Pulse: When Gravity Fails (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 1) (4 page)

6

Sean Grayson and Jenny Restrepo – West Memphis, Arkansas

Jenny Restrepo took out her phone and scrolled through her e-mail in the passenger’s seat. Sean glanced over at her for a moment and turned his attention back on the road. Traffic inched forward. A spray of water blasted into the air from a busted water main. Sean could see the lights from the truck, but couldn’t tell which company was handling the break while the city workers tried to repair it. They were outside his firehouse’s territory, but with the quakes, they had been pulled all over the city.

Water rained down onto his windshield in a heavy wash as traffic pulled him forward and stopped him under the water. Sean turned his wipers on high and flipped on his headlights. He took off his sunglasses and stuck them in the center console as he squinted to see the taillights of the car in front of him.

“I’m going to get called back in on short rest,” Sean said. “The city is a mess.”

“They told you that already?” Jenny bent over her phone and thumbed in a message with expert speed.

“No, but I’m sure of it. They have every company out dealing with accidents and breaks all over. They are going to burn through every shift before my off time is up.”

“That’s too bad. Do you still want to plan on getting away?”

“I don’t know,” Sean said. He inched forward again and water thundered on the roof. “I might ought to hang close.”

“Whatever you want, baby. We can go another time. I’ll take off during the week in your next break, if I have to. We’ll find something fun to do close by when we pick up your boys.”

Sean smiled and put his hand on her knee just below the end of her shorts. Her skin was warm and smooth. He glanced at her and forward again. “Who are you texting?”

“E-mailing,” She said. She shook her head still looking down at her phone. Her dark ponytail whipped back and forth over her neck and Sean swallowed. She was almost too beautiful to look at for too long. Sean thought,
she could do better; I couldn’t, but she could
. She said, “My dad read about the earthquake on the Internet and is freaking out. The cell towers are out in Colombia or something, so he had to e-mail instead of call.”

“Did they have any trouble down there?” Sean asked.

Jenny squinted at him and laughed. “Why would they have trouble all the way down there from a little quake in Arkansas?”

Sean shrugged. He rolled forward out of the spray far enough to see the flares in his lane ahead. He turned the wheel to follow traffic toward the far shoulder. “I don’t know. You said the cell towers were out.”

“Oh, right.” She shrugged and stuffed her phone back into the pocket of her shorts. He moved his hand off her knee as she rose up in the seat to get to her pocket. He watched how her body moved before looking back at the cars ahead. She said, “I don’t know. He’s up on that mountain out in the jungle, so that they are away from the lights. There is no telling what reception problems he’s having. I told him I was just fine with a big, strong, redneck firefighter to protect me.”

“Stop.” He laughed. “I told you that is not a compliment and that word doesn’t mean just anyone from the South.”

She winked at him and blew a kiss. When she smiled, he shivered and looked back at the road. They edged past the firetruck on the shoulder, but Sean didn’t bother to look to see which company it was.

Jenny said, “I went to school here for business admin. I know what a redneck is.”

“A lot of rednecks in business administration?”

“A lot of them own the businesses.”

Sean nodded. “You should have just told your dad that everything was fine or it wasn’t as bad as the news made it look. That would comfort him more than telling him your boyfriend was protecting you from earthquakes.”

Jenny laughed. “Maybe so, but it was kind of bad, wasn’t it? I don’t want to lie to him. That fire in the apartment sounded awful. I saw the pictures. I’m terrified thinking you were in there before it fell down.”

Sean sighed. “Yeah, it got hairy. I had to get a little boy out that tried to hide in a tub. We almost missed him and then I had to get a beam off of him once we found him.”

“How many did it take to lift it off?”

Sean cleared his throat. “Just me, I guess.”

“Oh?” She made a show of fanning herself with her hand. “My big, strong, superhero redneck boyfriend. He is so powerful.”

Sean poked her in the ribs with one of his fingers. She squirmed and giggled. Sean watched her for a moment and looked back forward blinking.

After a few seconds of creeping forward past the water main repair, she said, “It sounds like it was very scary. Are you okay?”

He nodded and swallowed without looking away from the road. “Yeah. It was burning before the quake. Then, the tremor must have brought the whole thing down. Me and the boy were the last ones out. They still don’t know how many were still inside.”

“That’s terrible.” Jenny covered her mouth. “Did you feel it when it started? What was it like being in there during an earthquake?”

Sean thought about the objects floating, him lifting the beam like it had no weight, and kicking down the hallway in the air through floating fire like he was moving through space. He opened his mouth to tell her, but then closed it again. He wanted to, but he did not trust himself. He did not want her to see him as in trouble or in need of saving. He swallowed and took a deep breath. Even as he felt that it was a mistake to do so, he pushed the truth back down away from his mouth and left it unsaid.

Sean said, “You know me. I’m a brave, redneck firefighter. Nothing scares me.”

She swatted his shoulder and stuck out her tongue. “It is okay to be scared. It keeps you alive sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Sean said.

The traffic broke up and he drove forward again. Sean turned off on a side road and continued on.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I need gas.”

He pulled into the station and edged up to the pump. Sean stepped out and fished through his wallet for a credit card with room on it to cover the fill-up. An advertisement sign at the pump read “Pre-order your android companion now!”

“We have to use cash.” Jenny leaned out her window.

Sean looked down at his wallet and back at her. Maybe she knew more about him than he realized. “Why?”

She pointed up to the pump. “The sign.”

A piece of copy paper was taped over the credit card reader with what must have been half a roll of scotch tape. It read simply: DOWN. Pay $cash$ inside.

Sean nodded and closed his wallet. “Well, there you go.”

“Hold on,” Jenny said. “I want a snack. I’ll go in with you.”

He leaned on the pump as he waited on her to get out. “I thought you were into eating healthy and natural.”

“I didn’t say what kind of snack.”

“It’s a gas station. They only have so much.”

She closed her door and looked back at the open window. “Did you want to roll up and lock it?”

Sean snorted and turned away. “Nobody wants what I’ve got. Come on.”

She fell in beside him and hooked her arm through his. Jenny leaned up and kissed him on the cheek before she whispered. “I want what you’ve got.”

He felt gooseflesh travel over his body. He almost told her that she could do better. He stopped himself because she did not like that joke. She didn’t like anything that he said that put himself down. That eliminated a lot of his usual humor. Maybe she was perfect for him after all.

They entered the convenience store section of the station and stopped short. Sean and Jenny looked at each other and back at the shelves. One man stood behind the counter. He was older with a thick mustache and he scribbled out in long hand down the page of a spiral notebook. He huffed and turned the page with angry resolve. Another clerk, a younger man with a ponytail, swept busted packages up in the aisle and used what looked like a snow shovel to dump them into a trashcan sitting in the middle of the floor. Many packages were head lice medications.

“What happened here?” Jenny called out.

The younger clerk shook his head and kept shoveling. The older man glared at them and then back down at his notebook. “Quake turned the store upside down. Cash only for gas.”

Sean approached the counter and took out two fives and a ten. “Twenty on pump three.”

“What kind?”

“Regular, please.”

“Thank you for your business.” The man went back to scribbling. Sean saw he was listing inventory and numbers. He assumed it was for a damage report.

“The quake knocked out your credit card reader.”

“No, satellite.”

Sean tilted his head. “The quake knocked out the satellite? The dish you mean?”

The man raised his eyes from the notebook and glared at Sean. Sean expected him to yell, but the clerk’s voice went softer. “No, satellites are in space. Couple satellites in space were knocked out of orbit. Now credit cards won’t read until other satellites take over. Cash only for now. Okay.”

“Yeah, no problem. Sorry.”

The man waved his pencil hand and went back to writing.

Sean turned to Jenny. “You getting something? I’m about to go pump.”’

She looked around the floor and shook her head. “Think I’ll wait until we get home.”

Sean nodded. He looked up at the banks of hanging florescent lights and thought the station was lucky none of those came down. It seemed odd to Sean that none of them would have shook loose in an earthquake.

As he approached the door with Jenny, he saw more packages of pink donuts and bags on chips sitting balanced on top of the lights. He paused at the door.
What kind of quake could shake hard enough to toss items off the shelf high enough to land on the lights?

Sean whispered. “Turned the store upside down.”
Like they floated up there
, he thought. The gooseflesh was back, but not in the good way when Jenny whispered to him.

“Sean? What’s wrong?”

He startled and turned away from the lights. “Nothing. Just trying to figure out what’s going on with the world. Nothing I can explain yet.”

She rubbed her hand across his back. Her fingernails through his shirt made him shiver. “As long as you remember that you don’t have to figure it all out by yourself.”

7

Captain Michael Strove and Roman Nikitin – Russia

Michael climbed back up the angle of the wing to the cockpit of the fighter. His knee slipped and he fell flat on his belly against the damaged skin of the craft. He felt every ache, bruise, and wretched joint from the crash that should have killed him.

If he didn’t hurry, the charges he laid around the stress points and ports of the downed plane would take him up with it and he would fail to eliminate the proprietary tech in the cockpit itself.

He growled at his own pain and forced himself back up. Michael crawled up and forward. He broke the ends of the burners and saw the phosphorus flares blast out of the tubes. He dropped them inside before they could burn his fingers off and slid back down the wing to the churned soil, barely avoiding the sharp edges of bent metal in his path.

His knees threatened to give out, but he hobbled into a run dodging around the excavated root systems of massive trees which seemed too far from the path of his crash to be his fault. Michael hurt too badly to climb over the timber so he worked his way around as much of it as he could to put barriers between him and the coming firestorm.

The light burst up from the plane white hot. Michael leaned against the trunk of a tree that was still standing and turned to look even though he knew that he shouldn’t and knew that he was probably still too close. He was on foreign ground without permission with tense relations at the worst time in a plane that could not be allowed to be found. He was a pilot burning up his own craft and taking to foot with nowhere to go and no way to get there.

For now, he was watching it all burn. It wasn’t until he stopped that he considered the possibility that the intense heat might set the entire forest ablaze.
Add environmental tragedy to the news story of an American pilot invading Russia
, Michael thought.

The phosphorous blaze channeled up out of the broken cockpit like a geyser of flame as it incinerated the controls within. Data, computers, and polymer components melted into their base compounds to hide the secrets that they held. The data burn proceeded perfectly, but Michael also knew he was announcing his position in the brightest way possible.

They could spot him for miles, if they didn’t already have him pinpointed and weren’t already on their way. He had drifted across miles of Russian territory unconscious for much of it. He imagined he had been as large as a saucer on their radar the whole way in. As he considered it, he was surprised that they hadn’t shot him down themselves. Michael remembered the wild distortions in the northern lights and the malfunctions in his plane that seemed to strike his Russian shadows at the same moment. He wondered if the effect had scrambled Russian radar and launchers in some manner too.

The charges around the seams of the plane lit up and Michael ducked down. The explosions blasted downward driving the force into the craft itself. Michael felt the vibration like a quake through the ground. It shook him hard enough that he suspected it might show up on a seismograph, if a station were close enough. It had been a mysterious weight that had pulled him down and the weight of directed charges that finished the job.

Michael stood and saw the melting remains of his cockpit with the plane blasted away around it. Several pieces were driven down into the soil that was blackened and smoldering. Most of the pieces were not big enough to hold in two hands. The Russians might be able to get hold of something that let them know what kind of plane they were dealing with even if they wouldn’t be able to reconstruct it themselves. It would have to be good enough now.

He limped away and used the sun to guide himself roughly east. He had no way of knowing how far, but there was water somewhere in this direction. The U.S. hadn’t had time to plan an extraction even if they intended to do one, but Michael had little other option, so the poor option would have to do.

He took to a rise and limped up between rocky outcroppings. He considered going around as the slope became steeper, but he figured the vantage point might be useful once he reached the top, even if it only showed him how screwed he really was.

As he emerged on the first tilt of flat ground, he spotted the remains of a tower. A couple of the metal legs stabbed up at the sky as the rest of the structure settled in a pile of debris in front of him. The remains of the metal ladder twisted around the outside of the whole thing like an angry snake. He couldn’t tell how long ago it had collapsed, but the rust spots and stress points on the metal led him to believe the tower had been abandoned and forgotten long ago.

He turned and looked out over the land. He saw a river to the north and a spark of light beyond it that gave a hint that something might lie beyond. Michael might not have any choice in the end, but for now he would avoid people, so north and its hint were out.

The rest of the land spread empty as far as he could see in every other direction. He felt alone, isolated, and vulnerable. Large swatches of fallen trees scarred the land in broad stripes, but only served to mark the vast distances for him. The piles of lumber with the tops still on and green made him think this was not result of purposeful cutting.

The smell of fresh, split pine drifted thick on the wind to his nostrils and unnerved him a little. He thought of live trees at Christmas time back home with his brother and his parents back when they were strong, alive, and whole in mind. Here with the smell this strong and fresh, he didn’t know what it meant and he didn’t much like not knowing.

He heard a voice behind him and Michael spun around. His hand went to his side and he realized he had not retrieved a sidearm before bailing from the craft and destroying it. It hadn’t been anywhere near him at the time.

The voice moaned and babbled in Russian again and Michael honed in on it echoing out from the debris of the tower. “Not so abandoned after all.”

“Hello? Is someone there? I’m trapped and hurt.”

Michael swallowed. He needed to go. He did not have the tools or strength for a rescue. And he certainly did not have the authority to take one on in the midst of the Russian wilderness after scuttling his top secret aircraft. The right move was to leave and keep going. Yet, he was still standing and facing the voice trapped under the broken metal. It was another man down even if it wasn’t his man.

“Do you understand me?” Michael said. He heard his voice shake. Even his words were unsure of this decision.

“Yes, please, help me. I can’t move, but I can see light. I just need my legs freed.”

Michael took a step forward, but stopped short of the angry snake ladder. “Are you bleeding? Is the metal cutting into your legs at all? I don’t want to pull it off and have you bleed to death.”

“I don’t understand what you … no, I’m not bleeding. Just trapped. I can move my toes. No breaks. Just trapped. Help me, please.”

Michael ducked under the bent ladder and walked up the slope of the sheet metal. “Keep talking. I don’t want to step on you and make it worse.”

It’s a little late to not make it worse
, Michael thought.

“I just saw your shadow pass, man. I can’t reach the opening with my hand, but it is right there now.”

Michael knelt down and grabbed the edge of the sheet metal. “Hold on.”

“There. I see your hands.”

Michael lifted the first piece and rolled it off the pile with ease. He saw the Russian’s hands and his face. His nose and cheek were bloodied. Michael didn’t know how hurt the man was. He was wearing a greenish uniform that could have been army. “Are you Russian army?”

“No, I’m a … tree … I watch … A ranger … forest ranger? I watch the trees and they forget I exist.”

Michael nodded. He pulled up on the metal folded over the top of the man. It groaned and gave a little, but would not lift. “Am I hurting you?”

“No, it is lifting off, but not enough. I can pull myself out, but I need more lift, man.”

“Hold on.” Michael climbed off the side and walked around the pile.

“Don’t leave me here, man, please.”

“I’m not. Trust me.”

The Russian sighed and nodded. “Not much choice, but you had a choice. Thank you, man.”

“You can thank me by not shooting me when I get you loose.”

He said, “No, no shoot. No gun. I only use it for hunting and it is back at the … house.”

Michael picked up a pipe, but it wasn’t long enough. He tossed it and kept searching. “A forest ranger that shoots the animals. That’s new.”

“I’m in this job … ugh, exiled. They leave me out here because of my family. It is a punishment job. You understand?”

Michael picked up a longer pipe and climbed up under the ladder again. “So you are here alone?”

He looked from the pipe to Michael. “Don’t kill me. You don’t have to.”

Michael looked down at the pipe. “No. I’m not.”

He wedged it under the metal sheet and levered it up. “Not enough. More.”

“I’m trying.”

“What’s your name?”

Michael paused, but then kept levering. “Captain Michael Strove, United States Airforce.”

“You are far from home, man.”

“I know. I crashed. I’m in trouble.”

“I’m Roman Nikitin. I spend my whole life in trouble. No problem. Captain Michael.”

Michael levered up and braced his shoulder under the pipe. “Crawl out, if you can. I can’t hold it forever.”

Roman shuffled out from under the metal and pulled his knees up to his chest as he rubbed his legs. “Oh, that hurts.”

“Are you legs broken?”

“I don’t think so. Where are you going?”

Michael stood and took a step back.

Roman rolled up to sitting. “I won’t report you. I’ll help you. I owe you. You could have left me.”

Michael looked east. “I was over the Bering Strait. I need to get back to the coast, if I can.”

Roman shook his head. “You mean the Sea of Okhotsk?”

“Okhotsk?” Michael shook his head. “No, I was in international water before … I had a malfunction. I was pushed over land and crashed here. How far to the coast?”

Roman blinked and shook his head. “You are hundreds of kilometers from the coast of Okhotsk. The Bering Strait is over more land hundreds of kilometers past that. Unless you got another plane, you aren’t getting there.”

“I’m not on the peninsula?” Michael rubbed at his forehead.

Roman thought and shook his head. “No. Mainland. Deep, far mainland. Taiga forest, Captain Michael.”

Michael backed away from the debris. “Maybe you can show me to the closest prison and save me some time.”

“My house … cabin was an old listening station. Maybe you can connect the radio and get a signal out from there that your people could pick up. Maybe.”

Michael stared at Roman. “Why would you help me do that?”

“I know what it is like to be in trouble and have someone help you.”

Michael nodded.

The sounds of helicopter blades filled the air. They turned and saw three black helicopters crossing the river and flying low toward them. They veered west toward Michael’s crash.

“I need to go,” Michael said.

“That’s not good for either of us,” Roman said. “Help me up. I help you hide. We need to go … east.”

Michael helped Roman down the slope of the debris. He staggered and Michael braced him under his shoulder. They limped a couple steps, but then the tones of the choppers changed and they turned to look out over the hill.

One of the three spun in a circle before dropping quickly. The others wavered, but then veered toward the ground.

Michael whispered. “What’s happening?”

A wave of falling trees crackled across the land and traveled toward the rise as the trees marked the motion by breaking and falling in time.

Roman said, “Lay down?”

“What?”

“On the ground, Captain Michael. Hurry, man.”

Michael got to his knees and lowered Roman off his shoulder to the patch of grass under them. Leaves rained down around them. The trees groaned as they strained under their own weight.

Michael tried to look up, but his neck hurt. He felt something push on his shoulders and he actually turned to see what it was. He slammed to the ground on his side facing Roman. The grass folded flat to the Earth so that Michael was looking Roman in the eyes. Michael tried to push himself up, but couldn’t.

“What’s happening?” Michael grunted.

Roman’s voice answered strained and breathless. “Invisible tigers, I think.”