“Want a soda?” Zen asked, pulling his helmet.
“Love one, but—”
“I got it,” he said. he undid his restraints, pulled over his wheelchair—it was custom-strapped nearby—and then maneuvered himself into it. She’d seen him do this before, but never in the air. He looked awkward, vulnerable.
Would she have the guts to do that if she’d been paralyzed?
“We got Pepsi, Pepsi, and more Pepsi. All diet. Which do you want? Asked Zen.
“Pepsi.”
“Good choice.”
Ten minute later, C³ gave her a series of beeps—at one point she’d wanted the program in “Yankee Doodle” as the “I’m up” signal, but Rubeo had insisted—and then filled the screens with its wake-up test pattern.
Two minutes later, Zen shouted so loud she didn’t need the interphone.
“I’m in. I’m there. I have a view.” He worked the keyboard in front of the joystick. “Wow. All right. This is going to work. I can select the still camera, and I have a synthesized radar. At least that’s what it says.”
She glanced over and saw his hand working the joystick. “Woo—this is good.”
“Magnification on mini-KH Eye?” asked Jennifer. She couldn’t dupe the optical feed on her screen yet—she had to get the feedback through Dreamland’s circuit—but she didn’t have a control window with the raw numbers showing whether it was focused.
Rubeo was cursing over the Dreamland circuit, using words she’d never heard from his mouth before.
“Ray?”
“I’ve lost the visual feed, the synthetic radar, everything. Damn it, we’re blind here.”
“I can see,” said Zen.
“Well, we can’t,” insisted Rubeo. “Jennifer, kill the program now.”
“Hold on,” said Colonel Bastian over the circuit. “Major Stockard, do you have control of the aircraft?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I can override it here,” said Rubeo.
“Jeff, we’ll back you up, but you’re the one I want on the line.”
“Colonel, I don’t believe that’s necessary,” said Rubeo.
“I want a pilot in the plane,” said Colonel Bastian. Jennifer recognized the words—they were the Colonel’s mantra in his debates with Rubeo over the future of air warfare.
“He’s not in the plane,” said Rubeo.
“Close enough,” said Dog.
somewhere in the South China Sea
Time and date unknown
The blur coalesced into lumps of reality, like the precipitate in a test-tube solution. The lumps had shiny edges, crystalline pieces—her head pounding in her helmet, a body pulling off the side of the raft, the waves turning from black to an opaque green.
Breanna’s flight suit felt both sodden and stiff. She pushed her hands down, felt the ocean giving way beneath her—she was on a raft, a survival raft.
They were in the ocean. The storm was passing beyond them.
Were they alive?
Slowly, she reached to take off her helmet. Her fingers groped for several seconds before she realized she’d pulled it off earlier.
Breanna managed to sit up. The air felt like salt in her lungs, but she breathed deeply anyway.
Chris Ferris lay curled against the sides of the raft. She leaned toward him, felt something heavy fall against her back—Stoner was sprawled against her, legs trailing into the water.
She pulled at Stoner’s thigh, trying to haul them up over the side. She got one, but not the other, finally decided that would have to do.
A PRC-90 emergency radio lay beneath Stoner’s calf. As Breanna reached for it, she felt something spring in her back, a muscle tearing. Pain shot from her spine to her fingers, but she managed to pick up the radio. She stared at it, her eyes barely focusing. It took a moment to remember how to use voice—even though it was only a matter of turning a small, well-marked switch—then held it to her head.
“Captain Breanna Stockard of Dreamland Quicksilver looking for any aircraft,” she said. “Looking for any aircraft—any ship. We’re on the ocean.”
She let go of the talk button, listening for an answer. There wasn’t even static.
The earphone?
Long gone. Was there even one?
A Walkman she’d had as a child.
Breanna held the PRC-90 down in her hand, staring at the controls, trying to make the radio into a familiar thing. On the right side there was a small dial switch, with the setting marked by a very obvious white arrow. There were only four settings; the top, a voice channel, was clearly selected. The volume slider, at the opposite side of the face, was at the top.
Madonna was singing. She was twelve.
Snoop Doggy Dog. Her very first boyfriend liked that.
Breanna broadcast again. Nothing.