Airborne
Mommy, I want to be like Superman.
Superman would have stopped it.
He could feel the plastic knob clutched within the palm of his left hand. It was slick and warm with the sweat of his skin.
Luke Skywalker wouldn't have done it.
It was always different when it was someone else. Easy to know what to do. To say what's right or wrong, he thought.
An audible electronic click signaled the approach of the target area into the scope, switching on the head-up display.
How many Batmans were picked to fly the Enola Gay? To have to make that choice?
My actions will change the world, he thought to himself. Look Ma, he half-whispered nervously, one hand.
Are you proud of me Mom?
Bond would have fought it.
He glanced over at the "cargo" resting upon the bay doors. The trouble was, they didn't expect a private to be able to read the complex scrawling of black on yellow print, let alone understand the sequence of capital and lower case letters. The letters that were the best bet at the chemical composition and structure of what lay within the metal casing. But you didn't have to even pass high school chemistry to understand what the red and white stickers meant.
Or the letters BIOHZD1.
Or the skull and cross-bones.
No illusions, he thought as he squirmed slightly at his console. You know what you're doing. He reached up into his breast pocket and pulled out one of his gloves. He slid it on his left hand and renewed his grip upon the release lever.
Am I a hero?
His brother would have laughed. His father would have laughed. But not his mother. She would have just stared quietly in that way of hers and say once more that you know in your heart what to do and we will stand by you.
Would you, Mother? Your son is in an unmarked cargo plane, about to drop "something" onto millions of innocents living below me.
Spiderman would have jammed the doors.
He stared at the thousands of little white pixels that represented the houses, buildings and office blocks as they blurred past below them.
Does this make me Lex Luther?
He could actually hear the pounding of his heart now, could taste his stomach in his mouth as the highlighted "X" came into view over central downtown London.
The colors of the bay-door warning lights sent his mind spinning back, into his past. The strobing red lights of the fire trucks and ambulance as colored figures clustered around him, a large white towel nestled around him. Flashing on the body of his little sister as they lifted her out of the wreck of the car. Of sitting on his bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Of feeling so helpless, so tiny, so small. Insignificant.
The sound of Lieutenant Chalmers' voice came over the speaker, telling him to stand by.
Buffy would have beaten the shit out of Lieutenant Chalmers.
He slowly pulled his hand back, away from the control.
Kirk wouldn't push that button.
That was the problem with reality. It was real.
He couldn't even hear his own breathing over the rushing winds that seemed to tear the plane apart.
No one would ever know his name. No one would ever really care. It wasn't up to him. If he didn't someone else would. No one cared about him. He wasn't special.
Peter Taylor closed his eyes and slammed the lever slammed 45 degrees into the OPEN position.
Mommy I want to be like Superman.
It was only then that he opened his eyes and stared at the umbrella firmly clamped in his fist where the release lever should have been. Amazed, he turned around and saw, instead of the deadly masses of cylinders there was a blue box sitting in the middle of the cargo hold, impossibly small, impossibly smug, as if it had swallowed all of the weapons and was now just sitting there, digesting.
"Do you mind?" a polite Scottish voice asked, plucking the red and black umbrella out of his grip. Taylor stared at the little man in the breezy white suit and Panama hat who smiled a Cheshire cat smile at him as he swung the umbrella over his shoulder. "Sorry, just tidying up a bit. Spring cleaning. You know how it is." The man paused in front of the door.
And then he was gone.
Taylor gaped at the empty plane, wondering how the hell he was going to explain this to anyone.
Caught up in the noise, the wind, the shock, the emptiness, it took him a moment to realize he was crying.