Chapter 5: The Concrete Orchard
Ishigami held a small metal coil attached to a circular piece of white porcelain in his hand.
"Major Cho removed this from the Valor Crane before they took off. He said Diana was suspicious, but she knew nothing of the sabotage."
The silhouette of an old woman breathed deeply. "So Torikago is effective on humans as well as its original target?"
"That's what it appears."
"But our deal with the Khanians was thwarted by our own pilots' competence. Should we adjust our flight schedule?"
"It shouldn't have been possible." Ishigami pondered, "the Crane should have stalled without the thrusters. Somehow Kristoff brought the thing back, minus the canopy and one ejection seat."
"And it seems the two were reunited earlier than planned."
"Yes. It seems that way. Will that be a problem, Elder?"
"No, not for me. But it might be for you. In any case, I underestimated Royce's capabilities. In my mind he's still a naïve parasite. But perhaps he's not who he seems. Or perhaps he's just grown up."
"He's a smart bastard, and a capable pilot. But it still bears to be seen how he performs in a Tracer."
"He's still untested. He might surprise us yet again."
"What should we do about Diana's insubordination?"
"Find a way to keep her under control."
The shadowy outline of Elder Nana reached below her waist and turned her wheelchair away as her image faded and merged with the darkness.
Royce awoke staring at a silver globe set against a roaring blue sky bordered by shards of glass. He felt something warm and soft beneath him. His arm was tangled up in fabric and webbing. A delicate hand in a steel gray glove reached down and touched his helmet which was secured tightly to his suit. Then he felt long fingers move slowly toward his shoulder.
He realized he was lying on a woman, and she was flying the Sunbird without her hands on the controls.
"Hey what happened?" he shouted.
No response. No communications link. He couldn't even see her face.
He noticed the empty back seat of the bird and attempted to climb over her, but forceful hands pushed him back down. He felt a hand reach behind his back. Then the world flipped upside down.
The reflection in her silver helmet changed from blue sky to green forest and he glanced over his shoulder to see only the ground above him.
No, no! This isn't right, the ground isn't supposed to be there!
His stomach jumped into his throat and terror gripped him. But he wasn't falling. Instead gravity pushed him downwards, into her body. The plane pitched up, gaining speed and losing altitude as great vortices formed on its wingtips. A Spilt-S maneuver.
His head fell forward as the g-force increased. His arms felt like they were lead weights and he was unable to lift them. His body pressed into hers tighter than any embrace.
Then it stopped. The sky above returned to blue and they descended again toward the Genista approach path.
Five minutes later, they touched down and taxied off the runway, unable to exchange even one word. The light touch of her hand on his shoulders reminded him of someone familiar. A dream- or was it a memory?
Darling…. Run away with me? …nothing else matters…
He looked down at the laser-engraved numbers etched into the hard metal seat below, and mouthed the words: "Zero Two?" There was no response from the woman or the plane. Only deafening silence hung in the dusk-time air.
As soon as the plane stopped moving and the hydraulic canopy hissed open, a dozen arms grabbed him and hoisted out by his parachute pack. The pilot below him reached to remove her helmet but before he could see her face, she too was pulled from the plane and sequestered out of sight.
Firefighters with large oxygen tanks and rough yellow jackets dragged him away from the mysterious woman.
He saw a glint of pink hair as her metallic helmet struck the ground.
A group of uniformed men carried her away, like cargo, and loaded her horizontally into a waiting car. He saw them push her feet into the back seat and one of the men climbed in after her.
"NO!" he shouted. "Where are you taking her?!"
But there was no response. They hauled him onto the ground as he watched the brake lights illuminate, casting long red scratches onto the tarmac in front of him.
He wrestled his arms up to his helmet's locking ring and removed it.
It clattered away and large scratches glinted in the orange sunset as it rolled out of sight. He gasped for breath.
"Where did she go? Get off of me!" he shouted again, heaving and pushing the hands away. The mass of men released him and he clambered to his feet.
He saw only red tail lights in the distance. The men around him were silent now. A paramedic was still grabbing his wrist and he shook him off with an angry snap.
Then he took a second to think. He looked around. A ring of people stared at him. The discarded gold fishbowl teetered back and forth on the ground beside a paramedic's foot. A firefighter sprayed the Sunbird's engines with some kind of foam.
He watched a black sedan disappear into the distance among a sea of bright orange sodium lamps on the airfield runway.
"Shit," he cursed, gasping for breath. "Shit. Where-" then a thought crossed his mind. "Where's Kristoff? What happened to the Crane?"
He continued to scan the distance and saw another set of flashing red lights on a parallel runway. "Is that it?"
One of the firefighters looked behind him and nodded.
"Is he okay?"
The firefighter shrugged.
No one moved. The air was thin and cold. The gentle chirp of crickets hiding in a grassy field between adjacent taxiways filled the air and little green and white fireflies sparkled above the grass. A subtle calm fell on the day's end. He reached out an arm to an exhausted paramedic who held his wrist and patted him on the shoulder. Then he hung his head in silent contemplation- and bitter defeat.
…
"Where is she? Did she come through here?" Royce barged into the control room where Cho, Victor, and another pilot with a bandaged nose stood in a circle around the large spherical display.
"Who? Your mystery woman?" Kristoff held up his hands in confusion.
"Nah man. Those guys drove out in the bus to pick me up after I landed the Crane. They brought me back here. We've just been waiting for you. Morisato jury rigged the display for channel six- Dunkirk Mockingjays versus Serilona Architects," he motioned to the rest of the room, "nobody else's come through here."
He looked around again, still breathing heavily. Cho nodded and Victor held waved at him.
"What about the Crane?"
"They'll fix it up. Victor checked with the maintenance guys, they say it'll be ready by tomorrow morning."
"Tomorrow morning?"
"Yeah, didn't you hear, we're taking it up again."
"What! You're shittin' me- what about the- isn't there supposed to be like- an investigation, or something?"
Kristoff shrugged. "Ishigami says it's mission critical. Something's got him real spooked."
"What about weight and balance? The R.C.S.? The thrusters? There's a lot of fishy shit that went down today. We should tear that plane apart piece by piece and check every nut and bolt."
"All he said way 'the mission comes first.' Whatever the hell that means."
The room was silent.
In the center of the room, a Dunkirk goalie dived in slow motion while a white round orb slid through his fingers and into the net behind him.
Royce clenched his fist in anger and kicked a rolly chair which toppled over onto the concrete floor. Its little wheels spun hastily in the air. "So we gotta do it all again tomorrow?"
Cho shrugged, "you've had a rough day," then pointed his thumb at the door, "want to hit the Pine?"
He hung his head, "why the hell not?"
The car slowed to a halt and the man beside her got out, leaving the door open behind him. She reluctantly slid out behind him.
A short old man stood before her. A light cloud of dust drifted past him in the waning sunlight. He wore a gray uniform adorned with rows of ribbons.
"You disappoint me again, Diana," said Ishigami
She glanced at the second man beside him. He was tall, with sunglasses and a similar suit to the commander, minus the medals. A staff officer. He looked forward without smiling or saying a word.
"I saved you from an international incident today. You should be thanking me," she muttered.
"You're more trouble than you're worth. Cho and Morisato could have easily handled that situation without stirring up drama."
"Is that so?"
"You had to blow the canopy just so you could pretend to be the hero. So you could ensnare another Darling in your web-" Ishigami shook his head. "You know how it ends for them. And yet you're so convinced that this time it'll be different. This time it'll be the one who remembers you from all those years ago. All the while you continue to be reckless. Destructive. Insubordinate."
She glared at him.
"I told you, if you don't follow orders we can't put you in a Tracer. If we can't trust you in a Tracer, we can't send you to Ash Cloud. If we can't rely on you to do as you're told- you are no longer useful to us." She looked around at the abandoned construction yard they had brought her to. The tall trusswork of an old red construction crane gleamed above her.
Just get it over with, old man. I'm tired of your tricks, your games.
He concluded, "I've invested a great deal in you, Diana. It would be a waste. I'll leave you with a stern warning. You won't fly again. I'll make sure of it."
He's bluffing.
She smirked at him, "you won't find another pilot for Zero Two. It's the only transmitter you've got. The rest are only good for receiving."
Ishigami smiled weakly, "Don't you worry about Zero Two. I've recruited some backup pilots for that after your little incident with Kono."
She was silent.
"Do you know what this place used to be?" he motioned to the construction yard around them. "Don't think I won't toss you back where I found you- if you continue to stir up trouble for me. Now if you'll excuse me, I must attend to the plan you've just thwarted." Then he turned away, motioning with two fingers toward the staff officer who rushed to open a car door for him. He lowered himself inside and whispered something to the man.
Then the car door slammed shut.
She sat there on the dusty ground of the construction site.
"Bastards," she cursed.
Royce looked up again at a black chalkboard above his head. He returned his eyes to the well-dressed blond bartender who set a porcelain plate with a burger and fries in front of him.
"Where the hell do you come up with these names anyways- perioxidase pale? Cytochrome Porter? And what's with this house-special burger? It looks – suspiciously perfect."
The bartender chuckled at him. Cho and Victor shook their heads in annoyance. "They don't have restafarms in the U.N.F., eh?"
He displayed a puzzled expression and shook his head.
The bartender continued. "The Lone Pine is a restaurant at the business end of a vertically integrated farm." He pointed behind his back at the steel double doors leading to the kitchen. "Crop yields have been historically low this year, so there's a big push for- alternative methods.
"We grow our own lettuce, wheat, tomatoes, spices, and everything else. Stacks of hydro-farms, fifty stories high. We've got a meat lab that grows the beef from the cell cultures. We've got automated machines to process the meat into burgers, and wheat into bread. Ten thousand square feet of enclosed self-sustaining farm and processing plant, all to produce the food we cook. And a little bar up front to serve it."
"What about the beer?"
"The beer is easier than the burgers. We just tell the yeast what we want the little guys to make, and feed them with grain in a bio-reactor."
"You tell the yeast?"
"Yeah, it's all about inserting the right flavor and aroma cassettes through double homologous recombination."
He leaned back in his barstool and shook his head, "where'd you go to bartending school again?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Oh I'm the owner. And the inventor. I just like manning the bar sometimes," the blond haired man smiled at him.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, my name's Alban. It's always a pleasure to serve you pilots. I figure if anybody can figure out why the crops don't grow anymore, it's you all."
"Why would we know anything about the crops?" he asked cautiously.
Royce studied the man. He was tall with light nearly albino skin. His face had deep pockmarks, red lips, dark eyes and sunken cheeks. He gave off an unassuming presence but he felt that the man concealed far more beneath his surface - like the Lone Pine with its tiny bar hiding a farm and a factory within its concrete depths.
"Just a hunch." The bartender smiled at him. "Let me know how you like your burger!" He turned to walk toward the other end of the hanging log where two other men sat hunched over and ready to order.
Kristoff looked stunned. He stared in disgust at the mug of greenish beer in front of him. "The hell am I drinking?" He put the mug down on the table and scooted it away like it was a beaker full of radioactive waste. The suspended log rocked back and forth like a swing set.
Royce shrugged. "Who the hell knows? But if it wasn't safe, I doubt this place would last long." He gave his beer another sniff and took a sip.
Cho leaned forward. "It's fine. These guys know what they're doing. Alban's an old vet who worked with the Serilonan Space Force. He's one of the biologists who helped get Ash Cloud up and running after the fall of the Plantations. It's all the same tech they use up there."
"I see." He tucked into his burger next. It was firm and the meat tasted earthy and natural, char grilled to perfection. There was nothing suspect about it. Nothing amiss. But as he sipped the beer to cleanse his palate, an angry buzz rang in his pocket and he nearly dropped the glass to check his communicator.
"Are you okay? I just landed." It was Ria.