Architect (Last Resistance Book 3), page 8
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights,” I tease, giving him a friendly clap on the shoulder. Nowhere near enough to throw off his balance, but I watch in disbelief as he takes a cautious step backward anyway. “Wait—you’re serious? Why didn’t you say anything before? This is an on-the-ground conversation, not a twenty-thousand-feet-above-sea-level conversation.”
“Albuquerque was a long time ago. We were twelve. I don’t know. I hoped I’d grown out of it.”
You don’t grow out of fears, I want to tell him. You grow into them. “Okay,” I say instead. “How’s that working out for you?”
His helmet turns toward the ramp. There’s a pause, then: “Not well.”
“Hey.” I grab Samuel’s helmet, making our armored heads meet. I wish I could see his eyes, wish he could see the certainty in mine reflected back. “We’re going to be fine. We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”
Samuel makes a politely doubtful noise.
“Fair,” I say, “But think about all the times we could have died horribly and haven’t. Every day that goes by I’d say our odds of surviving this war go up.”
“Yeah, that’s not how statistics works, Rhon. Or war, for that matter.”
“You realize we can all hear you both,” Ximena remarks, but there’s a smile in her voice. She must be the one standing beside Samuel because she bumps into him, gentler than I was. Rather than flinch from the contact, he visibly relaxes. “You’ve got this, Sam.”
She gives his hand a quick squeeze, though I don’t think I’m meant to see it.
“You know,” Dhruv cuts in, “most people worry about a malfunction happening during the fall, but statistically speaking, most fatal errors occur upon landing.”
“No kidding,” I say. “That’s where the ground stops you.”
He ignores my snark like he usually does when he’s got information to dole out. “There’s the chance of catching your chute on a power line or landing in water unexpectedly. During Operation Overlord in World War II, some paratroopers missed their drop zone and came down in swampland near a river instead. They drowned in the mud, trapped underneath the weight of their equipment.” A beat, as we all take in that fun little fact. “Good thing our DZ’s not near a river, huh?”
In fact, our drop zone is just south of the Willamette River. If all goes according to plan, we’ll drop into a small clearing in Sylvan Highlands and hoof it to Providence Park in downtown Portland. It’s indirect but puts us outside the main action and has nothing at all to do with Charlene feeling uneasy about our ability as amateur skydivers to aim for a tiny stadium field. Better to miss and land in the woods than become stranded on top of a building or worse. I don’t want to think about what happens if any of us end up in the river.
“Okay,” I say, “So what I’m hearing is that Dhruv’s volunteering to be first out the door.”
He begins to object when Elle says, “I second the motion.” Elle was a last-minute addition to this mission along with Dunk, but supposedly she has insight into the terrain, being a former Portland native before moving to Canada. Even with her helmet on I’d recognize her. She’s the shortest one here, even shorter than me, and she’s wearing the braided pink bracelet around her wrist she always does, in memory of her daughter. “All in favor?”
“Aye,” Dunk jumps in first.
“Aye,” says Ximena.
“I don’t—” Samuel starts to say, but I cut him off at I.
“The ayes have it,” I conclude. “Sorry, Dhruv.”
He looks toward the ramp. Nods solemnly. “Yes. I see how I might deserve this. It was the river comment, right? The river comment was too much.”
“Enough chatter,” Charlene says, stepping away from the ramp. “We can’t circle up here for much longer without drawing attention. Exit’s clear. If we’re going, it’s got to be now.”
I give the green light and, following Charlene’s instruction, Dhruv disappears first into the starless night, then Ximena and a few others. Elle and Dunk are primed to follow after me.
All joking aside, I say to Samuel, “Are you good? If you’re not—”
“I can give you a push,” Charlene offers helpfully.
I barely manage to hold back a laugh, especially as Samuel takes a small step away from her. “Not what I was going to say,” I clarify. “It’s totally fine if you want to go back to the airport. You don’t have to come.” Part of me hopes he will choose to stay behind. If it were up to me I’d have made him sit this one out. But not everything is my decision. Contrary to what some still call me, I’m no one’s commander anymore. And maybe that’s a good thing.
“I’ll be fine,” Samuel says. I hope he’s right. “Let’s go be heroes.”
“Let’s go be heroes,” I agree, smiling inside my helmet. “See you groundside.”
With a short salute I go for the ramp, not giving myself any more time to second-guess what I’m about to do. Then, taking a deep, cleansing breath, one last reminder I’m alive, I don’t just step out into the darkness—I leap.
Six
The plane drops away behind me, its roar dying first to a mosquito buzz, and then to silence. I didn’t know falling had a sound, but as air surges past me in a loud static, I think, this. This must be what a scream feels like tunneling out of a throat.
I blame Camus. All that poetry he read to me must have sunk into the pulp of my brain. How nice that I’ll have the perfect analogy to describe the terror of plummeting toward the earth. George Eliot would be proud.
The thought quickly vanishes in the flood of adrenaline terror as my brain struggles to interpret all the signals for danger my body’s sending, like a 911 dispatcher overwhelmed by panicked calls during a natural disaster. I work to orient myself like Charlene taught me, letting gravity do most of the work, and focus on breathing steadily into my oxygen mask.
“I’ve got multiple objects appearing on radar between you and the drop zone, Commander.” I hear our pilot’s voice in my ear again, etched in static. “More incoming moving fast. I’d guess they’re either the Strike Eagles or sand blowers we were warned about.”
“Our team or theirs?” I respond, amazed to find my voice at all. Ordinarily, talking would be impossible during freefall, but with our masks we can still communicate with one another.
“Probably both,” the pilot answers. “Watch yourself.”
Others are still making the jump as the pilot gives his warning, and when his voice cuts out I hear Charlene counting off the remainder of the team, which includes Samuel. Mentally, I can’t help noting those absent. Liz would have loved this. I don’t know about Armin. It’s one of my regrets that I never really got to know her, outside of her quick response times in combat and her handiness with technology. I cut myself off there. I’ve done my mourning, and I can’t lose focus right now.
Charlene is last into the air a moment later. She gives a marine holler that makes me smile, albeit briefly.
A corner of my heads-up display documents everyone’s locations corresponding to ground level along with their heart rates. Although I make a conscious effort not to watch the shrinking numbers or study the studded lines too closely, my gaze is drawn back again and again. I keep circling to what Dhruv said before about everything that can go wrong.
“How are we doing?” I ask over comm, not more than fifteen seconds into freefall. It already feels like I’ve been falling forever, though I haven’t broken cloud cover yet.
“Sssh,” Charlene responds. “You’ll ruin it.”
Weirdly enough, I think I understand what she means. Right now, I’m free of every obligation but surviving the next few minutes. Nothing else matters. My helmet and windproof shell create a sturdy barrier between me and the freeze, but I imagine what it would feel like: the whip of that electrifying cold igniting against my skin, the last of my oxygen pushed from my lungs. I should be afraid, but there’s only room inside me for one breath, then the next.
I continue through sightless black, then the clouds begin to spasm, shuddering around me as the darkness softens. Frost creeps in from the corners of my flight mask, and then—
The clouds part and finally I see it. Portland.
From this altitude Portland looks almost peaceful, like a constellation of pin-sized stars. But as I come closer the shape of the battle becomes evident. Lights bloom in short-lived bursts across the dark map of the city, outlining the river that runs through its heart. Stacks of smoke rise over the burning parts north of the Willamette where New Soviet forces are currently clashing with machines. I picture McKinley’s ground forces swarming the streets en masse, like ants crawling over the fist of an angry god.
This has been the Russian strategy from the start, beginning several months ago with their aggressive push south through Canada: throw warm bodies at the problem until it goes away or until you run out of bodies, then find more. Lather, rinse, repeat. I don’t know whose feet they held to the fire to get the Koreans on board, but from the rumors I’ve heard they’re replicating the same push in Southeast Asia as well. All the news from this past month has formed a strange band of tension around my thoughts. A sense of finality pervades each day, like a smell in the air. Part of me wonders if one morning I’ll wake up and the war will just be over, handled by the actions of others, but I know that’s just wishful thinking.
“I have eyes on the city,” I say with obvious relief. Now we just have to reach it.
“Don’t rely entirely on your HUD,” Charlene warns. “Use the highway to orient yourself in case your digital markers fail. You’ll know if you’re too far north if you spot a big mansion and too far south if all you see are houses and trees. I know I’ve said this a hundred times, but also watch out for that goddamn transmitter tower.”
“Remind me again why we chose here to land?” Dunk grumbles, even though we all know the answer. Any farther out and we’d end up smack dab in machine-occupied territory, while attempting to land closer to the downtown area would see us risking exactly the hazards Dhruv mentioned. Buildings, power lines, and the river, oh my.
“Button it, soldier,” Charlene says. “Chander, you’re go to open your chute.”
Eying my altimeter closely, I do the same moments later, pulling my chute around 1,800 feet above ground level, not far behind Dhruv. It snivels out of my pack like a wad of snot, but even before the chute fully inflates I notice myself slowing from the sudden drag. The contrast in speed is that substantial.
I brace for the opening shock, but it’s not as bad as I expected. Charlene shared some horror stories, not intending to scare, only to inform us what could happen in a worst-case scenario. Although jarring, I remain fully conscious with only some small soreness in my neck.
I grip my lines, turning toward my destination. I can’t see the clearing from here, but a bright green marker on my HUD shows me the way to go.
My HUD also highlights several black, menacing shapes emerging from the clouds almost directly beside us. Helicopters—heavily armored for military use, and almost definitely outfitted with guns by the higher echelon. The choppers descend toward the battlefield like big black vultures, none spotting me or the rest of my team. That’s the good news. The bad news is that while we might be invisible to most radar, the choppers certainly are not.
I barely have time to blurt a warning to my team when the first surface-to-air missile streaks past me, so bright inside my night-vision I shut my eyes.
I don’t feel the heat or force of the collision because of its distance, and my helmet suppresses the noise of the explosion. But by the time I’ve reopened my eyes, several of the heart rates in the corner of my HUD have flattened to lines, those belonging to a few of the ten people who jumped after me.
Three lives gone. Just like that.
Metal gore rains down around me, shards of the helicopter that has just been blown to smithereens. Miraculously, most of the shrapnel misses me, but as I watch hunks of burning machinery spiral down toward the earth with tails of flames I hear Dhruv cry out over comm.
“Team, report,” I order, needing to hear the voices of those still alive. Based off the readings, the dead were part of Charlene and Liz’s original team, but I pray it’s a glitch. A digital malfunction. Please be a mistake.
“Dhruv, are you all right?” Ximena asks, and when I look I see what has her concerned. Dhruv’s heart rate has spiked.
“I took a hit from some shrapnel,” Dhruv says, sounding surprisingly calm compared to his vitals. Before I can ask for details he adds, “It could be bad. It feels—bad.”
More missiles sail toward us like comets in reverse, disappearing into the clouds, seemingly missing their intended targets by a wide margin.
“How’s your chute?” Charlene asks him.
“Intact. Barely.”
“If you think it’s going to fail below 1,000 angels, cut it and deploy your reserve right now. You might not have the time, especially if you pass out.”
“Who’s passing out?” Dunk asks in a worried tone.
“No one’s passing out,” I say. “Dhruv, do you think you’ll make it to the drop zone?”
But I don’t hear him answer.
“Commander,” the pilot cuts in, his voice fuzzy from moving out of range. “You’ve got more incom—"
Jets tear past me. The concussive force from their passage sends me spinning. My head snaps back, helmet colliding with my pack, dazing me. A good ten seconds pass before I realize my chute has blown out and oh shit, shit shit shit, I’m falling, and not in the nice, controlled manner as before. I’m tumbling head over feet, the ground turning into one drawn-out blur, and my oxygen mask has slipped off and I can’t seem to breathe and my pulse is hammering in my ears and maybe the jets are still here, turning around to take another run at us, locking onto me.
“Rhona, your heart rate just spiked,” Samuel says, “You okay? Rhon?”
Samuel. I use his voice like a drowning sailor grabbing for that first fistful of sand, dragging myself back onto the shore of my good senses.
Okay. Think, Rhona. Charlene trained us on what to do in an emergency like this. She made us practice on the ground, over and over, to the point where ten years from now muscle memory will ensure I still remember. All I need to do is maneuver myself into the breakaway position—legs spread, back arched, head up—pull the breakaway cord, give myself a few seconds to get clear of the blown-out chute, and then pull the reserve ripcord. Easy.
I start to stabilize my fall, grab the reserve cord, yank, and—
Nothing happens.
I fumble for my oxygen mask, attaching it back to my helmet so that I can breathe.
“Charlene,” I squeak, my voice strangled. “Charlene, my chute’s blown and the reserve’s not working. I’m falling.”
“Don’t panic,” Charlene says.
“Helpful.”
What was the decision altitude again? 1,200 feet? I dredge the pilot’s warning up through a swamp of panic: You’ve got until angels seven to sort out any malfunction before you’re bugs on a windshield.
I check my read-out. 1,000 feet and closing fast.
I’m about to meet the windshield.
“Focus, Rhona,” Charlene says, but I hear the note of concern in her normally sardonic voice. “Try the cord again.”
“That’s your advice? Turn it off and back on again?”
850 feet. I’m running out of angels.
“Reserve’s all you got, Red. Stop arguing with me and pull the goddamn cord again.”
She’s right. I’m panicking. Gee, wonder why!
Here’s the thing with dying. Normally, it’s a one-and-done deal. You don’t have to live with perfect recall of what it feels like to have blood backing up from your lungs into your throat or the gut-clenching pain of bullets exploding through soft tissue and bone. No two deaths are the same, but still. I can’t imagine being pulverized into a Rhona-shaped Rorschach pattern will be a more delightful experience than my first time shuffling off this mortal coil.
I do as Charlene says, because there’s nothing else to do but obey and hope and pray. My hands don’t feel like my hands, lost in thick gloves and the fog of adrenaline, but I feel the strain in my arms as I yank—hard enough that eventually the cord comes away entirely.
Still my reserve chute doesn’t deploy.
I’m beginning to despair of having come this far only to perish at the finish when I realize what I’m holding is the wrong color to be the reserve cord. The reserve cord is bright orange. This is pale and twisted. It’s a line from my failed chute that must have caught on my pack during the breakaway.
I haven’t been pulling the reserve cord at all. Son of a—
765 feet.
My HUD is flashing warning signs and Charlene’s asking for an update and the jets are getting louder again and starting another pass when I finally, finally seize hold of the correct cord—a few inches farther than I expected—and pull.
I lurch to almost a full stop, chin contacting my chest like a punch. Stars light up behind my eyes, and I taste blood. I must have nicked my tongue with my teeth, my jaw suddenly slamming shut. Having expected my reserve to fail too, I’m caught off guard by this far more violent opening shock.
The world tilts one way, then the other. I struggle to get my bearings. Where is the highway?
The Portland hills rise to my left in a dark ocean swell. I fight my lines, trying to guide myself in the right direction, toward a sliver of street or maybe the open space of a park. It’s no use. A strong wind pushes me down, and down again. Each small fall flips my stomach like a pancake.
I search for the drop zone on my HUD, but it’s hidden behind the slope of trees. I’m too low, I realize with the sort of sharp clarity that sometimes comes in place of terror. There’s no chance I’m making it to the clearing now.
I’m headed straight for the Willamette.
Seven
Water doesn’t feel like water when you hit it at high speed. It feels like concrete.
I barely have enough time to call out my relative location to Charlene and the team before my legs break the river’s surface, buckling like tree branches from the force of my landing. I let out an involuntary cry as the weight from my equipment immediately drags me under.
