Eric Walters - The Rule of Three

“He’s right,” Howie said. “Somebody might figure if we have lights we have other things they might want, and, well, we could end up getting into fights instead of avoiding them.”

“Avoiding them would be best,” I said.

A sudden drop of water landed on my cheek. I looked up.

“It’s starting to rain,” Howie said. “That will keep things quiet as people look for shelter.”

“Thanks for the tour, Howie. We better get to shelter, too.”

“It’s just a sprinkle. We could keep walking,” Lori suggested.

“We can do that,” I said.

“Well, I hope you two enjoy your stroll,” Howie said. I heard him chuckling as we walked away. “My wife and I used to do a whole lot of strolling when we were your age.”

“Good night, Howie,” I said.

“That’s how it all started with me and my wife!” he called out.

“Good night, Howie!” I yelled out over my shoulder.

Lori giggled. “Funny, we haven’t even kissed and he already has us getting married.”

“I think he’s getting things a little out of order.”

“You’re right. Let’s put them in the right order.”

She stopped and turned, and we kissed. I was kissing Lori! How long had I thought, dreamed, and fantasized about this happening?

“There,” she said.

“I guess the first step is finished.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” she questioned.

“No, of course not! I was just—”

She started laughing. “Don’t worry—I don’t expect you to have to marry me because we kissed.” She reached up and kissed me again.

We started walking home, hand in hand, paralleling the wall. I was grateful for the darkness. I felt awkward, needing to say something, and I had the perfect something to say.

“Would you be interested in going for a trip outside the neighborhood tomorrow?” I asked.

“Wow, first kiss and now a date. Where are we going?”

“Not far.” I paused for dramatic effect. “We’re just going for a little flight.”

“In the ultralight?”

I nodded. “Your father gave permission.”

She squealed in delight and threw her arms around me.

“I can’t wait to get up in the air!”

I didn’t have to wait. I was already three feet off the ground.

“There’s nothing to be scared or worried about,” I offered over the headset inside my helmet.

“I’m not worried, and I’m certainly not scared,” Lori replied.

“Good to know. Most people are at least a little nervous their first time up in an ultralight. There just isn’t enough plane around you for you to feel secure.”

“I like the wind in my face.”

“So do I. A lot. I’m going to bank to the left now.”

“You don’t have to tell me every time. I’m good. Really.”

I’d done a full circuit of the neighborhood just to make sure Lori was okay with flying. She seemed more than just okay.

It looked beautiful down there. The sun was out and, aside from the rooftops and paved streets, the neighborhood was filled with green vegetation, brown tilled soil, and bright blue swimming pools. It had rained a lot last night after I got back home, which was good for everything. It had watered the crops, filled the swimming pools, and swollen the little creeks. Never before in my life had rain been something to care about except if it canceled a baseball game. Now it was essential.

My eye was also caught by the glint of sun reflecting off glass from a couple of the little greenhouses that were going up throughout the neighborhood. The scavenging teams had been bringing in windows from abandoned houses and car windshields, and construction teams had already gotten busy. As soon as they had been put up, they’d been filled with plantings. Mr. Peterson said they’d quickly outpace the crops that had been planted outdoors.

I completed a pass along the north boundary of the neighborhood, and we made the turn—a little more gently than I normally would—and headed south. I wanted to keep Lori from feeling scared. I was hoping she could accompany me regularly. It wasn’t the usual burger and a dance, but a date was a date. Spending time with her was the best thing I did, and it made all of this craziness seem less bad—in fact, it almost felt impossible not to be happy when I was around her. She seemed to wipe away the awful reality everywhere else.

We slowly banked again—once more toward my side of the plane—and headed east into the still-rising sun.

We were up here for a mission that Herb and my mom had sent us on. I had been thrilled when Lori’s father had said it would be okay for Lori to join me. Any day, my ultralight beat the heck out of Chad’s BMW.

“Is the target far from here?” she asked.

“Not too far. It’s on the other side of the river. Are you comfortable?”

“I’d be more comfortable if I was wearing a parachute instead of body armor,” she said. “Do we really need to wear this stuff?”

“It’s just a precaution. Nobody is going to shoot at us. Besides, it helps keep you warm.”

“I must be keeping really warm because I can feel the sweat running down my sides,” she said.

“I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“Not all of them. Just out of curiosity, what would happen if we crashed?”

“We’re not going to crash. The worst thing that would happen is I’d have to put us down. One of the advantages of an ultralight is that I don’t need much space to land.”

I looked down at the road below. It was cluttered with abandoned vehicles. Not much open landing space. Between the vehicles I could make out people already up and about, walking along with pails and buckets. Life went on, and gathering water was the most basic activity.

“This is so different from being in a big plane,” Lori said. “I feel more like a bird than a passenger. How high can this fly?”

“My ceiling is around eight thousand feet.”

“How high are we now?”

“Just over fifteen hundred feet. Do you want to go higher?”

“This is fine, unless you need to go up. Could you do a loop-de-loop?”

“Depends on if I wanted us to die or not.”

“Wouldn’t the harnesses hold us in?”

“Yep, they’d keep us inside the ultralight all the way to the crash landing.”

“That’s too bad.” She sounded genuinely disappointed.

“But I think I could do a barrel roll.”

“A barrel roll?”

I motioned with my right hand, turning it over. “But it’s pretty dangerous—we might prefer to live.”

Lori laughed. “How long can we be up for?”

“It depends on speed and fuel consumption. At this speed, about four hours, but if I added an auxiliary tank we could be up for twice as long and travel twice as far.”

“How far?”

“With the extra tank we could go six hundred miles, as long as I stayed well under our top speed of seventy-five miles an hour.”

“Are we traveling that fast right now?”

“Just over half that,” I said.

“It doesn’t seem that fast.”

“That’s the thing about height. Lots of things aren’t the way they seem from up close.”

We were quiet for a stretch, just enjoying the view and each other’s company. At one point, we passed over a deserted strip mall where the stores had all clearly been looted and burned.

Lori sighed. “You can see so much from up here.”

“I can see our target up ahead,” I said.

“All I can see is houses and more houses.”

“We’re aiming for those houses just ahead and to the south. The cement highway fence is their boundary, just like it is for part of our neighborhood. Do you see some tipped-over cars blocking a street leading off the main road?”