by Jeff Olah
Inside the rear of the transport drone, he moved through the men as they readied their seats and spoke to one another about how they envisioned the darkened city. Entering the forward cabin, Rath made his way into the cockpit and stepped aside for a tall blond woman introduced as Tonya. She assisted Archer in his last-minute checklist.
“Hey, how long until we get this thing in the air?”
Archer didn’t respond.
Rath leaned in, placing his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Are we about ready—?”
Holding up his right index finger, Archer asked for a moment. As he spoke in short bursts, it became apparent he was communicating with Samuel. He motioned for the woman now seated beside him to strap on her headset. “Tonya is going to finish up, I’m need to get the men ready and when you hear me next, we’ll be moving out the rear doors.”
Archer removed his headset, turned from the controls, and moved out of the cockpit. “So…what is it? I’m trying to get us out of here and need to speak to the men one last time before takeoff. Did you want to give them your thoughts as well?”
“No, that’s not it. I’m wondering when, I mean how soon are we leaving?”
“Less than ten minutes. Does that work for you?”
“Listen,” Rath said. “I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t something we need to discuss, although at this point it’s not really too high on my list of priorities. There’ll be time later to sort out our differences and I promise you’ll get the opportunity to speak your mind. Right now, my focus is finding my wife and less than five minutes ago, I watched Boothe leading her through some sort of prison by the arm, so the only thing I’m concerned with is getting this bird into the sky. Can we shorten that time frame by even a few minutes? Her life may depend on it.”
“I want Boothe as bad as anyone; Vera made me see that today. You wanna help get us out of here faster? You can go back there and talk to the men for me…hell, you’ll be the one leading them through that god-forsaken city in a few hours anyway. They need direction and a plan, you familiar with Presidio?”
“Not for the last thirty years and if the rumors of the Andro population in the area holds true, it could get ugly fast.”
“End to end, you theoretically could make it through the city in less than twenty minutes. I’ll drop you far enough away that you won’t be made before entering off Grand Avenue. Just move through the area quickly and by the time you reach Second Street, you’ll be less than a hundred yards from the sand. It’s a straight shot from there to Boothe’s front door. My suggestion… split the group of men in two. You lead one unit and have Symon take the other; he’s a bit tougher than he looks, I promise.”
Archer slapped Rath on the back, turned, and made his way back into the cockpit. He sat down, pulled back on his headset and asked Symon to let Vera know that all residents needed to vacate the terminal as they were about to take off.
The thirty-two men, now seated and awaiting instruction, turned to the rear as Symon boarded. He moved to Rath near the forward cabin and turned to face the men. “You have something to say to these men? They’re risking their lives tonight and probably will want at least a tiny bit of hope. I wouldn’t mind the gesture either. Rath, no matter what you think of me, I’m here to help.”
“I know Symon… I know.” Rath looked out over the men as the rear hatch ascended into place and locked. He took a deep breath and as the drone’s engines rocked to life, he spoke. “Emerson Boothe is holding my wife captive and I’ll do anything to get her back. He’s decided for some reason that I’m the one he wants and that he’ll do almost anything to see that I am brought to him.”
The men looked to one another and appeared to only be concerned with their current situation. From their apparent ages, Rath deduced that most of men on this aircraft hadn’t been around when the world died. The looks in their eyes and the stale expressions told him that many of them had never even stepped foot inside this drone before today. Given the possible outcomes of tonight’s mission, he decided to say what burned in his gut.
He continued, “Yes, selfishly I’m here today to go after my wife, and although Emerson Boothe has decided to leave you all behind, I never will. Your support can’t be measured and will never be forgotten. Whether you believe it or not, each and every one of you plays a vital role in the continuation of our entire species. Without all of you, the human race becomes extinct. Now let’s go out and do what needs to be done to save our families.”
He paused for a brief moment to let the gravity of his last statement sink in before continuing. “We’re going in blind and without any intel on the population of Andros within the city. Half of you will move with Symon and the others with me. Follow our lead and stay low. The goal is end to end in less than thirty minutes. Remember to stay quiet and move quickly…no engagement unless it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t have to tell you about the size and strength differential of those beasts, but we can do this, I promise you. Now sit back and get your minds right, it’s almost that time.”
The men said nothing, although their nods of agreement told him more than any words ever could.
As Rath moved back to the cockpit to inform Archer that the men were ready, he was greeted by Tonya. She motioned toward her seat and wiped a tear from her eye. “Put my headset on and check the monitor.”
Rath slid down into the co-pilot’s seat alongside Archer and slipped on the headphones. He was watching the monitor as Chloe’s face came into view. It appeared she was sitting beside Tyler and also donned a headset. Before he got his question out, she spoke. “Hi Mr. Rath.”
“Hello Chloe, are you alright?”
“Yep, I just wanted you to see my picture. Vera said I needed to show you before you left.”
“What picture?”
“The one I made when we were in my backyard. I kept it in my backpack for you.” He could see her lean back and pull the sheet of paper in front of her face. The details of the colored drawing came through the monitor in tones of grey and black, although the emotion in her artwork made up for anything lost to the grainy video feed.
It was simple… a man holding a little girl’s hand. They both wore smiles and the sun rested in the upper left-hand corner. The names above the figures read “Mr. Rath” and “Me”. The only other words printed on the page were much larger and ran along the bottom, “I’m not scared, he is my protector.” In a different shade, twice as small and obviously added at another time, were the last six words. “Thank you, from your friend Chloe.”
8
As the gargantuan terminal doors closed and the winter storm intensified, the transport drone rolled into place. A brilliant wind surge moved across the area, kicking up tight flurries of snow and reducing visibility to well below what he should be flying in. Increasing the thrust and adjusting the flaps, he checked the instruments one last time and alerted Samuel of their imminent liftoff. It was now or never; the storm wasn’t letting up and they didn’t have the luxury of waiting until it did.
Archer’s voice crackled to life over the interior speakers. “It’s gonna be rough for a bit and until we get to a cruising altitude, you all may wanna stay in your seats. That’s it for now, back again just before touchdown.”
As the drone’s engines pushed them off the rocky surface of the mountain, Symon turned to Rath and shouted above the deafening roar. “I hate these vertical takeoffs, they feel completely unnatural. Why does this thing look like a plane but fly like a chopper? I guess Boothe had to do everything his way. Even the way his aircrafts maneuver. You ever been in one of these before?”
“Can’t say that I have, although yes, it seems a bit off putting and not having been on any sort of aircraft since my fifth birthday, this is wreaking havoc on my sense of balance. Not to mention these winds. I don’t think we could have picked a worse time for this.”
“It’s not just you,” Symon said. “My eardrums feel like they are on fire and trying to stand at this point would b
e laughable.”
Scanning the crowd, the wide-eyed young men stared back. Everyone in the rear cabin watched for a signal as to how they should perceive the events unfolding. As the drone pitched to the left and then forward, a few tucked their heads between their legs in obvious digestive torment. One of the elders in the group, seated near a large cache of rifles, tossed the contents of his stomach onto the floor below.
As the drone climbed and began to level out, the thrusters changed direction and the craft began its forward ascent. Rath gripped the armrests and as the drone rapidly increased its velocity, he buried his head back into the plush headrest. Turning toward Symon, he noticed the man was grinning ear to ear and appeared to be mouthing something. “I didn’t hear you,” Rath said.
Symon fought back his joy momentarily. “This is the fun part.” The huge smile returning to his face, he held both fists to the sky as if he’d accomplished his lifelong dream of traveling faster than the speed of sound.
“This thing can move,” Rath said. “I don’t really remember the other drone moving through the sky so fast. At least it didn’t appear that way from the ground.”
“Archer’s probably pushing all kinds of limits with this thing,” Symon said. “I’m sure it burns a ton of fuel at this speed, although since we’re pressed for time, it makes perfect sense. And it reeks of poetic justice that we’re using the technology Boothe created against him.”
“The man is brilliant, I’ll give him that; too bad he’s also a sociopath.” Rath shook his head and again relaxed comfortably back into his seat. Under his breath he said, “Can’t wait to finally get back to my long-lost friend.”
After another ten minutes, Archer had finally steadied the volatile aircraft. Growing anxious, Rath felt the urge to check on the men and answer any of the questions they might have before entering the city dominated by the only thing worse than Emerson Boothe. He unlatched the safety belt and began making the rounds.
Beginning on the left, Rath started with the last row and as most were concentrating on keeping their composure, not many inquiries were made. He moved quickly, only pausing long enough to make eye contact and give the thumbs up to anyone reluctant to put a voice to their concerns.
Nearing the end of the second row, the drone pitched hard right and dropped out of the sky. As Rath reached for a handhold, he was met with another change in trajectory and slid headfirst, on his back, into the wall of the forward cabin, coming to rest near Symon’s feet.
The passenger area instantly filled with nervous complaints and confused chatter. Symon helped Rath to his feet and slid out of the way, making room for the much larger man to get to his seat. Instead, Rath turned in the opposite direction and entered the cockpit. He stabilized himself against Archer’s chair and peered out the frost coated windshield. “What the hell is going on?”
Archer battled the control column as the aircraft continued to pitch from left to right. “We’re losing control.”
. . .
Samuel and Tyler went to work syncing the drone’s coordinates into the network and keying in alerts for various milestones. Vera watched the grainy feed and squinted through the driving snow as the drone disappeared into the night. She simply patted the men on the back, moved to the door, and left the room. Once she cleared the door, Samuel removed his shoes, laid his keyboard across his lap, and reclined in the unforgiving desk chair.
Eyeing the third monitor to the right, Tyler picked up on the repeating pattern just inside their firewall. “Sam, check this out.”
“What are we looking at?”
“Right there, look…Boothe is back in.”
“Yeah,” Samuel said. “We knew he’d break back into the network at some point. If he cuts the power again, we’ll let him think he’s won for an hour or so and then lock him back out.”
Tyler shook his head. “He’s not hacking in to cut the power again; look at the code. He’s got control of the drone. The pattern I’m seeing looks like he’s trying to pull it out of the sky. We need to contact Archer, if it’s not already too late.”
“Let me see about forcing him out again,” Samuel said. “You just work on interrupting Boothe’s signal and contacting Archer.”
Pushing back into his desk, Samuel pounded his keyboard, only looking away from the screen intermittently to check Tyler’s progress. Boothe’s brute force hack job, although clever in that he closed down the drone’s communicator before announcing his presence in the network, left a gaping loophole that Samuel could easily slip back through. Sixty seconds of holding his breath and three hundred eleven characters later, they once again had control.
“Tyler, we’re back in, you should be able to resume communication.”
“Archer, do you read me...”
Static.
“Archer, are you there…”
Nothing.
Turning back to his workstation, Tyler’s shoulders slumped. He rubbed his temples and attempted to think through a solution. The next ten seconds played out like an eternity, as both men watched the lines of code scrolling across monitor six. “They’re gone,” Tyler said.
Samuel didn’t respond. He continued to glare into the monitor for something he’d missed. It was too fast. They couldn’t have gotten back in and taken the drone down that quickly. Archer would have fought to keep them in the air. Where was it, there had to be something he wasn’t seeing?
Closing his eyes, Samuel took a deep breath, cleared his mind, and sat in silence. The fans from the CPU, the air blowing from the overhead duct, and finally the keystrokes as Tyler again attempted to call up the proper sequence for accessing the drone. “Tyler, stop.” The answer nearly ran him over like an angry locomotive. “It’s right there,” Samuel said.
“What is?”
“Tyler, do me a favor, roll back the code to just after you noticed the attack. Remove the hack and queue the sequence for startup.”
He was trained well and was fast with breaking down the details, not quite as fast as Samuel and no one came close to Trent, the man who Boothe was using to remote into their network, although within seconds Tyler had completed Samuel’s instructions. “Okay, that’s done.”
The shouting from the overhead speakers abruptly halted his question and pulled Samuel to his feet. It was Archer, the words he was voicing meant little more than the fact that his voice still existed. In between the chaotic shouts and intermittent white noise, they heard life.
Samuel moved to the keyboard, entered his security code and spoke slowly into the mic. “Archer, we’re here. We’ve taken back control. Where are you?”
His voice moved through the speakers, this time much more clearly than before. “We’re in a vertical dive fast approaching six thousand feet and I can’t get her to come back. The controls are going crazy.”
“They need a reboot.” Samuel said.
Tyler shook his head. “There isn’t time.”
“Wanna bet.”
9
The possibility of him getting back to his seat and strapping in at this speed were slim. With the added difficulty resulting from the angle of descent and time until impact, his chances were less than zero. Rath braced himself against the wall between the rear cabin and the cockpit, using every last ounce of energy to avoid sliding headfirst into the control panel. Time began to slow and as Archer carefully rattled off instructions to Tonya, the aircraft and its thirty-six occupants silently rocketed to earth.
“Archer, we need you to push into the dive.”
The words were clear, even though he was unable to make sense of them. With every logical move, the aircraft twisted in the opposite direction. Archer understood what was happening, although everything in him screamed to keep fighting. He shouted back. “No time… dive too steep… three minutes… maybe less.”
His voice never left the cockpit. Although the drone was currently receiving communication, their outbound transmissions were again trapped over three hundred miles away. Archer incorrectly keyed the
mic and spoke to those within earshot.
Against his own survival instincts and without another option, Archer gripped tight to the control column, paused for a moment and then pushed forward. The aircraft, although nose down, pitched forward and increased its downward velocity. The control panel blinked twice and the interior lights powered down. Archer plowed his right fist into the yoke and shouted. “That’s it, we’re done. Brace for impact.”
The cabin speakers sparked to life once again. “We’ve got you Archer; you’re again in control of the aircraft.”
The cockpit illuminated, Archer asked Tonya for their coordinates and slowly pulled back on the yoke. As the drone’s nose began its ascent, the topography of the scorched earth below came into view. Fires dotted the landscape as the city of Presidio and their destination came into view.
Pulling up from the floor, Rath steadied himself and moved to Symon. He then addressed the men, assuring there were no injuries among the thirty-two passengers. Moving back to the cockpit, he snatched a clipboard and a few other items from the floor and handed them to Tonya. Still shaken, she quickly took them and reached to the floorboard to retrieve a wayward pen, awaiting Archer’s next call.
