NORTH SEA
He hated helicopters.
He'd never flown in one before today, and if he had anything to say about it, he'd never fly in one again. He wasn't one for amusement park rides, even-- or perhaps especially-- the slow ones, like Ferris wheels or bumper cars. He'd never even seen London from the heights of the Eye.
He had control issues when it came to motion, as in he liked to be in control of his body in motion. Hence his love of running, of bicycling. Granted, the latter had led him to an appalling injury: a moment's hesitation on a messenger run, and the last thing he'd seen was the Sterling insignia on a dark bonnet, followed by a rushing closeup of a windscreen. He'd woken cold and alone, his head aching, his mouth dry, in a world new and terrible, not brave. A world of violence, nightmares, killing, and blood.
A world of helicopters.
This bloody helicopter, anyway, just the one, and the bloody idiot flying it. It bucked away from the croft that for a month they'd called home; it shuddered and hitched in the air. He found himself becoming hyper-attuned to the flaws of its motion. It dropped meters into a pressure pocket; his stomach dropped with it.
Brave face, Jim, for Christ's sake.
He raised his eyes from the nubbled black floor of the jerking airbeast to look at the woman sitting across from him. He thought through his fear his usual thoughts on looking at her: how she was gorgeous in a wild sort of way, latte-extra-espresso-shot skin, eyes like melted brown sugar. Those eyes as always met his with fearless clarity. Selena matched and exceeded his smile.
She shouted, above the barking chop of the rotors: "You're hating this, aren't you?"
Jim nodded, unashamed. "I am," he shouted back.
Selena stood, swayed with the chopper's motion, crossed the cabin aisle to sit beside him. "I'm bloody loving it."
"Fuck off."
She laughed. "I love flying. Always have. It's the one bloody time I can think if something goes wrong, it's absolutely not my fault."
"That's very comforting."
She took his hand, held it in both of hers. On the passenger bench across from them just behind the cockpit, a teenage girl with ash-blonde hair, in cargo-pocketed trousers, a worn army surplus jacket, and a bill cap, was looking ostensibly forward and out, through the chopper's forward windscreen. Selena nodded toward her. "Hannah's not minding it."
"That's because Hannah's a bloody maniac. You've seen how she drives."
"Think she's jockeying for a better look at the maniac flying this thing."
That maniac was a big fellow, a massively big fellow, in a dark green flight suit dotted with insignias in yellow, white, blue, and red. He'd taken off his helmet for just a moment after he'd landed the chopper in the field behind the croft. He had with him a co-pilot of lesser size who kept his helmet on and stayed in his seat while Hannah and Selena and Jim got on board.
"Do you have any possessions?" the pilot asked. He spoke with what Jim thought was a Russian accent. His face was broad and handsome, his eyes a deep-sea blue, his hair black and close-cut.
"Just what we're wearin'," Jim replied, and even that was a lie: the clothing they wore they'd found in the croft and elsewhere. He glanced at the automatic holstered at the pilot's hip and wondered about the penalties for looting in this terrible new world, even if said looting were for necessities.
"Then we go. Quickly, yes?"
Selena boarded, but Hannah hesitated. She looked back at the whitewashed cottage, at the homely black London cab parked just outside.
"Do you think they'll-- that someone could-- I hate leavin' it, yeah?"
It had been her father's cab. Frank was dead, a victim of rifle-shot secondary to what they'd come to think of as the rage virus. Soldiers had killed him when Jim couldn't. He thought of it, and he looked at the cab with its headlamps looking at them like the eyes of a black lab, and his throat tightened.
"Maybe they'll send someone for it, yeah? They'll be checkin' the area." He put his hand on Hannah's shoulder. "Come on, Hannah."
After they'd boarded, he saw the pilot for just a moment, looking back at the croft.
Now, right now, the chopper dropped again, seemed to lock up in midair. The co-pilot shouted something back at them; Hannah re-shouted it at Jim and Selena, more clearly: "We're landing."
Landing, hell: it was bloody falling. The chopper dropped like a stone, possibly a hundred meters in roughly four seconds. Jim's stomach dropped a moment after the rest of him did.
"Christ Jesus--" he hissed.
"Almost there, sweetheart," said Selena, squeezing his fingers.
"Bloody ashamed, I am."
"Tell you about my fears someday, okay? Come on, we're nearly down."
He looked, as she and Hannah were looking, through the forward windscreen at a gray, drizzling day, the heavy green of trees, a cluster of buildings in deep brown, squared on a great field of tarmac within a high perimeter fence. The first drop had covered most of the distance between them and the ground; the next lowering gently set the helicopter's skids on the tarmac outside a domed hangar. Outbuildings and heavy military paraphernalia were all about: steel barrels and crates, loaders, a refueling station. Other choppers. Canvas-backed green trucks all in a row.
Their giant pilot spoke into his radio headset words they couldn't hear; he and his co-pilot flipped switches and toggled toggles, and the chopper's rotors whined and slowed. The pilot unfolded himself from his seat, came back into the cabin, and threw the pressure handle on the side door.
"They are sending a vehicle for you," he told them. He shoved at the door, slid it open. Jim took the short jump to the tarmac, nearly stumbled. His legs seemed to have become variable in length. Gratifyingly, Selena caught his arm when she landed next to him. Hannah, joining them, looked past the hangar and said, "Wicked."
A black Humvee was approaching them across the slick macadam field.
"Overkill, anyone?" Selena said quietly.
The squat rolling monster rumbled to a halt about ten meters away. Their pilot exchanged quick words with a tall, thin, balding man in a dark gray raincoat who alighted from the Humvee's front passenger side. The pilot nodded, saluted. He came back over to Jim, Selena, and Hannah.
"Mister McKeown will see to you now. Go with him, please."
He moved away, toward the hangar; Hannah stepped toward him. He stopped, looked down at her.
She looked up, well up, at him and smiled shyly. "Thanks, yeah?"
"You are welcome. Good luck, yes?"
"It's Hannah."
"Piotr. Good luck, Hannah."
He turned and walked off after his co-pilot. Hannah watched him go. Beside Jim, Selena smiled.
"I think we just witnessed a 'moment,'" she said quietly.
Jim frowned. "Hannah. Come along, yeah?"
She left off staring after their Russian pilot and came over. Mr. McKeown approached from the opposite side. He shook Jim's hand firmly.
"Welcome to Infinity Base," he said. He spoke with an American accent. "Charles McKeown, liaison, coordinated recovery services."