Core Punch (4 page)

“I concur.”

The skimmer powered up enough to give them some data access, the screens updating with a rapidity that was almost impressive. Didn't even need a love tap—unless she counted the landing as one? If it been this nice before they left the skimmer on their frosty body hunt—she studied the data. Maybe she should be more careful with her wishes. Ignorance could be bliss.

“Unfortunate,” Joe said, probably in response to her succinct, one-syllable sum up of just how screwed they were.

“They won't be able to send anything down in this.”

Joe opened his mouth, but then nodded instead. She peered at him through the last rivulets of water running down her face. His brows were drawn together in a frown. Outside, visibility had worsened. She studied the weather data. So instead of hugging the shore, WTF's eye wall was actually closing on the city. She adjusted the screwed dial up to FUBAR, threw in some holy freaking
crapeau
. Captain Uncle's data must have been screwy, too. He'd have never sent her down here if he'd known WTF was this close. Now, when it was too late, she could see the radar data on the feeder band that directly concerned them. It was mostly red with slashes of ominous orange and yellow. The skimmer rocked as a particularly big gust buffeted it. She strapped in, though it felt a bit futile. It might help if they got picked up by a tornado, but even so, the landing was gonna be a bitch. The skimmer had not been designed for slamming against
terra
or
firma
.

It was darker, though the flashes of lightning intermittently revealed the rising water. The skimmer was supposed to be airtight. They wouldn't know right away if it actually was because of all the water they'd brought inside with them. And if they had to use engines and stabilization jets to hold position, how fast would that drain their power? She flipped off temperature control, just in case. They couldn't afford the fuel drawdown if they were stuck down here for too long. There wasn't available data on how this model of skimmer would perform in extreme conditions because its makers had thought there wouldn't be any. Ah, hubris. Looked like they were going to get to test it, not in its prime, but when it was old as dirt. She better understood that phrase by the way. Her boots were caked with a bunch of it.

“If we can ride out this feeder band—” Vi didn't finish with the obvious. The timing was only going to get more challenging as WTF moved closer. There were feeder bands coiled inside feeder bands coiled around an eye wall that was feeder bands on mooncrack. And while they waited for that, it looked like they might get to check out the storm surge. She wished she remembered more about storm surge, what it did and when. All she remembered was that it could “rise unexpectedly fast.” And that the rise depended on where one was, something about tides and where the eye came ashore. WTF was moving in west of the city, which put them on the wet side. It was not good to be on the wet side of a hurricane. There'd been some blah, blah, blah in the news vids about how lucky they all were to not be dirt side this time. She didn't feel lucky.

Whatever, she had to phone home. She still hesitated. Captain Uncle was going to burn her already uncomfortably hot backside. She sighed. “Might as well get it over with.”

His gaze shifted her direction. “I believe that would be wise.”

Something in his tone made her uneasy. She activated a channel. Nothing. Didn't even get the not-connected hum. She tried a love tap. Another. Followed them with a hate tap. That was odd. Could always get a not-connected hum. Though this was the skimmer's first serious storm test. And there was that bang against terra soggy. “Do you think the storm is affecting communication?”

There was a lot of electrical activity out there. And the winds. Could WTF have already taken out the communications network up top? It wasn't a ridiculous worry. Grand Maw Maw had better tech than the NONPD. Oh, budget, the curse of all our lives….

He hesitated. “That is the most logical supposition.”

He'd never made logic sound so dubious. She felt a chill despite the heat building both inside and outside the skimmer. She looked around, but there wasn't anything to see other than the rain.

“Do you know why the authorities waited so long to retrieve these dirt-siders?”

The question seemed a bit random, but Vi wasn't adverse to a distraction. “That's right. You weren't there when it came up.” Vi rubbed an errant rivulet of water out of her eye. “They popped up on the sensor, rather like our corpse, between the last two feeder bands. Captain Uncle thought maybe they'd been using some temperature screening stuff and either changed their minds or it got damaged. If they are getting nervous it should make retrieval easier.” She could hope. Hope was good. It was like bright and stuff.

“Curious.” She arched a brow at him and he added, “That both the dirt-siders and the corpse were hidden from the sensors.”

She frowned. “Yeah, but—” What did it mean?

“The weather is an unpredictable element,” he said, as if following a line of thought all his own.

“Which could have been predicted to be unpredictable,” she felt compelled to point out, though it shouldn't have been quite
so
unpredictable. “Do you really think both events were deliberate?”

“I have a suspicious nature,” he admitted, like that was a news flash.

“But what's the end game?” she asked.

“Unclear.”

“Sabotage isn't logical,” she offered, a bit uncertainly. Though it would be ridiculously easy to sabotage this piece of
crapeau
. Just give it a good kick. Still…too much about this felt wrong. And one thing she'd learned was to trust her gut when things felt wrong. “Logically, someone would have had to be out in this to un-screen our vic. And mess with our tech—which could have been overki—unnecessary.” Unless they had some really cool something that could do those things for them. She added, though she wasn't sure what it meant, “The vic is a dirt-sider.”

A squatter, someone out of the tech loop, in fact. A little person, barely on the grid. Who might have died the same way a crime boss had died, but wouldn't that be something a killer would want to hide? All of this seemed designed to draw attention, to make them suspicious. Okay, going with attention getting, whose attention was someone trying to get? They couldn't have known she and Joe would be the ones to come down. Could they? If there'd been anyone else, Captain Uncle would have sent them. Unless whoever it was had made it look like they were the only ones? Okay, getting paranoid. She'd pissed off a few perps in her day, but she couldn't call to mind anyone who would take this route to hose her. Or be smart enough to pull off the tech tinkering.

Joe?

His people might have the tech that could do this, but why? If they wanted to get him, why wait until he was in another galaxy? She shivered, despite the heat, stared at the heavy rain like she could see through it. Was someone messing with them? If they were, what did they want?

“
W
e need to
—” Vi stopped, managing to maintain her charm despite the scowl.

She did not like inaction.

Neither do I.
Lurch felt most wry.

How could we anticipate this move?
Joe wasn't even sure their tech problems had been caused by it. Their problems could be the inevitable result of aging technology. If it was Lurch's enemy, well, the hunter had become the hunted so quickly, he did not know how to react.

I believed I'd learned to expect the unexpected.

Joe frowned.
How can one expect the unexpected?

It is a challenge.
Humor lightened the nanite's tone for a second. It thought so intensely, it was like having heartburn.
My apologies.

The burn eased some. A discreet expulsion of air also helped, though it tasted most unpleasant.

“We can't get to the city until the wind dies down,” she said, “but the water is rising. From the rain or the surge? No way to know for sure with the tech acting up. This boat is supposed to be watertight, but, well, if this is the storm surge, it could surge us into a wide choice of objects not that far from our parking place.”

It was true that flooding waters could be quite forceful. Enough to carry debris that could impact on their craft, even if they didn't change position.

They should not fly.

They could not safely remain dirt side.

“Perhaps we should attempt to hold position above the water? Fly low?”

“And burn up our fuel?”

Joe leaned forward and scrolled through the weather data. Even if it was not up to date, it did have some predictability to it. “The bands do not follow the same track inland, because the hurricane is moving ashore from east to west. Do you see that angle?” He pointed at the screen. “Assuming this is correct, or close to correct, the airport where the dirt-siders await rescue will be affected later than this position. That is also where any help will be sent, if HQ becomes concerned about our non-appearance and the sensors are unable to locate us in the storm.”

He doubted anyone would be surprised to lose the sensors in the melee of the storm. In their various briefings, Joe had sensed a high level of expectation that many systems would fail.

“It's where we were supposed to go.” Vi sighed. “I should have notified HQ that we were taking a side trip, though I'm not sure that would be much help right now.”

Would they have been allowed to get through if they had decided to call in the change? He wondered. They might have received advanced warning about the storm and had time to escape, if it were involved in their current difficulties.

“But we can't fly there, not in this—” she stopped, possibly unable to find a description adequately negative.

Her people have let their hurricane knowledge languish for many years.

They are not the only ones to rest on their status quo.
Joe felt Lurch acknowledge the hit.

“When we were making our approach, I could see the remnants of old transit lanes. If we modify our lift, stay above the waterline, we might find some protection from the most extreme winds while we use these lanes to work our way to the airport.”

And if this is a hostile act, an attempt to force my exposure, it might frustrate that. Perhaps tip the status quo our direction?

It might even require it to expect the unexpected.
Lurch felt amused.

“Can you follow them from memory?”

Joe smiled. “No, but your raised city is very like the city that was, is it not?”

She brightened. “We use our map of the raised city as a guide down here. I like how you think, Dzh—Joe.”

Joe concealed a smile at yet another failure to say his name.

She turned from him and stared outside. “We can't fly blind at low altitude.”

“It will be difficult,” Joe acknowledged, wishing—but if he told her the truth, even if she believed him, it would put her at greater risk. “I can, perhaps, see further than you. Alien eyes.” He half grinned at her. “If you transfer drive control to my station—you can navigate, since you are more familiar with the city than I am.”

The strain in her face eased with a task to perform.

Lurch could have transferred control for him, and it could have done much to repair their failed systems, but care must be taken not to expose its existence if this were the trap they'd been expecting. If the skimmer had been tampered with, then triggers would be in place to expose the nanite if it attempted to assist with the tech. The best Lurch could do for them right now was enhance Joe's vision and reflexes.

“If it will transfer,” she said, applying more of her “love” to the controls.

That depends on the game it wishes to play.

For a few seconds, Joe wondered if it had also disabled their engines. When they activated, he did not know whether to be relieved or worried.

It seems we play the slow game. For now.

For now,
Joe agreed. Between the lash of the rain and the force of the wind, even the boost from Lurch only gave him a few meters of forward vision. The landscape was wild, the trees bending almost to the ground, then whipping around violently. It would be challenging to discern shadows from obstacles until they were upon them, and controlling the skimmer in the high wind created additional difficulty, even with automatic stabilization thrusters. The water had risen enough to begin splashing over the front of the skimmer and he felt it shift. Remaining there was filled with risk as well. It was now or never.

“It'll be slow going,” Vi said, both looking and sounding frustrated.

“Yes. But better than not going.” He hoped he was correct in this, as he eased up and began their initial lift.

Vi gripped his arm, causing a disturbance to his thought process. The bright look in her narrowed gaze did not help the problem.

“I have an idea.”

“
T
here's a sort of hack
,” Vi said, her body bent double as she struggled to get the panel off the underside of console. “One of my cousins showed me how to do it. We had this April Fools' thing going and we needed to track, well, someone.” She reached up for a tool, caught his eye, and grinned. “First advice, first day, learn how your
crapeau
works so you can mess with it and not get caught.”

Admirable.

Lurch was inordinately fond of rule breakers. The speed at which she was able to access the internals of the console indicated a familiarity with the technology that would not be pleasing to those tasked with keeping the equipment operating at “optimal.”

“It's all spin,” Vi had told him early on when he had pointed out the difference between assertion and reality. He'd arched his brows and she'd added, “Don't believe half of what you're told and that half, well, lower your expectations by another seventy-five percent. Why do you think I call this place the Big Uneasy?”

“This might not work, but if it does…” She applied pressure to the tool, before concluding, “…we might have a fighting chance.”

Any chance was better than their current odds, Joe knew, studying the barely visible landscape, while trying to hold position just above the water level. Waves slapped against the underside of the skimmer, while rain poured past them at a wind-driven angle. It was not an optical illusion that it appeared to be “falling” sideways. It was disturbing. And somewhat disorienting. While he did not believe it was pure chance that resulted in their current predicament, like Vi, he had difficulty perceiving its end game. The situation appeared to be as fraught with peril for it, as it was for them. Could it be observing them from a safe distance? What was safe in this storm? The city above was also at risk as WTF moved in. One thing his people had learned, when technology tried to take on nature, nature usually won.

It might just want us dead.

There are simpler ways of achieving that.

I told you it had a flair for the dramatic. Perhaps it is toying with us.

That would imply absolute knowledge on its part that you are here. Could we, could I have made so costly an error and not know it?

There was a pause as Lurch considered this.
I do not believe it knows. I believe it is using the opportunity of the storm to force the kind of extraordinary circumstances that might expose my presence. It has shown facility for adjusting and adapting to changing situations.

So it tries to force you to repair this craft?

That would be one thing.

Joe sensed there was more that Lurch could do that was extraordinary. They had not been companions long enough for Joe to be exposed to much beyond the nanite's vast store of knowledge and a few sensory enhancements. It could also heal wounds and boost his energy and abilities. He had to assume those benefits were not available now, when they would have been most useful. Since arrival here, much care had been taken for Joe to not exhibit unusual abilities, but Joe had gotten used to having minor ailments eased. Even Lurch's impressive data search ability had been limited by the need for extreme care. Joe suspected that Lurch had not shared all it feared its enemy could do if threatened. Or perhaps it expected Joe to know what it meant by “utterly ruthless.”

It is possible we have been too careful. Outsmarted ourselves?
Lurch's mulling fluttered against the inside of Joe's skin.

Joe did not know how to respond. Other than to point out the obvious. Had they been “too careful” they would not now be stranded in the path of an incoming hurricane. Rather than stating that obvious, he opted to state a different obvious to Vi. “I will not be able to maintain this position for much longer.”

And they were burning fuel trying. But she knew that. All three of them knew everything but how to get clear. It was ironic to know so much that was not helpful. A gust of wind caught Vi's side of the skimmer and tipped them on their side. It was fortunate that their straps secured their torsos to the slings. Legs and arms did not fair as well.

“Ow.”

Cross-wind compensators fired the right thrusters and the skimmer righted, with more banging of limbs to metal parts.

“Ow again.” Vi straightened. “Not exactly to regs, but needs must when the devil drives.”

She rubbed her elbow through the protective gear. Apparently it had not been protective enough.

She bends the rules most effectively.

Once again Joe felt Lurch's admiration, mixed with both fondness and a hint of nostalgia, as if Vi reminded it of someone. Occasionally Joe would catch a glimpse of a face when Lurch's memories bled through. That woman looked like a rule bender. And—in the words of Vi—an ass kicker. There was much affection attached to that memory, which caused Joe to postulate that the bleeding occurred where such affection existed. It was when emotion was present—and the concurrent physiological reactions—that the nanite got insight into Joe's most private thoughts, despite Lurch teaching him how to wall off the deeply private. Perhaps some day the nanite would trust him enough to share more of its past. Though it was possible that past had taught the nanite not to trust that much.

“Let's see if it worked…”

Vi keyed in a command. A screen flickered, then a map of the floating city appeared, with a small pulsing dot where they had set down.

“And there we are. It's not a perfect integration, but we'll have a better idea where we are. Wish I could put the weather map on top of it….” she keyed in some stuff on their weather tracking screen, trying to tighten it to their general area. Made a frustrated sound. “I can't get a good fix on our location, without shifting controls again. We'll have to use big stuff to try to get a fix on where we are, where we want to go. And hope it's actually reasonably accurate. Memo to me: believe what you see.”

It is true that tech can be used to deceive.
Lurch felt inexpressibly sad.

“Conditions will necessitate extremely slow forward progress,” Joe said. He shifted his gaze briefly, long enough to catch her widened gaze at the view out front, which had worsened while her head was down. “Course corrections will be somewhat challenging.”

“No sh—kidding.” More tapping ensued. “Okay, I think I've got all the screens we need. We're currently hovering about twelve feet above sea level. Give or take something. Which unfortunately doesn't tell us how far we are above the actual ground. Keeping track of the abandoned city's relationship to sea level has not been a priority for a while.”

Her scanner would also not be tracking the debris left behind when the city was lifted, Joe acknowledged, as he fought wind through the attitude and altitude controls. How bad would it be when he had to move the skimmer?

Bad.

Joe made a note to himself to stop thinking questions he did not want answered.

“I'm thinking we are about a foot or so above the water level. If we were higher I don't think we'd get so much wave action against our hull. At least that's the hope.”

Joe echoed her hope. It was not possible to assess wave height in their current circumstances. Lightning flashed, briefly though imperfectly illuminating the area. “That tracks with my visuals.”

“Such as they are.” She tapped more controls. “Okay, I can see several possible routes to the old airport that might still be more or less there.”

Where the old airport had been when dirt side was now New Orleans New In-Atmosphere Intergalactic Docking Port, or NON IAIDP. He'd also heard it called the A-dip. He recalled the main transit routes, or rather Lurch did. Unlike Vi's panels, Lurch could overlay their dubious storm tracking with the maps and provide some additional guidance, though not with its usual precision. It was not able to link to the data—data they weren't sure they could trust—and input their position into that data without risking exposure. Nor could Lurch link to the under-city scanners—assuming they still operated—and use them to highlight terrain obstacles. If it had tampered with the skimmer, it could have left traps and triggers designed to alert it to Lurch's activities. In their current vulnerable position, eliminating them would be ridiculously easy. As long as it toyed with them, as long as it was uncertain, there was hope.

Perhaps it thinks it would be more amusing to see us eliminate ourselves?

That was the other hope—and their only chance until they could connect with backup. It was possible that assistance already awaited them at the airport. All they had to do was get there.

“I would postulate the wind is coming at it us almost due east to due west at present, though that will vary some as the winds bend because of circulation. We can see by how the trees move that the winds can shift suddenly. I think it would be unwise to take the full force of it on our—six.” That term felt like it came from Lurch. He felt Vi give him a look that was probably surprised. “We risk using up too much fuel if we attempt to directly oppose the wind.”

“Yeah, with that much tail wind we'd probably end up in Mexico,” Vi said this almost absently.

The heat inside the skimmer was bad enough to layer sweat over his body. He couldn't take his hands off the controls long enough to wipe it away from his face. As if she knew this, Vi used her towel to mop it.

“My thanks.”

“Let me know when you need it again.” She frowned at her screens, then peered out. “Okay, I parked facing away from what is probably where I-10 used to be, so we need to reverse direction. If you can…that would put us heading straight toward it.”

He eased the nose around, felt the wind most eager to take control.
I am not sure this is possible.

The impossible takes a little longer.

There was no response to this that was not rude, so he fought his way through the reverse maneuver then started the skimmer moving forward. It was, he decided, more terrifying than trying to reverse direction.

“How many miles to the airport?”

“As the crows flies,” Vi appeared to consider the question, “it's about twelve, I think. Maybe fifteen.”

A pity they were not crows. In normal conditions, such a journey would take minutes even in an old skimmer.

Normal is overrated.

Joe…appreciated Lurch trying to lighten his mood, or he would later. If they survived.

“Why are the dirt-siders at the old airport?” he wondered, more to distract himself than from real curiosity.

“It wasn't lifted,” Vi said, her gaze fixed on her screens. “You're drifting right a bit. Yeah, that's better. It was too heavy for one thing. And it was still used for some years, until it became too expensive to keep up. Some hard core dirt-siders still use old planes to get around, but there are fewer and fewer landing strips being maintained.”

That didn't exactly answer his question.

The terminal structure, while large, has not been maintained. The way WTF is tracking in has caused concern. If it makes the curve back to the east, as predicted, the airport will experience a direct hit, followed by additional flooding when the storm moves across the lake and pushes more water into the region.

Vi offered more drifting alerts as the skimmer fought its way down what was left of the transit lane. Trees loomed up out of the rain on either side, but it appeared that the material used to create the streets had, to some extent, limited the area enough to provide them the illusion of a transit lane. Each break in the tree line caused him difficulty. The skimmer twice flipped on its side and once all the way around to back upright again before the cross-wind compensators could assert control. There were private transports that combined air and ground capability. A pity the NONPD had been unable to spare such a craft for their use today. It might have been easier fighting the water instead of the wind.

“I've been thinking, when we reach the freeway, we might have a problem. You probably noticed the pieces of the old interchanges sticking up from the undergrowth as we were coming down.” She flashed him a quick, tense smile.

Fallen chunks of the materials used to construct the freeway will be overgrown and, therefore, difficult to see.

“If we head north, the cross-wind compensators won't be as overwhelmed, and our track will follow the I-10 transit lanes and keep us clear of most obstructions. At least I hope so.”

The skimmer shuddered and danced as a gust caught it, sending them perilously close to a stand of oak trees.

“It might be advisable to tighten the weather monitoring. Look for smaller areas of circulation within the larger storm circulation,” Joe gritted out.

“Circ—oh. Hook echoes on the radar. Tornados. Great. As if we weren't already having fun.”

She muttered something that Joe sensed was expletive in nature. He didn't mention the high risk of downbursts slamming them into the ground without warning. She'd been watching the news vids, too.

“I will require advance warning of upcoming turns. They are somewhat challenging.” He flashed her a quick look that he tried to make reassuring. It would be the last he dared take. “If you will monitor the large picture, I will endeavor to navigate the small.”

Her smile was his reward. For her, he would attempt to make the impossible possible. He did not contemplate the larger implications of the realization. All that mattered was the here. The now. He could deny it later, if they survived.

“Right. Big picture.” She turned back to her screen. “We should reach I-10 soon.”

They must have hit a cross-transit area. The winds tugged fiercely at the small craft, trying to bring it around, and the sounds of debris striking them increased exponentially. They experienced additional lift as well. Thrusters fired as the cross-wind compensators fought to hold their course. The engines protested the battle, and he had to slow their forward progress more to stop it. “I am hoping we will be able to use the wind at some point, rather than fighting it.”