Flightsuit (20 page)

He became flotsam in the time stream
, and the world moved on.  Mine operations slowed and finally stopped as richer sources were found.   People moved out of the houses around him.  With his long sleeps, he only ate one day every couple weeks.  Compound interest and minimal withdrawals on the money he'd saved covered his expenses.  The world left him alone and soon forgot him. 

He talked to Ray and God intermittently through the day and listened to the radio during meals catching up on what he'd slept through.  He'd slept through the death and funeral of both his parents, visiting fresh gravesides to pay belated respects.  They'd left their only son an inheritance which he put into long term, high-interest accounts. 

Years passed, then decades.  The century turned.  For Ethan, it was a year.  Alone with his grief and rare interactions with complete strangers.  He started to heal.  While he lived a completely abnormal existence, he held the loss of Ray and Maggie in a heart that no longer felt like broken glass.  He talked to the memories of them every day and in his long, slow dreams.

He'd given up trying to control the thing, consciously at least. 

Apparently, my unconscious has worked it out
, he thought. 
After all this time.

When the tree crashed to the ground, Ethan felt a rush of joy, relief and power that he couldn't imagine existed.  He felt like the light of a sun was shining out of him.

He breathed, "Wow" and shook his head, smiling.

Wow
, Ray agreed. 
That was great, Dad!  You did it!  Did you see that?  Wham!

Ethan beamed.
Yes!  It was amazing.  I found it Ray.  I finally figured out how to let it go where I want without it slipping out bit-by-bit, aging everything around me.

All those years alone…

Dad.  Hey, Dad!  Better pay attention.  We've got to help Leo!

Ethan set his thoughts aside and bent down to put the gun back in his pack.  He lifted it back to his shoulder keeping an eye on the soldiers.  The rifles still targeted him
, and he could only hope they could see he'd put the gun away.  Now he had to do something they might consider threatening.  He braced himself and took a step toward Leo.  He waited.  No one fired, so he continued walking slowly toward the boy.  He came to the tree and straddled it to get across. 

The soldiers watched him through rifle scopes as he crossed the clearing.

"Are you ok?" he asked Leo.

"What was that?" Leo asked back
. "What just happened?"

"It's a long story, Leo, a sad one.  We don't have time for it now."

Ethan looked back at the soldiers who seemed to be struggling to restrain one of their own. 
Good
, he thought,
that'll give us some time to get him out of this thing on our own.  They can have it, that's probably all they want anyway.

"How do we get this thing off you Leo?" Ethan asked.  He saw the boy was looking at the soldiers
.  When he turned back, he was wide-eyed with fear. 

"We can't," he said quickly, "We can't take it off, Ethan.  There's no time
.  You've got to help me, Ethan!  Quick!" 

"What?" Ethan asked trying to understand what had escalated Leo's fear so quickly.  "What do we do to get it off?"

"We can't take it off in time, Ethan.  That's him", he nodded over his head at the soldiers as they wrestled on the ground.  "That's the alien.  It's taking over that soldier now.  This suit is his.  If he comes within twenty feet of me, he's going to take over my mind just like he's doing with that agent and this time, he's ready to leave."

"Leave?" Ethan asked, "Where's he going?"

"Home!" Leo shouted. "Ethan, he's going home!  He'll take me with him and I'll be a prisoner in his mind there all by myself."  Leo peered over the edge of the suit's collar. "I can't see it."

"See what?"

"The helmet.  Get the helmet Ethan.  It didn't fall off the edge did it?"

"No," Ethan replied, picking the helmet up and ho
lding it where Leo could see it.  "Its here."

"Put it on me, before they see what you're doing," Leo gasped. 

"What?  No!  We can't go any further with this Leo.  We might only be making it more impossible to get you out."

"If you don
't," Leo locked eyes with Ethan.  "If you don't Ethan, you're condemning me to death all alone and completely helpless, living out my whole life as a voice with no one listening.  Please, Ethan, put the helmet on me now!"

Ethan's mind raced with his thoughts circling back to the same place.  Leo was asking, was begging him to do something.  He didn't understand why, but the boy seemed sure.  He didn't have facts or time to understand, but if he didn't act immediately, something bad might happen.  The boy thought it would. 

He lifted the glass bowl up over Leo's head, careful not to brush against the suit.  He had no idea if it would try to stop him
, but he didn't want to take a chance.  This close to the edge, he'd probably fall right off.

The soldier they'd restrained seemed to have come to his senses.  He'd apparently reassured them enough that they'd let him up
, and they were walking toward the suit with rifles pointing at Ethan.   

He positioned the glass helmet as close as possible to the right location and held it steady over Leo's head.  They looked at each other.  Leo smiled at Ethan to reassure him.  He was afraid to look at the soldiers.  He knew they were getting close.  He felt the alien's mind reaching into his.  Leo nodded to go ahead.

Ethan spread his fingers, and the helmet dropped in place.

The helmet clinked lightly, and seals made a soft "pop" as they settled in place.  Leo's eyes darted inside the glass dome.  Seconds passed.  The suit's arms released and fell to the sides, and Leo stumbled in the suit.  Without thinking, Ethan grabbed at the suit and pulled Leo back from the edge.  He jerked his hands off the armor once he'd reali
zed he'd touched it, even though it hadn't stunned him this time.  He kept his hands close just in case Leo's knees gave out. 

The suit settled lower, dropping Leo down to eye level with Ethan.  As Ethan watched, the suit drew itself in tighter.  The shoulders shrank down
, and the long forearms pulled back.  Leo felt his fingers touch the glove tips.  He held the right glove up to his eyes and watched seams appear between the two flat fingers.  The seams deepened, and he felt the suit sheath around his fingers.

He looked at Ethan.  Ethan saw his lips moving but couldn't hear anything through the sealed helmet.  A blue circle of light traced on the glass surface in front of Leo's mouth
, and Ethan heard "…fitting itself to me". 

"I hear you Leo," he said. "Can you hear me through that?"

"I can hear you perfectly.  It sounds like your mouth is talking right into my ear.  At first it was like being underwater, but now I can't tell the helmet is even there."  The dust that had covered the helmet was gone.  It was crystal clear.

He brought his arm up, flexing the gloved fingers.  Ethan watched the collar neckline drip down like hot wax
onto the chest plate as the clear glass of the helmet extended below Leo's chin. 

"I can see the ground in front of me now," Leo said with a small smile touching his lips.  "That helps."

The flightsuit felt like a second skin.  Ethan stepped back as Leo stretched his arms and fingers, feeling the flightsuit respond to him.  It wasn't bulky or cumbersome at all.  It mirrored his movements without hesitation or drag.  He snapped his fist up into a straight arm punch, and the flightsuit amplified the movement, making his arm a blur. 

Leo smiled, "I think its ok, Ethan."

"Raise your hands now!" Hack didn't need to yell.  They'd closed the distance and were less than 40 feet from the two and continued slowly closing the gap.

The delay while he restrained Sowyer allowed them to get the helmet on.  Hack was pretty certain that was not a good development.  The suit instantly compressed a full helicopter, plus pilot and gunner into a speck that Horton couldn't see.  He had to assume it could do the same or worse, if that is possible, to a person.  He didn't want to find out what might be worse.

The suit was an alien artifact.  Clearly a
functional
alien artifact.  It was irreplaceable and priceless.  The government would have it at any cost.  The lives of everyone here meant nothing.  The suit would fund whole new arms of the government.  They would analyze alien technology, and convert it to weapons and new industrial technologies.  Keeping the suit secret would prevent ownership squabbles with other countries.  Secrecy would be maintained, at any cost.  Hack considered options, signaling the team not to approach closer.

The suit was as destructive as it was irreplaceable.  If he could take it now, with only this handful of witnesses, the government could easily keep its prize secret.  The people in this clearing were the only ones who'd seen it.  They'd all be victims of some unfortunate accident. 

If the kid escaped with the suit though, his team would be crucial to the search – the only direct witnesses of its capabilities and in the meantime, more people might see it.  Hopefully more people than the government could easily remove from the board. 

Just a normal day
, Hack thought.  He'd survived terrorist standoffs and multiple missions.  No one else had survived two.  He was good at quick life-or-death responses. 
Comes in handy
, he thought. 
If I let them go, we'll still get the suit eventually, and maybe everyone here will live through it.  Maybe not everyone
, he thought. 
The kid and his friend's chances aren't good either way.
If we do capture them, assuming that's even possible, we're dead.  I'm sure of that.

Let them escape without making it look like there was any choice.

"Keep back," Hack told his team.  They'd closed within ten feet.  The suit shone in the sunlight. 
There didn't seem to be a crack on it.  How is that possible?  It must have been blown apart for us to find a piece of it.  Self-repairing systems?   I'm standing within reach of something greater than the pyramids or the Rosetta stone.  It changes everything we believe.  People will never see the world the same again.  Like growing up, there'll be no way back. 

If everyone knows about it, we'll have no choice but to share it.  If we take it today, and no one outside this clearing knows about it, it will be kept secret and used by the government.  They aren't known for good decisions. 
Hack was.

"Lower your weapons.  We are going to talk this out.  No one else is getting killed." 

His team lowered their rifles but kept them ready
.  Good
.  Hack looked at Sowyer to make sure he complied.  He had, but he was still acting strangely.  He stared at the kid like he was ready to kill him. 
Deal with Sowyer later
.

Now
, plant the seed before he tries something else
.  "You don't think we're going to just let you walk out of here," Hack said. 
Come on kid, figure it out.  It's all on you
.

After a pause, Leo replied "I don't think there is anything you can do to stop us."

Perfect.  Smart kid.  Now make sure the team gets our alibis straight.  Have to hope the kid stays calm and doesn't react instead
.  "We can shoot you.  That would stop you." 
And the key part
, "Wouldn't it?"   In debrief later, he'd make it sound like a pronouncement, not a question.

Come on kid.  Say it.  Be smart.

Leo hesitated.  Ethan was ready to act, but didn't see any way they could escape. 

"You tried shooting," Leo said, "and it didn't work.  I don't think you want to try it again.  Something bad might happen.  Worse than last time."

Kid's got backbone.  Good. 

Leo wrapped Ethan in the suit's arms and leaped from the edge.

"No!  Kid!"  Hack reached out and felt the smooth surface of the suit's shoulder as it dropped out of reach. 
Oh crap.
  He leaned out to watch them fall.

Leo saw the ground rushing up.  His initial reaction was to spread one hand out to soften the landing while holding Ethan tight, but not so tight that the flightsuit crushed him.  The suit had taken control though, and it repositioned its arms underneath Ethan as they dropped.  It was getting closer to the cliff wall as it fell.  Leo watched the rocks flashing past, too fast to recognize detail. 
Too close to the wall
, he thought, steeling himself in the suit for the impact.

The suit scraped against rock and kept falling.  Most of the contact was through the boots, which the suit stretched out and drew back with each impact.  It hit a jutting outcrop with the right leg stretched out to meet it first.  When it hit the outcrop, Leo realized it was trying to convert the fall into something like a skiing descent, by hitting the sloping rock edges.  It seemed to be working, they were bouncing back an
d forth between the walls of a wide vertical channel.  They were falling sideways and down now, but still too fast. 
Here it comes
, Leo thought. 

The suit rebounded like a spring as its control systems converted crushing vertical kinetic energy into a survivable deceleration.  At impact, it lowered Ethan in its arms
almost to the ground, using the distance from its chest to the ground to further decelerate him.  Then it sprang forward launching itself into the middle branches of rhododendrons, twisting in midair like a cat and shielding Ethan as it crashed backward into the branches.  The suit rolled as it hit the branches and launched Ethan away.  He landed in high weeds and briars.

The suit rolled over backward to land on its feet, knees bent.  The arms reached out to each side for balance.  It stood up and released control back to Leo.

"Wow."  Leo ran to the weeds.  "Are you ok?"

Ethan looked down at himself, unsure.  Everything had happened so fast.  "I'm going to be sore and scratched, but I can walk.  I was sure we were going to die."  Leo helped him stand. 
The both looked up.  They'd fallen far enough from the cliff that they could see over the outcrops to the top.  They saw the soldiers peering over.  Leo waved.

"How did you know the suit could survive a fall like that?" 

"I didn't," Leo said still staring up the cliff, "I just figured that it would probably not let me do something that it couldn't protect me from."

Ethan looked at him without saying anything.

After a few seconds, Leo said, "Come on, we've got to hurry."

Ethan spread his hands, "Where?"

"There's something we need, I'll explain on the way.  Right now we need to get moving before it's too late.  I'm going to pick you up and carry you, like it did on the fall.  Is that ok?"

Ethan didn't like the plan, but there was no doubt they needed to get moving.  He held his arms out so Leo could reach around him.  As the arms brought him up, he said, "Now I know where the bruises are.  Right under my back where it held me in the fall.  Ouch
, that hurts."  He winced and grit his teeth as the arms settled underneath him.  "Ok, ready I guess."

The suit was amazingly agile and fast.  It amplified Leo's movements, sensing intentions like his own muscles.  At first his amplified movements were clumsy and jerky.  Now either he was already becoming more comfortable with it, or it was compensating and smoothing
out his movement.  Inside the helmet, Leo mumbled to himself, "Now where's his car?"  Although he was only thinking aloud, the suit responded with a faint map of blue lines projected into the inside of the glass bubble.  Leo saw the suit's orange pinpoint and a line that was the nearest shore of the river.  When he looked at the river, numbers appeared in each spot as his eye moved.  There were two numbers at each point, one over the other with a bar between.  Leo didn't know what the numbers meant.  Another orange pinpoint blipped onto the map near the river.  Is that another piece of the suit or the car?  As he considered this, he came to the edge of small crease where rainfall cut into the hillside, creating a deep ravine.  A tree had fallen across it.  Leo glanced at it, considering whether he could run across on the log.  A red outline projected in the helmet.  He looked at the log more closely, and the display flashed numbers across it.  He looked back over the shallow ravine and gauged the distance across.  A lifetime's experience with his own legs made it easy to estimate how safely he could make a leap, but he'd had only a few minute's experience with the suit and no way to know how far it could leap.  It had, so far, prevented him from doing anything it couldn't survive.  Leo thought the cliff jump might have been pretty close though, since it had to convert the straight jump into a controlled slide. 

Ethan said, "You're not going to jump are you?"  "Just walk down the edge and back up the other side."

It was good advice, Leo knew the suit could quickly get across that way. 
That's no fun
, he thought,
and besides how will I learn what it can do without trying?
  He was already running toward the ravine as he made up his mind.  Ethan frowned at him through the helmet and threw his arm around Leo's shoulder.  He, or the suit, timed his stride perfectly with his left foot springing forward inches from the edge.  His right foot landed two feet from the other edge, and he kept running.  When Ethan saw his smile, he couldn't help smiling himself. 
Still don't know if it could have jumped further
, Leo realized
.  It might have just jumped as far as it needed
.  He concentrated on running without tumbling over the rocks that lay below the ferns and rotten leaves, watching the orange pinpoints get closer.

Close enough
, he thought, stopping in a patch of chest-high, amber grass.  He let Ethan's legs down.  Ethan arched his back, glad to get his weight off the bruises on his back and thighs.  Leo whispered, hoping the suit wouldn't amplify his voice.  "I think his car is right down there, but there are a bunch of red dots moving around it.  Let's crawl forward and see."

Ethan nodded, "Ok".  They crept forward.  Ethan hardly moved the grass.  Leo looked like a bear as his crawled on all fours.  Ethan not
iced that as they crawled, the glossy white surface became more reflective.  The reflections of the grass beside him became increasingly distinct.  He reached up to tap the suit.  Leo tried to sit back on his haunches, but the suit's bulk wouldn't lean back far enough.  He put one knee down and the other out in front to see what Ethan wanted.

"It's camouflaging you.  Leo held his hand up and saw only grasses himself for a moment.  It was oddly disorienting to know his hand was in front of his eyes and not be able to actually see it.  Then a blue outline traced his arm in the helmet glass.  He still saw the grass right through his arm, but the outline let him know where it was.  It was disorienting
, and Leo thought,
very cool
. 

Now that they'd stopped, Ethan realized the suit wasn't reflecting the grass
.  There was no reflection of him.  He looked at the small briar branch on the other side of Leo and then back down at the suit.  The branch stem looked like it was in a glass of water, with just a faint distortion where Ethan knew the suit was.  Rather than creating a reflection, Ethan decided the suit was projecting what was on the
other
side of Leo, as if the suit wasn't there at all.  As Leo stopped moving, even the distortion vanished.  He was completely invisible.  Even the clear helmet seemed capable of camouflage projection.  Ethan reached out to touch it.  His fingers bumped but he couldn't see anything.

Leo waved his arm to see the effect.  Ethan saw a distortion warp the grass around the moving arm, but still couldn't see the rest of the suit.

"As long as you don't move," he whispered to where he thought Leo's face was, "I can't see you at all.  It's very weird." 

Leo smiled and almost laughed inside the helmet when Ethan whispered to his side rather than his face.  "I know.  What's it look like when I move?  Can you see me clearly then?" 

"No, not clearly.  I can just tell there's something there," Ethan assured him.  "I catch the movement but can't find anything there."

"Well,
that should help," Leo said, "because I think there's a lot of police watching the car."