Tim pulled back on the stick until the plane was vertical, and it still accelerated as it climbed, 900 knots, twelve-thousand feet, 1070 knots, fifteen-thousand feet, all the time the tremendous power of the plane was being transmitted through his body. He was hooked on this and he knew it.
At nineteen-thousand feet, and 1200 knots he pushed the plane over toward horizontal and pulled back on the throttles. The plane began to slow its mad dash and shortly stabilized at nineteen thousand-seven hundred and fifty-six feet, and 1356 knots.
Below was the West end of the valley. Huge thunder heads reaching back from the fault to the Northeast were dropping heavy rain on the city below, and heavier amounts on the tall mountains rising immediately west of the city. It was these mountains rising dramatically twelve thousand feet above the city, sitting close to sea level, that gave the valley much of its charm. Now the massive boundary of rocks was collecting the continual rain fall and sending it to the bottom where the city lay. Tim could see the southern part of the city and it was flooded. The northern part was covered in white from an intense barrage of hail. Arty had moved slightly in front of him as they raced toward the mountains to the west of the city.
“We’re going to have to go ‘up’ to get around this storm. Follow me,” Arty commanded.
Arty’s plane shot a bright, bluish-white column of fire and light from the rear of each engine and the plane pulled quickly up and away from Tim’s. Tim pushed the throttles forward and pulled back on his stick and went after him. Arty was in a near vertical climb with Tim close behind when suddenly Arty disappeared into the clouds comprising the Eastern bottom edge of the storm. Before Tim could worry about Arty disappearing he too was engulfed by the thick clouds. He was completely disoriented. He knew he was traveling over twice the speed of sound and he still felt the strong pull on his body from the continued acceleration, but there was nothing moving outside the canopy to prove that to his eyes. He remembered the lessons from the simulator and quickly checked the readouts to establish his angle of climb and his location to the horizon. The computer said he was still in an 85 degree climb and that his wings were still level. It was almost pitch black outside and water was vaporizing off the front edges and the canopy of his plane.
He figured he must be flying through some heavy rain and at his present speed of 1890 he understood the vapor. The pressure exerted on anything contacting an object traveling at that velocity would certainly cause some strange things. The computer readout said the outside temperature of the plane was also rising. As he reached forty-five thousand feet, and 2100 knots, the temperature on the nose and leading edges of the TT Fighter had reached 600 degrees. Arty had assured Tim the airplane could operate at temperatures far in excess of anything its maximum speed could generate.
It started to get lighter and in a few short seconds, Tim burst out of the clouds and headed straight into the prettiest, darkest, blue sky. It was prettier than the one he had seen at the dinosaur sightings.
“Level off.” Arty’s voice startled Tim. He pushed the stick forward and watched the deep blue rotate up over his head. He also pulled the throttles back and when he was at horizontal he looked at his readouts. They read fifty-two thousand and twenty-four feet, and 2498 knots-per-hour. He fiddled with the throttles until he stabilized the speed at 2550.
“Man, way the hell up here,” he said to himself. They had flown up through the West edge of the massive storm. As they moved away it looked like a gigantic field of cotton floating on a dark sinister sea. It stretched out behind them as far as Tim could see. He could see another one of the cotton fields stretching away to the Northwest. He knew down below it was a violent storm. In front of him there were only some small patches of clouds and below them he spied green.
“Are you glad you came along?” asked Arty.
“Yeah, this is fantastic,” Tim replied.
“Play around with the ‘ship’. Get to know it. Feel it out,” Arty commanded.
“Okay!” Tim flicked the stick to the right with a small move of his wrist. The plane snapped into a quick roll, and then another. He moved the stick to the left to correct the roll. He flicked his wrist back, and the nose of the craft climbed skyward, pressing him hard into the seat. He held the stick back, and the nose moved upward toward the dark blue. The nose of the craft moved through the dark blue sky. Then again to the storms on the horizon, only they were above him this time. Tim felt tremendous forces pulling him back and down. The nose then moved through the horizon and down into the green of the Earth. The pressure was getting too much for him to stand and his vision began to blur. He felt light headed so he moved his wrist slightly forward and that caused the plane to ease its tight circle. The pressure decreased immediately as the nose drifted lazily from straight down to up toward the horizon.
He had a little trouble getting the plane back to level flight, but after a couple of dips and rises he succeeded. It was his first loop, but he wasn’t going to tell Arty he had almost passed out.
He checked his readouts. Altitude was fifty-three-thousand, eight-hundred, and speed was 2430 knots.
“Get a little fuzzy there?” Arty’s tone was stern.
“Oh shit, a little. How did you know?”
“I can monitor your functions, that is how!”
“I’m sorry, I got carried away.”
“All the time in the simulator and you go and pull a stupid stunt like that. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“I didn’t think it was that big a deal, Arty. If you can monitor me, and Jake can also control this plane, why are you making so much out of it?”
“There are rules to follow, and when you are, flying, with, me, you, will, follow, those, rules.” Arty had stretched the words out to emphasize them. “Do you understand?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tim returned with a condescending tone. Shit, ordering me around when I was little was okay, but we’re both men now.
“Look you little shit, you’re not Number One up here, and you will do what you are told. And that smart ass attitude will not do either.” There was a harsh chill to Arty’s voice and it had an inhuman quality to it. “Can you handle that?”
“I understand,” said Tim.
“Good, I hate to yell at anyone to get them straightened out, but if I have to, I will.” This time Arty’s tone was more of the parent type, stern, but forgiving. “I’m the one that brought you up here, and if anything happened, I could never forgive myself. I was a little worried when you started to black out. I thought I might have to—Hey, look at that!”
“Look at what?” responded Tim.
There was a long pause. “Oh nothing,” Arty finally said.
What is it with Arty’s personality changes, or am I just imagining it? We’ve all changed a great deal in the last few weeks. Maybe I’m just being a little paranoid. Tim laughed out loud.
“Did you say something?” asked Arty.
“Yeah, I was wondering what you wanted me to see?”
“I answered you, but I thought I heard a laugh or something.”
“You did. That’s okay isn’t it? I mean, if I laugh at something that’s humorous to me.”
There was a pause before Arty responded. “Of course—what was so humorous?”
“I don’t know, I forgot. What did you want me to see?”
“Ah, oh, we’re getting close to, um, the coast, want to go down and take a look?”
“I’m with ya,” responded Tim.
He didn’t wait for Arty. He pushed the stick forward and pulled the throttles back, putting the plane into a vertical dive. His stomach rose halfway up his throat and his body tingled with excitement. This was the best move yet, heading straight down. He moved the stick slightly to the left to put the plane into a slow roll. The ground far below was mostly green, but he could make out some of man’s developments and roads circling outside the point on the ground he was aimed at.
Tim watched the altitude numbers decreasing, forty-six-thousand, forty-two,
thirty-nine, with fascination. He was entranced by the numbers as he assimilated them with the rapidly approaching Earth. The objects and details below were becoming larger and sharper by the moment.
As the numbers read thirty-two-thousand, Arty broke his trance. “You plan on pulling up?”
Tim let out a sigh as the altitude reading said twenty-nine-thousand. “It’s such a trip, it’s like the ground is pulling you to it.”
“Well, it’s going to be your last trip if you go much below twenty-thousand at that speed.”
“Ah, okay,” Tim said as he extended the air brakes.
Tim was flung forward, as the plane felt like it had hit a wall. He was held to the seat only by the safety harness. He continued the vertical decent and the slow spin, still mesmerized by the objects on the ground as they rushed toward him. He had dropped to nineteen-thousand, but his airspeed had reduced to 1100 knots and was still falling. At ten-thousand he reluctantly stopped the spin, and gradually pulled back on the stick to shallow out the dive. Again, he felt the uncomfortable pressure of the increased G’s, but he wouldn’t have missed it for the world, and he could do this again sometime. The nose gracefully moved off the point he had been aiming at, gradually rotating to the horizon, then painting a line out to the horizon at six-thousand feet, and 723 knots forward speed.
“I’m glad to see that you had the sense to finally pull out,” Arty said.
“I suppose you think I’m weirding out on you,” Tim said.
“Oh no, I understand fully because I’ve done the same thing. One time I think I ended up with grass stains on my ass.”
Tim began to laugh. He could appreciate the humor after experiencing what he had done.
“It doesn’t look too good down there, have you noticed?” Arty asked.
“I hadn’t paid too much attention,” Tim said as he scanned the surface down below. Now for the first time he became fully aware of the speed they were traveling. Some mountains off to the right were sliding by like an old farm house along a dusty country road, and they were only going a little over 700.
He could see what Arty had alerted him to. Down on the ground he could make out streets and highways, but all the structures were black and flattened. Everything man had built had been burned to a cinder.
“Where are we?” Tim asked.
“A bit east of that big coastal city,” Arty returned.
“There’s nothing left down there, what happened?”
“A fire storm, I would imagine.”
“Oh yeah, the radio was talking about them when I was on my way to the hospital to get you. Damn, I sure wouldn’t want to get caught in something like that. Christ, think of all the people. It must have been hell.”
“You weren’t there, that’s what counts,” Arty added.
“Yeah, lucky me.”
“You sure don’t make much sense sometimes. Either that or you just want to disagree with me. Which is it?”
“Arty I’m sorry, I just can’t help feeling a little remorse, considering all the suffering that has gone on.”
“It was inevitable, so why worry about it now?”
“You sound like Mr. V,” Tim said, not meaning anything by the statement.
“That’s silly. He’s a machine, and he has no emotions,” Arty shouted maniacally. “Why would—?” Arty stopped and was silent.
“Man, did you see that?” Tim jumped in, thankful for a distraction. Man, I don’t want to continue this conversation because he’s frightening.
“See what?” Arty asked.
“Are you watching the storm that’s coming up on the left?” Tim answered.
“Are you talking about the backward one coming up?”
“Yeah, that’s the one, the one with the crazy lightning,” Tim exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of lightning doing that before. Look at that! Did you see the size of that bolt? It started out of the ground, didn’t it?”
“It did. I sure don’t know what to think of it.”
“Arty, it’s still going. Man that thing is bright. Boy, just think of the juice it must take to do that. Geez, what the hell is going on?”
“I have no idea, but let’s circle this thing and try to get some readings. Reduce speed to 600, and be on the alert. If I say break right, or break left, jam the throttles, and do it, understand?”
“Got’cha!”
“Okay, keep it at about twelve-thousand, and this distance out. I’m going to go in a little closer. You keep a close eye on your scanners; I’m counting on you to cover for me while I’m in there.”
“What am I supposed to be watching for?” asked Tim.
“How would I know? Just be alert. With the power inside that storm ‘my’ instruments may be affected, so you just might be our eyes and ears for a while. I’m going to get as many readings as possible. We need to know about this.”
Tim followed the instructions Arty had given him and began a slow large circle about the storm. It wasn’t really big in comparison to some of the others they had seen today, but it was defined and obviously very intense. It had a low, black, ominous base close to the ground. The main structure of the storm was almost a perfect cylinder, about five miles in diameter. It rose in massive billows of white clouds etched on the black interior of the formation. The storm towered over Tim, reaching far into the upper atmosphere and ending with the customary anvil formation. Tim had never seen a thunderstorm this perfect, or awe inspiring, but the electricity in this mutant was the real attraction.
Tim was watching intently, but had not seen any activity since the large discharge a couple of minutes ago. It looked like the air between the storm and the ground was getting a green tint to it. Tim watched closely. It was a luminous green and it was getting brighter.
“Something’s about to happen, Arty, can you read me? Arty, I hope the hell you’re not too close because that thing is getting ready to go off, ‘again’?”
Tim heard no response, just static and it was increasing. “If you’re in there, get the hell out. Now! Can you hear me? Arty can you hear me? Get the hell away from that thing; it’s getting ready to go off again. I don’t think you should be too close. Answer me!” Tim shouted.
The luminescence increased into a bright green ball of fire that grew up out of the ground and expanded toward the base of the storm. The ball had reached half way to the bottom clouds and then suddenly reversed itself and shrank back into the ground. Tim watched in awe as the glowing mass of energy was absorbed by the earth until there was none left.
“Arty, where the hell are you? Did you see what just happened? Answer me dammit!”
“Not to worry, not to worry,” Arty finally answered. “I’m circling at one-thousand just outside the disturbance. What a strange form of energy. I can’t figure out exactly what we’re watching, but it seems that the. . .hold it, something is about to happen.”
“Get the hell out of there!” Tim advised.
The static on the comm returned immediately, this time much more intense than before. As Tim watched the phenomenon, a thick bolt of white electricity flashed from the ground and split into a hundred jagged fingers, reaching deep into the entire huge storm cell. The bolt grew in intensity, becoming so bright that Tim had to look away even though he had the dark visor over his eyes. The front and the side of the TT Fighter facing the storm were washed in bright light for three or four-seconds. Then suddenly it went dark. During the height of the exchange most of the systems on the plane had remained operational, except the comm and the radar. After the discharge dissipated they too returned to normal.
“Arty can you read me?” Tim shouted.
“No need to yell, I’m still here, a little confused, but still here.”
“What the hell was that fuckin crazy lightning all about?”
“I have no idea. You tell me? I’ve got a lot of readings, but no answers. This is a problem for Mr. V, and don’t swear so much.”
“I’m sorry, I got excited, but that was something else. Has t
his ever happened before?”
“How should I know?”
Tim had been circling the storm and was in the southern part of his arch. He spotted a line of something roughly paralleling the coast line much farther in the distance. He commented this to Arty, who had also seen the same thing and agreed that they should investigate.
*
The storm they had been scrutinizing began to lose some of its punch, as they regrouped and headed southwest. They could see the ocean twenty or so miles in front of them, but about ten miles closer there was definitely another boundary of some type.
Shortly, they were coming up over the strange line.
On the inland side of the line the terrain was the same as they had been traveling over. They could see the streets, highways, parking lots, and the burned out structures. The line they were investigating was a thick, dark, mass of blackened debris. On the ocean side of the line the concrete was still there, but all the charred material had been swept clean and deposited in the line.
“What the hell could have caused that?” Tim commented.
“My guess would be a Tsunami.”
“A sue who?”
“A Tsunami, a tidal-wave.”
“Oh yeah. I’ve heard of that. Geez, what next? What else can happen? Do you think that anyone could have lived through all that?”
“There are always survivors,” Arty stated.
“Let’s go down and see if we can find anyone.”
“And, do what?”
“I don’t know, I just thought?”
“Well, forget it. If you want to mount a rescue mission on your own time, that’s fine with me.” The tone of Arty’s voice convinced Tim no argument would be accepted. “We’ve seen enough here. We’ll head north up along the fault. Fall in behind and we’ll go up over that storm to the right.”
*
The two small black planes accelerated up the dark outer boundary of a large thunder head, only the fiery, white exhausts made them visible.
*
A line of thunder storms to the North-northwest marked the fault they were now headed for. The fault hadn’t broken completely, yet, but along the majority of its length, hot gases, ash, steam, and sometimes lava were belching from the earth.
They were flying at forty-five-thousand feet, and 1800 knots, sweeping in and out of the massive cloud formations on the Western edge of the fault. Tim could really tell the speed as he slipped through the canyons in the clouds. They were gobbling up miles per seconds. He was developing a real feel for the airplane, constantly making small maneuvers to see how the craft responded. The controls were so sensitive he could feel the pressure from the air on the control surfaces through his glove. He commented that to Arty.