Summer Lane - State of Rebellion

I sit on the edge of the meadow and stare at the sky. The stars are dazzling up here in the high mountains. The longer you gaze at them, the more it seems like you’re being sucked into space.

Do I go or do I stay? I think.

After the long meeting with Colonel Rivera, we drove him back to his convoy. Chris told him we’d link up with them in the valley in two days, at a meeting place the two of them determined at the edge of Fresno. Neither Dad nor I spoke during the hike back to camp. Chris didn’t say anything, either. We’d all made our decisions. The military finally came. Our chance to get our hands on quality weapons, ammunition, food, vehicles and shelter was here.

What more was there to say?

“So do I go or do I stay?” I mutter. “I don’t know.”

“I know.”

I jump, startled. Manny strolls onto the meadow off the road, and for the first time I notice that he has a limp. Not a big limp, but enough to make it appear that he’s dragging his left leg behind him as he walks.

I snap, “What are you doing out here at night?”

“What are you doing out here at night?”

“I’m…thinking.”

“About leaving, it sounds like.” He adjusts his leather duster. “So what have you decided?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going. Hell, this is what I’ve been waiting for.”

“Everybody’s been waiting for this.”

He pops his flask out of his pocket, taking a quick swig.

“You know,” he says, looking up at the sky, “it all comes down to one thing.”

“What?”

“What’s more important to you: staying safe or staying fierce.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Let’s say you stay here,” he shrugs, walking off. Curious, I follow him, the cold breeze whipping my hair into tangles. “It’s pretty safe. Camp Freedom has been secure for months. It’s a nice community. Your chances of living here are pretty good at the moment.”

“But…?” I press.

“But where they really need us is down in the valley,” Manny continues. “We can’t hide in the mountains forever. Eventually, Omega will get wise and smoke us out. We have to keep them from getting to that point.” He stops at his battered biplane, lovingly running a hand over the faded blue stripe. “I’m going to help. What are you going to do?”

He climbs onto the wing of the plane, sitting down in the pilot’s seat.

“I want to do the right thing,” I say.

“Then do it.”

He flips a switch in the cockpit. A green glow lights his weathered face.

“It’s not that easy,” I say.

“Actually, it is.” He lazily pulls his flight cap and goggles out of a compartment in the cockpit. “You just do it.”

“Oh, yeah?” A small smile creeps across my face.

Just do it.

“Are you going to fly this thing right now?” I ask. “In the middle of the night?”

“What? Did you think I’m just taking a midnight stroll for the sake of star gazing?” He jerks his thumb behind him. “Get in.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t do heights.”

Manny raises his eyebrows at me.

“You do now.”

I look behind my shoulder, excitement zinging up my spine.

“Get in,” he says.

This could actually be fun.

I crawl into the single passenger seat, which is in front of the pilot’s seat. It’s silent, and if Manny isn’t supposed to be taking off at this hour of the night, nobody’s going to bother stopping him now. Manny flips another switch and I feel a current course through the small aircraft. The engine fires, cranks a couple of times, then roars to life in a cloud of blue smoke. The sound is deafening. The entire plane vibrates and shakes, literally rattling my teeth.

What am I doing ?

A pair of goggles is hanging from a knob in front of me. I grab them and put them on, twisting in my seat, grabbing the edge of the cockpit to keep my balance as I look at Manny. He’s got a huge smile on his face, the earflaps from his leather flying cap flailing wildly with each movement of the plane. He’s laughing.

Manny opens the throttle up and slews the plane around in a bouncy, dusty circle, pointing the nose of the plane down the long stretch of grass ahead. If anyone notices the loud noise of the engine, they don’t care. Manny going on a scouting mission is a common occurrence.

“Hang on to your hat!” Manny shouts.

“I’m not wearing…” I sigh. “Okay.”

I wonder how much Manny’s slow consumption of alcohol throughout the day is going to affect his piloting skills. Hopefully not that much. Because I would prefer to come back from this scouting mission alive.

The plane lurches forward, bouncing, shaking, gaining speed. The tail rises, dipping us forward. It feels like we’re going to flip over headfirst. I grit my teeth, staring at the wall of trees at the edge of the meadow. It’s getting closer. And those trees are big. I close my eyes, praying for Manny to pull through…or in this case, up . A buoyant feeling rises in the pit of my stomach, the sensation of lifting into the air. The engine races, red sparks spitting out of the exhaust. I open my eyes just in time to see the trees flash by below us, a cold wind whipping my hair in circles. An invisible force presses me back against the seat. The tips of the pine trees flit by.

We’re airborne!

I tilt my head back and look at the sky as we rise, the camp disappearing into darkness. There are no lights to give the location away from the air. The peaks of the high Sierras tower thousands of feet into the sky, miles high. They look ethereal, otherworldly. The vastness of the open space is overwhelming. I’ve never been on an airplane before. How many people can say they took their first flight in a biplane in the mountains right smack in the middle of a post-apocalyptic warzone?

“How do you land this thing if there are no lights?” I ask. I have to yell to be heard above the wind resistance and the engine noise.

“When we get back, they’ll have lights for us,” Manny replies.

“How?”

“Don’t worry about it, kid! Just enjoy the ride!”

I force myself to take another peek over the edge of the plane. What if the engine dies? What if Omega sees us? What was I thinking?

That you could have a little fun for once in your life.

“What are we looking for?” I yell, trying to distract myself from the height.

Manny bangs on the back of the seat. I see that he’s wearing flat headphones. Another set is hanging just in front of me, right below my knee. I grab a pair and snap them on, instantly tuning into Manny’s chuckling, excited voice.

“What are we looking for?” I repeat.

“Anything we can find!” he replies, right over the crackle of the radio static. “Troop movements, suspicious lights, anything out of the ordinary that warrants our attention.”

After a few minutes I settle into my seat and loosen my hold on the side of the cockpit. The little biplane totters and rumbles through the air. I glance behind me. Manny’s hair is streaming around his face, right along with the comical earflaps. He looks halfway insane, but I realize something now: this is where Manny is most comfortable. Up in the air. Away from the war.

There’s nothing up here that can hurt us, after all.

Right?

“See that speck of clearing down to the right?” he yells.

“Yeah! What is it?”

“It’s a lake. Or what’s left of it.” The plane slowly veers right over the clearing, a dark, smooth smudge in the middle of a sea of trees. “It was a campground, just like Camp Freedom. Only this one was abandoned and unfortified. The lake is just a cesspool now.”