Anthology - From the Street

Pulling up on a virtual flight stick, I cut loose on the throttle. The aircraft pointed upwards at an angle and roared as the afterburners kicked in. We were out of there at the crack of a whip as the t-bird broke the sound barrier, leaving the real birds spinning in our vapor trails.

"Frag!" I cursed, as the flashlight slipped from my headband and clattered on the t-bird's hull. I got up from where I was kneeling over the circuit box and tried to stretch the kinks out of my back. Massaging my neck, I looked up into the starry night sky.

The sonic boom caused by our getaway undoubtedly set off a number of ground sensors, especially considering how close we were to the Tir Tairngire border. So I found a remote valley a few dozen kilometers northeast in Salish territory to set down, cool our heels, and make some necessary repairs.

I picked up my jacket from where it was lying and put it back on to ward off the night chill. As I bent down to pick up the flashlight, I heard the faint thumping of helicopter blades in the distance. Switching on the Low-Light amplifiers in my cybereyes, I scanned the surrounding slopes and spotted Phil clambering down from his vantage point on the hillside.

"See anything?" I asked.

"Naw, we're clear," Phil replied as he approached. "The only thing was that patrol copter you heard, and it was heading away from us. We should be alone for at least a few hours."

"Good. Get up here and help me pull out this LRU." I held out a hand to help Phil up onto the canard. Seeing the circuit box I had been struggling with, Phil got down to look. Finding a handhold, he reached in and pulled it out a little more. Seeing where the box had caught on a jagged edge, I put the heel of my boot on it and kicked. Between the two of us we managed to wriggle the box out, albeit with much struggle and profanity.

With the circuit box out, it was much easier to repair the damaged sections I had been trying to fix. Phil stood over to watch as I knelt down to attend to the box. "How long d'ya think this'll take, Jo-girl?"

"Shouldn't be more than a few minutes, now that the box is out," I guessed.

Phil walked off and plopped down to sit on top of the turret. His head hung in defeat. "I'm sure Johnny's already halfway to Denver by now with our commission."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

The ork raised his head to look at me. "Why not?"

"I logged onto Shadowland after we landed," I replied. "Remember that Tir raid Clio mentioned? Well, whoever called it in got it wrong. Someone else posted later with a correction; it was actually a cross-border raid into Salish territory near Boise, and that lies smack dab in the middle of the new route."

"He could just find a new route," Phil countered.

"Not after all that noise we made. Every Salish and Tir patrol within a hundred kilometers of Boise has got to be on alert. Lucky we headed in the opposite direction." I closed the lid on the circuit box. It wasn't the best of patch-ups, but it should at least hold up to Denver (assuming we made it that far, of course).

I waved my gunner over to help me set the circuit box back in place. It was a lot easier to put back in than it was to take out. Phil placed a steel plate over the hole and mumbled a few words under his breath. The plate momentarily glowed red as the edges softened and melded with the rest of the armor. The ork stood up and admired his handiwork. "Kinda sloppy, but it should hold up."

I picked up a rag to wipe my hands clean. "Now all we have to do is find a needle in a thousand kilometer haystack."

"You sure about this, Phil?"

"Trust me, Jo-girl, I know just about all of Johnny's hideaways," reassured Phil. "If you think Johnny went this way to beat the heat, then this hideout is the perfect spot."

"No, I didn't mean that," I clarified. "I was asking, are you sure he's not going to spot us this way?"

The ork burst out laughing into the intercom. "Not unless he Awakened in the past couple of hours. As long as we find him before sunrise, this sky spirit will keep anyone from finding us."

By now I knew well enough to take magicians for their word, but I still couldn't help having doubts. After we had taken off Phil called up a nature spirit to mask our presence. Ever since then we'd been flying through cloud coverage that hadn't been around at all earlier this evening. We even flew over a ground patrol once by accident, and they didn't even blink.

I pulled out of full immersion back into minimal simsense. Although the same darkened cabin surrounded my view, it was eerily silent. I partially unbuckled my helmet, and all I could hear was the wind whistling around us as we passed.

As I buckled up the flight helmet again, I called up the navigational map, which materialized in my simsense-enhanced view as a separate window. The view outside was dimmer, because we were flying on passive sensors, to better improve our odds of sneaking up unnoticed.

As we got within a few kilometers, I eased back on the throttle and let out the flaps. I didn't so much plan on landing, but more like coasting to a rest. The stall warning came on as we approached the last hill, bleeping that speed was dangerously low. I bent back slightly, and the t-bird's nose rose slightly. We touched ground on a grassy slope and began rolling uphill. As gravity sapped away the last bit of momentum, I swerved the t-bird to one side, to bring it perpendicular to the incline. The t-bird finally came to rest on the reverse slope, just below the crest of the hilltop.

I unjacked quickly and squirreled up and out the hatchway. Pulling myself out of the hatch, I ripped off my flight helmet and quietly slid down the hull's forward slope, landing softly on the ground. As the ork jumped down, I withdrew my Predator. Phil held up his hand for me to wait, closed his eyes, and softly chanted under his breath. Although I saw nothing, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and sensed a presence around us. Next thing I knew, I found myself behind a large bush that I didn't remember being there before. The ork nodded and hefted his shotgun, indicating me to proceed.

Phil and I bounded over the top of the hill and descended down into the valley. On the other side was a simple wood cabin next to a dirt trail, possibly an old ranger station abandoned from disuse. Although I couldn't spot Johnny's t-bird, I could see lights on inside the cabin. We quietly made our way down over to one side of the cabin. Thanks to whatever mojo Phil conjured up, we always seemed to find ourselves behind cover, even when we crossed the trail, and the ground was unusually free from noisemaking debris. Circling around the cabin corner, I made my way over to one of the windows and peered inside.

Clio was impatiently pacing back and forth across the cabin floor. She was showing far more emotion than I'd ever seen before. "How much longer do we have to wait here?"

Johnny's back was to the windows, but his slumped shoulders pretty much indicated his mood. "Not for a couple more hours, at least. There's too much activity for us to be going anywhere right now."

Clio pounded her fist on the table in frustration. "That's too long! We need to get to San Francisco by dawn."

Johnny turned his head to look at Clio. My God, he was a wreck. "Then we shouldn't have betrayed Phil like that. If we had him on overwatch we'd be there by now."

Clio turned to face Johnny. "Get a grip on yourself. I know Phil was your longtime partner, but my people will find a better replacement. We'll help you out, but you must uphold your end of the bargain."

Clio plopped into a chair in the corner. "At least we got rid of that slitch Cruise. She was starting to figure out too much. Maybe I miscalculated, and she was the mole all along."