woman held out. “Thank you, Ms.,” she peered at the badge, “Archer.” She put her head back down on the pillow and closed her eyes.
The woman stayed there a moment longer, then stormed toward the door, keying it open and letting it slam behind her. Kerry listened, hearing the soft click of the shutter being drawn back and remained still. Then she heard the solid snick of it closing and opened an eye. “Bitch.” She leaned forward and spat the two pills out, grimacing. “Ugh. God, what did they coat that with, lemon pepper?” Disgusted, she got out of bed and retrieved the capsules, separating them and emptying the powder inside them into the radiator. It hissed. Then she fit the two ends back together, and put them in her mouth, swallowing them down with the rest of the water the woman had left.
Three thirty. That meant she had…probably four and a half hours left before they’d start working on her in earnest, and if they gave her drugs through a needle… Kerry chewed her lip. They could keep her drugged up enough for anything to happen.
Her eyes wandered over the room, stopping on the small stool placed in the corner, ready for the doctor to warm it with his butt. She glanced at the stool, then at the door. “I never was a person who advocated violence, but you know, sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do.” Purposefully, she set to work, fluffing the covers up and using the pillows to make it appear that she was curled up in bed. Then she walked over to the door and stood behind it, satisfied that whoever looked in the grating couldn’t see her. She walked over and got the stool, bringing it back with her to her post and sitting down on it.
It was strange, how little fear she was feeling. All of the terror had been sucked out of her, replaced by a slowly growing, slowly heating anger that made her look at her recent past and see her walking the fence with utter disgust.
“What kind of idiot was I?” She leaned her head against the door. “My family, my family. What the hell was I thinking? That they’d just accept me?
Accept what I am?” She shook her head. “What an idiot. Kerry you don’t deserve a life partner, you deserve a brain transplant.”
She’d wanted everything. If she failed in her one shot here, she’d get nothing, and she’d lose. “My god.” Kerry felt tears welling up in her eyes.
“What the hell did I do?”
Silence gathered around her, the soft sounds of the hospital muted by the late hour.
And she waited. She suspected her friend Ms. Archer would be back to check up on her, what with her being so important and all, and she’d be alone.
Kerry just hoped she didn’t screw this up, because she had only one chance.
One chance.
She waited. Kerry estimated that fifteen minutes went by, then thirty. At last, she heard a faint sound of footsteps coming down the hall, pausing periodically. She guessed the nurse was checking each room. They came closer, and closer, and at last they were outside her door.
Kerry silently got up and lifted the stool in her hands, hefting it. The shutter slid back, then closed, and a series of short beeps were sounded as the 422 Melissa Good woman keyed the door.
She felt her heart pounding, and she licked her lips, getting ready. The doorknob turned and pushed inward. She waited for the figure to clear the edge, then slammed the stool down as hard as she could.
THE HANGAR BAY door rolled back, revealing the F14 Tomcat in all its sinister glory. Dar took a brief moment to study the swept-back wing fighter before she shook her head and tightened one of the seven zillion straps there seemed to be on the flight suit Jack had insisted she wear.
What in the hell am I doing?
Three shadowy figures were standing by the plane, and they saluted as Jack came up, stepping out of his way as he circled the aircraft, checking it thoroughly. He was all business now, and spoke to the crewmen in quiet, terse sentences as they finished the fueling and hooked the mounting ladder to its side. The canopy swung up, and Jack motioned Dar forward. “You first, so I can stand up there and tell you what not to touch.”
He missed the wry look from his friend as she pulled herself up the ladder, stepped over the high cockpit side, and settled herself into the surprisingly comfortable seat. She was surrounded by electronics, and she was momentarily glad the canopy was glass, which lessened the claustrophobic feeling a bit. “Okay.”
Jack mounted next, and placed a booted foot on the edge of the canopy, pointing down. “That’s the weapons array, that’s radar, that’s…”
“The targeting system, threat management, and navigation,” Dar finished dryly. “And this, this little beauty, is the heads-up generator, which I wrote the original programming for.”
Jack stared at her. “Oh.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”
Dar glanced up. “It’s all right. I won’t touch anything, I promise,” she assured him, feeling the tremor as her muscles jerked in agitation. “Let’s just get going.”
They finished the checklist, then a small vehicle tugged them out into the open and to the taxiway, where Jack lit off his engines and started under his own power. The roar was almost subliminal in its intensity, and Dar could feel it vibrating down along her clenched jaw. She settled the headphones on her head and listened as Jack talked quietly to the tower at the airfield, filing his flight plan and confirming that he was heading for a civilian airport. Then the Tomcat rolled forward, winding down the taxiways before it reached the runway outlined in dim blues and reds, the oil-marked tarmac clear in the icy white of his plane’s running lights.
“You ready?” His voice sounded tinny through the earpieces.
“Yep,” Dar responded and tightened her straps. The song “I Would Do Anything for Love” inescapably began running through her mind, and she sighed, hoping the afterburners would drown it out. The Tomcat’s engines powered up, and the plane began to shake against its brakes, then with a tremendous jerk, they released, and they were flying down the runway.
It seemed mere seconds, rather than the long time it took with a regular airplane, before they were airborne and headed up at a steep angle. Dar could Tropical Storm 423
feel the G-pressure slamming against her, and she kept her breathing steady, closing her eyes and waiting for the plane to eventually level out. Which it did, cruising along at quite a pace for a little while as Jack navigated out of the established flight paths and into an isolated one reserved for military aircraft.
“You ready?” he asked again. “It’s one thirty AM, and we’re gonna crack plates all over Maryland, so hang on.”
“Okay. Go.” Dar briefly wondered what it was like to fly at more than the speed of sound, then the afterburners kicked in, and she felt like a horse’s hooves had slammed her in the chest. “Jesus.” The acceleration kept up, and she watched the mach meter creeping closer and closer until it hit Mach One, and a rolling wave of thunder cascaded around the plane, shivering through every part of it and making her ears itch.
Then it was quiet.
They rolled up through Mach Two, then Jack trimmed the engines and maintained a steady flight speed, whipping over the earth with nonchalant ease.
It seemed only moments, in which she sat trying not to think of anything at all, until she felt the pressure in her ears that meant they were descending.
The plane slowed, and the rumble came back, and she could hear Jack’s low, even conversation with the traffic controllers in the area. Kent County, apparently, didn’t have anything but a radar officer and one single controller on watch, just in case. But they had no other planes in the area, and Jack just told them to turn on the runway lights, and he’d find it okay.