Terry Neale - Jo-el

“Sally, I need you?” I said out loud. She appeared against the wall as usual. “Sit down, over there in the armchair where I can see you.” Her expression asked why, but she did what I asked. Don’t you love that in a woman?

“I want to rescue someone,” I said, “preferably a child.”

“Okay.” She replied, with what appeared to be understanding in her eyes. “Anywhere in particular?”

“America.”

“I’ll see what’s happening.”

“Before you do that I want to make a change.” Sally watched me as I stood up and changed my clothes to the basic smart-suit outfit. The silver mesh suit that covered my whole body and feet. My face became Jo-el, that cross between George Clooney and Daniel Craig. My hair a light brown with silver streaks, very neat but longer than I had seen on either of those gentlemen. I puffed out my body muscles somewhat. “Now I want something else.” Sally looked puzzled.

“Yes,” she asked.

“Wings!” I kept a straight face.

“Wings?” she said, her eyebrows raising.

“Yes, wings. Can you give me wings?”

“Sure I can, but they won’t work,” she said.

“I need you make them look like they work.”

“What sort of wings?”

“Giant, like a superhero, but they need to look like they would lift a man into the air.” I was smiling now.

“You want to be a Superhero?”

“For the moment, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I can fly and I want to ease into the public eye. I don’t want to be seen flying like Superman, it’s too farfetched, for now anyway. Can you do it?”

She looked at me strangely. I didn’t think for one moment that this was the direction Ka-el’s model had envisaged.

“I can project a holographic image of wings on your back, sure. But if someone touched them their hand would simply pass right through, just like touching me.”

“That’s okay, can’t have everything. Can you make them move, you know, flap up and down as if that was how I am able to fly? They would have to match my movements.”

“Sure, why not?”

“Cool, let’s try, match the color to my hair,” I said.

In seconds a pair of wings adorned my back. I could see the tops projecting above my head. I needed to see what I looked like in a mirror. Sally was ahead of me, a full-length mirror appeared across the room, where she would normally stand. The wings flowed a little as if they were alive. It was surreal, I stared at them for a while before I said anything.

“Well?” she said.

“Do you think they’re too big?” I asked.

“No, I proportioned them to an eagle but eliminated the individual tail feathers, might be a temptation as a souvenir.”

“Smart lady,” I said. I tried to flap them using my mind, but nothing happened.

“I can’t move them!” I exclaimed.

“I thought you wanted me to move them based on your flight.”

“I do, but on the ground it would be nice to have some control.”

“Okay.”

I tried again and the wings flapped gently just by my imagining what they should do.

“What about air?”

“Sorry?” she looked puzzled again.

“When I take off will they produce a current of air behind me?”

“You want everything.” I grinned at her. “That’s possible.”

“You know something, Sally, you’re truly magic.” I was beaming from ear to ear. She began laughing.

“I hope you know what you’re doing?”

“Not a bloody clue,” I replied.

I examined myself in the mirror for a while then said to Sally. “I want to test them out. Can you record me during flight so I can review it later?”

“Sure.”

“Good, now I need somewhere out of view.”

“How about northern Canada?”

“Fine with me,” I smiled.

“Ready?”

“When you are, beautiful.”

I bounced to a snowfield on the edge of a canyon. The scenery was stark but stunning. My face felt the bitter cold but my body was warm, wrapped in the mesh smart-suit. In the distance, maybe twenty miles, were mountains covered in snow. A stream was running below where I was standing, surrounded by thick ice. I flapped the wings and lifted into the air, I couldn’t feel the wings behind me but I could see their tips by my side moving gently in unison. I flew down to the stream then up hard away from the ground. As best I could I watched the wings respond to the upward motion, they seemed to be realistic. I headed toward the mountains, a bear looked up at me and sought safety in the bush, I wonder what he thought of this new creature in the sky? It was a wonderful feeling, the freedom of flight, the sunlight low in the sky creating that wonderful contrasts of dark and light. I flew for a good half hour, simply enjoying myself, marveling at the technology that allowed me to fly, yet sad that this stunning landscape would one day disappear. I hoped and prayed that the Cirion projection of our doom was wrong.

The sun was low and darkness in this northern clime was fast approaching so I bounced back to my family-room and asked Sally to show me the video of my flight. It was as realistic as I could imagine. I think the Hollywood special effects people would have been proud, I was content.

“Sally.” She appeared instantly, this time sitting in the armchair. “Time for the rescue. There must be someone in difficulty somewhere?”

“You don’t want to rescue a child kidnapped or in captivity?”

“No, but out of interest how many are there like that?”

“In America, kidnapped children under sixteen years old, that doesn’t involve a family member right now, five hundred and twenty-seven. Many of the parents are not aware that their child has been abducted and most of the parents who do know and have been asked for money, haven’t spoken to the police, they’re all planning to pay the ransom after they can raise the money.”

Her tone was so matter-of-fact, whereas I was appalled. It was like a depression fell on me. I sat down on the sofa, the wings disappearing into the fabric. This is America, I always believed the safest country in the world. Were there so many evil people here? I shook my head and vowed that those children would be home soon.

Sally looked over at me waiting for her next instructions. “You should have equipped all the police around the globe with this stuff.” I said, indicating the wings and computer around my belt.

“Someone would abuse the technology and that would create a whole new series of problems.”

She was right. I’m sure there were bent cops everywhere. “Okay, back to my plan,” but I was becoming a little less enthused. It was as if I didn’t want all this bad news, I guess that’s how most of us live our lives, oblivious to much of what was going on the world. I breathed deeply. “I want a child in danger for their life, with lots of people watching, I want the media attention. I can’t help all the people in trouble around the world one at a time, there is simply too many of them. I’ve got to put the fear of God into the bad people.”

“There’s a lot of motor-vehicle accidents with kids, but all of them are being helped by other motorists.”

“I need someone out of reach of help.”

“No drug stuff or suicides right.”

“No.”

“Something like a fall, down a ravine.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Nothing right now. There are hikers in trouble but not life-threatening. Not at his moment.”

“How about flinging your net a little wider?”

“Okay, I’ve got something. A seventeen-year-old French girl, kite-surfing in the Caicos Islands. She went out too far, the wind got up, she’s really close to the reef and she’s broken her collar bone.”