Air Force One, Part One (2) He sees it in the table of guys loudly one-upping each other just the same as in the loners scattered around the edges of the room, staring into their beer or quietly working their way through a plate of ribs. What they are all doing now, and what they have all been doing for years now, ever since the end of the Last War, is dealing in their own various ways with the fact that they have somehow lived past the end of the world. Jack believes that a new world is coming, and coming fast. Sometimes he thinks that it would sure be nice if it would come just a little bit faster, because the remnants of the old one are wearing pretty damn thin, if you ask him. Or anybody else. But he faithfully, and perhaps desperately, continues to believe in that new world coming, somehow, out of the ruin of the old. Maybe it will spring up out of the earth, or maybe it'll just sweep down out of the sky on fiery wings, shouting. But it is coming somehow. If he can just keep believing in it for a little while longer. And could it be that that belief, his belief, is exactly what matters? He laughs at himself. He knows perfectly well that the main reason for his belief is that he very much needs to believe. This is his way of coping, he supposes, just like this crowd getting drunk in front of him, or the guy over by the wall staring into space. Most of all, Jack keeps watching people because he believes that, someday, he will somehow be able to read in their faces, even behind that desperation that's behind their everyday expressions, the first tint flicker of a glimpse of that new world that must come. And when he sees it, he believes that he will recognize it like a long-lost lover. His heart will stick in his throat, and he will want more than anything to follow it, and be there. If it would only be real. Jack's attention is diverted from his reverie as Mick the innkeeper walks in, carrying the hugest tray full of ribs that he has ever seen. Mick is saving time by overloading his tray, and it looks like he's half a step away from having a major venison avalanche on his hands and on his floor. The mood at the big table improves markedly, and audibly, as the innkeeper starts putting the mens plates in front of them. Jack has always paid special attention to Mick during his visits here, and he feels that he has gotten to know the man fairly well over the years, a day or two at a time every few months or so. But what he sees on the innkeeper's face tonight is unusual. And therefore interesting. The old man closes the heavy door behind him and takes up the handles of the oversized wheelbarrow that he keeps there for hauling firewood. For weeks now he's been intending to get a cord or two of the split logs up next to the inn so he won't have to haul it one load at a time like this anymore. That's not so bad in the summertime when it's only needed for cooking, but now that it's just getting cool enough at night to need wood for the fireplaces it's much more of a pain. And if he still hasn't gotten up the energy to do it before the snow starts to fall well, then he'll just have to haul it through the snow, and it'll be ten times as much of a pain. Normally people screw themselves up this way because they just can't believe in very long spans of time like a whole month. As though they just can't get it through their heads that the future really is going to all too soon become the present. But he has done this particular job every autumn for twelve years now, and he understands the cost of procrastination perfectly well. The problem isn't one of understanding the consequences. The problem is that, this year, he just hasn't been able to convince himself that the consequences matters a goddamn. But then lately, he's been having a certain amount of trouble convincing himself that anything matters a goddamn. He parks the big wheelbarrow and starts dropping split logs into it. The first ones make a sound like thunder, pounding against the barrow's rusted metal floor. At least this wood is well-dried: it was all split at least a year ago. He did plenty of it last autumn, making sure that he wouldn't run short in the winter. This year he hasn't split any new logs. He hasn't so much as bothered to fell any trees so that they can start drying out. Because it just doesn't matter. He stops working and looks at the piece of cordwood hes holding for a few seconds, then throws it hard enough so that it bounces off the piled wood in the wheelbarrow and slams into the corrugated metal side of the big shed. Then he picks up another one and does it again, but this time straight at the wall, and harder. Some distance behind him, there is the sound of someone clearing his throat. In the past the innkeeper might have reacted more violently to the unexpected presence of a man near him. In his first few years here, he would have had his shotgun out of its holster before he became fully conscious of what he was doing. Now he just turns around. Maybe he subconsciously knows now that his dogs are around somewhere, and they would have come running if there were any real danger. More likely, he just doesn't care. "Hello, Jack," Mick says, recognizing the boy. He knows that Jack has just witnessed his outburst, but he decides that he doesn't much care about that either. "Hey, Mick," the young man says. "I just felt like getting some air. Thought you might be able to use a hand out here. Nice night, isn't it?" "Yeah," Mick says curtly, then looks away toward the woodpile as a frown momentarily crosses his face. "Is there anything you need?" he asks. "I'm just getting some wood." Jack breathes deeply and nods. The wind moves in the dry leaves of the big oak that has always loomed over the shed. The air smells of October. Jack has always loved this month most of all. But now now that the world has ended now it seems an even more poignant time. October of every year, and maybe this very October in particular, is the center of time. What can one man do? And what's the point of trying? "I was just wondering, you know," He shrugs and waves his hands generally toward the woodpile. Toward the fact that the older man just threw a log at the side of his shed. "I just wondered if everything's OK." The innkeeper nods, and looks away toward the north. Winter is not far off; there's already a hint of it in the fitful breeze. "Yeah, everything's OK," Mick says after a few seconds. "I'll be in in a minute." Jack hesitates, then nods and walks away across the mostly empty parking lot toward the Inn. Mick watches him go and then turns toward the sound of one of his dogs approaching. "Hey Banjo," he says, scratching the big black dog's head. In the west, a wall of clouds, just becoming visible over the treeline past the edge of the lot, has begun to show muted flickers of lightning. It's still too distant to hear the thunder, especially over the noise from the Inn, but there will certainly be another storm tonight. It's been a rough autumn that way, Mick reflects. But then again, they've all been rough. "But we're still here, aren't we girl?" he says, petting the dog and looking toward the distant clouds. "We're still here." "Hey, Mick!" one trucker shouts as the innkeeper re-enters the dining room, "you gotta settle something here!" Others at the big table second the motion, one trucker emphasizing his agreement by thumping resoundingly on the initial-carved surface of the table with his beer mug. The old man casts a wry glance toward the trucker who's beckoning him over, but first goes toward the right side of the fireplace to set down his canvas tote full of firewood. It looks to be a long evening with this crowd. He can only hope that the small pile of oak cordwood he's just brought in will be enough to keep the main fireplace going with at least a somewhat respectable fire until the small hours of the morning. He doesn't want to have to go out again. Only then does he turn toward the big table to find a seat. At least tonight it doesn't look like he'll have to settle any fights, as he has done often enough in the past. On the other hand, he realizes, this could be worse. From what confused snatches he's heard so far, it sounds like this bunch is in One of Those Moods. They are in a mood for philosophy. Mick pulls a chair around backwards and sits down facing the big table, leaning with his elbows on the chair's back. Guests at other tables perk up at this. They already know what the discussion is about, and now its shaping up to be a pretty good entertainment in its own right. "You know all these bullshit stories about this big damn airplane, right?" the trucker who called him over begins. He's a big, red-bearded man whose name Mick can't recall at the moment. He has had an impressive amount of beer. "Well that's all just bullshit, ain't that right? There's nothin' still flying up there! After all this time? Man, whatever these guys think they're seeing, I say they're just drinking the wrong brand of antifreeze!" The man laughs, but his slightly marinated-looking eyes glance piercingly at his host. He's a little afraid of this, the innkeeper realizes. They all are. It's a little like talking about a body digging its way back out of a grave. "Well," the old innkeeper says, "what are people saying about this ghost ship? That it's Air Force One, right?" He looks around the table, but there are only a few hesitant nods. "Isn't that it?" "Yeah," the big trucker finally confirms. "The President's Airplane." This is why they're asking him, Mick realizes. Everybody in the room believes that he has special knowledge of this sort of thing: government things, military things. Secrets. In spite of his attempts to keep it quiet, news of the excitement a couple years ago has traveled far and wide. By now, the story has probably been told a thousand times at truckers' campfires alongside every highway in the country. And has, no doubt, been transmuted into the most wonderful and unlikely forms in the process. But he can't really blame people for talking about it. They just don't see a Mark III Bolo roll into a truck stop and start shooting up the landscape every day of the week. And, as a matter of fact, he does know a little bit about Air Force One. Maybe it's no more than he picked up from stray copies of AvWeek once upon a time, but then again most of Mick's customers would never have seen or heard of AvWeek. "Well, sir," Mick says, "I hate to say it, but it actually makes a little bit of sense. People say it's big, right?" The red-bearded man nods and reaches blindly for his beer, already afraid to take his eyes off the innkeeper lest he miss some nuance. No one in the room is moving, unless it's to light up a smoke. This story has really been making the rounds on the roads, and a lot of people have speculated about what Mick would think of it. "Well, Air Force One was certainly big," he begins. "It was what they called a Delta, one of the big triangle-shaped things they were making a few years before the First War. People were reporting them as UFOs all over the place. Nobody could believe that we could possibly have something that big flying around. "And," Mick emphasizes, heading off an objection, "they were made to stay up a long time. A real long time. "The problem that they were made to address," he continues, "was that any command-post that stayed in one spot just ended up being too damn vulnerable. Cheyenne Mountain and the War Room and all that stuff was a great idea in 1950, but by the eighties it was really just worthless. "All the Russians had to do anybody remember the Russians? all they would have had to do was keep hitting it with little nukes every fifteen minutes or so. Blow away all the antennas that they might be directly connected to in the first salvo, and then keep enough fireballs in the air above them so that they couldnt get a word out edgewise. That way, even if you couldn't destroy it outright, the place would be next to useless for as long as you could keep the fireballs coming. Unable to communicate. "By maybe the late eighties they had enough small warheads and delivery vehicles that they could have kept it up for a week. And that would have been the whole war. "So, I guess we started work on the Mantas it must gave been in Reagan's time. You know, the old Air Force One was halfway there anyhow. It was practically a little War Room in its own right. If things happened as fast as they expected once a war started, they didn't want the President out of the loop for the time it would take to fly him somewhere. So they just basically started turning Air Force One into the War Room. "They were even planning to have refueling flights ready so that it could just stay up for the first few days of the War if it had to. But then, what if those airstrips came under attack? The Russians had more than enough warheads to knock out every half-mile long airstrip in the country. "So then some bright Air Force boy somewhere decided 'Hey, why land at all?' You know, jet engines will basically run forever if they have power. 'Yeah, but where are you going get all that fuel?' Well, screw the fuel. Use a nice little fission plant just like the Navy has on submarines. Why should those bastards have all the fun? 'But those things weigh ten tons!' OK, so make the airplane real big. 'But, gee, these things'll cost ten billion dollars each!' Yup, that's as much as two aircraft carriers. "And at that point everybody stops and smiles. 'You know, it's only tax money, Sir. Tax money that the Navy would get otherwise.' "And Bingo. You got yourself a program." "Yeah!" the big trucker says, putting his mug down a little too hard, "and we're payin' for it!" "Well," Mick smiles, "maybe you were paying for it if you had a job in high school. They started flying in the early nineties, and finally came out of the closet and went operational just before the First War. And, oh God, were they beautiful. Twice as long as a 747, three times as wide. Lockheed-Martin Manta: the War Room in the Sky. "They had a dozen engines on the damn thing, but it was supposed to be able to cruise on just four, and limp along in slow-flight mode on just two. And you know, with jet engines even normal ones there's really no reason why the things can't run forever. Especially if you're not starting and stopping them all the time. And these engines were specifically designed to be maybe not the hottest in performance but built to last, you know? "If it went into endurance mode, the aircraft would probably go into slow-flight automatically. Run on maybe four engines at half-throttle, and when one fails every few years or longer, for all I know the cybernetics on board would just shut it down and start up one of the others. "The power plant could last a lot longer than ten years without refueling. The robotics and cybernetics stuff was supposed to be able to do some repair work in flight. And people say it's going pretty slow, right? Like, you can outrun it in a truck? That fits pretty well with the slow-flight idea. A big delta wing like that would have a pretty low stall speed. And it could recover from stalls real easily, so the airplane wouldn't be afraid to stay close to its stall speed. When it does stall you just nose down and recover, I bet it wouldnt lose five hundred feet. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it could get down as low as sixty or seventy knots. "So," the innkeeper concludes, "it actually does all fit together pretty well, doesn't it?" Everyone sits still for a few seconds, digesting the images of technologies and strategies of a culture long past. It is a culture that many of them knew only as teen-agers and one that, in only a little while longer, will seem as distant and mythical as Atlantis. "Yeah?" The big trucker demands, "So why ain't they even landed in ten years? We woulda heard about that for sure. Why are they still up there? And how come nobody heard about it all this time until what just this year, ain't it? It don't make sense!" "Well, remember," the innkeeper says, "they had enough computers on it so the aircraft could fly itself." And at the mention of computers and machines running around by themselves, he can almost hear his audience hold its breath. Like a Bolo, they're all thinking. None of tonight's crowd were at the Wolverine on the morning when Johnny rolled in on Red's lo-boy. And any one of them would give his last spare tire to hear about it direct from Mick. But they also know that this is as close to hearing that story as they're ever likely to get. Everybody knows that the big tank has never been seen again since the day that Mick drove away in it. And everybody knows that the Bolo is something not to talk about. At least not in front of the proprietor of the Wolverine Truck Stop and Motor Lodge. "I don't know for sure, of course," the innkeeper begins, and then realizes that it is the worst thing he could have said if he wanted to convince this crowd that he really didn't have any special knowledge of it. "I mean, I expect that they would have programmed it to get to some safe place and fly a random track. Only then does Mick realize that the room has been silent for some time now, except for the scrape of matches and the tap of cigarette packs being made to dispense their precious contents. The customers are all looking just like they do when they get their stories. This one, in fact, has them more spellbound than anything they've heard in a long time. They like it! They want to imagine a great ghost ship of the air endlessly sailing up among the storm clouds of the End of the World. It irritates him. They're truckers, he thinks. Their life isn't easy. It's damned hard, in fact. And it's not nearly as exciting as you might think, considering how dangerous it practically always is. Furthermore, some of these men lost everything in the Wars: everything except the rigs they're still driving. Now they spend damn near every day of their lives looking for customers who still have freight for them, and who are still profitable enough to pay for the cost of their fuel, upkeep, and food. And most of them are skimping on the upkeep part. And the food. And even after all of that they still want to believe in something. Do they want to believe in justice? Do they want to believe that there is still a God? Maybe. More likely, they just want to believe that, one way or another, there's more to this world than misery for weeks at a time, and a few beers once a month when you get lucky. And those are all the same things that he has always wanted to believe. The persistence of hope is beautiful or sickening, depending on how you look at it. "Of course, he laughs, but there is no mirth in the sound, there is one teensy little problem with this scenario," he says. "It was nuked on the ground. Remember?" "It could've gotten off before they nuked Andrews, couldn't it?" one customer answers back, not pleased at the change of tone.
Copyright © 1999 Michael Goulish |