Chapter 3

As they got close enough to the street to make out details, Jay and Dave both noticed that about half of the people with wings where hanging onto buildings, streetlights or other objects, clearly afraid to really try out their new wings.

Only the younger fliers seemed to be really enjoying the experience. However, the crowd's attention was rapt, as nearly every face was turned upward. Most were watching the small group racing from Times Square to Rockefeller Plaza and back.

"Hey they're pretty good!" Dave exclaimed with a grin.

"Not as good as us." Jay said with a grin at his brother, "Let's take them! Give yourself a little weight and we can use our height to gain speed on the way down. Not too much, probably just one click on the dial."

With that the two brothers waited until the group came streaking back from Times Square, and simultaneously reached down and clicked the dials on their belts one click counter clockwise.

Beating their wings furiously, they swept down at a forty-five degree angle above the group racing below them. As they approached street level, the brothers clearly had a speed advantage on the group racing behind them.

Looking back, Jay said to his brother, "Now do what I do."

With that, Jay banked into a turn that took him over the sidewalk and around a light pole, and immediately upon clearing it, rolled into another banking turn that took him across the street where he banked around another light pole.

Soon the entire group was slaloming down the street between Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza to the cheers of delight from the growing throng below.

Jay exultantly thrust his arms out as he zipped past the tree, using the wings as a break, he bled off speed, and with a quick thrust reversed course. Looking back over his shoulder he saw his pursuers attempting to mimic his maneuver, with mixed success. He noted with some pride his younger brother seemed to have pulled it off rather better than the rest of the group, playing the first ever, aerial game of follow-the-leader in Central Park.

Looking ahead, an evil idea came to mind. Jay thrust with his wings in renewed vigor toward a line of trees. Streaking in at only eight feet he swept over a group of pedestrians at over fifty miles per hour. Leaving their exclamations quickly behind, he planned the execution of his fiendish plot. Grinning manically, Jay waiting to the last second, swung his legs down, and thrust in reverse only ten yards from the row of trees and hedges. Then switching to a downward stroke, he quickly climbed above the trees. Then he flipped over onto his back repeated the maneuver, and swept upward with his wings to halt his upward momentum. Then to his pursuers, he disappeared as he accelerated downward past the trees.

Closest in pursuit, Jay's younger brother Dave had been close enough to see the maneuvers his brother had just performed, and prepared himself to match them.

I've got you now big brother. You'll have to come up with something new, although I admit the roll in between the turns is a new twist, he thought.

Dave attempted to duplicate the maneuver he'd seen his brother perform, but after sweeping upward and starting into the roll that would have him facing upward to repeat the backwash maneuver, he realized that he was over rotating and his thrusts where not quite vertical. Also, hidden by the trees, he'd never seen the end of the maneuver, but had assumed Jay had simply rolled again, and continued onward.

So, Dave simply continued his roll, sweeping outward throughout, harder with his right hand than the left, and just as the ground swung back into sight, he realized he had been suckered.

"Oh shit!" he exclaimed just as his right wing caught the water and he cartwheeled into the pond.

Coming up sputtering, he saw his brother gleefully standing on the water, halfway between him and shore, looking up to watch the rest of the group swoop over the trees and downward into the pond.

"How's the water? I knew I was wearing you down, little bro', but if you wanted to go swimming you just should have said so," Jay said with a wicked grin, with his hawk wing patterned wings wrapped around his body,

With no weight, each of the racers found themselves floating atop the water, barely touching. The racers started to push down with their hands, one by one, as if they were pushing off of firm ground. Instead, what they found was that when they pushed down, their hands would end up in the water, but then slowly, the water would push their weightless bodies upward. Dave righted himself first and joined Jay in laughing at the difficulties the rest of the group was still having with their predicament. When he'd finally gotten to his feet, he'd immediately sunk in almost to his calves before once again the buoyancy forced him upright. Using his wings to catch his balance he'd finally matched his brother's pose, if with a bit less grace and style.

Soon the entire group, taking their first break since the game had started almost thirty minutes ago, where breathlessly retelling the tales of their exploits.

"Nice moves man! You really burned us with that last trick!" said a tall, lean youth with bat wings, who Jay vaguely remembered as having introduced himself as Brad. "You see all the pedestrians we passed? Some of them looked like they were about to shit a brick, man!"

"Yeah, well if they were out for a walk when the Today show aired, they haven't heard about these." Jay said, outstretching his wings in demonstration.

"Wow! We are about the only people in the world with these right now!" said a cute brunette. He searched his memory, Kim that was her name. Jay made a note to himself to spend some time with her later, then satisfied with that plan, turned to planning the group's next feat.

"Yeah," said Jay musingly, looking at his wings. "Look, most people see us, and think they've just seen pigs fly."

"Yeah but the Pigs can't fly, can they." Brad said, consideringly.

Jay stared at him for a moment, something bothered him about Brad, but he just couldn't place it. He shook the feeling off, turned to the others, and saw them all staring expectantly at him.

"So what do we do next? More follow the leader? If so, I want to lead." Said Dave, with a huge grin. "You think you've got moves big bro? I'll leave you all in the dust!"

Jay saw that the entire body of passers bye had stopped where they were and stood looking at the group in the pond, most pointing and talking excitedly.

Deciding, he said, "Follow me."

He rose with a stroke, then flew to the largest group of pedestrians. The others followed, and they all stopped, and hung floating ten feet above the mass of pedestrians below.

"What the hell are those things?" A fat, bearded man said loudly.

"These are Flight Suits from GI2. Go watch some TV I'm pretty sure that's all they'll be talking about," replied Jay, nominating himself as the group's spokesman.

"How do they work mister?" asked a small, freckled ten-year-old boy.

Looking at the others uncertainly, "Well I can't tell you how they do it, but what they do is turn off your weight, so you can fly like this."

He spiraled upwards, then reversed and swooped back to land next to the boy.

"Wow! That looks like fun!" cried the boy.

"Man is it ever!" said a grinning Jay.

Noticing the crowd surging closer made Jay nervous, so he flew up to the height of the others. Looking towards them, he saw smoke rising over the trees from a five-story building at the edge of the park.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "Look at that!"

Before the others could even turn to look, Jay started stroking furiously towards the smoking building. Climbing, to give himself a better look, Jay saw flames shooting out of the ground floor of the building, and heard the sirens of approaching fire trucks coming from two different directions. Jay realized that in the heavy mid-town traffic, even fire trucks were going to take several minutes to get to the site of the fire, so he decided to fly closer for a look. A crowd had already started to form in a ring around the front of the building, coming no closer then about ten yards, when suddenly, an explosion rocked the building, and the crowd reeled back, shrieking in fear. Flames flew outward, driven by the explosion, driving the crowd back in terror, until a new equilibrium was established, with the crowd now hanging back, twice as far away as it had been.

Despite the attraction of the fire, someone in the crowd below noticed Jay and the others as they approached, and pointed upward toward the five youths flying over the street, from the park.

The blast of super-heated air from the explosion hit Jay and at first forced him back, then sucked him rapidly toward the burning building. Trembling, he quickly fumbled with his gravity control. As Jay increased his weight, he hoped it would increase his stability. It worked. With negative buoyancy restored, Jay regained control, and some distance. Then he started to circle the now blazing building.