changed the frequency, and my headset filled with static. Eventually, though, I found what I was looking for, and the police band rang loud and clear in my ears.
I sat lost in the radio transmissions for God knows how long, only snapped back to reality by a tug on my sleeve. It was Kate. Her brow was furrowed with worry, and she tapped at her ear with frustrated urgency as I stared, puzzled, back at her. Finally, she yanked the headset off of my ears, and I heard what it was she wanted me to hear.
It was a low, rhythmic whumping, out of sync with the thudding of our own blades. I looked from window to window to find the source of the noise, and soon enough, I spotted it: a news chopper, keeping pace with us maybe fifty yards to our left. Mounted on their nose was a camera, on a sort of swivelling rig that allowed it to pan from side to side. Right now, though, it wasn't panning anywhere – it was pointed right toward us.
It looked like our days of staying off the radar were over.
All right, I thought. No need to panic. All we needed was a plan, and we'd get out of this just fine.
And that's when everything went to shit.
There was a screech of rending metal as our damaged elevator tore free of the chopper's tail, and then a horrible racket like a golf ball caught in a box fan as it got chewed up by the tail rotor. The world outside the cabin lurched sideways and began to spin. Our pilot doubled over, and the cabin filled with the acrid reek of sick. As our pilot slumped across the control panel retching, his task forgotten, the chopper dipped precariously. Kate slammed head-first into the cabin ceiling, collapsing in a heap onto the floor. And then a hand, strong as iron, closed around my neck.
I struggled against the pilot's grasp, so impossible in its strength, my arms flailing wildly as I struggled for breath. His face split into a grin, and he pulled me close, breathing two words into my ear, somehow audible even over the roar of the chopper: 'Hello, Samuel.'
Fuck. Bishop. Apparently the bastard had nothing better to do than sit around and watch the news.
The world around us continued to spin, and I felt curiously light, as though I were barely even there. I thought then that it was just the lack of oxygen, playing tricks on my brain. It hadn't occurred to me that the chopper was going down.
I clenched shut my eyes and forced myself to focus. It wasn't easy, what with Bishop squeezing the life out of me while my overwhelming dizziness made my limbs heavy and uncooperative. If I didn't do something fast, I was gonna lose consciousness, and Kate was as good as gone. It was then that I realized I still had the gun.
I tried to bring the gun to bear on the pilot/Bishop's face, but he just slapped it away with his free hand, cackling with delight. A second try, the same result. I realized that as long as he had my neck in a vise, I was at a disadvantage. That's when I decided to shoot him in the wrist.
I pressed the barrel to his arm and pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening, and my face was spattered with blood and gunshot residue in equal measure. Still, it did the trick – Bishop's hand withdrew, his borrowed face twisted in pain. Thanks to the lurching of the chopper, the shot had been a graze – a diagonal furrow maybe two inches long, halfway up the forearm. In truth, I was grateful – if I'd shot the pilot's wrist clean through, he'd have bled out in no time flat. Least this way, I had a shot at saving him – but that meant I had to knock him out, and quick.
Bishop struggled to climb from his seat, his wounded arm clutched to his chest, but he was just as offbalance as I was, and he staggered backward into the chopper's control panel. I braced myself against my seat and kicked him in the face. His head snapped backward, his nose spouting blood. I kicked him again for good measure, and he tumbled to the cabin floor.
It was only then that I turned my attention outside. The horizon wobbled wildly, the Manhattan skyline racing by. I kicked Bishop aside, as much out of anger as necessity, and then climbed into the pilot's seat. Before me was a whole mess of stuff I didn't have the first idea how to use. I started with the joystick-looking thingy between my knees, yanking it upward in an attempt to halt our descent – after all, it always worked in the movies.
In real life, not so much. The helicopter skittered backward, still plummeting, and the cant of the cabin was so bad that if the door had been open, Kate would've rolled clean out. Sheer instinct made me slam on the left-hand pedal at my feet, but this was a chopper, not a Buick, and the spinning worsened. I tried the other pedal, and our rotation slowed – not much, but it was encouraging nonetheless. Not so encouraging were the rooftops we were fast approaching.
The only option left was the emergency brake – at least, that's what it looked like to me. We were maybe twenty feet above the high-rises of Midtown when I closed my eyes and yanked the lever. I waited for our imminent collision, and when it didn't come, I cautiously opened one eye. The bird was still spinning like a top, and she shook like she was six shots into an espresso binge, but I'll be damned if we weren't holding altitude. For the first time since we'd started falling, I had the feeling we might just get out of this alive.
That's when Bishop hit me.
I later realized that it had been a fire extinguisher. At the time, I thought it was a freight train. Whatever it was, it bounced off the crown of my skull and knocked me out of my seat. The chopper jerked, and once more began to descend. I shook the cobwebs from my head and made for the up-lever. Bishop leapt atop me, hands scrabbling to find purchase around my neck. His hand pressed against my face, and I shook free, biting down hard on the meat of his thumb. Then I dug my nails into the furrowed flesh of his forearm, and he shrieked in pain and rage.
I tossed him off of me, and scrambled to the lever. Buildings whooshed past us just inches from our blades as we descended below the skyline, Sixth Avenue sixty yards beneath us. I felt a hand on my leg, pulling me backward – away from the lever. I held fast for a moment, but it slipped from my grasp, and I tumbled backward.
Bishop, surprised by the sudden lack of resistance, released my leg and slid backward toward the rear of the cabin. For a moment, he eyed Kate's unconscious form, and then I was on him, grabbing his helmet by the sides and slamming it into the cabin floor, again and again until he moved no more. I hoped that this time, he'd stay down – I'd had quite enough of killing innocent vessels. Their lives were a mighty steep price, no matter the stakes.
