Stasis: A Will Vullerman Anthology (2 page)

Behind the pilot's chair were several seats. The area was a little cramped, but Will guessed that comfort was sacrificed for speed.

At the sound of the door opening, the man in the chair swiveled around to face Will, pulling off his headset and putting it in his lap. He wore a loose tan shirt and slacks. He had a strong forehead and a rather flat, short nose, and wide lips that parted in a smile, showing his dazzlingly white teeth.

"Will Vullerman, yeah?" He extended a hand. Will shook it, and his middle finger and thumb locked with the man's corresponding fingers, causing a snap. The man chuckled. "Been ta west Africa, my man? Not every white man kin do th' snap." His voice was undoubtedly west African, but Will detected a crisp accent behind his words. His English was better than most west Africans', too.

"Once or twice," Will said. He sat down in the left seat behind the pilot's. "Where you from?"

"Live in Libeera most'a m'life." The man sat back in his chair, his left elbow leaning on the armrest. He rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand, scratching at his hair, which was shaved in a standard ASP buzz cut. "Went ta Europe for aviation trainin', and I learn me some good English."

"I noticed that. You speak European English pretty well."

"You sound American yourself.”

Will shrugged. "I grew up with grandparents from Midwestern America."

"Uh-
huh
. Th' name's Immanuel, by th' way."

"Pleasure to meet you."

Immanuel's headset crackled, and he grabbed it, putting it on his head. "Time ta go," he said. "I won't b'able ta hear you 'til after we take off, so buckle up an' keep quiah." He laughed, turning to his controls.

Will strapped himself in and settled down for a long ride.

************

They had been in the air for nearly a half hour before Immanuel spoke again. "You're a quiah one, my man. When I say ta keep quiah, I don't mean ta shut you up for good." He chuckled. "Since we in th' air, you kin talk."

He reached under his seat and grabbed a touchpad, handing it to Will. "I got'a newspaper pull up on d'ere, if you want ta read it."

"Thanks." Will turned on the touchpad and read the headline aloud. "'NRC Pandemic Projected to Cause 20 Million Deaths in 2179'."

Immanuel kept his gaze on the dashboard. "Sad, ain't it?"

Will set down the touchpad on the stowaway tray beside his seat. "Yeah," he said, glancing out the window. They were over the Sahara now, thousands of meters above the greatest desert in the world. They'd probably make it to the Atlantic Ocean before the hour was up. "That's what took my grandparents. A quick case of highly malignant NRC cancers."

"A-men," Immanuel said, sympathetically. "It touches us all. Dey're close ta a cure, yeah?”

Will picked up the touchpad again and paged through the article. "Close, but no cigar. I've read up on it elsewhere. We're years away from finding a way to instigate safe metabolic suspension."

Immanuel clucked his tongue. "God 'ave mercy."

Will returned the touchpad and sat back in his seat. He didn't feel like reading, anyway.

NRC was a bad way to go, he knew. He had heard that cancer had been bad before the war, but after the war, NRC had appeared. It had taken his grandparents. Both in the same year, struck down by NRC. It took less than a month, usually. The tumors grew too fast. No matter how early the doctors caught it, it was almost always fatal.

He had seen his grandmother a week before she died. Rolling eyes, bone-pale skin, listless features...

No. Will shook his head. No need to relive old memories.

But maybe he could honor their memory and visit the land they had talked about so much. All he had known was growing up in Europe, but now he could finally see America. Even if his grandparents would never see it again.

He sighed. God have mercy, indeed.

************

The ape waved his fingers in Will's face. Will stared at the ape for a moment and blinked. Words poured out of the ape's mouth. Wait, did apes talk?

"You reaching soon?" the ape asked.

Will tried to form words, but his lips wouldn't move. He blinked once, and then again...

As his vision cleared, he realized that the ape was actually Immanuel. Tendrils of sleep fled as he sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What did you say, Immanuel?"

"You ready?” Immanuel was wearing a different shirt, now, a clean white button-up with a tank top barely visible beneath. "We several hours over America now an' about ta cross inta Kansas territory."

"Yeah, I'm getting up." Will, moving his seat from its reclining position, stood up and stretched. He blinked for a moment, and a thought entered his mind. "Wait, who's flying the plane?"

"It's mostly automatic, my man." Immanuel chuckled.

“Right."

An awkward silence replaced conversation. After a moment, Will went over to the window and peered out the thick glass. "Nothing but clouds out there."

"Won't be 'til we reach lower,” Immanuel said, standing beside Will. He gestured toward the back of the plane. "You gear in the back cabin. Might wanta get ready."

"Thanks." Will headed back down the hallway.

************

Thirty minutes later, Will was suited up and ready to rumble. His anti-nuke suit was surprisingly comfortable, actually. Small rubber tubes ran up and down the suit, tapering to his arms and legs, where it was skin tight. On his torso, however, the flexible material was fairly loose. Will could feel a boxlike pad on his back, which was what provided his oxygen. He had made sure to relieve himself before he suited up, of course. There wasn't a means of waste disposal in the suit.

After running through a safety checklist to make sure everything worked, he took his helmet off and went back to his seat behind Immanuel's chair.

"Looking good, my man," Immanuel said, glancing back at Will. "Works right?"

"Everything appears to be in order. I loaded my wrist reader with all the information I need." Will sat down awkwardly, setting his helmet on the seat beside him. "And I have a small handgun for protection."

"Nervous?"

"Not really." Will shrugged, the suit's material heavy and unfamiliar on his shoulders. "I've been through worse."

Immanuel whistled. "One'a dem agent types, eh? They tole me you was th' best'a th' best."

"That's what they told me, too. I hope it's true."

Immanuel laughed. "Sure you'll do fine."

"Thanks."

Immanuel gestured out the window. "We below th' cloud line now. Take a look. It's fine, d'is Midwest place."

Will stood up and peered out the glass window. At first, the sky was the only thing he could see, but then the plane tilted slightly.

And he saw it. Like a vast blanket, a brown-green ocean spread out below the plane, as far as the eye could see. Grass? But...there was so much of it! There was nothing but grass. In Europe, there were signs of human life most everywhere. There were trees planted in the middle of urban backgrounds to keep up the oxygen levels, but nothing of this wild beauty. Now he understood why his grandparents loved their country so much.

"A land is a reflection of the people who live there," his grandmother used to say. And this stark land was wild, beautiful...vast. He imagined fields of grain, gold amongst the brown-green grasses—and fruit trees, tall and dark—and hamlet-like towns where everyone knew everyone...

"Wow," Will whispered. He couldn't tear his eyes off the sight.

"Amazin', ain't it?" Immanuel said from his chair. "God work somet'ing good when he createh America."

There was a few moments of silence while Will drank in the sight. Finally, reluctantly, he pulled himself away from the window and sat down again. "How far are we from our destination?"

"'Bout fifteen minute."

Will swallowed. Sure, he had skydived before, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it.

He glanced out the window. "Radiation level?"

"Pretty low," Immanuel said, examining one of his screens. "Still too high for you ta go suitless, though." He turned to Will. "Ready?"

Will fastened his helmet and stood up. "Ready as I'm going to get."

"Right." Immanuel tapped his dashboard. "You kin go out ta th' hatch, an' I'll tell you when ta jump. I'll be communicatin' ta you with you comm system, and once you on th' ground, HQ'll be talkin' direct, usin' my signal. Got it?"

"Got it."

"God go with you."

Will nodded, and headed into the hallway. The hatch's inner lid slid open, leaving the thick outer door between Will and the elements.

The plane dived, and Will steadied himself on the wall, his stomach lurching.

He could do this. He'd done it before, after all. And he was going to walk on the land where his ancestors had lived. He concentrated on the image he had: a vast plain beneath a clear blue sky.

"Hatch openin'," came Immanuel's scratchy voice over Will's comm system. "Steadyin' the plane, hold on ta somethin'."

The plane abruptly straightened. Will held onto a door frame and stabilized himself.

Once the plane had steadied, the hatch slid open with a hiss, revealing the cloudless sky. Will swallowed back his fear and stepped forward.

Immanuel's voice crackled through Will's comm system. "Time ta jump, Will. Godspeed."

Will sucked in a breath, and jumped.

************

Will's feet hit the ground with a thump, reverberating through the speakers in his helmet. His legs buckled a bit, but he managed to stay upright. He breathed deeply for a moment, freeing the parachute harness from his torso.

"Glad that's over," he muttered. "As much as I love skydiving, I'm glad to see Mother Earth again." Not that there was anyone but his comm to hear his sarcasm. He waited for his stomach to settle—that awful empty feeling remained in his gut like a cold, clenched fist.

After a moment, he took a few steps forward, enjoying the feel of the knee-high green-brown grass. It gave a little beneath his feet, unlike the concrete streets of Europe. He could get used to this.

Will spoke louder. "Comm, get me a reading of the atmosphere." He turned around several times, examining the landscape. Kansas felt a lot more massive now that he was on the earth. Through his speakers, he could hear the wind rustling through the sea of grass.

The silence—the total lack of any life—was unnerving. He shivered.

"Temperature, twelve Celsius," said his comm system. "Carbon dioxide levels low. Oxygen levels high. Radiation, low."

"Good.” If it weren't for the nuclear residue in the atmosphere, he'd take off his suit. But he could still taste the air. The suit filtered out the radiation and let him breathe the cool air. It smelled good, nothing like the dirty, dingy air back in Europe. Clean, fresh, grassy. A land where the wind was free.

His comm system beeped. "Call waiting."

Already? They must have put a decent tracking signal in the suit. "Open communications."

"Opening," replied his comm system. There was a short pause.

"You read me, my man?" Immanuel's voice.

"Loud and clear, Immanuel. Where am I?"

Will heard the sound of tapping through the comm.

"I'm sendin' th' map a th' area ta you wrist reader," Immanuel said. "You about four kilometer away from th' entrance you tryin' ta reach."

His comm system beeped again. Will flipped open his wrist reader and squinted at the map that glowed on the screen, which was smaller than his palm. A green blip blinked. That was probably him. His destination was represented by a red blip, northeast of the green blip.

"All right, thanks," Will said. "I'm going to start walking. I'll call you once I reach the entrance."

He terminated the call and set out. One foot after another, he'd get there.

************

Will checked his wrist reader. "Almost there," he said, to himself.

"Three hundred eleven meters until your destination," replied the comm system.

Will shook his head. "Turn off automatic notifications." If there was something that would never fail to annoy him, it would be tech.

"Shut down disabled."

Tech with an attitude. "Why?"

"Administrative authority required to disable notifications."

"I wasn't notified of this."

"Notification is left to the administrator's discretion."

He sighed. "All right, whatever."

"Command does not compute."

"Never mind." Will kept walking.

"Two hundred thirty meters until your destination," said the comm system.

Will decided to shut his mouth, clasping his hands behind his back, as if to stifle the built-in comm on his wrist reader. Maybe the comm system would shut up with no one to talk to.

After a few moments of silence, the comm system spoke up again. "Destination is twelve meters to your left."

Will stopped and looked to his left. Nothing but the never-ending grasses, waving from the crest of a nearby rise. "I don't see anything." He flipped open his wrist reader. The green blip that represented Will was right on top of the red dot.