To the gawkers, though, it was all new and all awesome.
Ron laughed, throwing his head back wildly as he fought a sudden wind shear that tried to shove him off course. It was like the tower had its own defender, determined to only let in those worthy to ride the immense thermals to the sky.
Ron knew wind shear, though, and could compensate as long as they didn’t get much worse.
Ahead of him he could make out people in the observation deck of the tower now, and he imaged he could see them waving and pointing at him. It was too far for that, but he was pretty sure that they would be.
He and Adrienne had been.
Then he was through the shear, swooping over the heads of the onlookers as he crossed the lip of the huge tower and looked down into the maw for the first time.
It was lit inside, and that surprised him for a moment. He’d expected an oppressively dark maw, like a chimney or smokestack, spewing out its heat in anonymity. Not this almost.cheerful blinking of lights as the blades of the turbines endlessly spun within the one hundred meter wide wind tunnel.
Then he suddenly felt jerked in his harness, the Para pack yanking him upwards like a rocket as a flush of warmth suffused him and suddenly, for all the rush and adrenaline he felt this strange sensation of peace and safety.
Do I smell strawberries Ron blinked the thought away, laughing madly at the strange thought as the warm air rushing upwards caught him and spun him, twirled him, cradled him as he shot upwards in its embrace.
Now I’ll call her, Ron chuckled, letting the thermal take him as he let one hand go of the controls and pulled out his portable.
A simple flip let the folded material of the screen snap into position, and he had his wife’s account on his buddy list so the call when through instantly.
“Ron” Her voice was uncertain as she looked out of the screen at him. “Is that you”
“Guess where I am right now!” He yelled, though he probably didn’t have to.
Something about all that extra space seemed to demand that something fill it, even the obnoxious yelling of an adrenaline filled madman.
“How should I.RON!!!”
He laughed as her scream coincided with his flipping the portable upside down and giving her a view of the ground, greenhouse, and tower that was well below him now. He felt like an astronaut on lift off, the world rushing away from him as he climbed for the stars.
“Ron Somer you crazy lunatic!”
Ron was still laughing as he flipped the portable back, “Relax, Adrienne.It’s great! You’ve got to try this!”
“How high up are you!”
He glanced at his altitude gage and shrugged, “Only a couple kilometers.”
Funny. It felt like he’d been climbing faster than that.
“Are you carrying oxygen!”
“Of course!” Ron made a show of taking a breath from his mask. “In fact I’ll have to put it on full time in a moment.”
“You put it on now!”
“But then I couldn’t talk to you, Adrienne my love!” He grinned wildly.
“Ronald Somer you put that mask on now or I will be waiting for you when you get down, and need I remind you that I’m licensed to carry a firearm!”
Ron laughed, but acquiesced and put his mask on. For a few breaths anyway, then he took it off again.
“Ron!”
“Relax, Hon! The tower produces nice warm and oxygen rich air, remember” He chuckled at the outraged look on her face. “I’m fine.”
Adrienne was visibly calming down now, thankfully. While he found her shock amusing for a short while he didn’t want her worried every time he went skydiving or parasailing, it would make for a very rough marriage.
“How high are you now”
Ron frowned, but glanced down just the same.
“Twenty five hundred meters.” He told her a moment later.
Then he frowned.
“What’s wrong”
Ron shook his head, “It’s nothing, Hon.It’s just odd.”
“What’s odd”
“I could have sworn I was higher than tha.”
The sudden shock of his para-pack foil jerking horizontally cut Ron Somer off, and yanked the portable from his hand as a blast of icy cold ripped through the warm comfort he’d enjoyed till then, and suddenly Ron Somer was like a bubble being tossed through a hurricane and air seemed very difficult to find for his lungs.
Anselm Gunnar was looking over the complaint reports and files of the more colorful of the `Thermies’ and was surprised at how much like a movie script some of it read like. “I find it hard to believe that the Tower Project puts up with them.”
“The first Thermies were Project personnel,” Gwen grinned, shrugging. “Later on, there were a couple half-hearted attempts to put a stop to it, but eventually they just gave up. The thermies kind of give the place some character.”
“A lunatic asylum has plenty of character as well. I don’t see the attraction,” Anselm replied wryly.
She laughed, “the tourists love it, love it enough that they get bussed and trucked out here all the time to ride up the tower and watch the thermies ride the plume.”
“More money that way”
Gwen nodded, “Yeah. The Shanty people don’t hold much love for the tourists, but the Tower seems bent on bringing them in. It’s usually some tower peon that keeps suggesting a larger airfield, something to bring them in by the planeload.”
“I’m surprised it hasn’t happened.”
“Major airlines don’t like to fly near the tower.” Gwen explained, “They even routed a couple flights around us because the heat the tower puts up into the sky messes with the Jetstream a bit. Makes things unpredictable for flyers, so we mostly only get the Bush pilots.”
Anselm grunted.
Like the lunatic fool he’d flown in with.
“Most cargo moves around Australia on the road trains anyway,” She shrugged. “I mean, when you take three or four semi-trailers and link them together under a powerful truck, you can haul a lot of stuff.”
“I’ll bet.” Anselm smiled, about to say something else when a buzzer sounded. “What’s that”
“Emergency call. Nine-One-One.” She said, frowning as she turned in her seat and tapped a command into her terminal.
A moment later a stricken-looking blonde was yelling out of it, startling them both.
“Please calm down,” Gwen said softly, but firmly. “What is the nature of the emergency”
“Adrienne!” Anselm snapped, leaning over the desk. “What happened”
“Agent Gunnar! Thank God.” Inspector Adrienne Somer said, calming down. “It’s my husband. He went up in the thermals.I think he had an accident.”
Inspector Dougal immediately began making calls through other lines, getting rescue agencies on the alert, but Anselm felt his face go hard as he started to wonder.
Coincidence
Anselm Gunnar didn’t believe in the beast.
Winds ripped past him at high speeds, slicing through his clothes and into his skin as Ron Somer forced his hand to steady itself long enough to clamp his oxygen mask into place. He was out from over the tower now, the sudden winds had pushed him to the east at high speed as they sliced through him like knives.
He could feel the bite of cold already numbing his limbs as he danced madly under the tough para-pack foil above him.
He thought he was still accelerating, but it was hard to tell. The ground moved so slow under him, deceptively inching along at a turtles pace even though his terrified mind knew that it was much faster.
He had to be in the Jetstream.
It was the only answer, but it didn’t make any sense.
The Jetstream was ten kilometers up, he had only been around three!