Chapter 19 – Splashdown
In the canyon, the crimson pillars had transfixed the children. "It's a jumper! They're trying to rescue a jumper!" someone yelled.
High above, the kids spotted the jumper, Chairman Pierce, fourth gate citizen, and heir to a vast fortune, should he survive to enjoy it.
The circle was twenty meters across, the pillars growing fatter as the three rescue agents, HALO operatives, or Chasers, gained on the plummeting Pierce. A fall from the median city height of a mile and a half took ninety seconds at terminal velocity. You could count on being rescued by the coast guard from any elevation of seven thousand or better, lower than that, and your chances diminished drastically. The coast guard and EMTs caught ninety percent, but Pierce looked to be that tenth man. The chasers just couldn't reach him.
Every time the agents got close, Pierce pulled away, as though he were moving under his own power. Then their altimeters triggered their deceleration kites, slowing them a safe distance above the earth's surface.
Chairman Alexander Pierce, twenty-three years old, crashed into the canyon floor with a loud smack, splashing blood on the watching children. Alexander's wristwatch, his phone, his gun, all his heavy personal effects bounced free of pockets, appendages or holsters.
The prototype landed at Ashley's feet. She recognized it as the secret device her father had been carrying around at home. Without a second thought, she picked it up. There was a button on the top right side. She didn't press it, but suddenly realized something was terribly wrong.
Everything was still. No one moved. There was no sound, no wind. The trees stood still, nothing disturbed their leafy green arms. The tall grasses and knee-high ferns held their posture as stiffly as any soldier in formation. The agents hung overhead, suspended above the children.
The red beams weren't beams at all, but rather pulses. There were massive gaps where the light alternated, the pulses themselves descending slowly, creeping toward the earth. Everything else was frozen. Geoff was nearby, tiny spots of Pierce's sprayed blood on his skin.
The moment stretched into infinity. Ashley wondered if she could move. She was able to use her eyes and turn her head, but when she tried to lift her arm, it felt as if it were made of molten steel. Struggling, she raised her hand and looked at the prototype. It was like the one her father had at home. In that instant, she knew, he was somehow involved. She felt it had come to her, through this fallen man.
Ash looked over to Geoff, she reached out for his hand. When she touched him, he woke up, coming alive into the frozen moment with her.
"Geoff, Geoff, look at me.”
He did.
"We have to get Jack, and get out of here.”
Geoff looked at the item in Ashley's hand. "Is that Dad's?”
Ashley pointed upward; the agents hung in place, against the sky.
"Who are they?" Geoff asked.
"We have to go!" Ash pulled Jack's leash from her shoulders.
"But …" Geoff was awestruck.
"Mom says you have to do what I say," she reminded him.
"Only in emergencies," he answered.
"What do you call this?" Ashley snapped; gesturing in real time while everyone else remained frozen.
Geoff looked at Jack. "Will he wake up if I touch him?" he asked.
“I don't know, you did," Ash answered.
"You do it." Geoffrey stepped back.
Ash reached out, her hand just a few inches from Jack's coat.
"Ash, how do we know, I mean …”
Ashley stroked his neck and spoke to him. "Jack, wake up, boy. We have to go, come on, wake up.”
Suddenly the animal was breathing again. Ashley clipped the leash to the choke chain. Their voices had sounded normal, but the chain rattled eerily in the frozen time.
Jack began to growl. In weird, slow motion, he turned and snapped at Ash. He bared his teeth, dropped his front paws, and growled.
"Jack! No!" Ashley said.
Jack's ears, as floppy as they were, went back, and then he was gone, sprinting away from them, the leash ripped from Ashley's hand. He had growled in slow motion, but now, running away from them, he seemed to be moving in fast forward. His leash dragged through the brush.
Ash and Geoff raced after him, running at their own speed in the absurd frozen-time, but they weren't able to keep up with the puppy. Ashley was faster than Geoff, yet pulling him along; she was far too slow to catch the feral pet.
"I'll go get him and be right back." Ashley didn't wait for a response and a second later she was sprinting after Jack.
In the observation lab, Mr. Reid and the rest of the supervisors were dumbfounded. Their internal feeds from Dr. Fox had gone down, they knew nothing of what was going on aboard Fuji Dozo.
When Pierce fell, their first information of the event had been from Ashley and Geoffrey, when they saw the massive laser beams illuminate the canyon floor.
When Pierce hit the ground, both Ashley and Geoffrey's eyes had tracked the body. They saw the objects that bounced from his corpse.
Mr. Reid, Major Ross and the others watched Ashley's field of vision as it tracked the prototype, from Pierce's hand to land at her feet.
They watched Ashley reach down to pick it up, and her system went black. A second later the system monitoring Geoffrey went offline too.
"That's no accident," Reid said.
Ross chuckled and returned to his desk at the back of the small lab. "No accident, huh? Should we call the doctor?”
"For curiosity's sake alone, I suppose," Reid said. "But if that was his amplifier, I don't know how he'll answer."