August 16, 1984 – Gsgow, Scotnd

  Don Dreyer entered the b and opened his mouth to speak, only to close it again as he gnced around the rge room. One floor below him his interferometer sat idle. His brief inspection of the equipment-filled b led him to conclude that it would remain that way for an indeterminate time.

  “Where’s Aric?” he asked the two women. One was his—a member of his staff. The other was on loan from Ed Martell.

  Siobhán shrugged as she feigned indifference to the whereabouts of the man she spent her nights fantasizing about. She kept her eyes on the CRT dispy and reviewed some of the most recent data they’d collected.

  “He’s in Surrey,” Edith replied as she wrote in her journal. The main journal—the official one containing everything they knew about Aric’s abilities—remained in Ed Martell’s safe. Everything she recorded in this smaller notebook would eventually be copied over when their time in Gsgow was over.

  Don Dreyer’s voice rose a half octave and his voice conveyed his disbelief.

  “We had testin’ scheduled today. An’ he’s off tae bloody Surrey? He’s nae chance o’ gettin’ back before nightfall.”

  Edith looked up from her writing. She tilted her head and smiled at the rge man she had become so fond of. Unlike Aric she had no trouble understanding the rge man.

  “He needed to talk to Ed about something face to face. He said he’ll be back before lunch.”

  Don looked at his watch. 9:30 AM.

  “When did he leave?” Don asked. It was an eight hour trip one way by car or train. Half that by pne.

  Siobhán had stopped staring at the screen and was now looking at Edith. Aric had been there when she’d arrived at 9, but had left soon after that. He’d given her a smile and slight wave, which had sent a rush of blood to her face as well as other parts of her body.

  “About half an hour ago,” Edith replied.

  “I dinna understan,” Siobhán said in her lyric voice.

  Edith expined as pinly as possible. She knew how fantastical it would sound, and she didn’t need to make it more outndish.

  “He flew to Surrey to talk to Dr. Martell about something that happened at the Croydon B power pnt. They didn’t want to talk on the phone. Thirty minutes travel time each way, thirty minutes for the meeting. So he should be back in an hour.”

  It wasn’t the topic of conversation that was confusing Don Dreyer. They’d detected gravitational waves on May 4th just as rge as they had in December. Ed Martell had filled him in on the event—as cryptically as possible—once he’d finally picked up the phone that Don had been calling every half hour. It was something else that he didn’t understand.

  “Thirty minutes—” Don said.

  “His exact words were, thirty minutes if I take my time.”

  “Take his time?” Siobhán asked. “You mean he’s flyin’ himself? He’s flyin’?”

  Edith nodded. “He usually waits until he’s away from poputed areas before he accelerates to his usual cruising speed. That’s why we didn’t hear any sonic booms.”

  Don was just as stunned as Siobhán was, but had no idea why. Compared to some of the things they’d seen him do, flying was practically mundane.

  “What’s his cruisin’ speed, then? D’ye ken?”

  “He doesn’t know, not really. It’s not like he comes with a speedometer. He gauges it by how much ionization he sees on the front of the energy bubble.”

  “En—Energy bubble?” Siobhán asked.

  “More like an energy obte spheroid. The air hitting its head ionizes. That’s how he judges his speed. By the amount of ionization he’s creating. He timed how long it took him to fly between two ndmarks in Germany and then looked up the distance and did the math.”

  “What did he calcute for his speed?” Siobhán asked a split second before the words formed on Don’s tongue.

  “Around 2400 kph,” Edith said as bndly as possible.

  “Two thousand four hundred kilometers per hour?” Don asked, incredulous.

  “When he has a distance to travel. It’s not like he flies that fast when he’s popping over to Tesco for milk.”

  Siobhán was having trouble taking it in. Even after everything she’d seen during their short stay in Gsgow. Edith thought if the woman had been on the beach in Cornwall watching Aric and Delphine soar high above the water she’d have fainted.

  “H—How does he fly?” she asked.

  Edith raised her hands, palms up, in the universal sign for I don’t know.

  “Whatever energy he uses behaves like the opposite of gravity. That much we know. So when he’s using it it’s more of a question of how he keeps his feet on the ground.”

  “How did he learn in the first pce?” Don asked. Virtually every test they had Aric run through registered something on the interferometer. They knew that some things generated small waves, others rger ones. But flying...they’d never considered collecting data on that. He wasn’t sure how he would even do it. It wasn’t like they could ask Aric to fly back and forth over the building that housed their b. Not and keep any amount of secrecy.

  “He was sixteen. He was standing on a bluff. Fifteen feet below was the beach. In front of him was the Atntic Ocean. It was a windy day, the breeze blowing in from the water, right in his face. He said it was the feeling of the air pressure on his chest,—that slight lifting feeling that you get—that gave him the idea. He reached out and increased the wind gusts, leaned forward and let his feet leave the ground. And then he was rising higher and higher. Out over the water.”

  “So that energy pushes him away from the earth. An’ propels him forward. D’ye ken how?”

  “I believe that is what he and Dr. Martell are talking about right now,” she answered.

  640 kilometers away, the two men were doing exactly that.

  August 16, 1984 – Surrey, Engnd

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Aric said. “Except that I wasn’t. It never dawned on me they’d be tracking me. That they could track me, as small as I am. But they were coming right at me. It wasn’t a random encounter.”

  He’d admitted everything to Dr. Martell the moment he nded—like he’d stepped into a confessional and Ed was his parish priest.

  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I fucked up royally.

  He told him all of it. The narrow body of water. The ducks. The fighters.

  “After that, I didn’t waste any time unassing the AO.”

  Ed’s brow furrowed. “Unassing—?”

  Aric tilted his head, a mild apology. “I got the hell out of Dodge.”

  The look on Ed’s face didn’t change.

  “I left the area as quickly as possible.”

  Ed finally nodded. “That was wise. No chance they followed you—not as low as you said you were.”

  “The question now is how do I get back. They’ll be watching the skies with everything they have. Do I risk flying again? Or do I burn a day and take the train?”

  Ed smiled and leaned back in his chair. He’d learned in his time in the Navy to analyze situations quickly. U-boats could attack and vanish like smoke. There was never time for long debates.

  “You should be safe to fly. We’ll just pick a different route back to Gsgow. One that you can fly at treetop level. No one around for miles to report a flying man or sonic booms.”

  “That’s another thing I wanted to talk with you about. We need a way to make those go away, or at least make them a lot quieter.”

  Ed smiled. He’d been thinking the same thing.

  “I’ll put the rest of the team on it. They figured out where you’re drawing your power from. Aerodynamics and fluid mechanics should be child’s py by comparison. Now, to the reason you risked exposure flying here. The turbines at Croydon B.”

  It had totally skipped Aric’s mind what had brought him back to Surrey, and Ed’s office. That realization made him feel even more stupid.

  “We think you created a local inertial gradient—a sort of mini-spacetime slope—so that the turbine shafts wanted to spin. As if they were rolling downhill forever. You essentially made rotation the path of least resistance.”

  Ed’s voice held the reassuring quality that Aric had come to know—and appreciate. They’d sat like this many times as Ed reviewed the test test results. Nothing was good or bad. It was just data. The familiarity of it helped calm his nerves, and anchor him in the present.

  He hadn’t had to think about it at the time it was happening. It had been almost instinctual. Like walking along a narrow ne through a dense forest. His eye immediately identified the path of least resistance, and his brain guided his feet without any conscious back-and-forth.

  “It felt completely natural,” he said. “Like my body and mind were in harmony with each of the turbines. I could feel the shafts spinning, and the metal reforming—like I was tuning guitar strings. I could almost hear it.”

  Ed nodded as if he understood what the young man was saying, which he definitely did not.

  “Well, we know you’re maniputing spacetime. We’ve known that for a while. So creating a local gradient is nothing out of the ordinary. Tuning the metal—treating and retreating it in real time—that’s something new, but only because we haven’t done a whole lot of real-world testing. We’ll have to add that to our list when you’re back from Gsgow.”

  “Remember that Delphine and I leave for Min right from Scotnd. But we’ll only be in Italy for a week or so. The fashion show, and then some sightseeing before csses resume.” He’d have to tell Delphine about the fighters. It would crush her if she was never able to fly again. Some way—somehow—he’d figure out a way to make it happen. A part of him would die if he robbed her of that because of his stupidity.

  Ed Martell didn’t ask how Edith felt about Aric and Delphine being on their own for a week. It wasn’t any of his business. And even if it was, it was a question for Edith, not Aric. He still didn’t understand their retionship, or how far it went—except that it was now the three of them.

  “Right. I forgot. After Min then. I’ll make some notes about what we can try, and we can all discuss it when you’re back.”

  Aric nodded. “How’s Roz doing?”

  Ed shrugged. “As well as can be expected. She’s had a lot to take in tely. If you’d asked me earlier what she would have more trouble processing I’d have said meeting a man who can fly, heal any living thing, and learn a dozen nguages in the blink of an eye. But it’s what Maggie and I told her that she’s still struggling with.”

  Aric tilted his head. “Makes sense. She’s hasn’t known me that long, but she’s heard the story about how her parents met her whole life. It’s a big rug to have pulled out from under you.”

  “Perhaps,” Ed said as he tapped the report on the events at the Croydon B power pnt with his fingers. “In any case, I think we’re done with surprises. Roz has time to come to terms with her updated reality.”

  Neither of them noticed the irony in those words—until much ter, when it was too te.

  Aric took the opportunity to fly over a small farm on his way back. It was a short detour, and he could make up the time easily. He flew low and circled slowly over the field near the brick structure as he watched a horse and a rge dog py what looked like a game of tag as a hefty cow tried to join in. He smiled at the sight, but his ughter went unheard. A woman stepped out of her home looked up at him and shielded her eyes. He hovered for a moment and gave an exaggerated wave. She returned the gesture. Pleasantries concluded, he departed—turning north eventually as he picked up speed, leaving a string of sonic booms in his wake. Thunder from a clear sky, some people thought—not for the first time. Bloody weather, others thought—wondering what the world was coming to.

  An hour ter Aric walked back into the interferometry b in Gsgow. Siobhán gnced at him before quickly looking away. She knew he wasn’t reading her thoughts in that moment—because he didn’t turn beet red.

  Edith met him halfway between her desk and the door.

  “Welcome back,” she said, adding a small dispy of affection. “How was your trip?”

  Aric gnced at Siobhán before answering.

  “It was fine.”

  August 16, 1984 – Gsgow, Scotnd

  Delphine sat on the roof of the building. With a little help from one of the technicians she’d rigged an umbrel to a short piece of rigid tubing and taped it to the folding chair she was now sitting on.

  Ever since the incident in the b before Christmas she wondered what—if any—effects might develop in her. When they finally arrived—at least what she’d finally noticed—they’d been less dramatic than Dr. Martell’s. The wrinkles that had barely begun to form around her eyes had vanished. What little sun damage she’d acquired in her youth was now only a memory. She had no way of knowing that eight months after the event in their b she was still getting younger. Or that when the effect ended a few months from now—like an evanescent wave vanishing slowly—she will have shed three years, and from that point into some distant unglimpsed future the rate she aged would be significantly slower.

  Still, she took care of her newly refreshed complexion. So in addition to an umbrel she wore a rge straw hat and sungsses. And a rather expensive sunscreen on her face and arms.

  Delphine had asked Aric to take her with him to Surrey. She’d tried every weapon in her arsenal when he declined. It was an assault that any other man she’d known would have wilted under, and acquiesced to. But not Aric.

  Almost every weapon. She’d drawn the line at fake tears. In any case she was sure he wouldn’t be fooled. Their connection might not be as strong as the one he shared with Edith, but it was firm enough that he’d picked up on her pyful deceptions as the volleys flew towards him. He’d smiled at each one, which ruined each subsequent performance to the point that they were both ughing.

  She loved him. Body and soul. He knew that as well. It poured out of her like water passing over the Gavarnie Falls.

  “Some other time. I promise. When I won’t be moving so fast. A special trip,” he said, which got a bigger smile from her.

  “Un rendez-vous?” she’d asked pyfully—hopefully. “Un vrai?” A date? A real one?

  “Un vrai rendez-vous,” he’d answered as he reached out and held her right hand gently for a moment. A real date.

  He’d gotten better at little things like that. Or worse, if you asked Edith. The thought had barely formed in her mind before she erased it. She said a quick prayer for forgiveness for her selfish thoughts. She didn’t think she could be as generous as Edith had been if their positions were reversed.

  “I have two sisters now,” she said to the woman from Fulham one evening as they sat in Delphine’s ft eating illicit chocote. Edith had cried in response to that confession. It was Aric—their shared connection to him—that Delphine had to thank for that sisterhood. It would never have happened otherwise. She didn’t have women friends. Not like she had now with Edith. Not since she left her childhood behind and entered the adult world of professional modeling. She never knew it was possible. Acquaintances? Yes. The kind she might share a drink with, or sit around and chat while they waited for the golden hour to arrive so they could start shooting. Rivals—personal and professional? Plenty of those. When she thought about it she realized that her life had been almost as solitary as Aric’s. Not quite as bad. She’d developed mental armor that kept the world at bay, allowing her a private space to hide her true self. Aric’s abilities made that orders of magnitude harder.

  Especially when he flies from Gsgow to Surrey, leaving a trail of sonic booms in his wake.

  She’d become instantly addicted to flying, and so it was easy for her to forgive him when he indulged himself that way. Mere mortals would step onto a motorcycle, or into a convertible sports car. Delphine had herself sat in the passenger seat of a candy apple red Maserati while the world’s most famous football star ughed with joy as they topped 200 kilometers per hour. At the time she’d thought is was the most exhirating thing she would ever experience.

  That was before Cornwall.

  Ever since then she’d looked for any opportunity to repeat the experience. Surrey wasn’t a pce that afforded such chances. But Scotnd was. It was perfect, as far as she could see, and Aric had agreed. And had promised—but something more sedate. Something that didn’t require a protective yer of energy to keep them safe. Delphine had no idea what Aric would encounter on his flight back and forth to Gsgow. But God help him if he hit a bird while flying twice the speed of sound with no protection.

  God help the bird as well.

  She gnced at her watch—the fourth time in ten minutes.

  Soon, she thought as she scanned the slightly overcast sky. She couldn’t remember a day since they arrived when the sky had been totally clear. She wondered if she would see him coming from miles away, or whether he would drop out of a cloud directly over her head. She imagined him doing just that. He would slow down so that when his feet touched the roof it would be like a feather coming to rest.

  “What are you doing up here?” he would ask.

  “Waiting for you,” she would reply.

  He would take her in his arms and kiss her. Warmly. Sensuously. Like she always wanted him to, but he never did. He would wrap his arms around her as the shared fire of their desire began to burn red hot. They would sink down to the roof—in her mind she’d remembered to bring a bnket to protect them from the rough asphalt surface—and make love in the shade of a passing cloud. A ray of sunlight would appear eventually—illuminating them as they climaxed together.

  Delphine took her hat off and began to fan herself. The st thing she needed was for Aric to show up and see her in a compromising position.

  She was still thinking of him five minutes ter when he appeared in the distance.

  God, if he reads my thoughts now he’ll turn bright red.