“He’s in!” shouted Mila.
Bertha nodded as the Feds fired again. We slammed the door shut and Bertha jerked the controls once more, sending us sprawling as the helicopter shot back up into the clouds.
“We lost the Indigo,” I said quietly.
Mila shrugged. “But we got Phoenix.”
The two hugged. Dove joined in. Bertha rolled her eyes, but cracked a smile—I could see that they were a family. A ragtag, dysfunctional one, with plans to likely destroy the free world… but a family nonetheless.
Shots whizzed past us from beyond the cloud cover. The celebration was short-lived.
Phoenix hopped into the copilot seat. “Where have we positioned New Texas?”
“Sparky’s got its engines idling a mile east of Maui,” said Bertha, “but there’s still six other copters in the sky.”
“Not safe to go back yet, then,” said Phoenix. “And the Caravan?”
“Three miles south of Newla’s port.”
“So that’s where we’ll head.”
Outside in the clouds, a shadow leaned toward us. It materialized into a Federal copter and slammed directly into our side. We were knocked into a spiral, dropping from the air as we spun toward the ground. Then another copter slammed us from the left. Bertha’s controls flashed red.
“We’re losing altitude!” shouted Dove.
“No shit,” said Mila.
Bertha pulled at the controls, but they sparked in her hands. “My controls have shorted!” she shouted at Phoenix.
He yanked at his, and the copter rose in the sky. “I’ve got it, Big Bertha.”
Next to me, Mila lay unconscious and bleeding. We’d both been slammed against the wall when the Feds rammed us, and I guessed she must have taken a shot to the head. Sure enough, I spotted a blue bruise already forming on her temple, and a series of cuts pooled blood by the corner of her left eye.
The copter’s right door had been totally crushed in—our only exit now was the door on the left.
The Feds fired again, but Phoenix evaded the shots.
Bertha flared her nostrils. “I told you we needed guns on this thing.”
“You said we needed them on our toaster, too.”
Bertha squinted. “And I still stand by that claim.”
Phoenix pushed the controls down, and we dropped a few feet before hovering again. The Feds sailed past us. Bertha mashed at the buttons in front her, but they merely blinked red and sizzled. The Feds spun around in the sky, training their weapons on us. Four other copters dropped from the clouds, rejoining their comrades. All of their guns glowed red as they charged.
“I need someone on the rocket launcher!” shouted Phoenix.
I shook Mila, but she was still unconscious. I glanced at Dove, but he merely stared out the window and whistled.
“Mila’s down,” I said to Phoenix, “and I don’t know how.”
The Feds were racing toward us. Their pilots had finally caught on to our evading maneuvers.
Bertha crawled over her seat, grabbed the rocket launcher and swung the left door open. She fired a round each at the two copters that led the formation, and they both fell from the sky. The others quickly shrank back into cloud cover.
Bertha stroked the gun’s trigger like a lover, then winked at me. “We’re clear.”
Phoenix nodded. “Heading south toward the Caravan. Skies should be clear all the way now.”
A third copter slammed into us, this one from directly above, jamming our rotor blade between its landing skids. Our engine groaned as it fought to free the blades from the skids.
“TURN OFF THE ENGINE” roared Bertha, “OR THIS THING’S GONNA BLOW!”
Phoenix slammed a button. Our engine fell silent, but our rotor blades were still stuck between the Federal copter’s landing skids. The Fed copter pushed us down, out of the sky—a suicide mission.
Bertha grabbed five orange backpacks from the back seat and tossed one to each of us before hurrying to strap one to the still-unconscious Mila’s back.
“Parachutes,” she explained. “We need to jump while we still have altitude.”
Phoenix glanced out the window and shook his head. “We’re above land,” he said. “The Feds will shoot us from the sky, or grab us in the city when we land.”
“Then what the hell do you propose we do? Let them slam us into the ground?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Think faster, Phoenix.”
I strapped the parachute pack to my back. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Car Battery’s got an idea?” Bertha hurried to the door. “My cue to jump!”
I ignored her comment. “We need to get over the ocean water, right?” Phoenix nodded. “Dove, can you climb into the copter above us?”
A look of terror flashed across Dove’s face. “I’m scared of heights.”
I had to think simple. Dove wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. And he was gullible—he listened to everything Bertha said. I had an idea.
I shrugged. “Well, what does that matter?” I said to Dove. “We’re not even that high off the ground.”
“Yeah, hardly!” snorted Bertha.
“Really?” Dove’s wide set eyes shined bright. He looked out the window. “It looks like we’re pretty high…”
“We’re really not,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s an optical illusion. You know—pollution in the air. Chemical reactions. Ionic molecular bonds. Basic stuff, Dove. They make it look like we’re really high, even though we’re not.”
Bertha raised an eyebrow. She’d guessed what I was up to. “Yeah, Doveboat,” she said. “It’s basic science. We’re probably only a few feet from the ground.”
Dove narrowed his eyes. “Then why haven’t we hit the ground yet?”
Bertha pointed out the window. “LOOK! A BUTTERFLY!”
His face split into a dumb grin. “WHERE?”
“You could totally climb into the copters above us,” I said quickly—we were still losing altitude. “Then all you’d have to do is stun the men and jerk the controls left toward the water.”
“And maybe you’ll see the butterfly,” finished Bertha. She winked at me.
God, I hoped this was dumb enough to work.
“I’ll do it!” Dove eagerly crawled out the open door and onto our roof, like a squirrel up a tree. We heard him fire at the Federal copter’s window, then we waited. I imagined him crawling through the broken glass, punching the confused pilots, and jerking the controls left.
We hovered in midair, briefly, and then we darted left. Amazingly, the plan had worked.
Dove leapt back into our copter as we shot out over the ocean. “The copilot had a monarch tattooed on her neck,” he said with a smile.
Bertha’s eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
The three of us looked to Phoenix for further instruction.
“We need to direct ourselves toward the water as we fall,” he explained. “Dove’s given us the time we need—now we just need to aim ourselves west to avoid the city. If we’re lucky, we’ll hit water and catch a current that’ll take us to the sewers. From there, we can go to Madam Revleon’s and wait this whole thing out until things settle down.”
“And if we’re not lucky?” I asked.
“We die,” said Phoenix.
“At least we have options!” said Dove gleefully.
Phoenix glanced out the window. “We have enough altitude now to have a shot at making it to the coastline.” He pointed to the tattered steel cord still stuck to the winch. “We’ll use this to stay together until we’re ready to pull our chutes. That way we don’t drift apart. We jump as a team.”
Our copter was still darting forward, and we were in cloud cover now. The four of us suited up, with Phoenix strapping Mila to his chest and Bertha strapping Mila’s string of stolen guns—plus a few guns of her own—to herself.