by Laer Carroll
The mayor was boring, the Police Commissioner less so but only because she was more brief, and the two dozen pilots impressive in their smart police uniforms.
On Sunday the ceremony was repeated, this time for the arrival of twenty chunky white AirMercy ambulances sporting large red crosses on their sides. The crowds were by now getting blasé about air vehicles but the ceremony was still well attended.
In October the final piece of this phase of the publicity for the air vehicles slid smoothly into place. Sasha got her air car.
At 1:00 in the afternoon a limousine picked up Sasha at her apartment building in Brooklyn's Park Slope and took her to the Long Island headquarters of Bluebird Security. Colonel Storm Cloud met her at the entrance to the corporate headquarters, a multistory building with a curving front of smoked glass. Photographers all around took photos, but there were not a lot of them. The big event would be that evening when Sasha flew her air car to a gala celebrating the event.
Sasha wore bright blue jeans molded to her figure and a brilliant yellow figured blouse, its tails tied so that her lithe midriff was visible. She wore red tennis shoes and her long platinum hair was in a pony tail tied by a large red bow. She had picked this casual but fashionable costume to satisfy a request by Prince's publicity team to make it seem as if picking up an air car was an everyday happening, or soon would be.
This was untrue. Prince had mentioned to Sasha that it would take at least ten years before ultra-reliable automated air control made personal air travel a casual affair. Even then it would slowly be ramped up. Prince had created mechanisms to ensure that the revolutionary technology would not burst upon the world.
That sort of altruism clashed with the reputation which Anna Prince had of being a quick-moving and very efficient manager of her financial empire. Sasha had speculated that it was because Prince was a shapechanger like herself, potentially immortal and thus with a longer look at modern history than a mortal. But she had still met no evidence to support her speculation.
Sasha was bid to step up into a headquarters runabout similar to a golf cart but which (with an eye to publicity) ran on a paramagnetic cushion. Storm Cloud set off toward a more industrial-appearing part of the Long Island campus. At a decidedly shabby but functional building he parked and the two entered the building. The small group of photographers and reporters filed in behind them.
The vehicle resting in the middle of the building looked like a Maserati sports car—because it was. The company had won a competition to manufacture luxury air vehicles, part of Prince's plan to gradually and smoothly introduce personal paramag air travel by sharing the wealth of the technology. This approach also took advantage of all the experience that companies like Maserati had creating the little details of workable and comfortable automobiles.
Floodlights from high above made the glitter-fleck lipstick-red surface of her air car almost a shock to the eyes. The colonel led Sasha on a slow walk-around of the vehicle, pointing out details. Most of them she already knew from reading the owner's handbook which had been mailed to her weeks before. But the ritual was more to give the photographers photo opportunities than for her.
He also popped the trunk and the engine compartment and briefly explained the interiors for her, with much pointing. She nodded solemnly at appropriate intervals.
Then he ostentatiously handed her a set of keys, standing so the photographers could rush forward and get good shots. The two briefly stood still for an onslaught of flash guns. Sasha opened the driver-side door and got in while Storm Cloud walked to the passenger side and entered the car. They both put on shoulder-and-seat belts.
Sasha followed prompting and switched on the engine. It was battery powered and completely solid-state so completely silent except for a hum of power, which was a sound effect which could be turned off.
She pressed the accelerator and made a slow U-turn to more photo-flashes, her car rolling on high-performance tires which would be needed only when she could not fly to some location. Storm Cloud lifted a small remote and two tall doors slowly rolled to the left and right. Sasha drove the car through the opeing and the colonel directed her to a parking slot on a mostly empty parking lot near the building.
"Here's where I leave you Ms. Canaro. Have fun with your new toy."
"Thank you, Colonel. It's been a pleasure working with you."
"Egualmente , Ms. Canaro. Till next time."
He shook her hand and exited the vehicle, walking perhaps twenty feet away before stopping to watch her. The photographers rushed to surround the car and take photos, keeping far enough away to avoid being enmeshed in the paramagnetic field.
"New York Air Traffic Control. This is Air Car P-zero-zero-two-zero-one. Requesting permission to travel to residence from current location. Transmitting coordinates now."
The flight computer mounted in the dashboard had a colored map displaying her current location. There was an icon for several destinations on the map. One of them was a small yellow house outline. She pressed it, then pressed a menu, then selected Xmit Path from the menu. The map showed a slightly crooked purple line marking her desired flight plan.
"Hello, Ms. Canaro. That flight plan looks doable. Proceed when ready."
"Thank you, Control. Lifting now."
Sasha engaged the take-off sequence with another couple of buttons on the dashboard. The paramag sound effect switched to a low hum rising to a higher tone to alert any bystanders something was happening. The car rose slightly and she heard the smooth (real) mechanical sound of the tires folding up and locking into place below the car.
Sasha was now airborne. She kept her hands on the steering yoke, ready to take manual control if the automatic controls failed or went off program.
No such thing happened, of course. This vehicle was one of the best engineered and tested and maintained vehicles on the planet. Prince Enterprises had made sure of that before allowing reporters within miles of the car.
The car rose higher and higher, the accompanying sound effect rose consequently higher, and the car began tilting slightly back and moving forward. The yoke automatically tilted down and slid forward as if real hands controlled it. At a hundred feet the sound effects cut off, no longer being needed.
In a rush of exhilaration Sasha over-rode the program and slammed the yoke forward. The air car took off like a guided missile, slamming Sasha back into her seat.
At 1000 feet Sasha leveled off and cut the autopilot back on. Her air car slowed to the programmed speed. It continued rising to 1500 feet, the regular helicopter cruising height for the New York Metro area.
"New York Air Traffic Control. This is Air Car P-zero-zero-two-zero-one. I am at nominal height and speed, on course."
"Hello again, Ms. Canaro. We agree, you are on profile."
"Hey, what are you doing tonight?"
"Excuse me?"
"Every off-duty controller is hereby invited to my soirée tonight. Free booze, free snacks, all gourmet I might add. Plenty of hot-and-cold running ladies, for those of you who appreciate such things. And some cute gentlemen too."
"Thank you. But I believe management would frown on such practice."
"Hmm. Let's see."
Sasha mulled for a few moments, trying on phrases, watching the Long Island metropolitan area unroll before her as she flew to the south and west toward her home in Park Slope. Below her most notably was the somewhat meandering Boston Queens Expressway. Its several lanes were busy with traffic.
"Control. Try this. 'To further relations between the New York Air Traffic Control and civil authorities, Traffic Control officials attended a gala celebrating a new era in civil air traffic.' Or some such. I'm not a PR person."
"Thank you, Ms. Canaro. We will take due consideration of your advice."
"Fine. I'll phone my agent and tell her to add you all to the guest list in case you decide you want to come. P-zero-zero-two-zero-one out."
Sasha was flying at the same leisurely pace as ground traffic so
she soon saw ahead of her the lush green of Prospect Park where she jogged each morning. Her apartment building was on its edge, in Park Slope, one of a line of tall buildings. Hers was most noticeable from the air because it contained a large white circle atop it quadrisected by a yellow cross.
This marked a helipad, recently refurbished (at Prince Enterprises expense) to ensure there would be no damage to the building when an air vehicle set down upon it, and no consequent bad publicity for air cars.
Sasha pulled back on the yoke and her air car slowed. She pushed gently down on the yoke and the car gradually descended.
On the dashboard a bottom-mounted video camera showed the cross-haired target expanding as she descended toward it. Suddenly matching bright-yellow cross-hairs appeared on the screen, blinking. Sasha cut in the automatic landing system and the blinking cross-hairs edged toward the painted cross-hairs below. In a few moments the blinking became very rapid and disappeared. The two sets of cross-hairs were now perfectly aligned .
The landing pad expanded in the dashboard screen, fairly rapidly but steadily slowing, then slowing still more. A loud humming cut in to alert anyone below that the car was descending toward them.
In the last few seconds the pad crept "upward" toward the air car. Then a slight jolted signaled that Sasha's car had landed.
Sasha punched off the paramag cushion and the humming sound effect moaned and died as her car settled its full weight onto the apartment landing pad. Sasha remained alert in case of a million-to-one failure.
When nothing happened she engaged the tires of the car and drove sedately to a green-canvas-covered parking spot a short distance away. Inside it she edged into position where the tires sank a few inches into recesses built especially for them. Clicks sounded. They told Sasha that each wheel had been locked into place in the recesses. Only a hurricane would be able to budge her car now.
She keyed off the air car and opened the door, a smile ready on her face. She was greeted by a blizzard of flashes from the cameras of waiting photographers.
Slinging her small but very expensive purse over a shoulder she closed and locked the air car, its red paint shining even in the shadow of the garage.
Finally she faced the reporters. An old pro at this, she answered silly questions, being sure to give credit to each of the daily wear and accessories lines which had supplied her "casual" outfit.
Finally, when she was sure that everyone had all the photo ops and sound bites they needed, Sasha gave everyone a brilliant smile and left for the down elevator and her apartment .
At 9:00 that night Sasha began getting ready for the party. It took much less time for her than for an ordinary human. She applied "lipstick" by looking herself in the mirror and imagining what she wanted. Her lips plumped a bit and became brilliant red and moist-seeming. Her cheeks flushed almost invisibly pink. Her eyelashes lengthened and became inky black and a faint blue tint surrounded her eyes. It took several seconds, but only because she made tiny changes to fine-tune her appearance.
In those few seconds she earned $4000 dollars. The press release her agent had sent out earlier today detailed the supposed lipstick and lip gloss, eye shadow, lash shaper, and lash-color applicator.
Next came stockings, earning $2000. She briefly studied the web design of the real stockings and their over-all tint and duplicated it on her legs. It had taken her months to learn how to pattern her skin, but now it was reflex. The pattern would stay till she wished it away.
Her near-waist-length hair turned curly and more glossy than usual. From platinum it flushed a delicate red-gold. That would pull in $10,000 from a hair-rinse company.
Her red high-heeled shoes brought in a mere $1000. They were from a very popular firm which needed little advertising.
The pièce de résistance was the red dress which she took from a crepe-lined box. It brought her $100,000. It was of a new fabric which gave the scintillation of sequins without the actual very-expensive and inconvenient real sequins.
Sasha slipped on panties, slid into the dress, and zipped it tight. It fell sleekly to mid-calf, a once-again newly fashionable length. Long slits in the side would let her show off her legs when she wanted.
She wore no bra. Seen on websites the slight impressions of her nipples under her dress would excite many thousands of men to erotic exuberance in the months and years to come.
Lastly she spritzed herself with an expensive perfume ($5000) and twirled before a mirror. Everything was as it should be.
A small red clutch purse ($3000) with a few items and she was ready. With it in one hand and her heels suspended from the other she padded to the front door and the elevator to the roof. There Sasha entered her car a second time. No one was around.
Carefully she went through the simple start-up procedure: strap on her seat-and-shoulder belt, turn a key, and push a couple of buttons. Then call traffic control and get permission for her flight. Given, she engaged the automatic pilot and the air car rose into the air and headed north and a bit west. On the front and back red lights blinked in the night sky.
The destination was a popular night club in the Manhattan theater district a few blocks south of Times Square. It had been rented just for tonight, as had off-duty police officers to control the expected street crowd which already filled the entire block which had been cordoned off in front of the club.
It took her two minutes to reach 1500 feet and five minutes to reach the East River, a dark elbow-shaped strip in a tapestry of light. Below and to the left a bit was downtown Brooklyn laid out before her, its tall buildings all alight, as was the streets between them. She passed over the Williamsburg Bridge, bright with its own lights and those of the many hundreds of vehicles crossing it. Then Manhattan shone before and then under her.
A blinking red light marked the top of the building she was aiming for. It must have been quite bright to be seen against the building-side electric bill-boards of Times Square just behind it.
Near the building five news helicopters joined her. One, a small UAV, came within a hundred feet. She kept her hands on the steering yoke but turned her head toward it and smiled in case there was a camera aimed toward her and zoomed in. Silently she cursed the UAV operator.
Below was the landing area. As her craft descended it grew in the dashboard viewscreen showing the view from the belly camera. A temporary landing target and cross-hairs became visible. Her autopilot zeroed in on it and announced with blinks that the 'pilot had acquired the target.
As she monitored the landing in slow time Sasha thought that her bright-red car must be quite a sight from below, lit by floodlights which would have dazzled the eyes of an ordinary human, and descending slowly and majestically.
Her wheels came down and chunked quietly into place, the humming sound effect dropping into the bass register, and finally dying away. Then the pavement came up slowly and her vehicle landed smoothly.
Sasha sighed in relief as she keyed off the car. She had been perfectly sure the flight would go perfectly, but there had still been that million or billion to one chance for disaster. Or maybe worse than that, considering the fallibility of those driving the news 'copters.
As her car door slid back Sasha placed her feet on the pavement, revealing first the bright red high-heeled shoes. Then the slit of her sequined red dress revealed her long, strong legs. Then up and out came the rest of her, revealing a very low décolleté and bare back. Her faint red-gold hair curled and swung almost to her waist.
She smiled at the crowd, her lips a moist scarlet, her pale skin only slightly pinked, her big blue eyes outlined in blue and her lashes black as night. Dozens of flashes drenched her and the car behind her. In that moment her image became history, eventually branded on the memories of well over a billion people.
It was a night as publicly successful as Prince Enterprises could have hoped. Outside many hundreds of people clustered around Sasha's air car, kept from touching it and staying in place too long by off-duty police. Inside Sasha sm
iled and flirted and danced till midnight, then returned to her air car and home over the protests of a dozen people. Behind her the party lasted till dawn.
At dawn Sasha herself jogged in Prospect Park then got ready for a trip to the West Coast, where another party was planned. By 10:00 she was landing at Bluebird's Long Island headquarters on the Long Island Sound.
She was dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit and running shoes and was wearing light-sensitive shades. On her head was a billed cap with her hair spilling out the back in a pony tail. She walked into Hangar 51.
"You're early," said Colonel Storm Cloud. He was seated at a workstation near one side of the big room. Before him were two big flat screens atop the desk and he was manipulating images and text on them. Sasha ambled up and peered briefly at what he was doing.
"I left the party at midnight. I don't over-indulge in anything. Even men."
She turned and looked at the big room where she had gotten some of her air-car training. The rows of skeletal ergo chairs from the classes were gone. Instead it contained perhaps a hundred men and about a dozen women in green camouflage checking equipment.
"The Philippines?" she said .
"How'd you guess?"
"The green camo. About the only thing tropical right now which Bluebird would have a finger in." The former protectorate of the United States of America, long peaceful, had this year sprouted a nascent rebellion out in the country side. As was happening more and more in the last decade security firms like Bluebird were being contracted to help local forces.
Storm Cloud whistled and several close-by men and a few women looked his way.
"Stryker! Show Canaro around!" A big Scandinavian-looking female security officer nodded to companions and began to walk toward the two. Sasha lifted a hand to Storm Cloud and went to meet the officer.
"Sasha Canaro, Captain."
The officer shook her hand. Her sewn-on name tag read ANNELINA STRYKER. "Call me Lina, Ms. Canaro."
"Only if you call me Sasha."
Most of the troops were simply double- or triple-checking equipment to kill time. Those to whom Lina introduced her welcomed the distraction, especially when word got around that Sasha was more than just a pretty face.
