XI




October 14, 1987


"Come on......goddamnit....."

Meg's fist smacked the plexiglass window of the phone booth as the busy chime bleeped into her ear. She took several deep breaths to compose herself, and then put in another five dollars.

Come on, you horse's ass..... Meg's mind thought of George with disdain. Stop talking and pick up your fucking phone!

She had to get through to him. No matter what happened, it was completely imperative that she made contact with him. She knew he would be pissed; it was always that way for her whenever she called him. At the moment, though, she didn't care.

"George Rye's office."

It was his secretary. No, the voice was too young to be professional. It was an intern, the slut-du-jour. Her name didn't matter because it was a constantly rotating post; it was a new voice each time Meg picked up the phone.

"Ms. Landau speaking."
"Get me Mr. Rye immediately."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Rye is in a meeting."

Meg's eyes furrowed at this. She went to speak, but was interrupted by a loud popping sound. It was like a peel of bullets echoing in the valley and in the desert, and it made her jump. It took her several seconds to recover, and to find her pulse once more. She realized what it was that made the sound shen she heard the muffled cheers of the standing audience several hundred feet away.

"Hello?" Seeing the X-15, the one she was positive a certain General Yeager had commandeered to fly beyond the sound barrier, the next second, almost caused her to lose the call. "May I take a message? Hello?"
"Ok...." Meg decided to abandon the formal approach; she knew her ex enough to know wasn't at a meeting. He was just having lunch. "Listen here, bitch. You will do what I ask because you are his intern, correct?"
"Yes." The voice was shocked. "But I be-"
"Then get me George." Meg's voice became dangerous. "I know where he is. I know he can take my call. So if you don't give me to him, I will make sure the New York Times knows all about how George rams it up your bony, underaged ass. And trust me, kid, he knows full well I'd do it because I've done it before. Its why we divorced."

There was a moment of complete, horrified silence as the last of Meg's venomous words dripped from her mouth. Finally, there was a click, and the phone began to ring.

Figures... Meg was gleeful at the success, and nearly laughed. Stupid little twat. They all are.

Meg, if nothing else, knew her ex very well and could get his attention. The truth was that, indeed, the constant mistresses caused the divorce, and there had been a nasty expose in the works in the New York Daily during the divorce to show George's more carnal side. Sadly for Meg, the expose was scrapped when George sued, then settled, on the condition that the Daily would never delve into his private life again. Of course, Meg always knew other alternatives to getting what she wanted, and when she used them she got a good chunk of that settlement as the wronged wife.

".....Meg." Finally, George's rather angry voice came on. "What the hell is wrong with you?! This is my break!"
"Well, well!" Meg gave a smirk. "Hello! Nice to have finally gotten you."
"I know full well what you were doing." George's voice got angrier. "I knew it was you because my secretary is having a nervous breakdown now! Do you have any sincerity at all?!"
"Don't you mean she's your 'afternoon snack', honey?"
"That is none of your business" was the growled retort. "Now, maybe you can tell me why the hell you're calling."

The smile came on Meg's face. She gave a nod.

"I've found something interesting out here at Edwards." Meg took a deep breath. "I've learned that Yeager may not have been the first to fly past the speed of sound."
"Excuse me?"
"I interviewed Yeager. He made a mistake. I believe that there is a man…" Meg took a deep breath. "A man by the name of Scott Garnet, who broke the sound barrier before Yeager did. I overheard it from a group of veterans, and Yeager practically bawled at the suggestion, George. That's how I knew. That's what I am going to write my story about."
"….Excuse me!?"

Meg's eyes widened at this. To be sure, she figured George would not be to approving of the idea. He always hated her ideas. Yet something in his angry tone made her almost a little surprised.

"What the hell have you been smoking, Meg?!?!?" The barrage came down. "You were supposed to get an interview with the old man, not stalk him!"
"What?!" Meg couldn't believe her ears. "I didn't 'stalk' him! I asked him a question!"
"I told you. I told you before you left. Don't be asinine with him, dammit! And who the fuck is Scott Garnet?!"
"Hey!" This time, Meg's voice began to rise. "I was not being pushy towards him! I asked him a simple question in a very calm matter, and he got choked up. Its not my fault the old man started to cry."
"Oh," George's voice dripped with sarcasm. "And I guess I'm supposed to believe that you were the @#%$ Mother Teresa with him. I put you on a simple, simple story-"
"GODAMMIT!" Meg was now screaming into the receiver. "Shut up and LISTEN to me! I have learned something that may just change everything about this guy! That's a hell of a lot better than the goddamn interview they stuck me with!"
"Well," George's voice became calmer. "If that's your bend, just go on ahead, Meg. Besides, I think I speak for everyone when I say it'll be fun when you're gone."
"Oh, so now you're threatening to fire me?!" Meg's voice became even louder. "I'd honestly like to see you try with that little clause in our divorce, you little jack-off...unless you want to be publicly associated with an 'ass' with the Westbury Junior High female students!!"
"Are you crazy?!? You're nothing more than a fucking laughingstock! What, do you think we care about this Scott Garnet? Do you think anyone cares?!" George was obviously yelling now as well. "Where'd you get your information from, again? Oh! Yeah! A bunch of old men who probably couldn't tell the difference between a toaster and a douche!"
"FUCK YOU!!!!!!!"

Meg threw the phone back down on the hook with a definitive slam. She took several deep breaths, her head turning in every way with rage as the adrenaline pumped through her. Then, with another screech, she balled her hand up into a fist.

"SON....OF.....A BITCH!!!"

Her fist didn't completely penetrate through the glass of the booth. It did, however, leave several good sized slivers of glass in Meg's knuckles, to which Meg gave an angry growl of pain.

That weasel...that shit! Meg exited the booth, nursing her hand. Like he knows anything. He knows nothing! Nothing at all! He wouldn't know a good story if it was a whore.

Moaning, she stumbled around for a few moments, trying to consolidate herself with the pain and the blood of her self-inflicted injury. She cursed herself, she cursed George, she cursed everything her mind could fix its thoughts upon.

Why the hell? Above her, several planes - all of them from the era in which Scott Garnet had come from - flew, their ancient metal glistening with new paint as they flew. In the front were five Cessnas, all painted in the colors of the American flag. What the hell is wrong with me? Why was I so.....offended?

That last word shocked her. Of course she knew why she had been offended. She had been denied, and she hated being denied. She especially hated being laughed at, being teased, and when that happened, the insults would come from her mouth. It always happened like that, and before, it was no matter to Meg because she never cared about how others perceived her attitude.

Yet now, at the same time, she cursed her ex-husband, she was actually upset at herself for being so offended this time. She had let her guard down. She'd never do that under normal pressure. What was stranger, it was over a story that was actually true. At least she was positive it was true.

What is WRONG with me?

The jacket was the first thing that came to her mind as the key to her problem. Ever since she laid eyes upon it, she had sensed something was wrong with her. The fact that she had bought such a moth-eaten old item was something that appalled her, and it was not something she relished. Neither was her eagerness to seek the forgiveness of Japs or any other dark-skinned person; yet, that very morning, she had to apologize for her behavior to two of them. It boggled her mind as she took out her cigarettes and her lighter to take a drag.

But what confused her the most about her behavior since buying the jacket was that she had not once thought of taking it off - at least, not on her own account. She was practically in the middle of the scorching desert, in the middle of the day, and she was wearing a bulky pilot's jacket lined with sheepskin fur. Even more strange was why; she felt safe with it on. It was almost like a talisman of protection…

No….. Even now, a disbelieving chuckle came from her lips. No, its just a @#%$ jacket. What the hell is it going to protect you fro-

*Ka-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!*



The new sound caused Meg to lose the cigarette from her mouth. She should have been prepared for another sonic boom after the first jolt, and indeed, she almost brushed it off as such. Upon turning around, however, she realized she was wrong.

Dead wrong.

*THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*



She hadn't seen what had happened before. She did not know that one of the Cessnas, during its tune up for the show, had accidentally been given a hairline crack in its engine tank by a screwdriver. No one noticed; not one had bothered to check. As a result, this crack became enlarged as the Cessna began to fly overhead. The pilot, in turn, attributed the odd, unusually powerful turbulence to simple fact of wind shear. The wind, after all, had been stronger than usual that day, and similar assumptions were shared by the other pilots in the show. Even Chuck Yeager had noted that the winds in both the sky and near the ground had picked up since his arrival, yet chalked it up to the weather.

There was, however, no more mistaking the problem as being the result of wind resistance. As the pilots had turned the planes around, the gas from within the engine of the doomed Cessna leaked onto the electric wires underneath the belly of the plane. The heat from the exhaust of the plane had already caused enough melting on the rubber wrappings to expose an inch-long shred of unprotected wire; normally, this was still not a problem in planes restored by the military for recreational use, because the wires were still protected with a thin sheath of a state-of-the-art gas-and-heat repelling cloth. It was designed to withstand being eaten away by gasoline and temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees centigrade.

However, even this did not help. The cloths on the wires in question had not been updated for several months, perhaps even several years, and as a result, the cloth had practically disintegrated from wear and tear. Without either the rubber coating of the sheath of cloth to stop it, the exposed wire sparked upon contact with the gas and immediately caught on fire. It was only a matter of moments, then, before the Cessna exploded, taking with it the pilot and two other Cessnas as it hurtled to the earth below.

What the second explosion was, was, in fact, the sound of the planes crashing into the ground. By the time Meg even understood what had happened, she realized it was far too late. One of the planes was sliding right towards her.

RUN!!!!! The last bit of Meg's reason, of her sanity, of everything she had stood on in terms of her stoic callousness, came back for one instant with a roaring vengeance. RUN, YOU STUPID FUCK!!!! GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was overtaken quickly by fear. It was not anything that she had ever felt before in her life; it was not the 'fear' she had felt in any interview, or any trial, or even around foreign people. What she felt was pure, unfiltered, unadulterated, primal fear. It was the fear of sudden death, the fear of something she had never faced before, had never expected.

And as the fiery inferno headed straight for her, as she heard the screams of the crowd at the sight of the crash, as she found herself staring closer and closer into the cockpit until she could see the whites of the eyes of the pilot as he screamed in pain, as she herself began to feel the heat sear into her skin and into her hair, she could only think of one thing, one final epitaph to her life.

Damn you, Scott Garnet.

The flames came upon her as her thoughts came upon this final, angry revelation that it was the dead man's fault. The heat was fierce as it licked her face. She screamed, but the shrieks of her pain simply echoed into the fire.

Damn you......damn you......

Finally, just as she bent down to take the full brunt of the plane as it hurtled towards her, she felt something grab her hand. It was strong, strong and firm, and Meg found the scenery around her shifting violently. The flames disappeared, replaced by shifting forms of bright, infinite streaks that seemed to the colors of the sky. The heat, also, was replaced by a fierce wind, one which blew Meg's hair into her face. She was flying, floating, and the flames seemed rapidly shrink until they disappeared completely. The hand which held her held her fast, and it wasn't going to bring her back.

Damn.....you....

She was slipping. She knew it was the end. She felt all of the burns all over her body, and she knew that - the last thing one could have expected her to think - she was, perhaps, ascending to heaven. She had never been a believer of religion in all of her life. Then again, as far as she was concerned, she was no longer living.

With that in mind, she turned to look at the hand which was bringing her.

.......An angel....

The sharp-looking wings on its back did not move; in fact, the shadowed, blurry figure, whose hand held her fast to its body, almost seemed to be running. But Meg knew they were nonetheless moving faster with each passing second, and it made her dizzy.

.............Slow down...........

It was no use; she was blacking out, and she knew it. Her guide wasn't going to slow down; if anything, it was going even faster than before.

Soon, the colors of the sky darkened, slowly, slowly, until there was nothing but darkness. Her last thought before the blackness finally overtook her was why, of all people, this being would be so interested in saving her.