Hunter looked over at Annie, who was reluctantly gravitating toward Buck.
Hunter just sighed. "It wasn't a total failure," he said. "I guess…"
Zoloff did know where the ticket booth was, though, the place Hunter had to go to get on the next ride. Lucky for him, it was just over the next hill. Hunter shook hands with Buck and Zoloff, then he turned to Annie. Of the entire adventure, she looked the most beautiful at that moment. He gave her a very platonic hug. Still she managed to slip a note in his pocket and give him a peck on his cheek in return.
Then he bid them good-bye. They went one way, and he went the other. It was only after he was sure he was out of sight that he reached into his pocket and took out Annie's note.
It read, "Next time, take me with you."
4
Hunter found the ticket booth just where Zoloff said it would be: over the hill and atop a small rise not a half mile away.
He had trudged up the side of the rise to find a lush valley on the other side. It seemed very inviting. Green grass, swaying trees, sparkling rivers flowing through it. On a whim, he blinked his eyes, but the valley was still there when he opened them again.
At the top of the rise he found a small hut, just big enough for him to fit inside. It was built with the same fake wood. It had the same noisy planks. Above the door was a hand-painted sign in Russian: Dobro pozalovat v Dom Uzasov. Tvoiy strashnü prazdnik cranet pravdoi. Otkroi — esli osmelishsya! According to the quadtrol, it read:
Welcome to the House of Horrors, Where Your Worst Fears Come True. Enter Only If You Dare.
"Sounds promising," Hunter whispered to himself.
Inside the hut he found the same kind of ancient personal computer. He went through the ritual of turning on the PC and getting it to accept his English-language password. A prompt told him to insert his ticket. He did as instructed, the ticket quickly returning to him with a second hole punched in it. The picture on the back was even more faded now. But if anything, the Russian looked even more insane.
He made his way through the security walls, filling in the final fields just as he had done the first time, by typing in his name and stating his hobby was flying.
But before he pushed the Enter button, he turned and looked back into the valley from which he'd just come. This strange place. A moon that was not really a moon, orbiting an enormous planet that really wasn't there. He'd been warned to expect weird things down here, but some things he encountered weren't exactly that weird.
True, this particular moon was a place custom-made for heroes. A world of altered reality, activated, he guessed, after hundreds of years of lying dormant. But there were some startlingly familiar images here as well. A city that floated on clouds. Armies that marched endlessly in its streets. An emperor who in the end didn't have a clue. It was practically a blueprint for the current Fourth Empire, if written by a child.
Was there a connection? Or was it just a coincidence?
Hunter didn't know, and at the moment, he didn't have the time to even think about it. He had to get going.
He returned to the computer and paused for just one more moment. Reaching inside his pocket, he took out Annie's note and read it again.
Maybe next time, he would take her with him, he thought. Then he pushed the Enter button.
It was snowing.
Blowing, freezing, with heavy sleet, rain, ice. All in the dead of night.
Hunter was suddenly frozen to the bone. His flight suit soaked through. Icicles hanging from his nose.
Someone ran up to him, appearing like magic out of the blizzard. Hunter could hardly see their face.
"Can you fly this thing?" this person was screaming at him.
Hunter was suddenly aware of more people rushing around him. They all seemed confused, anxious, panicky. He realized he was on an airfield. There were flying machines everywhere he looked. Not rocket ships, or Star-crashers, or spacecraft of any kind. These were airplanes. With jet engines, propellers. Run by aviation fuel and dependent on the movement of air around them to fly. Hunter knew all this because in his former life — or make that in one of his former lives — he'd flown vehicles like this. He was a fighter pilot back then. One of the best, maybe the best ever.
They used to call him the Wingman.
Of that, at least, he was sure.
But that was then, and this was now — and he'd been suddenly thrust into this incredibly realistic horror ride. And he was standing on a taxiway, in the frozen wind, watching many of these airplanes scrambling to get into the air. And this person was in his face. He was just a kid, and he was wearing a cold-weather parka that said United States Air Force on it. Sergeant stripes ran down his arm.
"Can you?" he was screaming at Hunter.
"Can I what?" he finally screamed back.
"Fly this!" the kid yelled. He stepped to the side to reveal an aircraft directly in back of him. It was almost lost in the snow, but Hunter didn't have to see it to know what it was. He could feel its presence.
It was an F-16 jet fighter.
Some called it the Fighting Falcon. Others, the Viper. Take your pick. By whatever name, it was a kick-ass jet engine with an airplane built around it. It was small, light, could carry a shitload of bombs and missiles and still dogfight with a full rack. Yes, even blindfolded, Hunter would have known what it was. Way back when, a few lifetimes ago, he used to drive one of these babies.
The confusion around him increased threefold in just a matter of seconds. He turned back to the teenage sergeant.
"Yes, I can fly it," he told him. "I can fly the hell out of it!"
"Then, if I might be so bold, sir, I suggest that you strap in and get your ass going!"
"Going? Going where? What's happened?"
The kid seemed furious and on the verge of tears at the same time.
"The Soviets just wiped out half of Europe!" he yelled at Hunter through the torrent. "They launched thousands of Scud missiles with poison gas warheads — on fucking Christmas Eve! Now we've got to stop them before they wipe out the rest of it!"
With that, he ran off into the snow.
Hunter looked down at his hands and realized for the first time he was holding his crash helmet in one and a map case in the other. A huge airplane crossed in back of him. He recognized it immediately. It was a KC-135 in-flight refueling plane, a flying gas station that other planes could draw precious fuel from, while still in flight. It took off in a great explosion of exhaust and dirty-water spray. Right behind it was another one. Behind that, another one. To his right, on another slippery runway, two F-16s took off in tandem. Behind them, two more. Back on the main runway, a line of big planes with propellers and gun muzzles sticking out of their sides were waiting for their turn to take off. Gunships, Hunter thought.
He turned back to see two ground crew members standing beside the lone F-16, frantically beckoning to him. Hunter started running, putting on his crash helmet as he did so. He had to get going! Bounding up the access ladder, he literally jumped into the cockpit. The two drenched airmen strapped him in. He fired up the fighter's engine and felt a jolt of electricity surge through him. His entire body began vibrating. His hands automatically went to the side stick controller and the throttle. His feet to the control pedals.
And suddenly he didn't seem so insane anymore. He blinked — and when his eyes opened, everything was still there. The plane. The snow. The two airmen. No flash. Nothing.
Completing their task, one of the airmen smacked him twice on the top of his helmet and then disappeared down the ladder. The bubble top canopy came down with a thump. Hunter looked at his control panel and saw nothing but green lights. He knew this meant the plane was ready to fly.