8.6.2021 – Monday
LAST MEAL
Doc Masterson, Isabel, and Paul fly to Tokyo to deal with the crashed extra dimensional ship.
I felt dizzy. Everything was happening too fast.
Isabel poked my arm gently with her right index finger. “I said, isn’t this exciting?”
Few people who know my reputation have the courage to touch me. I stared into Isabel’s eyes. They were blue, fearless things, enraptured by power. I knew that sort of fearlessness and rapture well. I knew it backwards and forwards.
“Sir?” one of the helicopter pilots had come over. He handed me an Apparatus phone.
“I don’t talk on the phone,” I protested.
“It’s Paul Drake, sir,” said the pilot.
Fuck.
“Hello?” I said into the phone.
“John, I need you to get in the helicopter now.”
I glanced at Isabel and the pilots. “Paul? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, John.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s happening,” I told him.
“I don’t know what’s happening, John. That’s the problem. Don’t you understand?”
Suddenly I did. Crystal clear.
“Yeah,” I said. I handed the phone back to the pilot. “Let’s go,” I said.
We flew South out of the city. The helicopter was noisy and no one talked. I stole glances at Isabel when I could.
It took almost half an hour to reach Dover Air Force Base. We landed. Paul was waiting for us.
“I want to talk to you, alone,” I said to him.
He nodded, but then asked if we could do so en route, gesturing towards a hypersonic cargo jet parked on the tarmac. We boarded the jet and took off again, this time headed straight for Tokyo. The plane would skim the atmosphere until we arrived in Japan in record time.
Paul escorted me to an office inside the jet where we could talk privately.
“Well?” I asked.
Paul took a deep breath. “Something’s happening.”
“What?”
“That’s unknown.”
“Are we under attack?” I asked.
“That’s also unknown; however, if we are under attack, then it’s possible the attack has been going on for some time. It’s possible that the Apparatus has been sabotaged.”
“You mean, that’s why you didn’t know this was going to happen?”
“No, it’s worse,” Paul said. He rubbed his temples. “We’ve been having problems with things for awhile. Don’t you see? Why else would I come to you?”
Everything was fucked up.
“How did it get past the sensor net?” I asked.
“We don’t know what’s wrong with them. They didn’t detect anything.”
Paul and I sat around a small round table replaying video of the crash. In Paul’s hands, the video distorts time, replaying previous moments electrically into the air. He twisted the camera around, showing dozens of angles of the ship.
“It’s the size of a city block,” he said.
“It must have killed thousands,” I whispered to myself. “Has it done anything else since it crashed?”
“No — well, it’s emitting a noise. A buzzing sound. I’ll turn up the audio. “
We were watching live video now. Paul turned up the volume, and pulled out the video into a wide shot from above the crash site. It just seemed so impossible; but there it was.
“It has to be sabotage,” I said. “This has to be an attack. Anything is possible. We know nothing!”
“We know nothing,” Paul confirmed. Then he turned to practical matters. “Do you need something to eat, John? I know you haven’t had breakfast.”
“A last meal? Sure,” I said.
Paul raised his watch to his mouth and spoke, “Can we get some eggs and coffee, please? And tell Isabel to come up here.”
“Roger that, sir,” an electronic voice replied.
Five minutes later we were served plates of eggs and two decanters of steaming hot coffee. We were also joined by Isabel. All three of us were ravenous. We ate silently. Once finished though I was imbued with a strong courage. I was more relaxed. Suddenly it hit me–
“Shit,” I said. “Isabel is coming with me down there, isn’t she? You are goddamned crazy. She’s a kid for Christ’s sake. We could both die.”
“I’m not afraid to die,” Isabel said, defiantly.
“There’s more to her than it looks like,” Paul said.
“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “She’s still a kid.”
“We were kids when we did this stuff,” Paul replied.
“That was different,” I said.
“Hey,” Isabel said. “Hey! Listen: the buzzing is getting louder.”
It was getting louder, and doing so very fast. The sound became distorted as it raged, was transformed into bits and sent through to TV’s around the world.
“What is it?” Isabel asked.
It continued to get louder. Another sound started: a low, rumbling bass.
It exploded. Or at least that’s what it looked like. The hull cracked, and a thick blue smoke came pouring out into the area. It wasn’t just blue, it was brighter than any other color in the world. The whole area was covered with blue smoke in moments. The ship hid in the smoke; we could not see it any longer.
“How long until we get there?” I ask Paul.
“T-minus three minutes.”
We made our way to the back of the plane. They opened up the cargo hatch and wind besieged the air. Isabel sat down on the floor, took off her shoes, and then put on what looked like snow boots, except there were lights blinking on them.
“I really wish you wouldn’t send her,” I said to Paul. “I can’t protect her.”
Paul smiled at me. “She’s going to protect you.”
Isabel finished putting on her boots and stood up.
“What are those,” I asked. I pulled a gas mask off the wall and put it on.
Isabel smiled at me. “These are my jet boots,” she said.
“Jet boots?” I asked.
“Jet boots,” Paul said.
“So what you’re saying is she is going to fly down there.”
“That’s right,” Isabel said. “I’ve done it before. I’ve practiced for this. How are you going to get down there? With a parachute?”
I think my treating her as a child was starting to annoy her. I didn’t care how much she had practiced for this shit. She was too young. Paul could have been sending a teen girl straight to her death. I didn’t care if I died. I hadn’t been afraid of dying for a long time. But she was just a girl. People like her didn’t know what death was.
“It’s time,” Paul said.
Isabel and I approached the door. I looked her in the eyes. Was she ready for something like this? We would all know soon enough.
She smiled at me. She didn’t appear nervous at all. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Okay,” I said.
“You know Violet Russell, right?”
I hadn’t heard Violet’s name in an age. “Um, yeah, why?” I replied.
“What’s she like in real life? She’s been my hero my whole life.”
“She’s just Violet,” I said. “She’s a mom now. She hasn’t done stuff like this for a long time.”
“She’s the most amazing person in the world,” Isabel said. “Well, I guess this is it.” She saluted Paul, nodded to me, and then jumped out of the airplane.
I watched her fall for a moment before her jet boots kicked in. She started to float down through the air. The girl was psychotically fearless. I had seen the same thing in many of the superheroes I had worked with through the years.
Who was I to complain? I had been called reckless more than once in my career, and it had always been an understatement.
“So long,” I said to Paul.
“Be careful,” he said back.
“Yeah fucking right,” I replied, jumping out of the airplane.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 59/6/2021Good morning everyone. It’s a holiday here in America, but I’m ready to get back to work here after a liminal weekend, so here we are.
After a short break, here is chapter 9 of He-Thing and the Cabal of the Cosmos, featuring the first appearance of the arch-villain Skullatroid.
He-Thing and the Cabal of the Cosmos, Chapter 9
I’m working on a bunch of He-Thing related things right now. I know this story is an acquired taste, but it’s very enjoyable and freeing for me. And a lot of fun and intellectually stimulating.
There’s also a new chapter of The Black Sorcery of Yelena Bulgakova.
The Black Sorcery of Yelena Bulgakova, Chapter 4
Down below, Hard Scum is killing it with Midnight Man.
Midnight Man, Chapter 3, by Hard Scum
Finally, here is a short post I did introducing my thoughts about realism in literature.
Snee’s Thoughts on Realism in Literature
And that’s it! Got a big week planned, so buckle up!
Matt
