“Fear not, the cavalry has
arrived,” Jack Dailey announced as he and three dozen others touched down on
the cloud.
I gave a tiny golf clap, followed
by a middle finger.
“Good to see you, too, Reilly.
Anyone got anything approaching a plan?”
“Stop it before it reaches land?”
Kate suggested.
“I said plan, not goal.”
“Fuck you, too, Jack.”
“We can negotiate a threesome
later. Time to focus on the matter at hand. Anyone got a way to divert or break
this bad boy up?”
Blank faces looked back.
“Can we confirm that there is a
storm inside the eye?” One of the other European contingent said with a German
accent.
Esteban nodded. “I have flown over
it and confirmed it. The storm in the center is not as intense, perhaps a
category 3, but it does complicate things.”
“How?” Said a woman I couldn’t
identify, but I thought it was an Italian accent.
“They share mass and momentum,”
Jack and I said.
Jack looked at me appraisingly,
then nodded.
“Well, it’s too big to divert,” Nat
said. “I think the best we can hope for is to break it into pieces, hope that
they don’t form their own storms. It’s still hundreds of miles away. If we can
get enough air moving from this far out, we can hit it with a hammer and see
what breaks off.”
Several nodded in agreement. Anna-Maria
began making assignments about how to do it. The great thing about storm riders
was that our ginormous egos didn’t give a shit when it came to getting things
done in the face of Armageddon.
Before I got an assignment, Jack
hauled me away. Nat followed.
“What’s up?”
Jack pitched his voice low. “We’ve
got a snowball’s chance in a Miami summer of this working. We need another
idea.”
“Jack, you’re not suggesting—” Nat
began.
“I am. You got a better idea?”
Nat shook her head sullenly. “I
don’t have to fucking like it.”
“Ditto.”
My eyes darted between them.
“What’s the idea?”
Jack pointed at me. “You. Frost.”
“You two said never to do that ever
again, now you want me to do it in front of half the storm riders on the
Goddamn planet?”
Jack nodded.
“I think Jack’s right,” Nat said,
looking pained to admit it. If this works then we can abort, but I think we
need a different approach on all of this.”
“Well, fuck. Guess I better get
going, then. Could’ve saved some time by telling me before I got down to Florida.”
“Quit your bitching and move,” Jack
said.