Alan Foster: Cyber Way

A blast of wind and rain drove the skycutter sideways. The pilot fought for control, cursing the storm and Ooljee in equal measure. He didn’t ask questions, because he couldn’t spare the time.

Moody clung to whatever part of the cabin was fastened down. Despite her harness, Samantha Grayhills kept bouncing into him, a sensation he would have enjoyed at any other time. From his seat alongside the pilot, Ooljee leaned forward and tried to see through the horizontal weather.

Maybe while trying to track the barometer, fight the storm, and weather the up- and down-drafts, the pilot took his eyes off his radar for an instant. Or perhaps it was because they seemed to be flying one foot back for every two they advanced. In any event he suddenly let out a yell and wrenched the wheel hard over as the butte loomed in front of them.

The skycutter slued sideways. A coarse grinding groan came from its belly as they struck, bouncing once. The pilot tried to shift the rotor to hover, but it was too late. Wind and pressure finished what the initial impact had begun.

The carbon-fiber composite blades splintered like lengths of frozen carpet. One shattered against the Flex’s armor glass inches from Moody’s face. Only the fact that they were already on the ground saved them. That, and the skill of their angry pilot. In the vids Moody had seen, aircraft crashes always went on and on, long minutes of metal screeching against pavement or stone. In reality, only seconds elapsed between the first contact with the ground and total cessation of movement.

He slipped free of his harness and helped Grayhills extricate herself from her own. “You okay?”

“No, I am not okay. My neck is killing me and my chest feels like someone’s been using it for an anvil. But I don’t think anything’s broken.”

Ooljee was kicking open the door on his side. Moody’s gaze shifted to the pilot, who sat slumped in his seat, his head lolling.

“Harness did not keep him from denting the console.” The sergeant reached over and put a hand on the pilot’s chest, inside his jacket. “He will be okay. But he’ll feel otherwise when he wakes up.” A weight lifted from Moody’s guts. He had a fondness for the young and reckless.

The door banged open to admit a blast of damp, cold air. This ain’t no place for a po’ country boy from the South, Moody told himself dourly as the wind whipped at the bare flesh of his face, licking him like a curious carnivore. “We must be close,” Ooljee announced.

“Why?”

The sergeant turned to face his partner. “Because I was looking at the barometer just before we hit, and I don’t think it could have gone any lower. So we must be near the center of the storm.”

“We don’t gotta be near anything,” Moody groused, in no mood to be told how things had to be. “If it was still dropping, then we were heading the right way when we went down, but that doesn’t mean we’re there yet.” He indicated the unconscious pilot. “What about him?” Ooljee considered. “When he wakes up and sees that we have gone, he will do one of two things. Either he will try and come after us, which would be really stupid, or else he will stay with his craft and wait for the storm to die down and searchers to home in on the emergency beacon.”

“Wish we had that choice.” Moody leaned toward the doorway, halted when he sensed Grayhills right behind him. “Where d’you think y’all are going?”

She made a face at him. “I haven’t got time for any of that I’m-police-and-you’re-civilian-so-this-doesn’t-con-cern-you kind of thing.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t make you stay here?”

Bits of sleet clung to the long black strands of her hair like melting pearls. Bright eyes gazed evenly back into his own.

“Because I’m smarter than you, and that might prove useful.”

The detective looked up at his partner. “What do y’all think, Paul? Is she smarter than me?”

“Oh, I do not think there is any doubt about it,” the sergeant replied with a straight face. “Though whether that rates her coming with us is another matter. However, I do not want to debate the point. She is probably smarter than me also, so we would end up both losing the argument and wasting time.”

They exited the downed aircraft, Moody wishing for a goose-down parka instead of the light-duty jacket he was wearing. Ooljee oriented himself and pointed. They headed west.

Moody noted that Grayhills was following close on his heels, using his bulk as a shield against the wind and sleet. “Don’t y’all know that it’s dangerous to follow a bear into the woods?”

“Not so long as you have a pretty good idea what he’s going to do there.” She grinned up at him, her cheeks rosy from the cold.

Was it intellectual curiosity that induced her to come along, Moody wondered, or like so many of the scientifically minded was she simply ignorant of the realities of real-life violence? As a percentage of the total population, scientists were the victims of muggings far out of proportion to their numbers.

Notwithstanding the wind and cold, he was glad to be out of the skycutter. Better to walk. He suspected his opinion might change as the chill penetrated his light clothing. But staying in the downed Flex was an option neither he nor Ooljee had considered. They had to find and stop Gaggii as quickly as possible. That didn’t allow for squatting around waiting to be rescued.

“Gonna have a helluva time finding anything in this,” he announced to no one in particular as he plowed forward, keeping his head down and blinking moisture from his eyes. At least, he thought with some amusement, Grayhills was having an easier time following him than he was keeping up with Ooljee.

The sergeant called back from just ahead. “I think it is letting up!” The wind did seem to be dying a little, Moody thought. Sleet became rain, then mere drizzle. Maybe the ridiculous storm was moving on.

Abruptly—too abruptly—the drizzle gave way to a light mist. Then even that ceased.

He found himself standing on the edge of a rocky mesa, gazing down into a shallow canyon. A narrow stream meandered through this crack in the Earth’s surface, running water over the millennia having etched away a frame larger than itself. The rim on the far side of the canyon was higher than the one on which they stood.

Moody turned a slow circle. Dark fog and rain hung like a curtain behind them, almost within touching distance. A circular rampart of cloud enclosed this piece of plateau, reaching toward the heavens. It was thus everywhere he looked. From within the clouds the wind called ceaselessly, but where they stood it was calm and warm.

“Haal hoodzaal ” Ooljee muttered. “What is going on here?”

“Leave it to a Florida boy to explain, though if I’d been offered my druthers I’d have picked something else to remind me of home.” Moody kicked a rock over the edge, watched it tumble down the steep slope. “We’re in the eye.”

Grayhills stared at the towering clouds circulating about them. “Can’t be. It’s too small. The whole storm is too small.”

“So it’s small. It’s still a damn hurricane.”

“You cannot have a damn hurricane here.” Ooljee reacted as if his denial might itself be enough to banish the outrageousness. “Hurricanes arise in the tropics. This is Northern Arizona, for God’s sake.”

“Sorry, but there’s not much question about it. Classic form, down-sized. A mini-hurricane.” Moody was unperturbed by his partner’s objections. The storm was just sitting there, hovering above the little canyon with its seasonal stream, not moving at all, content to spin in place.

“More like a micro-hurricane.” An occasional stray breeze ruffled Grayhills’ hair. “What a meteorologist wouldn’t give to be here to study the dynamics.”