Core Punch (5 page)

“That would be good for our fuel supply.”

The trees and undergrowth pressed close to the former road, narrowing it severely the closer they got to the freeway. The trees provided some protection, but they also increased the risk that a rogue downburst would bring the trees crashing down.

“Keep on straight,” Vi said. “You're veering right again…that's better, no too much left…good. Keep doing that.”

“Of course.” He made it sound easy. It wasn't. The muscles in his arms were on fire. His legs ached from working the pedals. He'd strapped in, but the straps only secured his torso. He knew why Lurch did not dare help him, but it added to his frustration to know that help was out of reach. “I just had a most disturbing thought.”

“What's more disturbing than this?” Vi gestured forward.

“We might be forced to find out what is contained in those 72'r kits.”

Silence.

“
Beaucoup crapeau
on a cracker.”

“
I
s
it worse when a good plan goes wrong, or when a desperately bad plan doesn't go right?” Vi finally dared take her attention off the merged screen to look outside and wished she hadn't. Flashes of lightning revealed and concealed the scrambled piles of broken freeway that used to be I-10. Huge chunks tumbled across the soaked landscape in varying heights, the thick coating of green turning them into jagged hills in the fitful light. Waves lapped against all obstacles, and small eddies revealed currents forming wherever the terrain made that possible. No way to know what hazards were lurking below the rising waterline.

A gust hit the skimmer. It righted itself.

Again. Not that she was complaining. Too much. Righting was good. The whiplash? Not so much.

Had she hoped against hope that they'd find a quicker way to the airport by following the old I-10? Up above, she took the I-10 transit all the time. She'd said more times than she could count that she could do it with her eyes closed. It was seriously freaky how much above had been matched to this furry green slice of the past. She had, she realized, half hoped to at least find the familiar in this alien. Looking at the wild, weather-lashed landscape, hope died with a painful tightening of her chest. Forget using it for transit, how were they going to get over it without getting blown who knew where? Or dying a fiery death when they ran into some part of it because they didn't see it until it was too late? Unless they ran out of fuel first and sank into the rising water. She didn't want to look at fuel consumption. Need-to-know did not equate to want-to-know. So she looked at Joe.

He looked tired and tense, with sweat gleaming on his paler-than-usual purple skin. She mopped his face again, wincing at the thought of what she must look like. Bad enough to feel like
beaucoup crapeau
on a cracker, she didn't want to think she looked the part. Never had she missed temperature control more—inside the suit and out. The news vids had been full of possible power outages in the wake of WTF. Her what-the-
crapeau
thoughts about that had centered more on access to news and entertainment. Maybe some cooking. She was spoiled. They all were. And what if they did have to abandon the skimmer? How good would their gear be? Based on current experience—about as good as
beaucoup crapeau
on a cracker. It was supposed to “protect in a variety of conditions,” but it wasn't Superman's clothes. Or even the Iron Man's suit. If one of them got slammed into, oh, a pillar or a tree, it was going to hurt. Possibly fatally. Could have done without this opportunity to test it under field conditions. Later she'd worry about being dehydrated in one-thousand-percent humidity and having to explore the 72'r kit. If they lived long enough.

“Based on current patterns of consumption and the continuation of current conditions, we will not have sufficient fuel to return to the city if we cannot reach the airport within two hours.”

It was not a vid news flash. Vi studied her map, trying to hurry and also be thorough while rising panic tried to steal her concentration. It had a solid foothold in her chest. Right next to that, abandoned hope. She wasn't just field testing their gear. She was finding out a lot of about herself. So far she wasn't that impressed with either. She studied the screen like it had the answer to life's most important questions. She frowned. It kind of did if the question was survival.

“If we can get over I-10, we could try sixty-one. I don't think it was ever a freeway, but it does cut through that part of the city more or less directly, at least it does up top. Might go west too much, though.” It wasn't a route she was terribly familiar with. Across the river might as well be the moon. She hadn't been to the moon.
Crapeau
. She didn't have time to mourn her unrealized bucket list because they hadn't cleared the feeder band yet. Or they'd moved through one into another one. She'd never have made it this far without Joe on the stick. Zipping around in fair weather using tech did not a real pilot make. She was really just a little better than a taxi-skimmer driver, she decided bitterly. If they survived, she was going to learn how to fly, not just drive. Should she be adding to her bucket list right now?

Joe was silent for what felt like a long time but probably wasn't. “I think we must follow this I-10 until we find a break or least a lower profile barrier. Or the wind moderates. I don't know, of course, but I would not like to risk a higher altitude until we have cleared the feeder band. Or try to fight a tail wind with our fuel reserves so low.”

Based on their single turn back at the cemetery, and their progress down this fairly short street—yeah, they should look for a break. And pray for a miracle.

Joe's gaze turned inward, almost as if he spoke to someone. It was a bit weird and boosted his geek vibes, which of course she liked. Because she was clearly insane. Here she was thinking how cute he looked when they were about a millimeter from dying. Or maybe that was millisecond. Could she be any more shallow? Sadly, the answer to that question was probably a yes. Weren't people supposed to go deep in near-death situations? See their life pass before their eyes? That hers hadn't, was that a good thing or further indication of extreme shallowness? Should she add “try to be deeper” to her bucket list?

“I wonder if there were lower transit lanes when this freeway existed here?” Joe asked.

Since she was only other person in the skimmer, she considered the question. “Seems likely they'd need them and places to get on and off. It was elevated—my Grand Paw Paw called it the high rise—hence all the piles of debris when they collapsed. We don't need anything like that up top, so they didn't replicate that.” Or they had and eliminated them at some point? She tried to visualize this part of the upper city. “It's possible we could follow along 1-10. Of course—” She decided not to say it, though she couldn't stop herself thinking it. It might not be as “clear” as a former city street would have been, back in the day. “We'd have to go right sooner than we planned.”

Joe's attention turned outward again. “A right turn will involve a period of going across the wind, and when we turn west again, there will be a tail wind.”

That might be helpful. Or not. The prospect of being blown out of the state was not as terrifying as it had been. It all depended on the landing…

“The current feeder band should get past us at some point,” she offered with more hope than certainty. It would lessen some of the
crapeau
, but whether it would happen at a time helpful to them, well, that was the debatable part. If she was remembering her recent weather lessons correctly, this close to the eye wall the rain might lessen but the wind would get—something? Even if it got better, would it get better enough for them? She should have paid more attention. Her whole life.

It was also possible that they could cross into a more intense feeder band without even knowing it. The radar was almost solid now, if it was accurate. Each band would provide its own challenges and varying wind speeds. She scrolled up. Though there were gaps by the airport—maybe. If they could hit a gap—and they had the fuel reserves—they could make a dash for the surface. Let someone else come down for the idiots, preferably in something that wasn't a barely flying piece of
crapeau
.

“Then we will turn right.” Joe spoke with decision, sparing her a quick reassuring smile.

She managed a smile that felt wan. Probably was. It did seem indicated. “How do we do this? How do we look for the break—” They only had two sets of eyes between them. His needed to watch for hazards forward. Hers had a bunch of
crapeau
to keep track of, including their drift factor, though calling it drift in a high wind felt like a serious understatement.

“You will have to watch for a break,” he said. “I will go slower, so you can monitor our forward progress, too.”

Hard to imagine going slower, but, “Okay.”

It was actually hard to wrench her attention off the screens. They were terrifying, but not nearly as bad as the view out the front of the skimmer.

“Let's do this.” The rain made thick distorting tracks down the view screen. But she found that if she looked past it, she could kind of make out the outlines of things. Not good things, and not very well, but things. Trees bent almost to the flood waters by the force of the wind. The broken blocks of old freeway against a barely discernible horizon, all looking interrupted by flashes of lightning. She wasn't sure if the lightning helped or hurt. She lost her night vision with each flash, even though her chronometer claimed it was late afternoon. So technically she lost her afternoon vision….

He began to ease the skimmer into its turn, his hands gripping so hard, they looked white. Vi didn't have to be on stick to feel the wind trying to push them into the blocks of concrete, felt the skimmer's pull to rise, too. It was like a really bad carnival ride.

A gust hit the skimmer. It righted itself.

And crossed her eyes for a minute.

“Warn me if I start to go left.”

“Don't worry. I will.” If she spotted it in time. She stared left, wondering why it felt like there were unspoken things between them, things that maybe needed to be spoken.

“You're drifting left—over-correcting—good, try to stay there.” Like there was a “there.” The silence was both oddly comfortable and weighted with what wasn't being said. Unless she imagined it. Which was possible. Maybe only her silence was weighted. She wanted to say something, in case, but “it's been a pleasure working with you,” felt too formal. And not quite right. This wasn't a pleasure. Poking through crimes scenes for sure wasn't. It was interesting, but not pleasant.

“I didn't—want to be a cop.” The words popped out. Maybe near-death required truth. Just not too much truth, she reminded herself.

“What did you want to be?” He sounded unsurprised.

Had he noticed? That might not be good.

“Not a cop.” As kid, she'd worked her way through the famous stuff: actress, reality star, dancer, singer—but genetics—or maybe it was laziness—had precluded her seriously considering doing something that was actually possible. For sure no one had asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. The questions had been more along the lines of which area of law enforcement would she go into. “It's kind of sad, though not totally sad. I'm glad I got to be your partner.”

“Do not count us out yet.”

“Drifting—okay, better.” She bit her lip. “I'm not counting us out but doing an ‘in case of' because I might not get the chance later. We'll probably be busy or something.” Like dead. “You're a good cop. I've learned a lot from you.” Not exactly what she wanted to say to him but didn't feel like the right moment to mention she'd like to kiss him on his somewhat purple mouth before she died. Whether he felt the same or not, it would be distracting. He didn't need to be distracted right now.

“I also did not wish to be in law enforcement.”

Almost she looked at him. “But—” She could not imagine him doing anything he didn't want to. Plus, he was like a reincarnated Joe Friday. If a fictional character could be reincarnated?

“We all have imperatives, the requirements of duty, taking us to what we did not expect or—where we did not expect to go.”

That sounded very Friday and yet—not. What had he not said? That he hadn't wanted to come to NON? If he hadn't wanted to be a cop, then being sent to be a cop in another world would kind of suck.

“I'm glad you came,” she said in a low voice.

The pause felt…something. “I am glad as well.”

She smiled, couldn't think of anything to say but that he needed to correct course. They were being pushed toward the unyielding tumble of blocks with an impressive persistence. She tried to home in on the blocks, stay fixed on them and nothing else, searching for a break, or just a moderation in the height—

In the murk of the storm, she felt again her awe at the sheer volume of water coming down. Her eyes saw it, but her brain had trouble wrapping around it. And next to them, the block pile appeared to get higher and higher.

Her heat sensor pinged. She looked, then looked back outside. “There's something out there.” The heat signature had been wrong for a person, though…

“Something?”

Vil stole another quick look. “A dog. Domestic.”

“How can you tell?”

“It's been tagged.” Dirt-siders were required to tag their pets, just like up-siders. Man, it figured. She'd never seen a vid where the dog didn't run off at the wrong time. She took another quick look at the data. “
Crapeau
. It belonged to our vic.” Maybe it hadn't run off. She didn't want to say it, but she had to. “We need to pick it up.”

“It's a canine—”