Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (47 page)

“So are mine, if it comes to that,” Roee said, “but why did we have to have two?”

“I wanted to record you in Dolby Stereo, of course!”

“Not THX?” I asked.

“Nah. Lucas wouldn't give us the license. Listen, by the way, they are just about to strafe you again, so I would get the hell up in the air.”

Fully awake and feeling only muted pain, we didn't need any more prodding. We gave each other the thumbs up, taxied to the runway, gave the planes a high boost, and hit the perimeter of the airfield at well over 200 MPH. Once airborne we stuck up our noses and made a climb so steep the leading edge of my wing blanked out the horizon from my view.

“Oh, coming up after all?” Max came through the earpiece in the helmet. “Well, okay then. Now we can get things started.”

“They're climbing fast and very vertical, but to the east. Probably trying to get way up above you to bounce at you from out of the sun,” Petey reported.

“Keep a watch on them. We need a minute in these planes to get oriented,” I said as Roee and I leveled out.

I looked around the cockpit and made a quick check. Everything seemed normal. The instruments were all reading. The plane was fully fueled. The control column responded well as I gripped its unique spade handle. I tried the gun-firing button on the handle. Nothing. Max was a man of his word.

Now I turned my attention to the sky. The bubble canopy on the Spitfire was great not only for visibility but for headroom, helping to dispense any sense of claustrophobia. Indeed, you never felt, “stuck in a can,” as one might imagine. You felt one with your machine. That was comforting. Until you realized what a big target this extended body made out of you.

Roee was flying to my right. He pointed south. I nodded. Might as well get the chase going. We ended our climb at 5000 feet and gave the planes full throttle, as if we were running home.

“Leaving us guys?” It was Sara. “That's not nice. You're killing the show for the others.”

“They're coming at you from the east. They're definitely going to bounce you. Don't look, you'll just get sun in your eyes. I'll guide you.”

I had confidence in Petey and his satellite, but it was strange being the conduit of a remote control.

“They're coming. They're almost in range. Don't move yet don't give them any idea you're anything but sitting du—NOW! NOW!“

I pulled back on the throttle, jammed the flaps down, and jerked as the plane lost thrust and gave in to drag.

Roee's plane duplicated my movements.

The real YAK-YAK-YAK-YAK of Max and Sara's guns sounded and they both bolted down at a 45 degree angle not thirty feet before us.

“What the fuck!?” said Max, losing a little bit of his equanimity.

Roee and I banked right in a coordinated movement and dove in pursuit of the two 109s, quickly getting on their tails as they eased out of their dives and leveled off.

I turned on the plane's transmitter and screamed, ‘YAK-YAK-YAK-YAK,” as I came up behind Max's Messerschmitt, then immediately turned the transmitter off.

“Well, you're a bit more lively than I thought you would be. Care to explain?”

I did not.

“All right. You and your buddy can fly. So fly, you bastards, fly!”

I could hear him switch off, or switch to another channel as the two 109's rapidly climbed and Roee and I shot forward.

They were out of our sight, but we obviously weren't out of theirs. Real live YAK-YAK-YAK was followed by a series of THUD-THUMPS as I saw metal rip along my right wing. I immediately throttled back, flipped the flaps down, and brought the Spit down to about 79 MPH, causing it to stall.

There was a moment's grace, a sense of floating, of position in the heavens.

Then the plane started to flutter down like a falling leaf. Maloney had assured me such a trick would not throw the plane into a spin, which I would not have liked, but it gives, he had said, a very good impression of a dead duck.

“He's just sitting up there watching you, Fixx,” Petey said. “He's not pursuing at all.”

“Good. Roee?”

“Giving Sara a merry chase and an erratic target. Uh, you are going to come out of this aren't you?”

“Not until I see the foam of the whitecaps.” I was right over the ocean, an ocean that twirled below me. I closed my eyes for just a second, just enough time to conquer the dizziness that was beginning. Then at the right moment, I did what I had to do to stabilize the craft and speed forward just a few feet above the shoreline, heading, of course, south.

“Oh, very fucking clever!” came the voice of Max into my ear. “
But I see you, I'm on to you, and I'm right behind you
.”

“That's not quite accurate,” Petey said, “but it's only moments away from being so.”

I looked up. Attached to the top of the canopy on a Spitfire is a rear view mirror. It's good for checking the condition of your tail. I looked into it now, watched the California coast rapidly stream behind me, and waited for Max's 109 to come into view.

There he was! It was duck and weave time. I pulled left, got myself over solid ground, started to fly very low, skirting the ground in an undulating pattern matching the undulating, cow-covered hills. Every time I saw an out cropping of live oaks, I flew as close as I dared, hoping to make Max skittish, force him to pull up, taking me out of his sights. It didn't work. If Max knew fear, it wasn't the fear of slamming into a live oak. Suddenly the pasture was clear of trees and Max opened up with his guns. Through the mirror I could see the fire spitting out of his wing and cowling guns. I hopped up, dodged to the side. I checked the mirror. Cows were dropping.

I did a quick climb, not wanting to sacrifice any more innocent bovine bystanders.

I flew into the sun, and found Roee there at 15,000 feet.

“Welcome,” he said over the nipplephone.

“It's good to see you. Any damage?”

“Well my right boot is full of blood.”

“Leg wound?”

“I guess, but with Mama Petey's Excellent Elixir, how can I tell?”

“Guys, if you want to give them a bounce, you're in the perfect position. They've lost you and they're cursing at each other. 5000 feet below you.”

Petey gave us the exact location and we dove for it, taking advantage not only of the sun behind us, but of a certain angle of attack that I was pretty sure would have us obscured, from their point of views, by one of the slats in the Messerschmitt's ugly, square-ish canopy.

“YAK-YAK-YAK-YAK,” we orally shot at them as we passed close by their heads then turned south and sped on.

“You guys are truly foolish.” Max said.

“We got you now.” Sara added.

“Petey, is that your baby up ahead?”

“Yeah, can you see how it's progressively getting blacker? It's going to be a hell of a storm.”

“Well, keep pumping that seed in there.”

“Exactly what do you mean by—”

I never heard the rest of Petey's statement as suddenly my plane violently lurched, my head shot forward—flying off the rest of me, I quickly imagined—and there was a white hot point of pain in my back, then nothing.

~ * ~

“Fixxer!” It was loud, and yet it seemed like a whisper.

“Fixxer!” It was less of a whisper, and more of a shout. “Wake up!”

The sweet somethings in my ear had been Petey. He was screaming now, trying to pierce what he hoped was just a fog on my brain and not a shroud.

My eyes opened. A whole heard of cattle was gathered directly below, lazily munching on grass impervious to the utter (not to mention udder) destruction I was just about to rain on them. I grabbed the control column and pulled back. It was not too willing to give, but I was not too willing to give up. Soon the nose of the plane started to ascend, eventually became parallel with the horizon, finally stuck itself up snobbishly and I shot away from the hard, solid ground.

“Whew!”

“Thank you, Petey. I was trying to think of just the proper word. What's the action like?”

“Roee is just entering the storm. Sara seems mad enough to be following him in.”

“Well, we counted on that, didn't we? Max?”

“Pretty much on your tail! So beat it the hell into the storm!”

I did so, as I tried to settle back in my seat, but there was a hot protrusion sticking into my back.

“You know what, Petey?”

“What?”

“I think one of Max's cannon shells almost pierced the armor plating behind my seat.”

“Almost?”

“Well, if it had been more than almost, I doubt highly if I would be talking to you right now.”

“Ouch!”

“Thank you, Petey. Your eloquence is always welcomed.”

“He's almost within firing range.”

I pulled back on the control column and climbed right over on my back, then flew upside down towards Max. This disconcerted him enough that he failed to fire and I gave him a jaunty wave and smile as our canopies passed very close to each other. I then dove, came right side up, and headed off south into the storm.

 
Max probably would have followed me anyway, but this last challenge assured it.

~ * ~

Clouds are mountains of moisture. Often white, fluffy and benign, but no less majestic because of that. Especially when you approached them on their level, fly among them and watch them pass slowly, and view the aspects of their always interesting textured surfaces and the extent to which they rise above you and extend below you, massive in their lack of mass.

These were not that class of clouds that Roee and Sara had disappeared into and which I now entered. These now surrounding me were lead weights of clouds, black, cold, enveloping, droplets of which clung onto the canopy. There was no visibility at all, except the visible flashes of lightning cracking quickly in and out of existence

“You lucky sons-of-bitches!” It was Max. “But the storm won't hide you forever. Even if you get out and land somewhere, the Enclave will find you.”

I snapped the transmitter on. “Assuming the Enclave even exists, Max.”

“You doubt it?”

“I doubt many things, Max. Sort of defines me as a Twentieth Century man, don't you think?”

“I'll admit I'm impressed with your flying. Especially giving the handicap I handed you.”

“Max, do I sound like a man in pain?”

“No—no you don't.” There was anger in his voice.

“As for the storm, Max, luck had nothing to do with it. I arranged the storm.”

Max laughed with genuine amusement. “There's a megalomania here I had not perceived before—Gilgamesh.”

“A little white lie, Max. My name is not Gilgamesh Paul.”

“I'm so relieved for you. Any chance you want to tell me your true name?”

“No chance at all, Max, but there are those—a few friends, some enemies—who refer to me as the Fixxer.”

“What...?” It was Sara gasping.

“That mean something to you?” Max demanded to know from Sara.

“Well—well—there's rumors.”

“There are always rumors, Sara, but what do you know?”

“Just that he's someone you can use, someone you can call on when you want to—to fix things.”

“Oh. One of those. A thug for hire. What I don't understand, though, Fixxer, is who are you ‘fixing' things for?”

“Myself, Max. In this case, myself. I don't like your attitude towards human life, Max. It's not conducive to a happy society.”

“You're fucking joking! Who's paying you?”

“Not a soul, Max. Your destruction is on my ticket.”

“Shit!” It was Sara.

“What?”

“That lightning was close. Can we get out of here?”

“No! Keep an eye out for them. The clouds will break! Fixxer, tell me the truth. Why? Who? You're no fucking white knight.”

“Max, how can you say that? You hardly know me.”

“I know humanity.”

“Maybe I'm not human—or maybe I just can't get the image out of my head of a beautiful young woman, so sincere in her desire to create, so serious in her need to be vital. An image that keeps changing into a grotesque, frozen, lipless, carcass—as I believe you refer to the dead.”

“Moral outrage? Are you trying to fight me with moral outrage?”

“Well—outrage, at least.”

“Too damn bad you've failed. Despite your elaborate campaign to bring me down, you have failed completely. Any rumors as to your effectiveness must be just that.”

“Max, I just can't agree. Captain, are you by any chance monitoring these transmissions?”