Chapter 6

Adam Daniels started awake, confused and disoriented. Instinctively, he quickly took stock of his situation. He collapsed in relief. He was in his old room, at his mother's house. Waves of nostalgia swept over him. It took him back to his high school days.

That was before the army, before Iraq; and before he'd seen his best friend blown into a twisted wreck, saving his life. Tears filled his eyes. Glumly, he wished he really was back in high school. He wanted to forget. Three days ago he'd been in Iraq. Three days ago, he'd seen his best friend's legs blown to shreds. He glanced at the clock, and saw through tear-blurred eyes, that it was 5am. He lay back and tried to relax his cramped muscles.

He relived the scene in his mind's eye for the fiftieth time in three days. They hadn't even been on a mission. Just driving through the Security Zone. In fact, as his guilt surged once more, as he realized as he had each time before, that they'd been on that particular road on that particular day simply because he'd been due to rotate back to the States to be discharged.

His best buddy John had been going through his entire repertoire of "Short-timer" jokes. John's normally taciturn Norwegian face had been animated as he discussed just how short his time was.

Suddenly, as they rounded a turn, a huge explosion had instantly flipped their Hummer on its side. Shredding the light armor of the Hummer, they had both received several superficial wounds, but had been saved from critical injury by the ceramic plates in their non-regulation flack vests.

The vehicle in the front of them hadn't been so lucky. Taking the full force of the blast, its twisted wreckage was buried under a pile of rubble. Adam had been on the right side, so John had been the first out, knocking the twisted door upwards with his M16's butt. The other vehicles had stopped and troops were debarking, keeping a wary eye out for snipers.

From three directions, came the heavy clattering of AK47 assault rifles, on full automatic. John and three other soldiers reacted exactly as their training had taught them to. Before Adam had even managed to get his head out of the Hummer, they were sprinting across the street, to the cover of the buildings on the opposite side.

The enemy militia, insurrectionists, jihadists, freedom fighters ... or whatever the hell they were calling themselves, that day ... had been studying the training manuals, too. So, as soon as John and the other three got to their positions, the firing stopped, and the sudden silence was shattered once more by three resounding cracks, followed by shrieks of agony.

Whoever they'd been, the bastards had placed antipersonnel mines in the most likely cover US troops would head for in the case of an ambush. Adam couldn't find much solace in fact that John's injuries were the least severe of the three. All he knew, was that his friend, the best trooper he'd ever known, would never walk again.

I have to get moving. I need to burn off some of this worry and frustration. I guess I'll go for a run up the beach. It'll be like old times. Almost. Except I'm waiting to hear on John's condition, and to find out when they'll be shipping him back stateside.

Morosely, trying to still his mind by moving his body, he pulled his running shoes and sweats from his duffel bag. He dressed and quietly crept through the house to the back door.

He sucked in a lungful of the early morning air. He'd thought his first day of freedom from the Army would taste so sweet. He planned to use his old route from when he'd been in High School. The route started down the street to the beach, then four miles north to Daytona Beach, and then finally back home again.

Damn, I just wish the price hadn't been so high. I will miss the troops, but no way in hell am I going to reenlist for another couple tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now, I just have to figure out what I'm going to do for a living.

He stretched for five minutes, did calisthenics for another ten, and then, feeling his muscles warming, started down the street. He paced himself at a steady jog down the street, but by the time he turned up the beach, he felt his muscles pulling strongly against the sand, and set a grueling rate of six minutes per mile.

Few people where out this early, and his steady breathing and the pounding of his feet drowned out his thoughts. For a time, he was content to revel in the dawn and the simple pleasure of working his body. Even running hard couldn't keep his mind still for long. Just back from a combat zone, he found himself scanning for threats; it was second nature, one that he couldn't turn off.

I have to figure out what to do with myself. Not a lot of call in civilian life for someone to put a 5.56 mm round through someone's eye at 500 yards. It will have to be something that will let me stay in shape.

He'd reached Daytona Beach and was about to turn back on his homeward leg, when, in the early dawn light something not quite right caught his eye. Up the beach a half a mile or so, he could see figures out above the surf. At first he thought it was a group of pelicans, surfing the air pressure in front of the waves. No, the colors were all wrong. He thought it must be a trick of perspective, but the figures playing in the air above the surf seemed far too large.

Determined now to figure out exactly what he was seeing, Adam slowed his pace to catch his breath and continued up the beach, all the while staring intently at the figures playing over the surf. He took several strides after he finally made them out before it hit him, and he came to a stop and stood with his mouth open, gapping.

What the hell? It can't be!

He heard the boys whooping as they had a grand old time swooping across the surf. One pulled straight up and did a wing over, only to plunge nearly straight down. Watching in amazement, Adam tensed. A collision with the next wave seemed inevitable. Instead, the boy swerved through his friend's formation, as they all made like pelicans and surfed the air pressure wave in front of the breaker.

How in the hell are they doing that? It seems so effortless, and it looks like they're having a ball! Unable to contain his curiosity, Adam cupped his hands beside his mouth.

In his best parade deck bellow, shouted as loud as he could, "Guys! Come here a minute!"

Three heads turned toward him, then towards each other, and finally they all started flapping their wings. One boy had a short stubby set of wings with the pattern of a red tailed hawk, the other two had longer, more slender wings, one with the pattern of an albatross, and the other clear and glittering, mimicked a dragonfly.

They swept towards him rapidly. He estimated them at over forty miles per hour. They back-winged, and came to a complete stop. They hovered twenty feet off the ground, just in front of him.

The boy with the hawk wings asked, "Yeah? What do you want, mister?"

Adam asked in return, "How are you all flying?"

"Where you been, under a rock? We got these Grav Belts and the flying wings, off the web from the GI2 company, man. They are the hottest things ever!" he exclaimed amidst a chorus of agreement from his fellow fliers.

"I've been in Iraq, under lots of different rocks. I just got back, yesterday," Adam replied flatly.

"Oh, wow! Sorry, mister Army dude," the high school boy said with chagrin.

He looked, appalled, at his friends. Deciding to make amends, he reached to his waist, and turned a dial that Adam hadn't spotted. He began to drift towards the ground, and landed lightly. Turning the dial all the way counter clockwise, he took off the belt to which it was attached, and handed the device to Adam.

"This is a Grav belt. It's made by 'GI2', a company in Kansas City, Missouri. The inventor went on the Today show about a week ago, and showed these belts and some other cool stuff.

"When they showed the wings, and gave some away to people on the street, everybody saw it wasn't just a stunt or special effect. We all watched a replay after school. I quoted Will Smith's character from Independence Day, and I said to these guys, 'I gotta get me one of those!'"

The kid with the dragonfly wings landed too, and said, laughing, "Yeah, we all ordered ours that first day. I guess we beat the rush, because we got them only three days later. Everybody else that's seen us flying around town, and who has ordered them, hasn't gotten theirs, yet!"

Turning over the belt in his hands, Adam saw a small disk with a dial in the center.

Puzzled, he asked, "How do they work?"

"Nobody knows, man. Even the inventor ... uh, an Indian guy by the name of Troy Blackdeer ... he said he didn't know how it works, exactly, either," replied Albatross Wings.

Handing the Grav belt back, Adam asked the group, "So what are you guys doing out here this morning? Don't you have school, today? Shouldn't you be getting ready to catch the bus?"

"Nah, man! With these, we just fly to school! It's a blast, and we get more chicks hooking up with us, than even the guys with the cool cars," answered Albatross, to nods from his friends.

Adam asked them, "How far is it to school? How, long does it take you to get there?"

"About ten miles. We can get there in under fifteen minutes. If we push it, maybe ten," said Hawk Wing. Looking at his watch, he continued, "In fact, you're right. We gotta fly, guys. See ya 'round, mister Army dude"

As the boys started to fly off, Adam impulsively shouted after them, "Adam! My name is Adam. I'll be running here every day."

He stood, watching them winging away, until they went out of sight.

I gotta get me one of those!

Gary and Troy walked together towards the entrance of another old brick factory building. The sign at the door had been crudely hand-painted, "Coon Works."

Raising an eyebrow, Troy asked the obligatory question, "'Coon Works'? I wonder what made them decide on that name?"

Laughing, Gary said, "No idea. We can ask, but I'm just not sure I want to know what they were thinking."

"I'm just wondering how they're doing on the Conestoga and other prototypes. Hopefully they're far enough along to give me some kind of schedule," Troy said.

Gary stopped just outside the door and turned to Troy. Stabbing his finger into his friend's chest with every point, he spoke angrily.

"Look! You know everything they're doing is all new! Schedules? You can't schedule innovation! It will be done when it gets done. As you well know, ninety percent of the stuff we have them working on, won't work! On top of that, most of what does work, won't work the way we expect it to! Now, you put me in charge of operations, and that includes development! If you want to change it at this point, then just fire me!"

Gary just smiled at his friend, put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him toward the door.

Looking him in the eyes, he said earnestly, "See! I knew you were the right man for this job!"

They entered the building and were immediately overwhelmed by the incredibly loud noise level. Air wrenches were hammering bolts into place. Arc welders sparked, sputtered, and sometimes screamed. Three overhead cranes were all grinding along their tracks. And everywhere, there were groups of people, shouting to be heard above the noise.

For the most part, everything looked like a factory setting that could have been seen anywhere, in the last hundred years. Troy's experienced eyes picked out some of the anomalies. The cranes were moving loads far to large for their rating, as were the forklifts. In some places, men strained, but managed to move pieces weighing tons into place without assistance.

Yelling to make himself heard, Troy asked, "With the gravity nullification, why all the cranes and forklifts?"

Yelling right in his ear, Gary answered, "Let's get to the conference room, where we can hear. Then you'll get your briefing."

Nodding, Troy followed Gary up the main aisle, marked in yellow lines down the center of the building. The factory area was three hundred feet long, and two hundred feet wide. At the other end, a masonry wall enclosed a two hundred foot long, two-story office area. As they walked Troy's eyes took in as many details as he could.

He spotted a maintenance tech fly up in a single leap to the crane gantry, thirty feet above, and began working on the crane. He saw the Conestoga spaceship prototype's hull had been finished, and dozens of men were installing, hauling and checking equipment all over her interior and exterior.

As they stepped through the doors and into the office area, the silence was like a soothing balm. A receptionist jumped up from her desk, and nervously led them to a huge, second floor conference room. The room buzzed with conversation from the twenty or more engineers and scientists milling around the refreshments, and wandering near the aircraft carrier sized table.

As they entered, the Director, small black man with gray hair, spoke up.

"Ok! Take your seats, everyone! Pleased to see you slumming at the 'Coon Works', gentlemen! If you could take your seats, here, we'll get started."

He led them to the two chairs at the head of the table, saw them seated, and took his place at the podium. He nodded to an assistant. The assistant turned off the overhead lights rolled down a silvery screen, and turned on a projector. The projector displayed a slide on the screen which had rolled down behind him, and to his right.

"For those of you who don't know me, or don't care enough to remember, my name is Brian Brown," he said amidst chuckles from around the table. In a rousing voice, he went on, "We want to welcome our employer, Chairman, CEO, and the inventor of the Gravity Control System: Troy Blackdeer!"

Everyone in the room leaped to their feet, and began giving him a standing ovation. As the clapping, cheers and whistles went on, Troy's face got redder and redder. Finally, unable to take it any more, he stood and motioned for quiet.