“Maybe that was a mistake,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t have encouraged you.”
I close my French book, and gather my things to take them upstairs. I can’t be out here, and I’m not sure I can study right now. Life on estrogen: the highs are higher, and the lows…well, the lows really suck.
“I’m going to have to tell him when he gets home,” she says to me as I climb the stairs.
“Go right ahead.” He can’t hurt me. He’d hurt himself trying. “I have homework I need to do.”
• • •
A few hours later, Mount Screamer erupts. Dad practically pounds my door out of the frame before I open it, and then it’s an hour and a half of some of the worst I’ve ever had from him. At first I think I’m going to stand up to him, that my new strength and resolve will let me laugh off his bellowing, scorn his fury, and deliver an unending stream of witty, insightful arguments that will force him to see where he might be wrong. That’s not even close to how it goes. After a few wavering counterarguments, my resolve collapses. He drags me back down to the living room because that’s where he likes to do this kind of thing. He’s screaming so loud, so close, I have to fight the urge to wipe my face. He pins me to the couch with the sheer volume of his rage.
Once, at one of those hearing tests they give us every few years, they found out my left ear was worse than my right. I told them I didn’t know why that would be, but the truth was I knew immediately. It’s because when he’s like this, I always look away to the right and he screams at the left side of my face. Now, with my improved hearing, heightened to the upper limit of human senses, he is louder and more painful than he has been in years.
He tells me I’m stupid. That I’m not thinking big picture. That nobody will respect me while I look like a freak. That he only wants what is best for me but I’m screwing it all up. He says I’ve damaged my reputation, that nobody will take me seriously now. He demands to know why I don’t have the good sense to be ashamed of what happened to me, but doesn’t wait for an answer before saying I’ve embarrassed them all. He says I’m pathetic, that I’m delusional, that I’m sick. He suggests I might be a pervert, and that he—generous, caring, and steadfast as he is—might have to fight to keep me off the sex offender list for using the girls’ bathroom. He tells me I’m disloyal, that I’m a bad son, that I’m selfish and disgusting. He tells me I’m weak, and gross, and that I have no moral fiber. He says he’s never been so ashamed of me, and then he goes on to emphasize how low that is, given all the other times I’ve shamed him. He says all of this at a volume to shake the rafters. When I start to cry he calls me a sniveling pussy and says he’s glad his father is dead so he never had to see what a failure I am. I suck it up fast, force the tears back as quick as I can, because I know the longer I cry the worse it will get.
Mom doesn’t even watch, but that’s no surprise. I stopped expecting her to help me years ago.
The worst part is, I can’t help but believe him. He always has a way of making me believe him. I really am disgusting and pathetic. I can crack the sound barrier, but I can’t stand up to this man. If I were worthy of my powers, I wouldn’t even flinch. But I’m not. I don’t deserve them. I don’t deserve anything. I’m crumpling like a cardboard box in the rain. The promise I made myself feels like a sick joke. There’s no way I can just decide not to let anyone push me around. God, I was so stupid. I’m always stupid. I always mess it up. I’m a worthless, stupid, disgusting little freak.
I start crying again because I realize I still hate myself.
• • •
Later, I’m curled in bed and trying to keep my sobbing quiet. From past experience I know that if I cry too loudly, he will slam on my door until I open it so he can start in on me again. The lows are lower. This hurts more than it ever has before. I’m not upset, I am shattered. It’s important not to cry too loudly, but it’s so hard: the muscles controlling my voice are all so much stronger now. I hear him climbing the stairs and I try to hold my breath, just freeze in bed until he goes away.
He calls me a coward through the door, and goes back downstairs.
After a long moment I crawl over to my door and make sure it’s locked. I turn off my light and head to my closet. I’ve buried the supersuit back there, way in the back, behind a chest of drawers. I don’t deserve to have this, but I need it. With shaking hands, I undress and put the suit on.
Once I’m safely away, I let my breath out, and the sobs come back. I fly on, get up nice and high. Because I have an urge to hide, I head toward a bank of clouds. I find a nice thick one, and slip inside. It’s cold and wet in here, but it’s better than being anywhere someone might see or hear me. Finally I let it out. I float curled up in the cloud bank and I sob for what feels like hours. My tears leak into my cowl and smear all across my cheeks, by turns wet and gritty. This hurts so much. Why does it still hurt so much? Shouldn’t I be used to it now? Shouldn’t I be tough enough not to care anymore? I’m so weak. I’m so stupid. Of course this was going to happen. Of course. I deserved this. For being so stupid. For having hope. It’s my fault, it’s always my fault.
• • •
I’m empty and floating. The cloud has moved on, but I’ve stayed where I am, curled up in the air, looking across the Sound toward the city. Geese honk as they fly past a little ways off from me. It should be safe enough to stay here a while. Normally, after something like this happens I go to my room, go to sleep quickly, and my parents let me. They won’t expect to see or hear from me at home for hours, and I seriously consider never going back. In the vacant calm that comes right after a hard crash, I realize I could just…fly. Fly away and never come back. The cold doesn’t bother me—hell, being in orbit doesn’t bother me—so I don’t even need a place to sleep if I can find a comfortable spot in the woods. For food, I could figure something out. Maybe I could get an aerial courier job and get paid under the table.
A passenger jet roars past on approach to the airport. It’s only a few hundred yards away, and I realize I’ve drifted into crowded airspace. I angle away and begin putting distance between me and the landing approach zone.
There’s a loud crumpling noise, and something like tearing metal. I look back and the plane’s right engine is in the midst of disintegrating. Flames shoot out the back, and a solid trail of noxious black smoke streams from the engine. As I watch, there is a short whine and then a loud bang as the engine detonates. I’m pretty sure airline engine casings are designed to contain explosions from the engine, but if that’s the case, this one must be faulty. The whole rear of the wing gets sprayed with shrapnel, and a long piece of the control flap rips away and goes spinning down into the darkness. The plane groans in agony, tips over to the right, and begins to fall.
“No!” I shout, and without really thinking about it I’m boosting for speed with everything I’ve got. I cross five hundred yards in a matter of moments. In those moments the plane has tipped up almost all the way on its side. Its nose is coming down sharply. There’s maybe a half mile of altitude to work with here, and the enormous jet is picking up speed as it dives for the black water below us. I get up under and next to the burning wing, meaning to push it back up and help the pilots level out. I throw my shoulder into it—
I bounce off.
With an icy lurch I realize I’ve never pushed anything in midair. I have no idea how. I hit the wing again; I bounce away again. Again. It’s not working, and the only thing in my head is that I don’t know what I’m doing.
The flames are burning hotter now, a trail of smoke growing to a streak of fire. These people have about forty seconds to live.
My hands scrabble at the aluminum, fingers sliding over metal. I get a grip on the engine pylon, try to pull it up, and it slips from my grasp. My heart slams in my chest and the water is so close why am I so stupid these people are going to die and it’s all my fault—
No. Stop. How did I figure out how to fly? I shut my eyes and picture the lattice. There, that’
s the plane. I get my shoulder against it again, and imagine pushing, not against the plane, but against the lattice. It’s not a matter of shoving it. It’s a matter of thrust. With another tortured groan, the jet begins to move with me. The wing is lifting under the steady pressure I’m applying, but so slowly. I open my eyes, and almost scream. The water is closer than I’d thought possible. I push harder, and the wing shoots up. Too much, too fast. The wing over corrects, and the jet wobbles up onto its other side. With a desperate heave I yank it back down, force it into proper alignment. The other engine screams and the water rushes up to greet us.
We are still falling. Still nose-down.
Three hundred yards and falling.
I pop down from the wing, keeping it lifted on my fingertips while I pivot in place and look at the tail. The control surfaces on the tail are still responding to the pilots. The elevators are all the way up, begging for altitude, and the rudder keeps flicking over to the left to compensate for the missing engine. The nose is coming up, but not fast enough.
Two hundred yards and falling.
It’s not enough. We’ll never make it. I was too late. Because I’m worthless and horrible and can’t do anything right. Because—
Stop it, goddammit!
They’ll belly flop at a hundred miles an hour if I don’t do something, and do it now.
I take a chance. I abandon the wing. At maximum acceleration, I cover the distance from the wing to the nose in less than half a second. In that half second, they drop another thirty yards. I slam into the jet’s nose, right under the forward wheel well, and heave upward with everything I’ve got.
The nose rises. I open my eyes, and I can’t stop the wail of fear that escapes me. I can see individual waves now, and we’re still falling.
One hundred yards and falling.
Seventy yards and falling.
Fifty yards and falling.
Forty yards.
Forty yards.
Fifty yards and climbing.
I scream and whoop and holler for joy. I steal a look back under my armpit and see that the flames on the wing have gone out. We’re going to make it. Ahead, I see the runway, another two miles distant and off to the right. I drop away from the plane for a moment, and it continues to rise. The pilots seem to want more space between them and the waters of the Sound before they make the final turn for the runway. When I’m sure the plane won’t fall from the sky if I leave the nose, I flit up to the cockpit and tap on the window. It takes a moment for them to notice me, because honestly, who looks out the windshield of plane and expects to see a girl there, even in a city like New Port?
The pilots break into huge grins when they see me. I point at myself, then point back at the wing, then down at the nose, and then shrug theatrically, hoping they understand the question. They trade words and then one of them points forcefully back at the wing. I nod at them, point to myself, and then back at the wing. They nod back, so I pull away from the cockpit and drop back, letting the plane pass under me. I dip under the wing again and take my place back by the engine. I take the load slowly, and as I take more, the wing seems to get heavier as the pilots drop whatever tricks they used to handle the unequal thrust so they can focus on lining back up for the final approach. It’s a little unsteady, the weight coming and going, until I realize I should probably replicate thrust more than lift. The jet’s skin screeches when I dig my left hand into the pylon that the engine’s charred husk is mounted on. I find a solid-feeling bit of aluminum to hold on to and begin to push forward. The metal groans, and there’s a thumping from inside the wing. For a moment I ease up on the pressure, worried I’m damaging the wing even further, but it seems stable enough, and without me pushing the wing is beginning to wobble a bit already. A little more gently this time, I push forward against the engine pylon again.
We’re climbing now, up past three hundred yards and slowly beginning to level out. I hear the control surfaces shift, the pitch of the remaining engine changes, and the plane begins to tilt over to the right again, but deliberately this time. The wing shifts and flexes against me. We pass over the shore, and the city lights begin to pass under us. There are little popping twangs all up and down the wing. The nose stays level and begins swinging over to the right, bringing us in line for the final approach. The left wing begins to rise, and the load on the right wing shifts again. It starts as a series of pops like gunshots, one right after another.
The wing jerks against me, and then with a groaning shudder the rest of it simply folds up and twists off.
It pulls up and away from me, twirls once, and slams into the tail before falling away in a shower of torn aluminum. The plane immediately flops over on its back. There’s just enough time for me to experience a bolt of embarrassment before the other wing whips up and around to slam into me. It’s like getting hit by a city bus, a flat explosion of shock and pain across my face, neck, shoulder, and chest that sends me spinning away. I right myself and for a heart-stopping instant I can’t see the airliner anywhere—it’s just not in the sky with me. I look down and it’s headed for the ground like a javelin.
I dive as hard as I can, arms pinned to my side, clawing for every bit of speed I can get. There’s no real time to think, just images and instinct. The buildings below us are like matchboxes, and growing fast. I buttonhook back up under the chin and slam into the forward landing gear like a pile driver. Metal shrieks, and then I’m inside the plane up to my shoulders. The whole jet seems to shudder as I kick the nose up back into the sky. Aluminum knives try to slice me up and I pull myself from the nose.
The airliner is pointed the right way now, but we’re still falling and those matchboxes are full-sized dollhouses now. It won’t be a javelin, it will pancake. Below us people are starting to run. We’re close enough that I can see their horror.
Flying backward is something I haven’t practiced much, but I can’t afford the time it would take to turn around. I jerk myself backward, arms out, feeling blindly for the place where the plane’s body widens out to meet the wing roots. That will be the strongest place, the only place this will work. This jet is landing on a runway if I have to carry the damn thing.
The instant I feel the bulge thud past my shoulder blades, I spread my arms and push UP.
Oh God.
It’s too heavy.
Chapter Eleven
Metal crumples around my shoulders. I fight and kick and push as hard as I can upward. We’re dropping like a rock, and barely slowing.
Fifty yards.
The aluminum skin gives way with a shriek and I crunch six inches up into the guts of the plane, my legs dangling free. A huge support strut is pressing into my back.
Thirty yards.
I’ve stopped breathing, I’ve stopped blinking. Everything goes to pushing.
Ten yards.
In my head, I can see the lattice—
—there’s the tangle of the jet, and the trailing, unraveling threads of its momentum—
—grab it, grab it all—
—I can pull—
—but I’ll have to pull it through myself—
—I pull.
Pain rips through every muscle in my back. I cry out in scarlet agony. Pain is everywhere. It fills me, packs every part of me tight. My legs spasm, and my fingers go slack. Something loud and wet snaps in my chest, and a lance of fire pierces me. It doesn’t stop. It gets worse. I can feel my body breaking, tearing, ripping.
But we should have hit by now.
I force an eye open, and I see the ground rushing past me, and falling away. The final threads of our downward momentum pass through the fingers of my mind, transformed by channeling them through my body to momentum that carries us up and forward. We sail over the signal lights at the end of the runway, and begin sinking toward ground again. Finally, finally, the suffocating pain begins to recede back to something I can think through. There’s a sharp grinding somewhere along my flank, and my body is alive with sprains and tears.
> I grit my teeth and push up and forward as hard as I can. The metal around me groans and buckles. Without so much momentum forcing us down, I can delay us long enough to slip over the runway’s edge. The landing gear to the left of me unfolds and locks in position, but the nose and right side wheels stay folded up. The plane begins to wobble and tip, balanced imperfectly on a single point, the uneven thrust from the single engine trying to spin the whole thing off of me.
The runway is zipping beneath us at highway speeds. Just a few more yards.
My feet hit the ground with a jarring impact I feel hard in my pelvis. We bounce once, twice, and then I’m running, great bounding strides that cover a dozen yards at a time, but the steps start to catch up with me, and just before I slip I set my legs and skid along the ground on my boots. My knees lock and almost instantly my feet start digging furrows in the concrete. A spray of gravel explodes up, fast and hard enough to dimple and dent all the metal skin around me. It’s like getting sandblasted in the face by a machine gun. The airliner’s nose pitches up into the air, and the tail slams into the ground. We skid for another seventy yards. My legs clench and tremble, sharp little bolts of jagged ice cutting through the broader ache of everything below my thighs.
Finally, we come to a sliding stop. With one last great heave of effort, I let the plane down gently on its right side and scramble out from underneath the fuselage on my hands and knees. I am unspeakably weary. My stomach suggests it might throw up. The pain is everywhere. When I try to get to my feet, I stumble and have to try again.
One last effort. I can do this. I fly, wobbly at first, and land on the stubby remains of the right wing. The emergency door comes off quick in my hands, and I huck it away into the darkness. A terrified man is looking out at me.
“Leave your bags and get out on the wing,” I say. “You’re going to want to slide off the front; the broken side is too jagged.”
I leave him, and half leap, half fly to the rear emergency door. It’s already opening, but the inflatable chute is jammed against the ground with several thousand pounds of air pressure. I pull and drag and shove it until it straightens out enough that people can start using it to jump the eight feet or so safely to the ground. The front slide is having the same problems, so I fix it too. Then I fly around to the forward exit on the plane’s left side, the one that’s sort of pointed up at the sky, and rip the door off.
Dreadnought Page 9
