This is an except from Lightning’s Hand, of the Endless Tempest series
Prologue
The coast was sparkling from an endless stream of vehicles. These were bandwagon fans, just showing up for the spectacle. Food trucks and pop up bandstands, beer gardens and CommCorps news wagons contributed to the carnival vibe.
Rory and Alex sat on the tailgate, drinking beers. It had been a long afternoon of propaganda and songs echoing over loudspeakers up and down the shoreline. More annoying yet, trinket vendors passed before them dozens of times, hawking wide-brimmed hats, sunscreen and plastic airship models. Latecomers to the launch asked if they could pull up lawn chairs to watch the show.
Rory shooed them all away. This was their patch of sand. They had such a choice spot because they had camped there overnight. Nothing was getting between Rory Reed and the launch he had heard about all his life.
“History in the making,” he said, again.
“That it is,” Alex said. “It is for certain sure.”
“She’s gonna fly right over us.”
Alex nodded. He studied his friend, the body of a lineman with the heart of a child. Rory hadn’t quit smiling since they left Corpus Christi. He recounted the same facts with the same fascination dozens of times, even in his sleep. Alex knew it was all on repeat in Rory’s head. His lips were moving, mouthing the words again: “The Incus. Largest airborne vessel known to man. Destined to change the world. Tonight, we’ll see her fly. History in the making.”
Such reverence and awe disguised in a lumberjack’s frame. Rory looked like a grizzled prize fighter, but inside, and now seeping outside, he was a giddy kid. He caught Alex looking at him, and he beamed. “I’m not drunk,” he said. “I’m high on life.”
“Oh, I know. I know,” Alex chuckled. He slapped Rory’s knee and then hopped down from the truck bed. He glanced at his watch, then the horizon, then out to sea. “Should be any time now.”
Rory clapped his hands together. His legs were swinging beneath him. Such a school boy. He was so in the moment. Alex smiled and shook his head in wonderment. He’d known Rory seven years now, and he had never seen him so consumed by anything.
Rory stood up in the pickup bed, shielded his eyes with his hand. “They’re filling her up. The anvil’s rising. See it?”
Alex did not see it, but he had seen it before. Rory had posters and animations and projections of the Incus all over their dorm room, and later their apartment. He had watched the documentary on the Incus with Rory a dozen times. The ‘anvil’ was an inflatable outcropping, if one could call it that, something akin to a hot-air balloon but the size of ten skyscrapers. It was, according to Rory, a showstopper. It was not mission critical to have such a massive plume, but it was good insurance if a leak were to develop.
By the time Alex spied the anvil, the whole of the seabed was glistening with the body of the surfacing vessel. It was a colossal god rising from the ocean. The anvil was an angry head, rearing up red and gold in the wash of the late afternoon sun. The hull was mammoth, spanning miles and miles. It billowed and rippled as it filled. Its mass was the flexing, muscular shoulders of Poseidon emerging from the sea. As the Incus ascended, Alex noted that everything else had come to a stop. No cars were moving. No vendors. No music nor noise, not even seagulls--only the sound of water pouring off the ship and down into the water below.
Rory caught his eye and then pointed emphatically back at the Incus. Alex nodded. The mighty ship was gaining altitude, and it would come directly overhead. It was an airship, but in the media, it was called a cloud ship, or as some skeptics referred to it, a clown ship.
Alex looked along the shoreline at the thousands assembled to witness the launch, speculating that a good many were here to see it fail. Nothing of this scale had ever taken to the skies. Nothing could keep a craft like that in the air. The technology to manage the sheer volume of gas exchange had never been seen before. The Incus was LF Winston’s vanity project. This crowd and those millions more watching from home were just waiting for the mighty to fall.
An hour later the ship was at full sail. It sat on the sky, an impossible sight. The Incus defied everything. It swelled and flexed and continued to silence all who beheld it. “Aether, it’s a gas,” Rory was fond of saying, quipping a company catch phrase. Fans like Rory swore the new gas was the difference maker. Aether, they said, was the change agent. He had that very phrase on a t-shirt.
The Incus swelled with Winston’s great gaseous discovery, the lighter-than-air element he named Aether. When it reached altitude, the ship would begin to breathe, exchanging gasses in ballasts that would make it move like a Manta Ray. It was all theoretical (and purely fanciful by many estimates) but Rory believed, and Alex knew, this ship would bend the bounds of everything.
“I’m gonna ride a Rainmaker someday,” Rory bellowed. Alex turned to see his friend posing wide legged, like a bull rider. He had a thick tow rope wrapped around one wrist and was waving his free hand in the air.
“Get down here and have another beer,” Alex laughed.
Rory jumped from the truck and planted himself in Alex’s personal space. He poked a finger at Alex’s nose. “You don’t doubt me, do you?”
Anyone else might have found him intimidating, but Alex knew he was drunk and knew he was challenging the doubters around them. He moved Rory’s finger out of the way and opened the cooler at their feet.
“I have no doubt,” Alex said, popping the top and pressing a beer into Rory’s hand.
“This is big.”
“Nothing bigger.”
“You know what I mean. Winston’s gonna crack the sky. He’s going to show them what-for.” Rory sloshed some beer at the Incus. “And I’m going to be part of it.”
This was the real dream.
Topple governments. Stick it to the man. The short version: rise up.
Alex wanted to skip to the end.
What could a couple of college dropouts from Springfield, Texas, do to change the world? In what version of reality would they ever matter? Alex crushed his empty can and tossed it with the others littering their campsite.
He squinted and studied the Incus as Rory rambled on about end arounds and sweeping change and LF Winston and the other corporation magnates. He watched the tell-tale wispy clouds gather around the leading edge of the Incus, clouds banked against a man-made cloud. The faster the ship would accelerate, the more powerful this man-made front would become. Eventually a storm front would brew along in advance of the Incus, if Winston was right. The Incus would then truly earn its moniker as a Rainmaker.
“...and that’s why I did it,” Rory said. “And you will, too.”
“Did it? Did what?”
“Signed up.”
Alex forgot all about the clouds. “You what?”
“I signed.”
“With who?” he stepped into Rory’s space now, not to look him in the eye but to examine his jawline and temple. He reached up and grabbed Rory’s chin and turned his head this way and that. “Who’d you sign with?”
“TransCorp,” Rory said. He pried away Alex’s hand and pointed to a telltale pink line that followed the curve of his jawbone.
“You got Jacked?” Alex snorted.
“Just the Clench, not the Nodes.”
“You went with Trans?” Alex could hardly breathe. “And you didn’t even--”
“I wanted to tell you here. Now. You know, the big moment.”
Alex glanced up at the Incus. The big moment was coming soon. The forefront of the Incus was rearing back, as if the cloud were standing on its tail, gathering itself for something dramatic. The pre-release from Winston Water Works called it The Dive. It would be the airship’s first plunge, a full-tilt inhale that would plummet the ship down a few thousand feet.
If it worked, diving at such a velocity would churn up a storm and a spectacular display of lightning and thunder. Rory had talked of this, too, for weeks. So much power to be unleashed by simply dropping to a lower altitude.
If it did not work, as so many had speculated, the ship would destroy everything in its path on impact.
“You can bet ol’ LF’s up there. Probably about to shit himself,” Rory said. “Everything he owns is hanging in the balance.”
Just then, the ship flipped.
It did not swoop up in a graceful arc and descend like a bird on thermals.
It had reared back so far that it toppled on over itself and then over again. It was another uncanny impossibility to see something so enormous careening and cartwheeling from the heavens.
People up and down the shore were alarmed. Cries of fear mixed with jeering and nervous laughter. Rory growled in their direction, then looked up at the ship with pleading eyes. He was willing the ship to stabilize with all his might. “C’mon. Come on!” he urged.
“We should get the hell out of here,” Alex said.
“It’ll be fine,” Rory said, unable to look from the tumbling Incus. “I just know it.”
Like a kite snapping in the wind, the Incus whipped to and leveled out. Many onlookers cheered. Rory was all smiles again. The ship, however, was on a steep descent Alex did not think it could pull out of.
“It’s gonna crash right on top of us,” Alex said. “C’mon, Rory.”
People were slamming doors, driving like mad, snarling in traffic as they attempted to get out of the path of the Incus. The ship was in a controlled dive, and it was growing larger and larger. Storm clouds and rain were obscuring most of the falling ship. Rain was falling sporadically. It was cold as ice.
Alex scrambled to load their cooler and other supplies, but Rory stood watching the airship with rapt attention.
The fat raindrops were getting denser. “Get in the cab,” Alex commanded.
Rory wiped his eyes and stood his ground.
Winston was a showman, and under other circumstances, Alex might have thought this was all part of a carefully staged bit of theatrics. When the hail started, however, he knew better. Even Rory knew it was foolhardy.
They climbed inside and winced at the hammering of the hail. It grew darker. The only thing lighting the cabin was a barrage of lightning that crackled so closely outside their hair was tingling and on end.
Rory tried yelling over the hail and the ravages of the storm, but it was no use.
Alex clamped his eyes shut, blinded by the strobing lightning. He had no idea how much time passed, but if the hail did not pound out all the windows, he was sure the lightning would fry them.
Relentless hail and lightning. Pouring rain. They were suspended and enveloped by the roar of the storm.
And then they were not.
“This woulda been a hella way to go,” he heard Rory saying. The pops and thumps of hail were diminishing. “They got it under control.”
“How do you know?” Alex opened one eye, noted the lightning was less intense.
“Look.” Rory pointed ahead through the windshield. “She’s already gone over, and she’s still aloft.”
The airship was racing inland, the terrible storm leading the way.
“LF said that could happen,” Rory appraised the situation, nodding his head as he thought about it.
“He did?”
“He said pulling too close to the ground too fast would gen up some bad power surges, like static electricity.”
“Static electricity!” Alex said. “I’ve never seen lightning like that!”
“Kinda cool, though, wasn’t it?”
“Jesus, Reed, what’s happened to you? Lost all your common sense? We could have died.”
“But we didn’t.”
Alex wagged his head. There was no reasoning with an idealist.
“You know what this means, right? Everything we ever talked about. Winston’s proven he’s got the power now. His ship works, and that’s just the beginning. That’s why I went ahead and signed on, man. I knew it would work. I wanted in on the front of this. I want you with me, Alex.”
Everything they ever talked about included a lot. Alex mulled it over as the rain swept on past. He was trying to choose his words carefully. “You really think the corporations will pull this off?”
“Not a doubt. End the tyranny of bad governance. Free us to make our own choices.” He sounded a little too much like a recruiter.
“But…TransCorp? Why TransCorp?”
“First into the fray,” he said, and made a little gesture resembling a salute. “Seriously though, now that LF’s got proof of concept, Winston Water Works is going to shake things up. Next will be troop movements. If we’re with Trans, we rule the road. We control the flow.”
“God, you’re a sell out!”
“But it’s the truth. Trans is going to be the power broker. I want to work for a winner. We’ll get commissions and advance fast if we start now. We’ve never had it so good.”
“We haven’t had it so bad,” Alex said, though they really had. It had been a tough run, a hard fight. They had met in the first months before their senior year of high school. Alex had no family and was scraping along, trying to graduate and work several jobs. Rory had football, but little else at the time, and even less hope he might make the grades to keep a scholarship offered to him. Alex was always in trouble, and in exchange for Rory’s protection, tutored him on into college. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship. It worked.
But now?
“So, you gonna?”
“Going to what?”
“Sign up? I have my recruiter on speed dial.”
“I’m not so sold--”
“You may say I’m a dreamer…” Rory burst out in song as he fired up the pickup. It was an oldie, like all of Rory’s favorites, a Beatles song, Imagine.
Alex smiled and listened along. Such a voice.
Rory elbowed him, urging him to sing along with the chorus.
Alex wasn’t feeling it, but he smiled just the same.
01 Electronic Anesthetic
The Zephyr let up on the G’s as it settled into a dull thunder. Rory loved the feel of it in his feet, opting always to stand at the front of the car, swaying with subtle changes in direction. The Zephyr was fiercely bridled energy, big and brash, iron and power, when the world around him had settled on plastic and silicon. These days, even the Zephyr, the most powerful transport on the continent, was drowned out by loud, one-sided conversations, a discordant roar of music and gaming. Internet and implants, HeadGear and Jackchat--it was all an electronic anesthetic that left him in pain.
Rory gripped the bar overhead, counting down to the tunnel ahead. Lean left. Hard right. A surge that made one weightless for a bit. Then pitch black and instantly dead quiet, save the clacking of the tracks.
On cue, a snap sounded in the cowling just ahead, followed by an electric hum. Rory turned to face those behind him, to glimpse them as they truly were: fragile eggs jostling in boiling water. He watched and waited as eyes adjusted to the pale glow of cabin lights. Most looked at their hands, a few kept their eyes firmly closed. Some stared at black reflections in the windows. They knew they’d have no signal down here, and they settled into it solemnly.
Sometimes a passenger might make eye contact with him. Often it would be a child, and Rory would smile back warmly. Those would last the longest, but seldom more than the count of five. A curious tourist might light on Rory, look away, and back, but altogether not connect for more than a few fleeting seconds. Pessimists and pickpockets would shoot side glances, then their eyes would dart away and down. Occasionally someone genuine would crinkle the corner of her eyes, sometimes even nod an acknowledgement. Rory would return this in kind, but even these were two counts at best.
He took the Zephyr for these connections. Two minutes of authenticity, free from the electric umbilical that almost everyone was tethered to. This was his bliss: a world unplugged, a people hard charging together toward a common destination.
Every trip beneath the bay, Rory was recruiting them in his mind. A colony or a continent, he mused, where everyone was disconnected from the hive, but connected by the heart. He dreamed of such a day, vaguely recalling it from his youth. He dreamed of a better tomorrow. It would terrify the jostling eggs in front of him. They would crack. His dream was their nightmare. “If your dreams don’t scare you,” he recalled a quote, “they are too small.”
Midway back, aisle seat--that someone he’d been seeking in hundreds of tours on this train pulled him into her focus. He was immediately immersed, and he lost both count and composure.
Her Escher eyes reflected the entire cabin, and deep down in that black he saw himself aghast and agape all at once. Inside, he shrugged and nudged himself to smile. She smiled with him. She asked something with her eyebrow, then cocked her head to her right, to the empty seat across the aisle.
Then Rory found himself doing something he’d not done before, not even rehearsed in his head. He abandoned his watch and took the seat she suggested. He was staring straight ahead, trying to calculate his next action.
“Ash,” she offered, leaning into his field of view. “And what’s your name, Mr. Orman?”
His surprise must have registered in his expression, despite himself.
“Your little brass tag there,” she pointed to his chest. “But what’s your first name?”
“Rory.”
“Maury?”
“No, Rory,” he said, a little more pronounced, over the rattle and shake of the train.
“Laurie? I knew a Marion once, and a Leslie, but never a guy named Laurie.”
“No, my name is Ro-ry. Rory Orman.”
“Whew, Wawry Owrmun!” She smiled, spritely. “That’d be tough for some folks to say, don’t you think? Well, nice to meet you, Rory. Ashley Wilson.” And then--as if the exchange were not awkward enough, first sitting here so close he could smell her perfume, then attempting small talk--she reached across the aisle to shake his hand.
He took her hand in what he hoped would not seem too much of a desperate grasp, gave it a shake, then held it for what he was sure must be too long. He could not help himself, for her hand was warm and lively. He smiled and cleared his throat. What to say next? A curt, professional, ‘Ms Wilson,’ and ‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ came to mind, as did ‘Yes, quite happy to make your acquaintance.’
And then… “Pleased to meet you, Ashley,” spilled out.
“Charmed,” she replied, her lithe fingers lingering as they passed over his palm.
Another surge of weightlessness signaled the train was making another descent. Rory knew this could not be true, for the Zephyr only ducked down once as it plunged under the bay. He glanced about. No one seemed to notice. They simply wobbled in unison, not noticing anything.
“Waaaaarwy?” She waved to draw his attention.
His eyes settled again on Ashley Wilson. She was elfin, mystically beautiful, with deep brown eyes, a pert little nose. White flowing hair nearly to her waist. He wanted to brush it aside, see if she had pointed ears.
“I--the train. I thought I felt something.”
“Yeah. I felt it, too.” For an instant she broke eye contact, then resumed her radiant smile. This was his cue to contribute, to take lead. He knew it, but he could not speak. He was simultaneously distracted by her and disturbed he had lost count. It surely meant only seconds remained.
“We should get off at Penrose and have coffee,” Rory managed, and just then, the train popped from the tunnel and the car came awash with afternoon sun and the din and spin of electronics resumed.
I’d like that, she mouthed.
Ashley winked, and like Rory, remained unplugged.