Sleeper Seven (16 page)

That task complete, she entered her target's room to find him sitting up on the bed, cradling his head in his hands. He looked up, and without a word stood and shuffled towards her, as if he already knew what she was there to do. Positioning herself alongside him, she threw an arm around his waist and helped him down the hall to the empty room.

Behind them, she heard the ding of an arriving elevator car, followed by the shuffling of several pairs of boots in their direction. It was either the reinvigorated pair, or reinforcements, but Jess was unwilling to stay and find out.

Leaning him next to the window, she scrambled through the opening, landing roughly in the open cockpit outside. Spinning around, she stretched back through the window opening, hooking her vomity shoes onto the sill of the craft, and reached out to him.

He grabbed her arms with both hands, leaning forward as she pulled back, and was almost out when Jess spotted flashlights behind him scanning the room. The beams quickly converged on them, and just as he had grasped the edge of the cockpit, she felt a hard tug and heard the grunts of the men inside as he was pulled backwards, away from her.

Quickly removing her shoes with one hand, she fired each of them into the window opening, then grasped his free arm and braced her stocking feet against the wall of the cockpit.

"OK Mustang Three, move back ten feet!" she ordered.

The craft slid backward as if on a rail, dragging her subject through the window along with several other arms, until they lost their grip — or their nerve — and let go. His legs fell, pulling her forward as he dangled over the side of the craft. As she struggled to pull him aboard, a trio of rifle stocks emerged from the plastic hole.

"Descend to the ground!" she ordered, and instantly they plummeted downward as shots rang out in the sky above them. Still holding his arms, Jess didn't have the strength to pull him in, and so she just held on, waiting for the ground to arrive.

As the craft gently slowed to a stop above the concrete plaza, they found themselves hovering in the midst of three military troop transport trucks, the occupants of which were now a hundred stories above them. The lone remaining soldier, a driver enjoying his smoke break, stared mid-puff as a small, shoeless Caucasian redhead hoisted a supremely tall man with white hair — neither of which he had seen before in his life — into a strange-looking tiny black car that had silently descended from the sky.

~ 34 ~

H
er subject safe inside the cockpit, Jess ordered the craft to close. As the roof sealed shut and the panels cleared, she laughed aloud at the sight of the gentleman, folded into the seat of this tiny craft, which was clearly designed for occupants no more than five feet tall.

He glanced at her with a slight grimace, holding his head as if he had a wicked hangover. She offered him some of her water, and after drinking it, he leaned back as best he could and closed his eyes again. Her concern for him was interrupted by movement out of the corner of her eye: reinforcements had arrived, and had begun firing upon the craft with abandon. Strangely, she felt no impacts, nor heard any ricochet sounds, though they were shooting from less than a hundred yards away. Unwilling to see how much of this abuse the craft could take, she ordered it home.

As the craft ascended, she watched the men below futilely continue to fire, even as their impenetrable target sped up and away. As they rose, sunlight flooded the cockpit; it had finally, inevitably, caught up to her. Looking down again, at the dawn of a new day in this strange city, she glimpsed a modicum of street traffic, surprisingly little considering the size of the city. Craning her neck back towards the hotel one last time, she spotted a dozen or so military vehicles converging on it from different sections of the city, not realizing their prey was long gone.

She examined her new companion. Although out of it, his eyes were open now, and he seemed to be coming around. Relaxing into her chair, she was able to steal a few moments of rest despite the sunshine-filled cabin. Gazing down, she watched the greens and browns of the countryside pass by, marred suddenly by a long coil of white smoke below them. As she squinted, examining this strange cloud, another joined it, this one below their left side. Jess clearly saw the object leaving this new trail: a small, pointed red cylinder.

Looking aft, she spotted two nosecones quickly approaching. Both jets shot by, one on each side, before turning hard in opposite directions, presumably to circle back around and fire upon them again.

"Go faster!" she commanded the craft, instantly feeling the result of the acceleration. The jets had already circled around, however, and were gaining on them. Several follow-on missiles flew above, to the right, and underneath them. She wondered if they were just poor shots, or if there was something about this craft they just couldn't lock onto.

The jets, still retaining a slight speed advantage, crept up astride them. Jess made eye contact with the pilot twenty feet off of their bow; above his oxygen mask his eyes showed a burning anger, even hatred, towards them. He suddenly banked hard to his left, away from them. As she leaned over the gentleman to see where he went, the craft rocked sideways, pitching her back into her seat.

"Avoiding aircraft," the craft announced calmly, as Jess twisted to her right to find the nosecone of the second jet mere feet off their starboard side. As the craft continued through the hard bank, the second pilot gave up and pulled away, just as the first jet came around again. Positioning his aircraft ahead of them, he banked sharply, cutting them off, with the clear intention of bringing both aircraft down.

"Avoiding aircraft," the craft repeated as it skidded right, throwing her roughly on top of the gentleman. Jess saw the confusion on the pilot's face as he looked up at them through his canopy, he vertical and they horizontal, while their craft followed the parabolic arc of his hard bank perfectly, avoiding a collision by inches.

"Go faster! Outrun!" she ordered the craft, as she extricated herself and slid back into her seat.

"Unable to comply," the craft countered. "Acceleration slope computed based on body..."

"Override! Ignore!" Jess interrupted. "I authorize
faster! Maximum discomfort!
"

"Understood," the craft announced, as the roar of thousands of additional chirping engines filled their ears, and the sudden eight g-force acceleration plastered them back into their seats. If Jess had been able to turn her head, she might have seen the incredulous expressions on the faces of their pursuers as they receded into the distance.

The familiar mist began to form as they transitioned through the sound barrier, the drawn out 'pops' from before exploding this time in a matter of seconds, like the sound of a gatling gun.

"Slipstream active and maximum velocity achieved," the craft informed them, as the acceleration abated and they regained the ability to move. They were over the ocean now — Jess had no idea where — but they were facing the sun, so she assumed they were traveling east. Remembering her guest, she looked over at him as he turned and gave her a wan smile, along with a thumb pointed sideways, as though grading her rescue effort.

"My name is Jess," she offered, extending her hand awkwardly in the small space. He looked at it, looked at her, smiled again, and touched her palm with two of his fingers, but said nothing. Then, reaching forward, he brushed the featureless white console with three fingers, twisting them in a circle. A hologram of a spinning globe manifested in front of them, which he deftly manipulated in mid-air, zooming in to a location within Mongolia. Touching it, he twisted his finger in place, and the craft instantly responded with a one hundred and eighty degree turn. She looked at him quizzically as they headed, once again, away from the rising sun. Giving her the same wan smile, he wordlessly curled back into his seat.

"Where are we going?" she demanded. He turned and smiled at her again, as though a parent entertaining the babble of an infant.

"Take us home," she commanded. The craft turned back toward the sun.

"Vishu" he countermanded, and the craft turned back westward. Again, she ordered it home, but found it — for the first time — unresponsive to her. Sighing angrily, she lay back in her seat, wondering how long this detour would take. Her bladder was killing her.

~ 35 ~

A
fter several minutes of tense silence, her subject — and now captor — rose from his stupor and turned to her, as if remembering something.

"Come and knock on our door!" he sang, painfully off-key. She looked at him quizzically as he entreated her, a look of joyful expectation on his face.

"We've been waiting for you!" he continued, in a deep, throaty nordic accent, still looking to her for some type of acknowledgement. She vaguely recognized the massacred tune from somewhere, but was gobsmacked as to what this was all about.

"Ahh...OK," she nodded in faux fellowship, smiling at him warily.

He took this as the confirmation he had been searching for, and with a victorious, knowing look on his face, he nodded back at her, winked, sat back again, and said nothing more.

Jess anxiously charted their progress on the holographic globe, and forty-five minutes later they descended into a clearing within a vast expanse of forest, still dark in the twilight hour. Upon landing, she immediately hopped out and made herself scarce for a few minutes.

Returning to the craft, she couldn't find the gentleman anywhere. This was her charge, and though he was out of immediate danger, she had lost control of the mission objective: to return with him safely in tow. Dismayed, she searched the area frantically, finally discovering him standing motionless next to an enormous, vine-covered tree, peering into the darkness of the forest. Sidling up next to him, he ignored her until she pulled at his garment, as if to lead him back towards the craft. He acted as though annoyed by an insect, and refusing to comply, simply shook his head 'No' while continuing to stare off into the trees.

Not knowing what to do, she stood with him, as the silence slowly gave way to the synchronized buzzing of swarms of cicadas, which joined together in a rhythm that danced around the forest. To Jess, it sounded as though they were surrounded by thousands of tiny maracas, their earlier arrival having temporarily interrupted this nightly concert.

The rhythm captured her attention until the cadence began to slow and trail off, and once again the entire forest was still. Hearing the buzz of a faraway engine, Jess searched the trees and spotted a pair of lights navigating slowly through the brush. Back and forth they moved, inching closer at turns. Disappearing for a moment behind a low rise, they reappeared much closer, at which point she could see it was a dark green jeep with two occupants.

The vehicle made its way towards them, driving over tall grassy brush which scraped the undercarriage only to spring back up behind them. They came to a halt fifteen feet away, without entering the clearing. The driver was an Asian male in his late twenties, dressed impeccably — if peculiarly — in a light gray business suit. Stranger still were the large pair of sunglasses he wore, since the forest had little light in this pre-dawn hour.

The man was nothing, however, compared to his passenger: a tall Caucasian woman, her red hair perfectly coiffed, who was draped in a sparkling red evening gown with black and green alligator pumps. As the Jeep came to a stop, she rose and stood on the sideboard, grasping the edge of the windscreen for support. Unlike her companion, she wasn't wearing sunglasses, and stared curiously at Jess with hypnotic blue-grey eyes. This bewildering scene was interrupted by her gentleman friend, who, suddenly acknowledging Jess' existence, turned to her and offered his hand.

"Thank you," he uttered in his gravelly voice, as she took his hand. He then slowly made his way to the Jeep, and taking the woman's hand, hoisted himself up into the back seat. The woman gave Jess one final look before she, too, turned away and sat down. The driver, still facing forward, fired up the Jeep and they began inching their way back into the darkness of the forest.

"You're welcome!" she yelled, as they turned out of sight behind a stand of trees. Jess stood in stunned silence for several minutes, until the engine noise receded to silence and the singing of the cicadas slowly returned. She was suddenly angry — angry at herself for letting him go, angry at him for abandoning her in this place, angry at the confusion that swirled around this entire situation. If she was going back empty-handed, she decided, she was at least returning with some answers — if for nobody but herself.

~ 36 ~

J
umping back into her craft, she requested — and was given, to her immense relief — manual control. Navigating forward, she entered the forest, heading towards the area where the Jeep had disappeared. Maneuvering carefully among the trees, she found the craft small enough to slip between most of them, and smart enough to automatically tilt when she failed at estimating the clearance properly. She could clearly see branches and underbrush striking the craft; inside, however, it was silent but for the slight hum at her back. What she couldn't see was any sign of the Jeep: no trail to follow, no headlights, nothing. After several long minutes of fruitless zig-zagging, she feared she had lost them.

Raising the craft above the forest canopy, she scanned below, yet found nothing. Looking back up, she noticed a faint glow about a mile distant, and assumed it was the Jeep. As she moved the craft closer to it, she discovered a halo of pulsating light within the forest below, alternating between pure white and white with a reddish tint to it, without any visible source. Descending back into the trees, she found herself engulfed within this light, and upon opening the hatch to listen for any associated sounds, discovered the forest to be utterly silent — with the notable exception of numerous songbirds chirping and flitting about the trees, tricked as they were into thinking it was daylight.

From below, she followed the light upward until finally discovering the source. It was what she didn't see, though, that defined it, and why she couldn't see it from above. Darker than the pre-dawn sky surrounding it, a tremendous triangular form the size of a football field hovered just above the treetops, seemingly punching a hole in the firmament.