Chapter 21
A rising desert breeze touched Brad’s face as he peered down the rocky ridge at Agadez below. Magic air in the valley had been fantastic, but he had time today only for a local flight. This morning he would land right in the storage compound, saving Aahil a pickup trip. Whistling softly, he unrolled his paraglider as his mind switched gears from flying fun to project detail. Tomorrow they’ll double check the size of the expected shipment, the big one coming in from China. Three cargo containers were confirmed arrivals at Benin ship docks days ago. One held two thousand crates of balloons, and two were stocked full of helium tanks. The project was ramping up. Transport trucks were scheduled to arrive at the Niamey yard in two days. He and Vince would fly to Niamey tomorrow, while Aahil would make the return drive with his son.
He laid his harness out and clipped in the wing strings. He’d flown with Keith back home when they designed those balloons. He’d have to find out what project the guy had going now.
Vince and this British woman sure seemed to be getting along. Vince would finally get to be around an amiable female. Although, his face clouded, nice she may be, but why did this woman keep dropping in on those other Sahel countries…his whistle turned silent. Those other countries would have interests common with Niger, that made sense. But Brad sort of puzzled over what she was really doing there ‘cause she sure wasn’t talking about it. And, he scrunched up his left cheek as he did once in a while, what was she not revealing?
Oh well, he picked up on the whistle again. He popped his wing up in the air and stepped up to the edge of the steep rock spine. Gauging the light wind blowing over the top, he embraced the moment as he pushed with toes lightly off into the air. Rising in the breeze, he slipped into prone position to fly in true bird freedom. Letting the wing fly, he adjusted his weight in the harness and relaxed into the tranquility.
That Vince sure had curiosity for Tamanna’s paleoclimatic outlook. All very interesting the climate history of the world, but for Brad there was so much more at stake in the right here and now. There were neighbours to chat with in the mountain valley back home. The odd time he caught himself thinking of the past, he imagined a life in the not so paleo, say the times of the Wild West. When a hand shake went a long ways and there wasn’t so much dependency on the outside world. He needed to talk to valley neighbours like the cowboys had. How cool to ride the open ranges, and take on adventures in the wilderness. The only flying option back then had been the unpowered hot air balloon. Anyway, reality dictated this was his life to live, his time.
He flew a straight line out from the jagged rocky peak, slightly off track of Agadez to gain needed height from thermal lift to make the distance to the yard. Following the ridge of warm dark stone below, he watched his altimeter preparing to judge the upward boost.
Paragliders had been a fantastic leap in flight technology, and the next couple decades would bring on a lot more innovation. But the near future will be challenging people times too. He always came back to that primary question: just how close will these times a comin’ in this rapidly developing global neighbourhood get to those of say Mad Maks? A wince warped his smile for a second. Nowhere close to Maks’ world, he hoped but…a smart fellow had to at least be prepared. If people chose to be good global neighbours there should be a nice smooth transition to a friendly situation, the so-cool all-friends community he envisioned. If all people realized their dependence on the same basics of life, they’d know the atmosphere that regulated their climate was top of that list. Really, there should be nothing but opportunity as climate change unfolded. He grinned, knowing there would be some kind of adventure, no matter what.
Letting his eyes slip closed for a few seconds, Brad felt the air brush past his face. This was his purest thinking time on his primary topic of the what-if back up scenarios. He let his mind drift through a reality check warning of that adventure being of the rougher type. Just in case the trend shifted more in the direction of a Mad Maks world. Keith always said a shift to a nastier world would start in the developing world—cause they were already part way there.
To really cover all bases, a fellow needed a survival strategy as independent as possible, like that hidden away survival cell. Now that he thought of it, kind of like Aahil moving back out to his family hideout in the Ayărs. A place to sit tight for a while, just in case things got a little ugly. Many people in the south, in that drying up California, had moved up to Idaho and Washington State to get away from congestion. The reasons to move north were becoming more varied and increasingly insistent as each year passed.
Aksil’s sand land grab had used bio-mimicry. Why not use nature as a model where survival was of primary interest? What would a bear, a white tail or a ground squirrel do to avoid danger or otherwise adapt? Sleep through the cold berry-free winter living on fat reserves. What an idea! Or when deer hunters came, blend in to the forest along quiet hidden trails. Fade into the background. Ground squirrels could scoot down into their borrows to wait out a raging forest fire. He could mimic that wisdom and move his family to the survival cell for a while. Basically wait it out by getting out of the way until things improved. He felt secure about the risk adaptation that cell provided. That inconspicuous place had all the necessities, yet away from it all. He told most non-listening acquaintances of his getaway place, and that fit. And he and his wife had good neighbour connections in that valley, and agreed it to be one cool place to join a better cultural village. Lots of promise for his dream of a place to live no matter what happened elsewhere. Even with the international border bisecting, in fact at times they thought of that as a bonus.
He felt the wing balancing in the breeze, adjusting to wind like a bird. Could people become like an admired feathered friend in flight, find a way to adjust and balance things out?
When the third flood hit, that was a turning point. Watching oil producing Alberta as a barometer, Brad judged his actions. That year he convinced his wife, and they bought a piece of undeveloped valley land. The next year he got a machine in to make a small clearing and he started building the cell. They went there on vacations, such a beautiful setting and lots for the boys to do. Get acquainted and familiar he thought. Their land was in Idaho, but in a valley that ran a long ways into Canada along a huge natural mountain lake. Not a bad circumstance, he had reasoned. People said the waters of that mountain lake kept the valley warm, forming a microclimate allowing fruit trees to grow, and all kinds of other food. The lake never froze. What also caught his strategic eye was the long corridor that valley formed, stretching far to the north past the huge lake to another. His wife’s cousins drove north for days finding work in the camps. One fellow he talked to went hunting at the north end of the lake, for grizzly bear. Wild! Say people came flooding north from California, and that caused even more chaos. Depending on the situation, it seemed worthwhile to have another route going even further north. Warmth was shifting that direction, opposite of an ice age. The polar vortex was breaking up too, bringing on heavy snow dumps that broke September tree branches, but you could only account for so much.
His wing reached the darker stony ground, and as he felt the lift of thermal activity from below, he banked. He’d circle here and rise like a hawk as high as he chose. The take off point was only three hundred feet higher than landing, so he needed lift enough to make the overland distance. That dry sand Teloua drainage had to be crossed. He followed his spiral upward, keeping an eye on the altimeter.
As an engineer he analyzed, and at times like Vince and Jeri he crunched people numbers. Say people got played a forced hand—required to cooperate. What might motivate them? What would be their common goal—teams that work together form around a goal. Like winning at sports. Like high school football. How would Coach Arnie have put together a team of not just football players, but say mixed with his basketball guys? Then throw in Coach Sanders and the baseball players. Mix all the sports into one brew. When Brad played football, he joked around with the coach on how
he never could find that indoor court hoop. How would he as a player react thrown into some other sport? Then throw in a girls’ volleyball team—even more complicated. For the coaches, for the players, for everyone. Then total reality dictated the coach would need to combine not just the jocks but all the school kids. The nerds never played sports, nor the smoke pit guys...the smart Asian kids had other issues in mind, and the metal heads had nothing in mind. His wife had been one of the choir and drama kids. What’s a coach, they would ask. What a challenge. Kids, like people, split off into groups for good reason.
The thermal lift carried him higher, revealing the extent of Agadez. He could make out the minaret of the Grand Mosque along that distant street. High altitude drones he knew could be used for reconnaissance-gathering, but each carried that deadly pair of Hellblazer missiles. He bit his lip. That would have been quite the pilot decision to blast a place of worship all to get one man. The drone missile trick had always been ascertaining a target from high above cameras, like his view now. Surface drones give a ground level view to lock onto identified targets right in the street.
His altimeter beeped. After one more spiral upward, just to be sure, he judged the elevation good and picked a line of flight directly towards the north end of Agadez and the storage yard.
Global neighbours, like school kids, would have to figure out a way to include everyone. Aahil’s family modelled positive aspects—girls fit in there. What had Aahil said, women must be respected. They are the rock of family and community. No matter what the gender outlook, or the mind or skill set. Outlooks of any kind all had to fit. Well, of most kinds. What about school bullies? Good chance the nerds would be strongly drawn back to computer games; the stoners wanting back out for another toke and a lot of girls needing their drama mirrors. Had he put the choir in there, their voices singing unto the most high? How would choir voices ever fit on the sidelines of a football game?
Girls were the best of people. He had learned that from a decade of marriage. Suppose in that high school, just say for a minute you get girls on a creative cheer squad, not traditional pom poms, but leave it to them how to cheer. Say the nerds came onside as not water boys but game strategists. Those stoners, into the audience somehow. But reverse that and picture the jocks creatively sitting in on the drama audience. Yeah right he shook his head. Okay, try a scenario with the jocks playing the computer games, how would they fit there? Virtual football; that could connect them. For a bit. Just...how do you keep the nerds from walking away and back to their visiscreens and the jocks escaping from the drama audience back to the playing field? One conclusion was sure—big challenge. No doubt.
As he circled down closer to the storage yard, a movement caught the corner of his eye. He swiveled his head to look closer, adjusting his wing back for another turnaround. Almost as if a piece of the sand had moved. Must be the jinn, he told himself, Aahil’s spirits of the desert. But weren’t they only up in the Ténéré?
He circled again, thinking on another hope he had at times. The same lightning storm that kills the lights for the game on the sports field also knocks out the power for the visiscreen game. The trick would be then to get the jocks and the nerds together in an effort to restore their zapped common need. Like a school fire drill when everyone files out in an orderly fashion with one objective in mind. So something had to get the whole world together on this one situation. Still, and he always came to the same conclusion, a certain possibility continued, even a good chance, for at least some, or even a lot of chaos.
He waved down at Aahil, and let out a wild hoot as he passed over. Aahil looked up, lifting one hand at the sky. But as he circled back outside the compound wall, he saw that movement again, more distinct this time. He made out some kind of shape—could that be a military surface drone in camouflage colors?
He could do no more to keep aloft and he came in to land beside the Nissan. He’d have to reply to Keith, get an update on surface drones, and see what he thought of that kind of ground detection snooping around a country like Niger.