"How did it feel to rescue those miners?"
I say the first completely honest sentence I have said to her. "I can only think about the three I lost."
She picks her head up, kisses me quickly on the cheek, and gives me a strangely Perez- like look. "You've done so much good. You should focus on that. Would it be better if you had stayed home and they all died?"
"No, but I want to change the world, and it feels like I'm leaving a trail of death instead."
"You know I was in the Rose Bowl. If not for you, I'd be dead. That's a trail of life in my book."
I kiss her on the forehead. She switches topics.
"Did it hurt getting shot so many times?"
I laugh. "Didn't feel a thing. Except for being embarrassed by my butt hanging out."
Now she laughs. "It's a cute butt. Are you going to keep going after the dealers?"
"Don't know. I can't change the world a street at a time."
"I admire your determination, but isn't the world a big place, even for you?"
"It's turning out to be, but I still have to try."
"And you still get up every morning and go to work?"
"Yep. Dull, boring, and human. I need it."
"Have you seen your action figures?"
"Yes. Disgusting. The action figures, the women on the rooftops, everyone buying my underwear." I look at her. "Except one woman I met on a roof."
"Glad you clarified that," she laughs again, "Speaking of other women, does everyone react to you the way I do?"
I kiss her forehead again. "Don't know. So far, you're the one and only since I got strong."
She picks her head back up and we exchange a kiss on the lips.
I shift minutely. "And, if you are ready, it's time I was on my way."
She responds by gathering her legs under herself and shifting until she is crouching on the step below me. The salami took the shift for something else, and is once again at the ready. She pats him on his little head.
"Don't wait so long to call next time. Last time my whole body hummed for a day. And this time was off the chart better." She pauses for a second. "Am I ever going to spend time with you not on a rooftop?"
I reach up and put my hand on her cheek. "I'd really like to, but we can't as long as the Army is following you around."
She looks at me funny. "I didn't tell them you called, or that I was coming to meet you."
"I know. But I am sure they have your phone tapped, and I am sure they followed you here, and I am sure they will try to follow me home."
She looks worried. "Sorry."
"Not your fault. Just something else I have to find a way to deal with."
She stands up, and I follow. I stare at her getting dressed, which I think embarrasses her a little, but I don't care. When she finishes, I put my underwear back on. She steps over to me, gives me a long slow kiss, and then we go our separate ways, she down the stairs, and me to the roof.
It's dark on the roof and quiet, only a light breeze blowing in from the ocean and a little left over noise from families still up after their day spent with Mickey Mouse. I stand as still as I can, and close my eyes. The drone is there, I feel it. This time, I try to concentrate on it and see if I can't figure out where it is without a search. My brain says to my left and higher, which would be north.
I turn that way, open my eyes, and stare into the night sky for a while, but I can't find it. Doesn't change the fact that it's there. Grabbing molecules, MFM, the Mysteriously Fucked Up Man, pushes himself into the sky and sets sail to the east, charting a course for the apartment complex where we stowed the tagged papers.
For a while, I fly using something resembling a backstroke so that I can look behind, but I can't find the little devil. I pop down over the 91 freeway, then play tag with myself across a couple hills and canyons, but it doesn't help. I assume the drone has stayed in the clear air above me.
I drop into the wooded area beside the apartments, and take my clothes off. Rather than leave them, I decide to throw caution to the wind, and simply ball them up in a hand. If the drone can read that small a radar signature, I'm screwed eventually anyhow.
For a couple minutes, I see nothing, then a shadow passes over the woods, too big for any local bird. And, sure enough, as I follow it, I make out the outline of one of the larger drones. I move a few feet over, and manage to get both drones, the little one over the apartments and its big cousin, in my view. They aren't as coordinated as they should be, and occasionally the woods are out of sight.
The next time it happens, I rocket skyward at maximum subsonic velocity until I am well above the two devils. Nothing about their patterns changes during the next couple of circles, but to be on the safe side, I fly away to the north. No feeling of being followed follows.
I turn north, skirting downtown again, then cut south into Orange County before making a loop and approaching Anaheim from the opposite direction I used leaving. I drop down behind my favorite Chinese restaurant among all Chinese restaurants I have never eaten at, become me, put my underwear back on, and jog over to Starbuck. A half hour later we are pulling into my garage, apparently safe, but maybe still not sound.
At 7:30 I am walking into the LAPD Main building, and over into Terminal 7. Perez is already there. I'm expecting some comment about Celeste, but instead she has a question.
"That was you who called in the alert about the container on Tuesday?"
I nod.
"Another 20 kilos, which the lab says is from the same source as the first 20. First shipment came in from Dallas, second shipment from Houston."
"We been able to trace it back?"
"Nope. Has to be airline or airport employees getting it on the flights, but no clues so far. Two different airlines, two different airports." She stands up, and walks off into the terminal. I decide I'm supposed to follow and do, needing my warp speed thrusters to catch her.
We enter the food court just in time to see Celeste Nortin's face on one of the TVs, not on the usual sports show, but on the network morning show. Behind her is a photo of him pulling a miner out of the ground. Perez looks at me.
"Yes," I say in my best ‘it's not my fault' voice, "I talked to her again last night."
"Talked?" My face must have immediately given me away, because she hits me on the arm, hard, much harder than normal, and gives me her seriously disappointed in me look.
We're in the bar now, so we can hear the sound. Celeste is talking about how I feel so responsible for the three men I could not save, how much I want to fix the world, and how she wishes I would accept the value in what I do.
Perez hits my arm, not quite as hard as the last time, but given that I am still throbbing from the first one it makes me jump.
A newswoman who I recognize, but not by name, is doing the interview. She asks Celeste about my going after the drug dealers, asks her what she thinks my life is like, and asks her about action figures. Celeste gives a truthful account on each, truthful based on what I told her, not the actual, minus any mention of the Army. They talk about how I might react when I find out the shopkeeper in Chile got $100,000 for my swimsuit, and the BMW owner sold his new convertible for $600,000. Then the final question, what am I really like? "He's a great guy, someone you'd be happy to take home to your mom even if he couldn't fly." And with that, they try to sell their viewers some stuff they don't need.
Perez is already six feet back into the terminal by the time I turn around to follow. I catch up and pull in to her right.
"She's not so bad after all." Strange admission from Officer Perez.
"I told you. But I didn't tell her everything. I killed the three miners I didn't save."
Perez stops short and looks at me. I explain. She shakes her head, I'm sure disappointed in me again.
"You did not kill them. You did your best. The fog people have seriously fucked you over, Air Force." I have no response for that one, so I change the subject.
"Anything I can do to help find who is shipping the drugs in?"
"Not yet, but maybe soon. Unless you can get the power to go back in time and track the packages back to their source."
"Not likely." Hulk smash. That's my way.
Chapter 7
We spend the morning doing what we're supposed to be doing, eat lunch on the flight deck of a parked jet, tacos, my treat, and over the afternoon decide I shouldn't harass the drug dealers anymore, and figure out a plan to learn more about my friend the General. What else I should be doing though we can't figure out. She takes me out to the shooting range after work and I do much better, putting six rounds into the circle out of 10. She gets nine out of 10, but I think she missed that one on purpose so I wouldn't feel quite so bad.
We agree to meet at my parent's on Sunday after I finish my training session, and then drive off into the night. I head for Anaheim, but never make it to my usual spot. The bad feelings start as soon as I get off of the 22 onto Harbor, and get worse as I head north. I hit the diner at Chapman for a piece of pie I don't need, at a table with a window looking out at the Hilton. It takes me 25 minutes, but I find it, circling, looking for the Superdumbass who told it where to find himself.
These things cost millions, I should just go all Hulk on them and smash them to little bits until they run out, but then they would start plan B and who knows what that would be. If they think plan A is going to work at least I know what to look for. Or maybe not, but at least I can convince myself to believe I know what to look for.
Stuffed with really good chocolate cream pie, Starbuck and I take Harbor north to the 91 entrance, and then roll east to my suddenly new primary hiding place near the apartments in Colton. No bad feelings here, and I launch myself into the air, no destination, just a plan to fly.
There are still parties on the rooftops of downtown, no Celeste, though the LA City Council has banned the parties starting February first, so two weeks from now, who knows? I spend a couple hours making circles along the lazy river, cruising finally up Interstate 5 until it reaches Magic Mountain. Feeling stupid, I fly over the fence without paying, stay high enough not to be noticed at first, head to the Superman ride, and fly beside the car just as it is launched, racing the tourists to the top almost close enough to touch them, and float there waving at them as they fall back to earth.
Then it's off down the 5, then the 405, heading toward nowhere, when I spot a car sideways in the barrier, a group of folks milling around. I come to a nice landing next to it, trying to remind myself that I need to figure out how to land cool. The occupant is unconscious, and from the mangled state of the vehicle, trapped as well.
I push everyone back, not literally, but figuratively, grab the bottom of what once was the opening for the window in the door, and pull. About half the remnants of the door come away in one big piece, and I clear away the rest easily enough. I rip the seatbelt housing out of the frame of the car and toss it into the passenger seat, essentially unbuckling the woman inside.
The air bag is deflated, and it's easy to crush the steering column into the dashboard, and gently lift the unencumbered driver from the vehicle, a grey haired thin older woman wearing a simple white cotton dress.
I put her on the ground, a man claiming to be a doctor comes up next to her, and I hit the molecules and get out of the way. Back to Colton, back into Starbuck, back into traffic, back into Long Beach, and back into my apartment. Read until dawn, go running, check out my pictures on the front page of the
Times,
and roll for the airport.
No funny feelings this morning, just fighting a winter snow storm over the Rockies, a wet runaway at Denver International, a wet sock from sticking my foot in a puddle while doing my walk around in the melting snow, and a captain who I've never flown with before.
Home, I pick up Starbuck, no Jen, no Perez, no interest in going out, I spend my night at home surfing the web for things I might do.
Saturday is fun. It's my first day of advanced training from the LAPD, and basically we spend it shooting and playing whack a mole on each other with batons. I make no donut jokes, no one tries to get street creds by killing an airplane pilot, and the day ends with both me and our instructor, Lope, happy with the performance.
Saturday night I'm out at a club in Santa Monica, watching three of my fellow first officers pick up women, while I resist every temptation thrown my way. Sunday is both the best of times and the worst. Training is marvelous, I am a consistent eight and nine out of 10 by the end of the day, and pretty handy with my baton as well (no jokes about that please).
At my parents, Perez asks me if I've seen the paper. I say no, and she gives me the run down. Four women are in the hospital and two dead from crashing their vehicles into guard rails on the 405, apparently trying to get my attention. Ditto three dead males after a world record 36 high speed chases over the past two nights. The LAPD sent out a message through the media to ask everyone to stop.
