Super World
By
Lawrence Ambrose
Copyright 2016
All Rights Are Reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced without permission of the author.
Proofread and Edited by Sweet Syntax
Cover by Lawrence Ambrose
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OTHER BOOKS BY LAWRENCE AMBROSE
THE DIVIDED WORLDS SERIES
MOIRA: Abduction to Akrasia, Book One
MOIRA: A Girl and Her Dragon, Book Two
LORILEE: In Moira's Footsteps, Book One
LORILEE: Flight to Zorzen, Book Two
The Divided Worlds, Books 1 - 4
THE ONE RULE SERIES
One Rule: No Rules
One Rule: No Surrender
STAND-ALONE NOVELS
The United Tribes
Accidental Bliss
Operation Indigo Sky
Black Widow Syndrome
HYPER
My Fairy Queen
The Freedom Preserve
My Favorite Life
The Closet Trip
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 1
TWENTY-NINE WAS WAY too freaking young to check out of life. That was a thought Jamie Shepherd had often these days. Yet sometimes she felt a certain peace about it. Her husband and baby girl had died two and a half years before, and they had also been too young. To die at five was just plain insane. But some measure of peace came when she thought of rejoining her family. If there was a God, if there was anything like cosmic justice, that would happen. If only she could be more sure about that. It was so easy – too easy, she thought – to believe in heaven when you've lost your family and you're dying. But something about death makes you want to live – even a pathetic life like mine.
Jamie walked to the edge of the property. It was an effort to walk, but she'd read that people who survived pancreatic cancer got up and moved around. Sitting or lying around all day, which she now preferred, was a death sentence. Not that the odds were good no matter what she did. Only one percent of people diagnosed with Stage IV survived five years. She was four months beyond her first year, and from the comments of her oncology doctor and a nurse-friend, she was doing well to have come this far.
She and her husband had set up a target range at the southern border of their land. Guns had been more Dennis's thing, but she'd eventually gotten into it. It made her feel strong to hold a Glock .40 or a .357 magnum and plink away. The clanging of the bullets on the hanging steel targets was gratifying. Cathartic. Even weak and dying she could still be lethal.
Jamie blinked away tears as she aimed down the sights of her Glock 22 on a head-sized metal plate sixty feet away. Her hands were shaking badly, but she took her time – waited for that still moment. Clang! Take that, exocrine pancreatic cancer! Clang, clang, clang! That’s for you, Mr. Bank of America mortgage department!
But then what difference did it make now that B of A was foreclosing on her property? Her family was gone. No one to leave it to other than her dad, now living with her after his second divorce. It was just an insult added to injury.
She did entertain an occasional fantasy of going out with a bang. Lately she'd been thinking of jumping out of an airplane without a chute. Dennis, an adrenaline junkie, had always wanted her to try skydiving with him, but the thought had terrified her. She couldn't even sleep the night before he’d jump. All the risks he took skydiving or riding his motorcycle or rock-climbing. A thousand excellent opportunities to die. Never once had she imagined something so pedestrian as a drunk tow-truck driver plowing into his pickup – on the one day that week where he picked up Kylee from kindergarten.
Jamie also fantasized about a different kind of bang: her .357 would make quite an impression on the smug loan officer at Bank of America. Or maybe just contact the local newspaper or GoFundMe and tell her sad story. The donations might be enough to save her house. But she hated the idea of charity, of being a victim. Better just to take her medicine and go out with class. The more she thought about it the more she liked the idea of skydiving without a parachute. Just flying through the air, the ground rising to embrace her – and blackness. A courageous way to die instead of something cowardly and typically female like sleeping pills. To end her life with something so joyous seemed life-affirming in a weird way.
Jamie was sighting in on one the farthest targets with her Glock – a body-shaped metal target seventy-five yards away – when a darkness obscured her sights and the target vanished with a sound like a beer can being crushed. It was so fast – much faster than an eye blink – that she would've ignored it except for the missing target and the metallic crunching sound. She lowered her gun. The metal figure really wasn't there, to her amazement. But something else was: an object that looked like the upper half of a large vitamin pill.
She walked toward the object without any firm sense of expectation. The only thing that made sense was that the target had been flattened by a meteorite or debris from the sky or space.
Jamie approached the object slowly, savoring the sense of wonder and anticipation. So few things held wonder any longer – so little to look forward to. But something very strange had just happened. Nothing earthshaking, she was sure, but still strange. That something could fall from the sky and smash her target showed that the world still held miracles. If that miracle was possible, why not another kind of miracle?
But of course that was nuts.
She arrived at her object of mystery. She’d been expecting something easy to categorize, but the black cylinder, shiny as polished obsidian – maybe six feet long and two feet around, half of it submerged in the hard North Dakota summer dirt - refused any familiar classification. The body-shaped target splayed out from underneath either side of it. A near-direct hit.
Jamie circled it slowly, peering at it from several angles. It made her think of a big, black steel vitamin capsule. Its blackness seemed to have inky depths.
She bent on one knee and cautiously moved one hand toward it. It could be radioactive. Heck, maybe it could cause cancer! She smiled at the absurdity, and ran her right hand along its surface. It was every bit as smooth as it looked and then some. Her hand tingled – a sharp jolt of sensation, like a static electricity discharge. She pulled away, wriggling her fingers. The sensation lingered for a few moments before dissipating. Despite the fact that she was a dead woman walking, fear snapped through her body.
She pushed on the cylinder, but might as well have been pushing against a tank. No give at all. Though the thing wasn't large, it was incredibly dense. And tough: she couldn't see any signs of wear or damage from the impact. It had that immaculate new car finish – though no new car smell that Jamie could detect.
She pulled out her cell and called her father,
hoping he hadn't started drinking yet. "Dad, I'm at the range. I think you should come out here.”
"Are you okay?”
"Something fell on the property.”
"Fell?”
"An object. Just dropped out of the sky and smashed one of the targets. You should come see for yourself.”
"Alrighty. I'm on my way.”
After a few minutes, Cal Winters rode up on his four-wheeler. He climbed out, hitched up his jeans, and stared down at the black cylinder.
"What the hell. Is it safe to touch?”
"Seems to be.”
He stooped down and ran his hand over the surface.
"Feels like polished stone, but it wouldn't be a meteor with that shape. Could it be from a satellite or something?”
"I have no clue.”
"I wonder if we should call someone.”
"Who?”
"The police?” He smiled at her. "NASA?”
Jamie didn't reply.
"Just had a funny thought,” her father said. "What if it’s worth something?”
Jamie frowned. It wasn't the dumbest idea. But as with all possibly good ideas there was sure to be a catch. "Maybe to the right people. But the right people probably wouldn't let us keep it.”
"Good point. The government would probably just swoop in here and take it, whatever the heck it is. And we’d never be the wiser.”
Jamie nodded. "I'm open to suggestions.”
"Well.” Her dad scratched the stubble on his chin. "For starters, we could move it into the garage, out of sight of prying eyes.”
"How?”
"Wrap a chain around it and drag it.” He shrugged. "I'll drive back and get the skid steer. You want to come?”
"No, I'll wait.”
Now that her dad had introduced the notion that the object might be worth something she wanted to keep an eye on it. Not that I can take it with me, she reminded herself. But there was some comfort in the possibility that her property would remain in the family. Which reminded her: I need to make a will – just in case there was something worthwhile inheriting.
Cal Winters returned with their skid steer. The skid steer failed to lift the cylinder. He rumbled back and returned with his pickup, a chain, and a pry bar. The pry bar couldn't budge the object, so he was unable to get the chain around it.
"This must be made out of something heavier than lead,” said her dad. "We're gonna need Jensen’s tractor.”
"Isn't Jensen in Minnesota this week?”
"He won't mind if I borrow it.”
So her father drove to the farm next door and rumbled back in Jensen’s loader. The tractor made groaning sounds as its shovel dug under the cylinder and raised it slowly aloft. They rolled the quarter of a mile to Dennis’s workshop beside their house and lowered the object to the cement floor.
They stood staring down at the cylinder. The shop lights glistened on its surface and yet appeared to glow softly within its depths.
"That little sucker weighs about two and one-half tons,” said Cal. "I'm no metallurgist, but I can't think of anything that size that weighs that much. Be interesting to cut it open and see what’s inside. Maybe gold.”
"Figures I'd get rich now."
Cal chuckled. "You never know, sweetie. You just never know.”
IT WAS not a good night. One of the many bad things about being terminally ill was that you couldn't tell the difference between a flu or food poisoning or really any other kind of malady and what was killing you. On the plus side, if food poisoning was killing her, what was the difference?
Her dad was sick, too. She heard him in the bedroom down the hall – the former guest bedroom – retching and flushing the toilet. He heard her, too, and showed up waxen-faced in her doorway.
"Looks like we picked up the same bug, sweetie.”
"From what? You haven't been out anywhere for a few days, and we didn't eat the same thing.”
"Who knows? At least we know it isn't something just happening to you.” He sagged against the doorway. "What can I do for you, baby?”
"Go back to bed. You're in no shape to take care of me.”
"Well, let me know.”
He stumbled away.
In the morning, the flu or food poisoning or whatever it was had passed, but Jamie felt like death warmed over. Minus most of the warmth.
Her dad offered her chicken soup – her go-to meal – but the thought of eating made her stomach clench. She settled for lying in bed like a corpse.
After a while she summoned the energy to call Dennis’s best friend, Sam, from her bed. Sam, an avid pilot and skydiver, had gotten Dennis into skydiving. They had been partners in crime in hang-gliding and rock-climbing, too. Sam had been devastated by his death. Sometimes he'd seemed just as much of an emotional wreck as she’d been.
"Jamie,” he said. "How are you?”
"The same. How are you?”
"The same. Any new news?”
"Nope. Still dying, as far as I know.”
"That fucking sucks.”
"Yeah. Anyway, I wonder if you'd do me a favor?”
"Name it. Anything.”
"I'd like to go skydiving.”
Sam’s silence was as heavy as her mood. She could hear the gears clinking in his head. He was a smart guy, but much like Dennis, not prone to sharing his deepest thoughts.
"Skydiving,” he said.
"Kind of a bucket list thing.”
"Oh. Well, there's some training involved even for the initial tandem dive. Maybe a day or two. Are you up for that?"
A tandem dive wasn't what she had in mind. She'd forgotten about all the rules and regulations.
"I don't know if I'm up for much training, Sam. I've had enough energy for maybe an hour two out of bed each day, and right now I doubt I have that."
"Sorry, Jamie, but I don't see how that's gonna work. It takes hours to learn how to pack and use your chute and practice the pre-jump drills."
Jamie sighed. "I'm going to be completely honest with you, Sam. I don't need a chute, and I doubt it takes a lot of drills or practice to learn how to fall."
"Jamie...are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. I don't see how I could be a part of that."
"Yeah, I thought you'd feel that way."
"Look, Jamie, I get it, I do. But Jesus...aside from the legal issues – I could lose my license or even face criminal prosecution - can you imagine what Dennis would think? Me helping his wife to off herself?”
"I'd like to believe it’s what he'd want. His best friend helping his wife to go out in style as opposed to rotting away in a hospital bed on morphine.” Jamie drew in a deep breath, not sure she had the energy for this argument, or if she even cared enough to argue about it. "I know it's a lot to ask, Sam, and it's probably not fair to ask it. Forget about the skydiving. You could just take me for a ride in your plane, and at some point, I jump. You didn't see it coming. You wouldn't be responsible."
"Jamie..."
"I need to do this while I have enough strength left to get around. In another week or two, I may be too far gone. This is my dream, Sam, and I'm asking you to help me fulfill it.”
The sound of Sam sighing was torrential. She knew it was wrong to pressure him, to guilt-trip him – so unlike her to do that. She felt sorry for him, but not enough to relent. It was her life, after all. Well, her death.
"Does your dad know about your plan?” he asked.
"Not yet.”
"Bring him on board, and if he doesn't shut you down, we'll talk about it more.”
"Okay. That's fair.”
She hung up. Now there was a conversation she was looking forward to having. On cue, her dad appeared with the bowl of chicken soup – the "horn of plenty” bowl that never seemed to empty.
"Jamie,” he said, studying her with his hangdog frown which Jamie had learned to loathe, "I'm thinking maybe it’s time to go to the hospital.”
"You mean, for go
od?”
"No, no – I just mean to get some fluids. You've lost a lot of those with this flu or whatever it was.”
"What's the point, Dad? I have a different plan I'd like to talk to you about.”
His expression turned wary. "What plan?”
"I'd like to jump out of a plane. I'd like to experience what Dennis did all those years – just once. He used to beg me to try it with him. But I was too scared of dying." She laughed.
Her father wasn't laughing. He looked pissed, which for her was a welcome change from his usual hang-dog expression.
"You said 'jump out of a plane.' Not 'skydiving.'"
"Right." She tried to hold onto her bright smile. "Skydiving involves using a parachute."
"No parachute," he said in a flat voice. "You're talking about suicide, then."
"I prefer to think of it as a fabulous one-way trip."
He stared at her, muscles loosening and tightening on his face, as if he was practicing facial toning exercises.
"You think this is funny?"
"It does all seem like some stupid joke, doesn't it?"
"You're not jumping out of some damn plane."
"You'd rather I walk out in a field and shoot myself in the head?" Tears started down Jamie's face. She slapped them aside. "Or jump off a cliff? Because those are the choices. I'm not going back to the hospital. I made a solemn vow to myself that I would never die in a hospital."
Her dad turned away. She saw his lower lip quivering. He was on the edge of losing it.
"We'll find another way," he said with his back turned to her.
BUT THEY didn't find another way. Instead, the next day they were gazing down from the backseats of Sam's Cessna at the checkerboard squares and circular fields of Heartland, U.S.A. from thirteen thousand feet up.
Jamie felt no fear. She was beginning to feel disassociated from her body, as if she could sneeze and her spirit would go free. Besides, from their height the ground was an abstraction. It looked all warm and fuzzy, she thought, like falling into a flowerbed.
Sam turned to her, his bushy beard nestling in around his frown.
"I can't talk you out of this?"
Jamie shook her head. She glanced at her father. His sad eyes pleaded with her, but she wasn't sure what the plea was.
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