III




October 14, 1987


The dust that kicked behind the car settled as it finally turned into the airstrip.

"...Finally." Meg quickly shut the car off. "About damn time."

It was about 10:41 am, and yet the sun was already high above Edwards Air Force Base, as Meg started to get out of her car. All around her, there were hundreds of other cars parked in the dusty lot, of all shapes and sizes. Banners were strewn, in red, white and blue, from the lamp posts in the lot, waving in the wind. On several cars, there were even various paintings, scribblings and signs plastered on, also in red white and blue, saying such things as "CHUCK YEAGER: AN AMERICAN HERO" and "THE BUCK DIDN'T STOP AT CHUCK'S LUCK HAPPY 40TH, X-1!!!!!!" One other sign also had as word which rhymed with "Chuck", right next to the latter sign; however, it also said "VIETNAM BABYKILLER" on the bottom, which caused Meg to chuckle at liberal creativity.

Well.... She took out her pad, her tape recorder and her purse. At least I'm not the only one...

Only when she overturned its collar did she realize that she was still wearing the bomber jacket. She couldn't understand why, though. It was (according to the radio meteorologist) supposed to be at least 100 degrees at the base, far too hot for any jacket. Yet she wore it, and kept it on, even as she approached the gates of the airstrip. It made no sense at all to wear it.

Weird... she thought as she looked through the fences to the airfield. Several old, WWII-era planes sat at a distance from her eyes. This is an ugly, old, smelly jacket. And its sweltering out here. Yet I feel safe wearing this, cool and calm under it. Almost as if...by wearing it, I'm protected against something. What, I have no clue about. It....just feels unusually safe.

"Hey!"

Meg's attention was suddenly turned from the comfort of her new jacket to a shout behind her. She turned towards where it came from, her eyebrow cocked up.

"Hmmm?"

Two Asian people - one male, one female - were walking towards her. The elder of the two, the female, looked to be in her late thirties, and was wearing a pair of denim jeans with a flowered shirt. She was wiping her short, black hair from her brow as she walked towards Meg.

"Hey," she repeated in a San Franciscan accent. "Sorry for bothering you, but the entrance is all the way on the other side."
"...Oh." Meg turned towards the fenced airfield. "Figures."
"Oh my….!!"

Meg turned her head towards the woman questioningly. The woman, in turn, was staring at the backside of Meg's jacket, her mouth open.

"Oh my god…."
"…Oh…" Meg looked away again. "Yeah, its hot, but call it a fashion statement or something."
"….Your jacket has a Sonic decal!"


Meg turned back around to the woman, her eyebrow crimped. For a moment, she took the jacket off, keeping the back of it with the blue decal turned towards the woman. As she did it, she felt a strange chill up her spine, and something within her told her to put the jacket back on immediately.

"You know this?"
"Know it?!" The woman laughed. "Why, it was my favorite thing to read growing up! What person my age has never heard of Sonic?"
"….Me, perhaps?" Meg smiled.
"Really?" The woman looked surprised. "You must have had a deprived childhood."
"Not really."
"But yet you never heard of Mary Garnet's books?" The woman touched the decal. "Wow, this jacket is a -type! How did you find it?"
"Mary Garnet…."
"Nani?"

At this, the man stepped forward. He was several years younger than the woman, in his early thirties at most, and her too wore blue denim, as well as a casual red t-shirt with a Japanese inscription. Around his neck was a camera, and he also had a small backpack on his back.

"Oh." At this, the woman talked quick, rapid Japanese, to which the man's eyes brightened up, and he gave a nod before she turned back to Meg. "Sorry, my friend knows little English at the moment."
"Mary Garnet." Meg was frowning. "Now I know who you mean."
"Really?"
"Of course." Meg huffed as she put the jacket back on. Instantly the chill vanished. "No respectable Rome, New York girl could enter high school without first reading a piece of work by her."
"You lived in Mary Garnet's hometown?!" The woman laughed. "Oh, forgive me, but I feel like a little kid again, talking about my favorite books. Its been awhile since I've done some good reminiscing."
"Heh." Meg gave a none-too-pleased smirk. "What did you say your name was again?"
"Oh…." The woman was taken aback by Meg's rudeness, but because she had a seemingly (and, Meg thought, annoyingly) good disposition, it was only for an instant and she gave a toothy smile. "Forgive my rudeness! You must think I'm some strange weirdo for just talking to you with no particular reasons for doing it. My name's Joan O'Meara."
"An O'Meara? You could've fooled me."
"By marriage, of course. I'm a professor at Berkeley." Joan shook Meg's hand, then motioned for the young man. "This is Naoto Ohshima. He lives in Japan."
"…Hailo" The man gave a slight bow as he shook her hand.
"Hmm." Meg broke the handshake off. "Pleasure." She looked at Joan as she spoke. "My name's Margaret Rye. I'm a financial analyst for the Wall Street Journal."
"New York City?" Joan chuckled. "A little out of the way, don't you think?"
"An assignment I didn't want." Meg looked over at the airfield. On it were two planes and five mechanics, none of them looking like Chuck Yeager. "….Rather empty for an important event starting at eleven, don't you think?"
"Oh, they changed it, actually, "Joan replied. "It was on the news; it's not starting until two o'clock."
"Oh….really?"
"Yeah. They made a nationwide bulletin for all the news people who were coming to the event." Joan pointed to herself. "Myself, I'm doing it for our paper as the "teacher article of the month", and since there was nothing else really going on up in San Fran…"

Well… Margaret wanted to smash a car window at that. I fretted my ass off, was one inch from getting into an accident with some freak driver and nearly gave myself a @#%$ ulcer while getting here for nothing. Thanks for noting this to me, George, you @#%$!

"So what do we do then?"
"Find a place to wait." Joan wiped the hair out of her eyes again. "There's a McDonald's on this base somewhere, I believe."
"Where?"
"…Down three blocks from the airfield."
"Ok. Thank you. Nice to see you."

With that, Meg turned from them abruptly, and started to walk off from the two Japanese. However, stopped as she took her second step and her mind ran off confused as she did.

She really didn't want to be bothered with ever knowing the woman and her companion again, especially since she was not Caucasian - and, though she wouldn't admit it in public, Meg had always been a little xenophobic and perhaps a bit bigot, mainly towards those not of European descent. She hated dealing with foreign people, and people of foreign descent, for no particular reason other than the fact that she had lived a relatively sheltered life in Rome, and her only experience with anyone a shade paler than ivory white was with the annoying fake jewelry sellers down in Lower Manhattan near Times Square. They bothered her immensely, and were rude when she didn't buy anything. She had even almost been assaulted by one when she refused to buy his stock, and since then wouldn't touch, let alone speak, to non-white people or buy things off of street venders.

Yet, whether it was because she wore the jacket (as, by buying it, she broke one of those credos), or because something about Joan just (somehow) appealed to her, or the fact that she had nothing better to do, she immediately regretted her decision and turned back to face the two.

"…..I'll come with you if you don't mind."
"Oh! Wonderful!" Joan quickly spoke in Japanese to her companion, who shrugged. "Come on, I've got plenty of room in my Citation."
"….How….nice…."
"Naoto?"

Naoto snapped his head towards Joan. He had been looking towards a hill several hundred feet away, at a small cloud of dust that had collected at the base.

"Hai, hai," he mumbled distractedly as he nodded." Makadanarusu."
"Come on." Joan looked over at the small cloud as she led him off. "A convoy truck, most likely; they kick up a lot on the dirt roads. Come on, lets go."

As the two walked off towards a small, dented, silver Chevy parked near the main road, Meg shook her head in blatant confusion, her eyes wide in self-disgust as she followed. Just what the hell was wrong with her today?

"Here!" Joan opened the passenger side of the two-door car. "You can sit in the back if you don't mind; Naoto's a bit tall for the back."
"Sure. No problem."
"Just be careful when you sit, though; its an all-leather interior."

Thanks for the warning, Meg thought just as she plopped onto the seat. The burning sensation of hot leather instantly scorched her legs, hands and back, and she winced in pain and closed her eyes.

"Fasten your seat belts!" Joan hopped into the driver's seat and fastened her own belt. "Even though its an empty street, you can't be too careful!"

With that, a lead foot went onto the accelerator, and the Citation went flying down the road. As she was plastered to her seat, Meg could only shake her head as Joan blasted up Tommy James and the Shondells. She could only wonder yet again, through a Japanized chorus of "I Fell Fine" to the song "Dragging the Line", as to what the hell she was doing this for.