencing this sudden and steep a reversal of emotions. She ran. She didn't care why. Z ero seconds.

For the moment, the blue light stayed on.

Not surprising. Conservative estimates. It would die in the next few seconds.

Travis heard footsteps and small branches breaking. Paige and Bethany were still far away. Well over a minute out. He heard Paige call for him again. He didn't answer. Suddenly shouting felt like a lie. They'd find him soon enough. He'd explain.

At five seconds past zero the idea came to him.

It hit like a physical thing. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it hours earlier, along with all the other preparations.

He threw himself forward and scooped up the cylinder. He aimed it roughly level with the ground and jammed his finger against the on button. The iris appeared and he saw the sun-drenched leaves of thin forest undergrowth in the present day, and heard the whine of the Sea Stallion again, hundreds of feet away. In the same instant he pressed the delayed shutoff button. He watched the light cone brighten.

His gaze fell and locked onto the last blue light of the timing line. He was certain of one thing: if the cylinder died before it detached from the iris, the iris would die with it.