by Andrew Mayne
She points to the trail of smoke in the sky.
I nod to her. I don't know what good lying to her will do.
They watch as I finish shoving the parachute into the pack. I flip up my visor and give them a smile, so they don't report me or whatever.
The oldest of the two boys points to me and says, "Homem de Ferro?" Which sounds kind of rude.
"Watch it pal," I reply, then look for some place less conspicuous to stand than on top of the tallest garbage heap in the middle of an apocalyptic urban renewal project.
"Americano?" asks the little girl as she follows me.
I say, "Si," because I have no idea how to say "yes" in Portuguese.
"Homem de Ferro!" shouts the littlest boy as he leaps in my path with his palms facing me.
He's got a big grin on his face. So I can't tell if he's trying to block me or tell me to go another way.
"Yeah, yeah, gigante homo de fairy-o. Now out of my way."
The kid's eyes go so super-wide at my admission and the cracks of dirt on his face begin to flake off. "Uhul! Homem de Ferro!"
"Wait?" I roll the words around in my head. Homem...like man? Ferro...as in ferrous or iron?
...Man of iron
Idiot, the punk didn't call you gay. He asked if you were Iron Man.
I guess the spacesuit does look a lot like Iron Man, I mean I wouldn't take it trick-or-treating and expect people to make the connection. But to this poor kid out in the middle of whatever this part of Rio is called, yeah, I guess that works.
Hell, David, they just watched you jump from a spaceship. Of course it makes sense.
I slap the hard plastic chest. "Yo soy Homem de Ferro."
The little girl looks to the street and says, "Polícia!"
She breaks into a run like a skittish cat and the others follow.
I hear the siren too.
The kids definitely seem to be running from it, not towards the sound. I've heard that street kids here don't exactly have the best relations with the local police, so I can't blame them.
They scurry down the hill and race towards some collapsed shanties.
The littlest one stops to look back and sees that I'm following them. It only takes him a second to realize that Iron Man doesn't want to get caught by the polícia either.
He waves me on and shouts, "Por aqui! Por aqui!"
I stomp along as fast as I can in a suit that was made for zero-gravity and not exploring planet garbage.
As the sirens – lots of them – grow louder, the other two children stop at a wooden fence and pull the slats open for me.
"Ir por este caminho , o homem de ferro !"
"Thanks!"
Let's hope the rest of the locals are just as helpful.
18
CRAWLSPACE
I SLIDE into the small gap between the wooden slats and knock one of the boards loose. The littlest one picks the plank up and starts to carry it through until the girl (his sister?) makes him put it back. I think she called him Luca.
Once I'm on the other side she leans the board back over the gap, kind of hiding our tracks.
I glance around at the trash-filled alley. It's a narrow passage, four feet wide with concrete walls on either side. To the left is an unfinished house with no side wall and bare wooden struts supporting the upper floor.
Rotten plywood and dirty plastic tarps litter the interior.
I unscrew my helmet for the first time since I landed. Something hits my shoulder and falls to the dirt.
The sat phone.
I kneel down to pick it up. The screen is bashed in and non-functioning.
So much for hearing from Capricorn. Although he made it sound like his part of the mission was over.
I realize what the sharp pain was I felt on my ear when I landed. My fingers reach up and touch the blood and broken shards stuck into my lobe.
"Você está machucado?" asks tiny little Luca with a sad look on his face.
"I'll be fine." I hand him the helmet - which is half the size he is.
"Quieto!" says the girl as she peers through the gap in the fence.
Two police officers, wearing bullet proof vests, are walking to the top of the trash heap. One of them uses his hand to shield his eyes as he studies the fading contrail of my spaceship.
That didn't take them long to get here. I need to keep moving.
I take off my gloves and toss them into the helmet, then start removing the chest piece. The other boy is fascinated by this process. He inspects each part of the suit as I set it down.
When I'm finished, I'm left in the bright blue iCosmos thermal suit, which is proper attire for a micro-gravity space station, but not exactly inconspicuous.
Although, I wouldn't look entirely out of place as a goalie on a soccer field.
Speaking of which, I've got to figure out how to get to the stadium before the polícia find me.
First order of business is hiding this suit. I step into the abandoned house and look for a plastic tarp to cover the parts.
I have zero expectation that it'll last more then 45 seconds after I'm gone and the little ones here decide they want to flip the thing to their local junk dealer.
But if I can keep the authorities from finding it long enough to get away from where I am, that gives me some advantage.
I grab a paint-splattered piece of plastic and carefully pull it aside, not wanting to alert the cops who are still outside trying to decide if someone really did land via parachute or if this was just another chupacabra sighting.
The little girl taps me on the back and points to a piece of chipped plywood. "Aqui."
"What?"
She points to the board and says, "Aqui," again.
The older boy goes over to the edge and raises the plywood, revealing a small hole dug into the ground.
I look inside and see their little stash of treasure. There's a Thor action figure missing an arm, several stuffed animals in various states of disrepair and a collection of water-stained children's books.
Alright, you little con artists, get me to put this in your safe place and when I come back, it'll be gone. Just make sure the junk man gives you a good price for this thing. You could buy a whole neighborhood with what it's really worth.
I stow my suit and packed chute inside their hiding spot, and almost forget to take the square Peterson gave me right before she...
Focus, David.
I take a glance through the fence, hoping the cops have decided to go elsewhere.
Nope. There are four of them now. One is pointing in our direction.
Damn.
"Por aqui," whispers the little girl as she tugs on my arm, pulling me back into the alley. The older boy does the same.
They dart away through the choked passage, climbing under boards and over piles of broken toilets. I do my best to follow, but this was not meant for adults.
"Damn!"
I look down at my feet and see that I just stepped on a pile of rusty screws.
The bottom of my thermal is just a thick piece of fabric with some heat exchanging wires. It wasn't meant to be rugged urban wear.
I try to go a little further but have to stop when I reach a bunch of broken glass.
The kids, all of them barefoot, have no trouble. They possess the advantage of being nimble, lightweight and have callouses on their feet as thick as a baseball glove.
Luca, the slowest one, sees me struggling. "Pare!" he whispers to the others.
The girl sees me rubbing the bottom of my feet.
I point and say, "Zappos?"
This gets me a confused look, then she nods her head and replies, "Sapatos?"
Close enough. "Yes." I start digging through the rubble for something I can wrap around them, even a Tyvek plastic bag would help.
She says something to the older boy and he takes off running.
I glance back towards the entrance of the alley, worried the cops might be coming at any moment. With their thick police boots, they'
ll have no trouble stomping through here.
The girl squeezes past me and goes back to the wooden fence to watch what they're up to. Suddenly, she jumps back.
I duck behind a pile of concrete mix sacks. Luca, thinking this is a game, or totally understanding the stakes, slides a rotten piece of cardboard over me.
An adult voice echoes down the alley. I can only make out a few words. I'm pretty sure he said something like "pára-quedas," which sounds an awful lot like parachute.
The little girl responds, "Não, não." Which I'm pretty sure isn't Portuguese for, "The man you're looking for is cowering in the alley behind me and completely vulnerable."
The adult voice stops and the girl comes running back down the alley to my hiding spot.
When she pokes her head under the cardboard she puts a finger to her lips, which is the universal sign for keep your fat mouth shut.
She glances up at the sound of small footsteps running from the other direction.
The older boy climbs over a pile of tiles and presents a pair of rubber boots to me.
They're not exactly Nikes, but they fit.
I have no idea where he got them from, and I don't think I want to know.
There's a crashing sound from the alley entrance and the children wave for me to finishing putting the boots on and hurry my slow ass up.
19
STREET GANG
MY ESCORTS CLIMB and crawl through the alley, dodging piles of bricks, rusty rebar, box springs and whatever detritus people saw fit to leave here.
While Luca and his friends are quite agile at making it through the maze, I'm too slow to keep up. Thankfully, he stops periodically to make sure I don't get too far behind.
Overhead, I hear the sound of a helicopter passing by and press myself against the wall, afraid I'll stand out like a sore thumb from the air.
Luca waves me to a side alley even more narrow than this one. A tiny dark chasm between a concrete wall that's falling apart and rusted metal siding, I hesitate, not certain that I want to try to squeeze through.
When I hear the sound of lumber and other trash being knocked aside behind me, I decide to trust that Luca isn't planning to leave me stuck in an impossible situation.
Evidently, the police decided the story of a man parachuting down was credible enough to take seriously, despite the insistence of the little girl.
I have no idea how seriously they're going to take this or how far they plan to pursue, but I'm reasonably certain I'd rather follow these kids than take my chances with the Brazilian authorities.
I push myself through the narrow gap and feel my boot sink into something wet and fetid. I'm so thankful in this moment for the footwear that the other kid brought me, that I promise myself if I survive, I'll come back here with some kind of reward – and have the kids all checked for ringworm.
Who are these children? Do they belong to somebody? Do they live on the street?
They're incredibly dirty and look like they haven't had a change of clothes or a bath since their last birthday.
There's a sliver of daylight ahead of me as I make it through the darkest part of the passage.
My nostrils are assaulted and I look down and see a rotting cat.
"Gatinho morto," says Luca as he looks back, plugging his nose.
"Morto is right," I say, stepping over the foul carcass.
We reach the end of the corridor and step out onto a street. Concrete walls stretch in either direction, with sliding metal doors sealing off their yards.
I have no idea if this is a good or a bad neighborhood. Across the street, an old woman lays out rugs on a second floor metal railing, gives me a momentary glance then goes back to work.
My thermal suit isn't the weirdest thing in the world. It kind of sort of looks like something you might wear to go surfing. The only problem is the "iCosmos" logo on both sleeves.
Until I can steal something better, I need to figure out a short term solution.
In movies when you're on the run, there's always a convenient clothesline where you can steal something that's the perfect size.
People here don't seem to trust each other enough to make it that easy for me.
I'll need to figure out another way to get something that blends in.
The girl is walking down a street that leads even further away from where I landed. While I trust her instincts when it comes to avoiding the police, I have no idea where we're going.
I got a pretty good look at the city while I was free falling and could probably make it on foot to the airport by the bay, but I doubt I'd get very far looking like I do right now. And I still have no idea where this stadium is supposed to be.
"Dónde está el estadio de fútbol?" I ask her in Spanish.
"Campo de futebol?"
"Sí," I reply.
She shakes her head and says, "Sim," correcting me.
"Sim?"
She nods her head.
I nod and repeat "Sim," again. Alright, now she's taught me how to say "Yes" in Portuguese.
"Campo de futebol," she explains to the others.
They break out into a brisk run and I chase after them, hoping it doesn't look like I'm trying to run down a group of children.
"Maracanã campo de futebol?" I ask as I catch up with her.
She answers in a flurry of Portuguese I can't follow. All I pick up is the word futebol.
We turn a corner and she points to the campo de futebol and smiles, proud that she's brought Homem de Ferro to his destination.
Only I'm pretty sure this isn't the Maracanã stadium. The campo de futebol technically isn't even a soccer field, at least not one by my American standards.
It's a fenced in cement court with two soccer goals on either end and a group of six boys kicking a red ball around. Concrete tables with tile chessboards surround the court. The closest thing to a parking lot is a bubble-shaped Volkswagen car – the kind you only see outside the US – parked on the sidewalk.
"Maracanã?" I ask the little girl.
She gives me the universal shrug for "I don't know."
These kids probably have no idea what's a mile away, let alone the other end of the city. For them, their neighborhood is the world.
Imagine what they would think if they could have seen what I saw just a few minutes ago when the earth was hundreds of miles below me?
Before I can find an adult, she runs to the fence and yells in a very loud voice, interrupting the boys playing their game. "Onde está o Maracanã?"
One of the boys points to the East. "É dessa forma." He then looks at me, "Você é um jogador de futebol?"
I think he's asking if I play soccer. It's better to lie than say I'm an astronaut.
"Sim," I reply, nodding my head.
"Quer jogar com a gente?"
I laugh off the question, not sure what the hell he just asked me.
I start to walk in that direction, then realize I have three little shadows. As helpful as they've been, I can't let them go any further.
"Wait," I say, holding out my hands, telling them to stop.
Luca raises his hands, imitating me – imitating Iron Man shooting his repulsor rays.
"No. Espera aquí." I tell them to wait in Spanish and point to a table.
That seems close enough to make them stop.
Maybe they could help me out with one more thing. "Dónde hay un hotel?"
The girl thinks for a moment then yells my question to the boys back in the court.
One of them points to the south. "Cinco blocos."
That seems pretty self-explanatory.
I leave my little helpers sitting at the table, their legs dangling from the concrete benches as they watch me walk away and wave.
I pray this isn't a thing where they wait forever for their spaceman friend to come back.
20
INVISIBLE
SO MY BRILLIANT plan to blend in with the local population and vanish from my pursuers is a complete failure before I even
started.
I'd asked the kids about the location of the nearest hotel because I had this fantasy that I'd walk up to the valet drop-off, grab a bag and then shout something like, "Hey, you forgot your suitcase!" and chase after a taxi that was pulling away – making it look like I was a good samaritan, when in fact I was a thieving no-good samaritan.
The Hotel Saint Moritz is a fenced in enclosure with concrete walls and a steel door you have to talk to an intercom to get through.
In fact, just about everything in this part of Rio is like that. There's no wide open windows to the stores. Every entrance has either a guard or a grim-faced shopkeeper. Everything is either nailed down or behind a locked gate.
They've made it very hard for a guy like me to steal what I need to survive.
I don't know how much further I can go in my iCosmos suit before someone realizes who I am.
If the phone Capricorn had given me was still functional, I could at least try to buy something online. I'm sure I could Amazon Prime some Levis and sneakers to a location near me. I mean, this isn't the Dark Ages.
If I'd been expecting a pit stop before returning to Canaveral, I would have brought my wallet. Next time, David. Next time.
Every few blocks I spot a green bubble shaped payphone that says "Oi" on the side. I guess that's the Brazilian version of AT&T. I'm tempted to call somebody collect and have them wire me some money.
Of course, whoever is trying to stop me, the Russians, the Americans, the Illuminati, the Klingons or whatever, will probably be monitoring that kind of thing. So it's only a last resort.
I saw an old man sweeping his sidewalk in front of his house and briefly considered a home invasion, but I'm going to save that contingency for last resort.
What I need is – BAM!!! – something just hit me in the back of the head.
"Paneleiro!" shouts a teenager on the back of a moped as he and his friend fly past me down the street.
I don't have to know Portuguese to guess the context of the slur.
I touch the back of my head and feel where the rock hit me. There's blood.
In any other situation I'd avoid the conflict – especially given the kind of shit storm I'm in the middle of, but that little pecker may have just solved a problem for me.
