Core Punch (7 page)

I am aware. But if she lingers too long, the trip back will be more perilous.

The canine in the rear seat moved closer and whined mournfully. It saw Joe glance at him and barred its teeth, a low growl at the back of its throat.

It doesn't seem to like you.

And still she didn't appear. “Vi—”

“There's rope in these things. I'm trying to rig something.”

“The wind is increasing again.” Rain began again. “Leave one—”

“This may be our only chance and trust me, we need this
crapeau
.”

Finally she appeared around the side. She held a length of rope, with something tied on the end. The hatch ground back into place. But she didn't start back.

“I'm going to toss this and you need to catch it,” she said.

She squeezed past the tight spot, only the toes of her boots on concrete. He watched her run a length of rope through a grip, then through several loops on her suit and snap something. She tested the rope before she grabbed the length of rope and began to swing it, with the heavy object tied to the end. With each swing, she let more of the rope go, using the gap to extend the length of each swing. It came close and he almost caught it, but a gust of wind spun it out of reach. He used one of Vi's words. And waited. Next time.

She had to reel it in and start over. Slowly, so slowly it seemed, the object swung closer and closer.

Now!

He lunged, while keeping a grip on the side. Felt rope sliding through his fingers. The object slammed into his chest with numbing force, but Lurch helped him hang on to the rope by increasing the strength in his hand.

“I've got it.” He pulled it into the cockpit. It appeared to be a small bag, made of netting of some sort, and filled with heavy objects.

“You'll find a carabiner in there. See if you can hook your end to something.”

The rainfall rate was increasing, and the wind blew it into the skimmer and along the passage Vi must travel.

“Once you've got it, I'll slide the packs onto my end and secure them, and then you can reel them in. I'll follow and try to keep them from getting stuck on something. With the rope, I should be more secure for the trip back.”

He worked on securing his end. “I am ready.”

She had to go back through the narrow gap to get the packs. He saw her push them through the gap, one at a time. Once they were clear, he began pulling them in. Vi followed, moving faster, though at each grip she paused to secure herself. The packs got stuck once, but she was able to kick them free and in minutes he pulled them inside, tossing them on the floor, so he could reach for Vi. The last stretch seemed the longest. As soon as she clambered across the wing, he grabbed her, tumbling them both onto her sling. It was most uncomfortable, but he could not let go. She wriggled and he tightened his hold, but realized she had just reached over to close the hatch. He found he could chuckle, though only once.

“I missed you, too,” she said, against his shoulder.

“I would kiss you on your mouth, but I do not think I could stop,” he said.

“Ditto.”

“I suppose,” he said, reluctantly after a pointed nudge from Lurch, “that we should do something.”

She lifted her head off his chest. Managed a wavering smile. She had smears of green on her gear, her face and, he noted, liberally covering her boots and clothing where they rested awkwardly on the console. She had to be most uncomfortable. He aided her attempt to get off him, then clambered back into his sling. She dropped in hers with a sigh. He looked at her, then at the storm building back up out there. And wished he'd taken time for the kiss.

She hefted one of the packs onto the console so he could take it.

“I'm not sure how they'll help us get from point A to point B, but there is water in these bad boys. And some scary looking stuff that claims to be edible.”

“Water would be helpful, but I am hoping for a compass.”

She looked puzzled. “A compass? One of those weird ancient old math things you draw circles with?”

He shook his head, digging through the contents. “Ah.” He pulled it out and held it up the round disc. The hands spun, then pointed north.

“Compass. Okay, I learned about those in school. Sort of. How does it help?”

“We still have the map onboard. It is part of our database. With it and this compass, we should be able to navigate to the airport.” She looked dubious. “It is a long shot, Vi, but it is our only shot.”

She stared him, then nodded. “Right.” Her lips quirked. “Wouldn't it be nice if we got a short shot for once?”

The canine whimpered in what might be agreement. He glanced back. It had covered its eyes with its paws. So perhaps not agreement.

M
ost days Vi liked driving
, even this piece of
crapeau
skimmer. Today was not “most days.” Joe had had to give her some storm flying tips, which was kind of embarrassing. There was also the realization that she couldn't navigate her way out of, well, WTF. At some point they'd find out if Joe could navigate. His moves looked credible. He'd stared at the compass a lot, checked their map of the upper city. Looked out the window. Warned her when she was drifting or about to hit a large something or other. The verdict on whether it had worked was still out. She had no clue where they were, other than still in WTF. So probably still in Louisiana. Maybe in the region of New Orleans Old or New. Was sure they weren't out in the Gulf. There were no trees in the Gulf.

The wind had tested her to her toenails. And her fingernails. Had made her glad for the stale water and truly awful rations she'd eaten before they tried this long shot. Joe had not been happy they'd had to share with Fido. She'd got a look and he beat her to, “Regs?”

She'd shrugged apologetically. There were regs of regs for care and feeding of witnesses. Fido had eaten the offering, but he hadn't been any happier about it than they'd been.

At first she'd felt lost without the tech, missed the stream of data informing them how truly screwed they were. Then she decided absolute knowledge was not needed. Not knowing allowed delusions of hope to creep in. Helped her keep going when she thought she couldn't keep her almost numb hands on the controls one second more. She'd gotten almost used to stuff slamming into them, though the big stuff still made her jump. Gotten sort of used to tipping to one side or the other when the wind gusted. Still didn't like the yank when the cross-wind compensators righted them—more than once by spinning them 180 degrees. When she realized half an hour had passed without crashing and burning, she began to believe they might just make it to the airport.

Assuming they could find it. It had seemed a large, findable target, until one factored in all kinds of science or math or physics stuff. She wasn't sure which. Maybe all of them boiled down to a needle in a haystack. What, she wondered to take her mind off the burn in her shoulders and everywhere else, was a haystack?

The rain slackened off with a suddenness that took her by surprise. It was all the warning she got for the wind speed change. The modification sent them off course, which was the ultimate in optimistic, believing they had a course. She fought her way back to this fictional place. Light tried to push through the cloud cover, low and off to her left. The sun was setting. Oh goodie. Though…if that was due west, or undue west, then Joe's compass skills had worked. And if they had been heading north—

She took a deep, shaky breath as an outline of gray appeared at the base of the clouds ahead of them.

That had to be the big, freaking landmark they'd hoped to find. The one that might help them find that not-so-freaking-big-enough airport.

“Lake Pontchartrain,” Joe said with satisfaction, exhaustion cutting deep grooves into a face that managed to be both hammered and pretty. “Now we make our westward turn.”

Her lifted spirits took a nose dive. West. The turn that would put the full force of the hurricane's winds on their tail. It had been bad having it hit them from the side, even with the aid of the cross-wind compensators. The cost in fuel consumption had been more painful than the jolts. Joe had hoped it would push them far enough west that when they made this turn they would have covered much of the distance to the airport and wouldn't have to ride the tail wind for too long.

The wind had modified in this feeder band. Or not-feeder band. But had it modified enough to make the turn possible?

“We do not want to be over water,” he added, possibly sensing her sudden reluctance.

Being over water while flying through buckets of it would make bad worse. She knew this, but—

She cast him a quick fake confident look. “I haven't tried a big turn in this yet. Any tips?”

“Take it slow.” He paused. “And pray?”

Pray she could do, had been doing pretty much non-stop. Her Grand Paw Paw used to say there were no atheists in fox holes. He could add big ass storms to that list. But actually making the turn? Would WTF let her “take it slow?”

“We can attempt to transfer control back to me,” he added.

She shook her head. “It almost didn't work last time.” If the skimmer was damaged, which it was, it was a real possibility that flight control could get stuck in limbo between the two stations. Limbo would be bad until their fuel ran out. Then it would be lethal. “I can do it.”

She had to. This wasn't one of those “do or don't do, there is no try” deals. This was do it or die.

She took a deep breath, some advice from a cousin popping up in her head. “Be one with your skimmer. That's how real pilots fly.” It sounded stupid then, did now, and yet—during the rare skimmer chases in her patrol cop years, she'd focus on her target and yeah, tried to be one with her ship. It had helped her miss buildings during those sharp, fast turns.

She took another deep breath and let herself feel it. Feel the wind pushing against the right side of the skimmer. It wasn't a steady force. There was no pattern to how hard it hit them. Sometimes it came from above and the side. Always trying to wrest control from her. They'd been lucky they'd missed the wrenching winds that twisted the trees like tops, sending them flailing first one direction, then the other. Though they'd been singed by them, if one could use the word in a million-gallons-of-water hurricane.

Joe didn't speak again. She felt his urgency, despite his carefully deadpan expression. He also knew she needed to try it sooner rather than later. He knew she knew it. The lake was getting close fast. She tried another deep breath and felt herself connect, or she hoped that connection was what she felt. If she was wrong, they'd only know it for a minute.

She adjusted speed and began to feather the turn. It was like trying to feather a mule through a gate—a Grand Paw Paw phrase that she didn't get but felt comforting, and there was no one to tell her it wasn't right.

Okay, feathering wasn't going to do. Time to bull through the turn. Her muscles shuddered as much and as hard as the skimmer. But this time it started to come around. Okay, now the mule was bucking. She'd never done it, but she'd seen rodeos vids.

She reversed thrust and finished the turn. The tail wind caught them. Snapped her back in her sling, like a kick in the ass.

Reverse thrust was at full power.

They raced forward, bouncing across the restless air currents so hard her feet—and her ass—kept going airborne.

“Tighten my straps,” she gritted out between bounces.

Joe did. It helped some. Hurt a lot. In some ways it reminded her of a vid game. Without the fun parts. Dark clouds bent across the horizon ahead of them.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Joe didn't have time to answer before the tail wind pushed them inside.

The sudden change in wind direction ripped the controls from her hands and sent them spinning top over tail.

J
oe woke to a spinning
, tumbling world. Nothing to tell him what was up, what was down. Vi was unconscious. Perhaps it was luck that a change in the wind had lifted them up into heavier winds, rather than slamming them into the ground. It was the only good news, though it did not feel good. Even the nanite felt a bit seasick.

The skimmer shrieked a protest at the unkind stress impacting its old seams and joints. Another direction change flung him sideways in his harness. Stars spun across his view in the opposite direction of the skimmer. The console flickered once, then came to life, not with uplink data or communications, but with something.

Did you—

No. Perhaps the structural stresses have knocked something…together.

Joe didn't believe it either, but a reprieve, even one possibly provided for nefarious purposes, was still a reprieve. It was as well Lurch had allowed him to lose consciousness, if its enemy had caused this “fix.” Fighting against the centrifugal force pinning him in the sling, he managed to hit the drive control transfer. The reasons they hadn't done it before no longer mattered. If it didn't work, well, as Vi liked to say, “
Crapeau
happens. A lot.”

Joe was not surprised when control transferred and with some speed. If it did not want them to die, something had to change and quickly. Did it wish the game to continue? Did it now watch them?

Use attitude control, then the power boost when the skimmer levels out.

Joe managed to depress attitude control, then grabbed the controls. Did what he could to bring the skimmer to a point where it could be steered once more. The shriek of stressed metal increased. He feared it was too late, but slowly, almost imperceptibly the skimmer began to level out. Rotation also slowed, then ceased. The cross-wind compensators kicked on, assisting the leveling, and the skimmer resumed forward progress.

Now.

It was only after he punched it, he wondered at the wisdom of accelerating toward the unknown. But they knew what they had here. And it was done. He hit the back of the sling harder than before. Apparently whoever had designed this boost had been quite serious about it. He saw stars once more, almost as many as on his journey here….

Like a rocket, the skimmer passed through the outer band of the storm into skies that were not wholly clear, but better than what they'd left. The boost sputtered and died, taking almost all their fuel with it. That was the bad news, as Vi liked to say. The good news, almost directly ahead he saw, outlined against the sinking sun, the stark shape of what had been the New Orleans Old airport.

T
hey weren't going
to make it. They'd started out high, but their fuel was almost gone. Their weight, the imperfectly designed skimmer, and the gravitational force pulled them inexorably down. Transit through the unstable air reminded him of land passage through the more remote areas at home, what the people here called pot holes. Apparently NOO had a surfeit of these pot holes, which lifting had not wholly helped. Some of the narrower transits retained “ghost pot holes” that no one could quite explain. His teeth seemed to rattle inside his head.

We were not blown as far off course as I feared.

Do you believe your enemy is doing more than watching us? Did it assist us?

It is possible.

Joe sensed a complicated something from the old nanite, something that left a bad taste at the back of Joe's throat.
What?

What if it is here with us?

Here? There is only—
Then it hit him.
You think Vi—no. I—no.

We must consider the possibility. It could have invaded her body at any time. One minute of prolonged contact and then she would no longer be in control of her actions.

I have observed no changes in her behavior.

You do not believe the kiss was a change in behavior?

Joe shifted uncomfortably in his seat. That kiss had been only the bright spot in the day and now Lurch was taking it away?
You believe she kissed me to—deceive me?

I am not saying it is so. I'm saying, you need to be wary. Limit physical contact until—

Until when?
If they were going to die down here, the one thing he wanted to do again was not limit physical contact with Vi. Joe glanced at her where she slumped in her sling, blood trickling down the side of her face. Could she be hiding Lurch's enemy? He tried to think if he'd noticed any change in her behavior beyond the kiss, but she was an ever-changing mystery to him on his best days. This was not one of his best days. Except for the kiss.
How will we know?

When she tries to kill you. Or someone else does.

Joe risked another quick look. She seemed to be breathing.

While she is unconscious, couldn't you—

She may be pretending to be unconscious to get me to do just that.

So they would have to wait until they landed. Supposing they survived the landing.

If we can make it as far as one of the old runways, our chances will improve.

Even if they managed a landing that didn't tear the skimmer to pieces—and them with it—they'd be dirt side in fading light with WFT still bearing down on them. A storm expected to be preceded by an unprecedented storm surge.

The 72'r kits contain rudimentary flotation devices.

Because one wished to be buoyant in water with alligators, poisonous reptiles, fire ants, and who knew what else—and a woman one was not allowed to kiss until she didn't try to kill him.

Vi groaned, her head shifting to one side, then the other. One eye cracked slightly. She blinked several times before her lids remained up. Stared at him for twenty seconds, then her lips curved into a smile.

“We're not dead.”

“No.” He smiled at her, remembered, and the smile turned stiff. How was he to manage this? He lacked deception skills.

Try not to think about it. Or touch her.

Because either was easy. Not.

“I was sure I'd wake up dead.” She pushed herself upright in sling, wincing a couple of times. “Figured I wasn't because one hopes dying won't hurt like a son-of-a—thing.” She rubbed her face and brushed against her wound. “Ow.”

“You are bleeding.”

She looked at her hand. “Yeah.” She grabbed the towel she kept in her cubby and dabbed at her injury. Her gaze tracked across the console, then shifted to the view outside. “We're level.” They hit a particularly bumpy stretch. “Relatively level. And almost out of fuel. What happens when we run out?”

“I hope we will continue gliding in.”

She blinked. “This is gliding? I kinda thought gliding would be more…glide-y.” She studied the controls for a few seconds more. “How—I don't even know what to ask.”

“When the skimmer went into its spin,” he hesitated, “some of the systems were apparently shaken into functionality.” Would she believe that? Did she make it happen? If she were acting, she did it very well. As well as she kissed—

Her eyes studied him. “Really? Which ones?”

“Attitude control and boost.”

“Boost?” Now her eyes rounded with surprise. “Boost? They told me it didn't anymore. And I missed it.”

“You did not miss that much. It was brief.” And painful. He looked away, unable to sustain her gaze. It felt wrong to distrust her, but Lurch had logic on his side. It would be much easier to mess with their systems from inside. Though risky to do if it believed Lurch lived in Joe.

It has demonstrated a high degree of comfort with risk.

“Boost depleted most of our fuel, but enabled us to break free of the storm.” Though it would not be long before the storm caught up with them again.

“That's the airport. We're almost there.” She leaned toward it, as if that would assist her view, then studied their current flight path and fuel supply. “We won't make it.”

“We might make it as far as one of the old runways.”

She looked a bit hopeful again. “They were maintained longer than the rest of the city following the raising. I remember my Grand Paw Paw telling a story about coming down here to see an air show when he was a kid.” Her brow creased. “Still a long time, long enough for
crapeau
to happen.”

“How closely do you believe the upper port resembles the layout of the old?” She shook her head, shrugging at the same time. “Can you locate the compass? I lost it when—”

“Sorry about that.”

“I do not believe anyone could have retained control in those circumstances.” Did he believe that? Would it have risked the loss of control if it lived in Vi? How far was it willing to go to destroy Lurch?

If it destroyed me here, the repercussions would be most serious.

But—
Joe couldn't wrap his brain around that, not at this moment.

“I am not nearly as impressed with my piloting skills as I used to be,” she said a bit ruefully. She started to look around, then stopped. “I wonder if there is a compass in my pack?” She dug through the contents and held up the compass with a triumphant smirk. “I knew we needed both kits.”

“You were correct.”

“Wow, a guy who will admit a girl's right. I might have to kiss you again if we don't die.”

Joe's heart leapt in his chest, followed by a negative from the nanite. His smile went from glad to stiff again. “Then let us find out which direction we are currently traveling.”

Her smile faltered, and there might have been a flare of hurt in her eyes, but she turned to the compass before he could be sure. In a moment, she said, “If that is north, then we're flying west.”

She looked out and down, and hastily strapped back in. She tried the console and pulled up the city map in the database. She zoomed in on the upper port. Looking at it, then peering ahead at the approaching airport. “Obviously they've had to expand and change it to accommodate the advances in technology. That's like the sad, bad shadow of what we have now. Up above, there are arrival lanes here and here….”

She fell silent. Her gaze flicked back and forth between screen and outside view. Finally she sighed.

“There's no way to know for sure, but there's sort of a long T between the docking buildings. They might be long enough to have been runways.” She frowned. “Back then planes used air and stuff, didn't they? So wind direction and speed would matter?”

“I believe you are correct,” Joe said, though he was certain it was so, thanks to Lurch, whose database of knowledge was vast.

“Then those might be what we need. They looked like they were laid out for that. Of course, the problem is finding one of them. We'll only have one shot at it. When we lost our uplink with the tracking sensors….”

Joe had a thought. “Try a love tap.” If Lurch's enemy wanted them to continue the game, perhaps it would help again.

Or perhaps Vi will make it happen. Perhaps her love taps are nanite assistance.

Joe ignored the interjection.

She gave him a skeptical look, but tried it. Twice. Was about to try again, when it flickered to life. “Well, I'll be…I don't suppose communications is working—nope. If the equipment weren't such
crapeau
, I'd start to wonder if someone was sabotaging us.” She half laughed. “Of course, if they were, the systems wouldn't start working again. All this is messing with my head. Not a good time to get paranoid.”

Was this a diversion or honest confusion. Her detective instincts hadn't been wholly subsumed. If not for the crisis, she'd have followed her instincts. If she were herself.

“Houston, we have a dot again.” She gave him course adjustment information.

He managed it, though barely. His ability to steer the bulky skimmer was limited. Either with help or by the grace of fortune, they were almost lined up on what might be a runway.

It wants us to land.

Which begged the question, what was down there?

Expect the unexpected.

Joe had a better grasp on what that meant, though he had not made much progress in doing it.

“Oh
crapeau
.”

A tumble of debris, not unlike that of I-10, was directly in their path.

It is I-10. Or rather the old off ramp for the airport.

“Will we make it over it?”

“I do not know.” He eased back, and got a fuel exhausted alert. Vi shut the alarm off. He could not be sure, but it seemed like an updraft boosted them the last few feet over the debris. The updraft left them as abruptly as it had helped and they dropped quickly. Joe tried to wrestle their nose around, tried to line up on the shadow of what might be the hoped-for runway….

S
omething had cooled
Joe's jets on kisses. Maybe he hadn't liked it that much. Seemed to like it. And why was she thinking about kissing right now? Because it distracted from the rapidly approaching crash?
Shallow, thy name is Violet.

Ahead, the ground looked flat and straight, though it was probably an illusion, since it was basically a carpet of green. A bumpy carpet of green. Just great. The only thing that had gone right today—the kiss—apparently hadn't gone that right. So why break a losing streak? Just before impact, Vi closed her eyes and braced. This time, her life tried to pass before her eyes. It was fast and pretty boring.

The jolt came a few seconds after she'd expected.

The skimmer bounced up, hit the ground again, rushing forward. With no engine, they had no braking thrust, so no way to stop except—yeah, by hitting things. Now that they were on the ground, she could see the bumps better. So far, the skimmer was winning the weight-to-size battle. At least the impacts were slowing them down.

Just not enough.

If anyone had abandoned something big down here—