The Super Olympian- Mystic Warrior

by Laer Carroll

  Minutes later Margaret Pennebaker came out of the room, stopping in surprise when she saw the two women waiting from her. She was dressed in a blue two-piece bathing suit, not a bikini, but no one could miss that she wore the suit well.

  "Peggy, we have to do this right. Hold still." Shielding the woman with her body from view of the rest of the barn she pulled a bright red and orange bathrobe out of her bag and placed it around the woman's shoulders. Then she urged her forward, glancing at Selena. Taking her cue the redhead took her place on the opposite side of Margaret and the three marched toward the diving board.

  Sasha had long ago boosted the woman's health, so she was not surprised when Margaret walked toward the stairs leading up to the top of the higher board.

  "Selena, meet Peggy Hanson."

  By the time the three women reached the bottom of the high-diving board they had gathered everyone's attention. Selena was giggling in happy anticipation but stifling it, so when they stopped she readily stood with Sasha and helped unveil "Peggy Hanson."

  There were dropped jaws from a few of the men and women. Peggy's stocky figure had the smooth muscularity of the practicing athlete and seemed in no way "dumpy." She climbed the ladder easily, took her place at the end of the board, flexed to bring the board down and then up, and dove into the pool so cleanly there was barely a splash.

  As she surfaced near the stair out of the water everyone there except Sasha burst into applause. The shapechanger was holding out a towel to Peggy. The diver dried her face but nothing else and returned to the diving-board stair.

  The next dive was more ambitious, the next several more ambitious still, with several twists and somersaults.

  Finally she toweled off all her body and accepted Selena's help drawing on the bright bathrobe. Sasha was meanwhile speaking to the engineer who scheduled the test.

  "Add Peggy Pennebaker to the roster of water testers."

  By mid-March all the tests which could be done indoors were done. Consequently one Monday a huge paramag cargo lifter borrowed from Bluebird Securities at Camp Pendleton dropped down to the nearest helicopter pad to the AirMobile buildings. Over the next two days a testing facility was transferred by several flights to Santa Catalina Island twenty-something miles off the coast and set up.

  On Wednesday of that week Sasha landed her air car at the Long Beach facility to pick up some of her friends and colleagues. Then she lifted off on a flight to the small airport on a flattened hill in the middle of the island. At a leisurely 200 miles an hour at 5000 feet they were approaching it in a few minutes.

  The weather was the usual Southern California bright day and the island could be easily seen end-to-end as they came in from blue sea. It had a rounded center some six or seven miles across, an oval south-east end half that through, and a spear-head-shaped north-west end even narrower. The color was predominantly brown with green in the several valleys leading down to the sea.

  A couple of miles from the airport Sasha called its controllers.

  "Catalina Airport, this is Air Car P-zero-zero-two-zero-one. I'm diverting to land vertically at my destination. Coordinates coming to you—now." She tapped a virtual button on her dashboard.

  "Welcome to Santa Catalina, Prince Enterprises. Observe low-flight rules. Our radar shows no one else in the air at this time within two miles your location."

  "Mine shows the same thing. Thank you."

  "That's so sexy," said Rodrigo in the seat behind her. "So take-charge."

  Selena in the co-pilot's seat, her hands on the steering yoke so she could feel how Sasha controlled the vehicle through the yoke echo function, spoke over her shoulder.

  "Wank later, work now."

  Mihir chuckled. Rodrigo was a mild practical joker, the East Indian a verbal one. They were friends, of course.

  Elena and "Peggy Hanson" were a bit tightly squeezed in beside the two men. Sasha knew without looking that they were glancing at each other and rolling their eyes.

  A large rambling residence rotated below them as Sasha came in on a fish-hook path from the blue ocean. It was Mediterranean style with red-brown tile roofs and thick beige walls. She settled onto a large shell-surfaced parking area to one side which contained a truck-sized paramag transporter and three long paramag air limousines.

  "Wankers and workers out!" Sasha said and triggered the sliding car doors.

  From the large double-doors of the rental residence several other engineers came and helped the six newcomers bring in luggage and equipment. The equipment was the last batch and was quickly integrated with the rest in a living room which opened onto a balcony overlooking the ocean. Large sliding glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows beside them gave a view of the California coast. At this distance it looked more like a cloud-bank than a metropolitan complex with millions of inhabitants .

  Sasha stood on the balcony while the engineers did their jobs. It was a pleasant view, falling quickly down to a small bay below, dark blue because the water was quite deep. A chest-high decorative wrought-iron railing kept anyone from falling off the balcony. The railing was pretty but quite sturdy.

  "Hey, come on in," said Owen Allerbee. "We're ready for you now."

  Sasha followed him across the balcony to the entrance to a large den beside the living room. Its furniture had been carefully stored elsewhere in the house and a tough heavy carpet laid over the green wall-to-wall carpet on the den's floor. There was a heavy penalty to be paid if anyone even stained the rental's floors or walls during their several-months stay, much less scratched or dented it.

  In the middle of the room was an AirMobile, now being called an "AirSki." It sat on its four ski feet just as it would when operational. There were two seats, one front and one back, and two long pontoon-like bodies on each side of the seats. Riders had to step over the "pontoons" to sit down, which is what Sasha did now.

  She secured herself with a conventional-looking shoulder/seat belt. Then she sat tranquilly looking out through the clear curved windshield at the ocean and mainland visible through the open wall-to-ceiling sliding doors. The opening was more than wide enough to let the air ski pass in and out of them. Not that it would today.

  "OK, Sasha, test 101-1." Checking a list taped to the windshield Sasha ran the first test. Basically she powered the ski-car up, waited five seconds, and powered it down.

  Thus it went for the next two hours. Slowly the power levels increased, as did the times the power was on. All sorts of readings were done. This included those from instruments placed below the skis to see if the paramagnetism harmed the loose wooden two-by-fours placed below the skis and atop the carpet.

  Other instruments were placed above and below the floor under the seats upon which the feet of riders would sit. The floor was two feet above the skis, which should be plenty of distance to protect feet from biological effects from the paramagnetic effect, which was supposed to be projected downward. In addition to distance, however, the flooring was a magnetic shield.

  SAFETY IS JOB ONE, said Prince Enterprises, and everyone on the AirSki project took the slogan seriously. Even Mihir, though he joked about the slogan.

  At 11:30 everyone took a full hour break. The break was a necessity, not a luxury. Engineers, at least all the ones Sasha had met at Prince, were obsessive and had to be reined in lest they burn themselves out, with possibly attendant losses down the line in many lives and many millions of dollars.

  Afterwards the testing continued. At 5:00 everyone quit working, a time enforced rigorously by Vincent Wang, otherwise seemingly the easiest of bosses. By then the air ski had progressed to lifting on its cushion and floating out onto the balcony, rotating to return to its resting place, and rotating to sit down and power down.

  Sasha got down from her seat and pretended to need to stretch and rub her bottom, ignoring Rodrigo's suggestion he take over that latter task. If she ever seemed about to take him up on one of his flirty suggestions he would be terrified, she knew.

  Most of the engineers
returned to the mainland in the air limos, while two Bluebird Security personnel kept guard through the night. Sasha, Selena, and Elena drove in her air car the few miles down to Avalon harbor and city. She did not lift up on the jets but instead used the paramag cushion till she reached the outskirts of the small city. Then she went to ground car mode and drove to the four-star hotel right on the picturesque harbor. It was a dozen stories high and looked like a pink layer cake.

  In the middle of the week before tourist season they shared the large nice dining room with only a dozen or two people, most she guessed locals. This was confirmed by the waiter, with whom sociable Selena chatted.

  "Come Friday," he said, "things pick up. We have a friendly little club scene then and Saturday. Some of the guys have lots of money."

  Sasha wondered if the three of them looked like gold diggers or hookers despite their conventional clothing. True, Selena and Elena routinely dressed well, but she wore her usual billed cap with pony tail, shades, and jeans and a loose tee-shirt with PARK SLOPE on the front, identical to her orange, red, yellow, and green tees except for color.

  Elena snickered and pointed to Selena and herself. "We're engineers. And she—" She pointed to Sasha. "—is a supermodel who makes millions a year."

  He leaned over a bit and looked closely at Sasha. Then he glanced out the large picture window which revealed the harbor. The red Maserati was visible parked on the street.

  "I know you." He became visibly excited. "Come here any day and you eat free." Then without any sort of Goodbye he walked quickly away, apparently to tell someone that a celebrity was eating here tonight.

  Sure enough, minutes later a manager in a business suit came up and told Sasha she and her friends would have complimentary food and drinks any time they came in for dinner. Their food arrived promptly after that and it was quite good.

  "Do you get that often?" said Selena, eying the shapechanger as if seeing her for the first time.

  "Often enough. You get used to it."

  After a minute more she said, "Tell you what. Saturday I show the colors at a movie premiere. Give me your home addresses and I'll pick you up. Dress up and we'll all go. Expect to be blinded by all the camera flashes. Everyone will assume you're actresses when you show up with me."

  Selena thought it a terrific idea. Elena needed a bit of persuading but finally agreed.

  The premiere went well. The Twins begged off because (they said) they had to study. Silvana got along well with the two engineers despite her youth; she was smart, sophisticated, and adorable. The four women had a night of girly abandon. The two engineers were indeed assumed to be movie starlets.

  Work went well also. Though there was a bit of excitement on the second Friday of the Santa Catalina tests.

  Sasha noticed a minor detail which alerted her something was going to happen: Rodrigo did not eat the usual catered lunch. Instead he set his portions aside on a side table.

  Then when everyone began to get up and go back to work he instead went into a men's room. Not unusual, but Mihir was hiding a case of giggles. He did it very well, but Sasha of course noticed all the little symptoms ordinary humans usually would not. She suspected a practical joke coming up.

  A few minutes later Rodrigo came running out of the men's room dressed only in small red swimming trunks.

  "I can't take it any more!" he yelled. Everyone turned to stare at him. He jumped up on the balcony railing, said, "Goodbye cruel world!" and dove off.

  Mihir gave a loud cry. "He killed himself! He killed himself!" Then he began laughing, though since he was at the railing looking down he seemed to be crying .

  Everyone else but Sasha ran to the railing. She strolled there, arriving just in time to see Rodrigo's dive splash the deep-blue water of the little bay below.

  Everyone looked aghast. Except Selena. She was looking closely at Mihir, then glanced at Sasha. Suddenly she was pummeling the Indian with little slaps, and light punches to the belly when he lifted his hands to protect his face.

  He collapsed on the floor, laughing and rolling into a ball to protect himself.

  "It's another one of his practical jokes," she said, lightly kicking Mihir. Though not lightly as she could have.

  Rescued by a few people Mihir explained that Rodrigo had been an Acapulco cliff diver when he was a boy. Owen Allerbee then recalled who had first scouted the island for a location for the tests: Rodrigo and Mihir.

  "And you were in on it," said Selena to Sasha.

  "No. But I guessed after lunch when I saw the signs that those two were up to something. That's the advantage to being a loafer who has nothing to do but watch everything."

  Just then Rodrigo came onto the balcony from a gate opening out into a long winding stair which stretched down the cliff to the tiny beach below. He was badly winded from the long climb back up and staggering, which everyone decided was punishment enough—for now.

  Sasha had her revenge on Rodrigo the next Friday. After lunch she shed her tee and jeans and tennies for a bikini and said "I need to cool off. Excuse me."

  Then she ambled across the balcony. Most of the crowd followed her, though not just from curiosity. In next to nothing she was a quite a sight from the rear.

  At the railing she gracefully jumped up on the railing, flexed her legs, and leaped up and out. For a moment she seemed to hang in the air, then jack-knifed and arrowed down toward the water below.

  She entered the water cleanly and slowed well clear of the bottom. Perhaps twenty feet under, she examined the long strands of seaweed wavering in the underwater currents. Shoals of fish fled the disturbance, their bodies alternating silver-grey-silver-grey as light glanced from their flexing bodies. She had hyperventilated on the way down so could stay under for a couple of hours of moderate activity, but she only stayed under a few minutes enjoying the scene.

  At the surface she paddled to the exit from the water and ran effortlessly up the entire two-hundred feet of the stairs. Padding lithely across the balcony to everyone's watching eyes, not even breathing hard, she spoke.

  "That was refreshing." Laughter and clapping followed her into the bathroom.

  By the end of April the air ski had been wrung out. Numerous small improvements had been made, so many that they went through two newer improved test models. The testing was winding down when disaster struck.

  As usual Sasha was pushing the envelope of the latest model's capabilities. Half a mile out over the ocean she was at 1000 feet. This was the greatest height yet. Much higher and the increasing chill and thinner air would require heated suits and oxygen masks. The air ski was intended to be a low-level flying vehicle.

  "That's it, Sash'" said the voice in her ear phones. "The very last test. Bring it in."

  "Just a few more minutes. I want to take it a little higher."

  "OK. But that's it. Bring it in."

  Sasha was traveling north and a bit west, paralleling the mostly brown coast to her left. The sky stretched light blue and clear above her, the sea a darker blue under her. A few puffy clouds gave occasional slight relief from the just-after-noon sun. Not that her perfectly accommodating skin needed the protection. She turned to the left and climbed to begin an upward spiral.

  She had gone completely around twice and was on her original heading, but at 1200 feet, when the jets' power quit. The slowly moving vehicle began to plunge forward and down, then down at a steeper angle.

  "Control, we have a problem. The power quit. The power quit."

  Sasha was on slow time and perfectly calm. Her voice showed it to those on land at the villa.

  "Sasha, recycle the power. Recycle the power."

  "Doing it. Now hush. I know the routines. No distractions now." To be sure there were none she pulled out her ear phones and let them drop to hang by their tether.

  She tried several things. Pushing the Power-On button repeatedly did not bring back power. Nor did lightly striking the equipment console several times. Tightening all the connections she could re
ach seat-belted did not help. She released the belt but could not reach any further connections. No visual inspection showed damaged or loose connections.

  By now the car was tumbling backward. It was tail-heavy with the battery behind the seats.

  The vehicle was upside down, Sasha held in it only by her legs tightened around the steering yoke. She had to abandon ship.

  When the vehicle rotated upright again she straightened her legs and pushed down. Up she went—or less down, for car and pilot were falling faster and faster.

  At about ten feet distance Sasha pulled the rip cord on her parachute. The tiny opener chute popped out and begin to fill, pulling at the larger chute within the chute pack .

  At that moment an up-draft and perhaps a puff of wind slowed the air car and made it tumble. In slow motion it approached Sasha and passed over her. And one of the skis sliced into the opener chute cords.

  The cords were high-test nylon and the ski edges were all blunt, so the cords were not cut. But this was worse, because they became tangled in the cords.

  This changed the center of the air car and it rotated around to land on the opening full chute and deflate it.

  Sasha released the chute harness and pushed herself away from everything. She could foresee that she would be engulfed in the chute in a few more seconds.

  The wreckage and she drifted further and further apart as Sasha windmilled her arms and legs and brought herself to an upright position. She was falling feet first.

  She looked around and twisted till she was oriented toward the island. From the angle to the villa she could tell that she was now about 900 feet from the water. She seemed to float in the air but knew this was an illusion. She was falling faster and faster. Already the light blue coveralls were beginning to flap in the breeze from her motion.

  The denser debris was falling faster still, moving away from her in their plunge. It was also drifting off to the side, which was good. She did not want to fall on it when she hit the water. To increase the separation she spread her arms to use them to "fly" away from it.

  For a moment she considered trying to use her flight suit as a rudimentary para-wing, but discarded the notion. It's surface area was too small and hard to control. As if the tough material was Kleenex she ripped it off her, including the buttoned-tight ankles. This put her clad only in her tennis shoes, bra, and panties.