Charged - Book One (7 page)

“What do you make of that?” I said.

The pilot said something and Aaron said, “government
satellite dishes.”

“Kind of strange, don’t you think? I wonder what kind
of reception they are getting, surrounded by rock thousands of feet
high?”

It was strange. The whole canyon was a national park,
not to be developed. I continued to look at the white dots and it
occurred to me that we weren’t landing and that there was no place
to land.

Right when Aaron saw my expression, he knew I knew.
He then proceeded to pull out a pair of goggles and helmets out of
the large duffel bags and one parachute. Just one. I knew we were
flying under the radar almost at sea level, but when I looked down
to the six thousand feet into the canyon below us, I thought I
would pass out.

“We’re going to do a tandem jump. That’s why you only
see one chute, but it’s rated for two people.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I said, frantically. He
had kept this from me the whole time, knowing I would never agree
to jump out of a perfectly good plane. I was really hoping he had a
backup plan.

“Look down there. Do you see a runway? Besides, I’m
not hiking ten miles to get to the coordinates,” he said, smiling
again.

He was excited and I was going to be sick. I now
remembered he liked to skydive. He said it was exhilarating and
that everyone should do it at least once. My hands were sweating.
My heart was racing and I couldn’t control my expression or my
fear.

“I’m not doing this. I can’t do this!”

“Two minutes, you guys,” Jared said, into our
headphones. The plane descended some more and then leveled out.

“It’s illegal to skydive into the Grand Canyon!” I
said, knowing this to be true.

“You’ve already got the FBI after you and for me it’s
an opportunity of a lifetime!” Aaron said, yelling over the sound
of the engine.

He was laughing at my panic. He started putting the
parachute on himself and then proceeded to gear me up with a
harness.

“Relax, I’ve got a D license.”

This meant nothing to me and the D sounded bad.

“I’ve jumped over 500 times. It’s easy,” he said.

That was all I got, something about D license and no
additional instructions. My legs felt like rubber and my stomach
started to turn sour. I was terrified of heights and anything else
that was going to put my body into a free-fall. Just being in the
plane was bad enough.

After Aaron attached me to him via the harness and a
series of metal hooks, he motioned for me to grab onto a rail
mounted on the outside of the plane while he slid the side-panel
door open. This, I was not going to do. The plane filled with an
enormous gust of air. I was certain I was going to die. Aaron then
violently shoved us out the door. He knew I wouldn’t jump.

We were forced forward for a few seconds due to the
speed of the plane we’d just exited. Then, we were gaining speed. I
couldn’t speak and I thought I would lose consciousness. I wasn’t
certain if I’d soiled myself. I wasn’t certain if we were going too
fast. It seemed like we were doing over a hundred miles an hour. It
was surreal, not really like falling at all. More like flying.
There was nothing surging pass us, like in a car; there was just
air. But I was certain, in the near future, if I lived, that I
would throw Aaron from a fast-moving vehicle while I said, “it’s
easy!”

After what seemed like a lifetime, Aaron deployed the
chute and we jerked up and then started to slow and it was quiet,
very quiet, while we floated downward. We slowed significantly; the
difference was astonishing to me. For a second, I didn’t think we
would decelerate at all. My heart started to calm down as we
approached the ground. And the gratitude I felt for the ground was
overwhelming.

WHEN WE HIT THE GROUND, I landed right on my bad
knee, sending an unbearable wave of pain through my entire body.
Aaron had us separated and the chute detached in a matter of
seconds. I rolled around in agony grabbing my knee. Then I cursed
for about two minutes under my breath, digging my hands into the
desert sand. My head was reeling from the jump and I was grunting
through my teeth.

“Haven’t you heard of a jeep, you idiot!”

I stared up at Aaron, enraged. I almost felt like I’d
been taken hostage. And he looked back at me completely
confused.

“I don’t think a jeep would’ve gotten down here and a
mule would have taken forever.”

I was getting sick of his logical responses. I tried
to concentrate on my breathing as the pain ran up into my hip and
down into my foot. “You’re a freak! Do you even have parents or did
you climb out of a puddle of adrenaline?”

The expression on Aaron’s face changed; he was
concerned now. What probably should have been a pretty good landing
for my first time skydiving had turned me inside out because of my
injury. I was so scared when he pushed me out of the plane that I
forgot I even had a bad knee. I should’ve done everything I could
to avoid landing on it.

I looked at Aaron for a second, still trying to calm
my breathing. He looked like a man instead of a kid with bright
orange hair. The pain slowly started to subside and I knew that, in
his mind, there was no other way to get me here. This was the most
logical choice given our limited time. I tried to let go of my
anger, because he was right. I would’ve never jumped.

When I could start speaking again, I continued to
curse at him for two more minutes and a number of the obscenities
didn’t make sense and made him laugh. Friend or not, I was still
going to throw him from a fast-moving vehicle in the future, which
he would probably find exhilarating. If I could’ve gotten up and
beat the living crap out of him, I think I would’ve.

“This wasn’t exactly what I’d pictured,” he said,
removing the black harness from my body. As if he had calculated
the whole event in his head and just now realized he forgot to
include the fact that I’m injured into the equation. He then rolled
up the parachute into a large ball. “You wouldn’t have gone along
with the plan, Lew, if I told you the plan.”

This was true. I didn’t care. I was still pissed.

“Approach me with logic! Explain to me that there was
no other way,” I said, through gritted teeth.

“Then you wouldn’t have enjoyed the view. And you
would’ve been uncomfortable the whole flight. Am I wrong?”

I attempted to stand, trying to control my mouth and
manage the pain in my knee.

“Help me get up!” I barked at him. I didn’t want to
discuss this anymore. He was right and I was ticked off.

He helped me up and I hopped on one leg toward the
satellite dishes.

“So, now what?”

“Wait!” he said, motioning me to stop. “Doesn’t it
seem a little strange that this is completely unprotected, no fence
or anything.”

“Doesn’t it seem stranger that there are three
satellite dishes in a national park?” This wasn’t a question.

He raised his eyebrows again and nodded his head in
agreement with me. After a few more minutes, I was able to put a
little pressure on my bad leg, which meant I could limp, but
barely.

“Give me your jacket,” he said, reaching out his
arm.

I took off my jacket and threw it at him with a
little too much force. He caught it and gave me an unhappy
expression then he threw it at the satellite dish from about ten
feet away.

Nothing happened.

“Well, I guess this is it, man,” he said, smiling.
Aaron then walked about thirty feet back, then started running
towards the first satellite dish and body-slammed it. Yes, he
actually body-slammed it. He was a freak. My best friend was
completely insane.

Nothing happened. Well, actually he fell to the
ground grabbing his chest, but nothing interesting happened.

“It’s not rigged or anything, man.”

“I can see that, genius!” I shook my head and limped
towards him and then around the satellite dishes, looking for
something unusual.

“Are these the exact coordinates?”

“Exactly. I checked them twice. If it makes you feel
more secure, there’s a GPS in the bag. Check it yourself.”

I was not interested in doing this. I knew they were
right.

“This is it, Lew! You don’t just set three satellite
dishes in the middle of the Grand Canyon like this.”

He stood up, looking at me, “besides, do you know how
much one of these things costs?

I shrugged my shoulders, not caring about the
cost.

“Give me the box. It’s in the bag.”

I hopped over, took the box out of the duffel bag and
handed it to him.

He set it on the ground in the middle between the
first and second dish. This didn’t amuse me.

“This was your plan! To jump out of a plane,
body-slam the base of a satellite dish and reenact ‘Raiders of the
Lost Ark’!” I was more frustrated with myself than Aaron now.

“Did you even have a plan?” he rebutted.

“Please tell me you thought of a way out of here that
doesn’t consist of me rock climbing?”

“Relax. I covered everything. We have to walk west
five miles to where Jared can pick us up, but he can’t be here
until ten tomorrow.”

“Walk. Walk!” I said one more time, frowning. It was
clear to me that he was completely crazy and if I could catch him,
I was going to hurt him.

“Ten a.m. tomorrow! Let’s pretend I can walk five
miles, which I can’t! Do you realize what lives in these
canyons?”

“Yes, yes, all full of protein, bossman.”

He was smiling again. I was getting tired of the
smiling. I wanted to rip that smile off his face and shove it up
his…. I stopped this thought. I needed him to get out of this
place. I could hurt him after we were back on the plane. Walk. I
felt a little delirious at the thought. I should have been more
honest about the knee.

Then I saw something.

I limped all the way around the center satellite dish
and I saw handlebars mounted on the side, leading all the way up to
the top of the base of the center dish.

Aaron picked up the box, walked over to the dish and
cautiously touched the bars. He started to climb up the bars and I
followed, taking twice as long as him. As we got to the top, there
was a large circular opening positioned next to the center of the
dish. I pulled myself through the hole, trying not to bang my knee
and I could see a large circle in the center of the dish.

It didn’t look like a satellite dish; it looked more
like a giant solar panel. I expected what looked like glass under
our feet to start cracking, but it didn’t.

Aaron was inspecting the center of the dish and
started blowing sand out of a small divot in the center of the
circle. As he did so, it revealed 13 metallic prongs.

“You ready?” he said, about to place the small box in
the slot.

“Wait!”

Aaron paused and waited for me to get closer. The
indentation in the center of the dish was the exact same size as
the box. For a moment, I contemplated whether it was a good idea to
use the key at all. What would the consequences be?

“What if it does blow up Mars?”

Aaron shook his head. “I’m pretty sure it would be
shaped like a large rocket, not a satellite dish, if that were the
case.”

“Funny. No, I mean what if it sends a message that in
turn makes something devastating happen?”

“Mars isn’t that interesting anyway and I don’t think
this is actually a satellite dish. I think it’s just made to look
like one.” Then, without any more thought, he placed the key into
the 13 prongs.

We waited, looking at the box, looking around at the
walls of the dish and then back at each other, and nothing
happened.

“Maybe it’s broke,” I said, not having a different
explanation.

“It’s not broke, I checked it.”

“How exactly do you check glowing wires?” I said, in
a sarcastic tone.

Aaron grabbed the box and wiggled it. He then turned
it ninety degrees to the right and the box came to life. Tiny
violet beams shot out of the sides for about two seconds and then
faded to nothing. The circle that surrounded the box started to
lift from one side and we had to quickly jump off of it, which sent
another jolt of pain through my knee.

“Yes!” Aaron said, going around to the other side to
look into the hole. It was a lid to a hollow cylinder about seven
feet wide and eleven feet deep, with steel handle mounts running
down one side. Beyond that, it was empty, completely empty. There
were no buttons, no additional sockets for the strange box, no
keyholes, nothing. We just stood there staring into it.

Now I was impressed. Not only did the box work, but
Aaron found what it unlocked.

Aaron smiled pleased with himself again. He then
shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyes brows and motioned for me
to hop in the tube.

“No way man. You go right ahead. I’ll be waiting for
you when the government drags your ass back up here because you
just found the presidents bomb shelter,” I said, laughing.

Aaron then grabbed our bags, threw them inside and
climbed down and looked up me with sheer excitement glistening in
eyes. Like a kid on Christmas day. And he knew damn well I wasn’t
going to let him go down there alone. But it took a few moments for
me to reconsider. Hesitantly and with considerable pain in my knee,
I lowered myself into the tube.

When we were both inside, we stood there for a
moment, waiting for the hatch to close, but it didn’t. The cylinder
didn’t move.

Aaron then smiled as if he’d just realized something
and motioned me with one finger to wait as he climbed back up and
out of the tube. This made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want this
thing to start moving without him in it. After a short moment, he
climbed back into the cylinder, he showed me the box and the lid
started to close.