Chapter 343: Santa’s Naughty List

Maybe now they will get the message, but probably not.

It didn’t much matter anyway. A car drove past us at a high rate of speed. Before I could pull the gun to stop them, when they made a U-turn, I heard jet engines coming toward me. A skunkworks jet landed on the roadway fifty feet past the cop cars. It had missile pylons, but they were empty. There were no weapons on or in it at all. While I knew it did have advanced, on-demand, stealth capabilities, it wasn’t using them right now.

The two cops I hadn’t handcuffed released the other three as the jet shut down the engines. All five watched as the car slowly approached and then stopped between the plane and me. They went to a panel on the fuselage of the aircraft and pressed something that let the pilot get out.

Walking to the storage section, the pilot opened it to pull out a flight suit.

“Sir,” he said as he walked over to me. “The flight suit gives the same protections as your combat armor, should you be in a situation where you need the additional layers of armor. I did not question my orders, but I will state for the record that it is unwise to head to your destinations without any form of weapons on the aircraft.”

As I pulled on the flight suit, which had Jones on it, I told him, “Unless they are involved, I do not have any beef with any governments around the world. Flying armed into their airspace gives them the chance to say they shot me down because of it. Once airborne, I will find out if they are as stupid as those three cops that shot at me.”

He checked the flight suit for proper fit and then made some adjustments before telling me I was all set to go. The car is here to give him a ride back from whence he came.

Inside the jet, I found that I already knew what every button, screen, dial, gauge, and switch worked. In less than a minute, I was airborne. From the information that the man-in-the-machine put in my head, I knew the plane engineers made it spaceworthy. It wasn’t one of the ludicrous speed aircraft but is still damn fast.

They needed something loud that sounds and looks like expected. If I just popped in where April is, the countries would freak out.

I flew up to forty-five-thousand feet and then flipped on the switch that let me connect my implant to the communications system in the plane.

“Communications established. Please wait for everyone to join the call. Estimated time, five minutes,” the system said to me.

Five minutes exactly, and the system turned on the camera before telling me that it established the connection. The message streamed live to the leaders of the world as the AI translated to their native languages.

“My name is David Jones. Yes, that David Jones,” I started saying. “This afternoon, some organization majorly screwed up. First, they attempted to kill the three most powerful and wealthiest women in the world. I don’t find that unusual given the world in which they live. Doing that while they are visiting my home and carrying my children was a big mistake, but one that I am willing to overlook. Busting into my house to kill everyone was stupid. These people didn’t have the skills to fight against me in the place I know better than anyone, including my parents. Again, they failed miserably. It was a ruse. They kidnapped my daughter, and I am getting her back. I prefer not to hurt anyone and will not kill someone no matter how much they beg for the easy way out of this world. I am telling you to stay the fuck out of my way. Unless you or your government is behind the kidnapping of my daughter, we don’t have a problem. I will not hesitate to go through anyone who gets in my way. For those of you who think I am bluffing or full of shit, watch your ass. I have it on excellent authority that Mr. Smith doesn’t want to find himself in my crosshairs right now. You don’t want to find yourself in his.”

I cut the communications. The place in my head strengthened the link between April and me. As soon as I felt April, I let out a sigh of relief. April’s head doesn’t have a spot like mine, but she has a shield that works similarly. The energy she needed April pulled from those around her, and if what she needed wasn’t close to her, she reached out to take it from plants and animals. As with my shield, the force of any impact strengthens it.

She is two hours ahead of me and flying at the max speed of their plane.

With April virtually invincible, it is time to play some cat and mouse. I have the mouse trapped, with no escape, and they don’t even know it.

Whoever had April was over the Pacific, heading toward the border of North Korea and China. I was approaching Nevada when I met some new friends.

“Unidentified aircraft, we are escorting you down,” I heard in my headset.

I responded, “Hey, guys. Sorry. It seems I forgot to turn on my transponder. My bad. I hate to have caused such a panic that they scrambled six fighters.”

“David Jones is not a valid squawk code or Ident response,” the pilot told me. “You will change to heading 035, and we will escort you down.”

I found which pilot was giving the orders and couldn’t resist doing some communications, inverted, over his aircraft, and saying, “Someone farts in the White House and everyone down to the janitors will know it almost instantly. Tell the president directly to leave me the fuck alone, and here you are doing your job because your commanders have their heads up their butts. How about this. If you can catch me, I will land anywhere you would like. Bye now.”

I flipped back over, waved to the two fighters flying off the edge of each wing, and throttled up to cruise at just below their maximum speed. They did a great job keeping up, so I played around a bit, but I kept heading in a direct path toward April. Wanting to mess with them a bit, I enabled the stealth system and got a bit of a surprise. Panels on every inch of the aircraft, except the cockpit window, began changing shape at over a thousand times a second. The monitor in the cockpit showed that the mad scientists did some thermal magic. My reconfigured engines are giving the same amount of thrust, but the exhaust is the same temp as the air coming into the intake.

Flipping to another screen, I used what it showed me to allow me to move in between the pilot that called out to me and his wingman. It ensures that neither my plane nor theirs would touch.

“Smile,” I said as I used my phone first to take a picture of the wingman and then the pilot. “Peekaboo. I see you.”

Juvenile, yes, but it is still perfect for what I am doing.

I flipped off the camouflage briefly before doing the same to the other two sets of pilots.

Finally, I radioed, “Sorry pilots. That wasn’t playing fair. Why don’t we see who has the biggest powerplant?”

With the stealth turned off, including the engine, I let them have thirty seconds before I said, “Go!”

I pulled the throttle all the way, and it looked like the cartoons where they were there and then gone. Still feeling a bit like an ass, I flew up, over, and then got behind them. Before they could even try to peel off to respond, I evened up with them and waved.

“I have a daughter to go take back from the dipshits that kidnapped her from my home. I would love to play some more, but do you think you will be able to live down that a seventeen-year-old kid can fly better than you and has better toys,” I told them as I jammed their communications to anyone but the seven of us. “I don’t want any of you getting hurt trying to catch me. When I unjam the comms, they will read you in on me, and then you will know that I was only enjoying your company while letting the fuckers that took my daughter believe they have a chance in hell of hiding from me. I know it is late in the afternoon, but I wish you all a Merry Christmas, or whatever religious or community holiday you celebrated today.”

I unblocked the comms and heard their orders to get the fuck away from me as quickly as possible. I waved again and then pulled the throttle back. A light beeping drew my eyes to the screen as it reminded me to press the two buttons on the controls to change the propulsion system for faster speed and space flight if I so chose.

Maybe I will take April to the ISS on the way back and celebrate New Year’s Day with the astronauts. That might be fun.

I could hear the radio chatter as I passed Mach 3 and flew up to eighty-five thousand feet.

It didn’t take very long for me to approach Mach 5. When I hit Mach 4.9, I got a message on the screen asking if I wanted to go hypersonic. I tapped yes and felt the plane vibrate slightly before the speeds quickly began increasing until I was at Mach 8.8. The aircraft noted it could go faster, but the time required and distance required to slow down was too much. I would overshoot Korea before I even realized I was close. At these speeds, I had less than half an hour before I approached North Korea.

“Sir,” a voice said over the headset. “China’s forces are told to stand down. They are tracking your transponder code. According to those close to the heads of their military, having a seventeen-year-old kid flying at almost Mach 9 is someone they don’t want to piss off. North Korea, however, is posturing. All their military forces are on high alert and tracking you should you enter their airspace. Accounting for deceleration, you should be able to fly at a hundred feet above Pyongyang slow enough for the dictator and military leaders, as well as the residents of the capital, see that they are unable to do a damn thing about it. If you like, you can easily do a few passes. I suggest you fly inverted on at least one flyover.”

That sounds good to me.

On the way to Pyongyang, the navigation system showed me the best way to do three flyovers, including the last pass hitting Mach 1 precisely over the residences of the high-ranking officials.

When I got there, I had a map of all the planes ready to scramble, missile defenses, and other military hardware waiting to shoot me down.

I see the man-in-the-machine added his special touch the systems in the plane.

I flew over Pyongyang three times completely unhindered. The best part was flying fifty feet over the fully loaded military aircraft waiting to attack me.

The people with April turned to fly up into Russia. My implant told me that they would have to land for fuel shortly, so the expectation was for them to change their mode of transport at that time. Not wanting to let them realize I could catch up to them at any time I wished, I had the communication system start a conference with the military commanders and Kim Jong-un.

“Pitiful. For all your bragging, you couldn’t stop me from buzzing your capital, twice, along with your fighter aircraft, but that isn’t why I called,” I taunted in Korean. “It is good that you all wisely decided to be chicken shits and go hide, together, with your tails between your legs. Mr. Smith will be joining you down in your little hole. Wait for it. Only a bit longer. Ah, there he is. Please give him my regards. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to drop by myself.”

My implant gave me a live audio feed of the North Koreans panicking about Mr. Smith just walking in without anyone getting in his way. He was amazingly polite. The best part was him telling them that they didn’t have a fucking clue about who they postured their military against today, or how pissed off I was at present. He made it very simple for them. By a twist of fate, which he expanded on in case they didn’t get the memo, I inherited the wealth of the previously most powerful man in the world, Darren, whose last act was saving the Elder’s bodyguard before Darren and the Elder died in the lava flow. While unwanted, but in no mean unearned, I earned the utmost respect from the majority of the new heads of the families. The three women at the top are very smitten with me, and each woman was carrying my child.

I didn’t know that the elite families have debated if I would accept their invitation to join them. Many heard about how I found Elise and Ariba’s extended family living in my complex for kids. My hospitality during the in-person payments to Darren’s estate and when the girls stayed with me, for their protection, led to many discussions surrounding my “compatibility” with their world. That all assumed that Corwin, Skylar, or Mary didn’t just declare I was the father of the buns in their ovens, so that meant I was already one of them anyway. All that was a surprise, but not as much as to find out that if someone succeeded in killing all three girls, the majority of the heads of families wanted me to take over while the dust settled and they decided who would take the reins. Elise suggested it, and that got me a lot of the support.

The man-in-the-machine killed off Darren to get me out of that world. I don’t want to get back into it again.

When leaving North Korea and flying into China, I kept my speed down to Mach 2.5 to keep from freaking out their military, or that of the Russians and Mongolians.

I used the link to April to sense where the people kidnapped her were going. My implant tied into the plane’s information screen to show me their erratic flight path. They were flying in known flight lanes for commercial aircraft. At some point along the Chinese and Mongolian borders, they managed to refuel in flight before making a sharp turn toward Russia before resuming their westerly flight path. Their brief foray into Russian air space came when they flew the short distance between Mongolia and Kazakhstan. The pilot did attempt to make it appear that they dropped down below the radar to head North West into Russia when leaving Mongolia.

You can’t hide from the man-in-the-machine.

From my current position, the fastest intercept course for me was to enter the Russian air space and fly west-north-west until I passed around a hundred miles to the north of them. I took the plane to Mach 3.2 as I headed into Russia. Once transitioned on a parallel course, I saw a pair of full-armed Migs pull up beside me. Being polite, I slowed back to Mach 2.5 to see what they wanted.

In Russian, I heard over the radio, “The Russian government welcomes you to our country David Jones. We wish to offer you an inflight refueling tanker filled with the exact fuel mixture specifications provided directly to our Minister of Defense. It circles inside restricted air space. Permit us to escort you to that location and provide for your defense during the refueling.”