“Hold on.”
He revved the plane and surged down the runway, streaming headlong toward the oncoming marauders. She gripped the seat, watching the distance close between them. They were going to crash. Smash right into them. And their heads would end up mounted on those spikes.
A hundred meters. Then fifty. When they were almost on top of the Death Riders, Gordon pulled back on the stick. Lacking the speed to take off, they darted up into the air, hopping right over the line of cars. He touched down on the other side, racing down the runway, past the old hangar buildings, bouncing over the gigantic crack again. At the edge of the strip, Gordon pulled back on the controls, lifting the plane into the air. She felt her stomach dip toward her feet, then a surge of relief as they careened into the sky.
“Woooohoooo!” Gordon shouted, pumping a fist skyward.
She turned in her seat to look back to the runway. The Death Riders had stopped, a huge cloud of dust settling behind them. One shook his fist at them. She grinned.
“Nice flying!” She clapped him on the back.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She leaned back in her seat. “Do we have enough fuel to make it to the next airfield?”
He looked at the gauge. “We should make it.”
She closed her eyes and relaxed her body, listening to the drone of the engine. They flew for an hour in silence, basking in the warmth of the cabin. Then she opened her eyes, staring out into the blue. On the western horizon, gray clouds had started to form, building up into giant anvils.
“Do you remember when the weather wasn’t crazy all the time?” she asked.
He scratched his chin. “Not really, though my grandparents told me stories. They said that when they were little, their grandparents grew corn on a little plot of land.”
“What’s corn?”
“It was an edible plant. Said you could make all kinds of food from it. My grandfather was particularly fond of something called popcorn.”
They looked down upon the parched brown land beneath them. There lay miles of dried riverbeds, braiding across the dusty plains.
“They could even make fuel from the corn. Must have been right around here somewhere. They said the whole land was once green, that lots of people grew food out here.”
She surveyed the barren wasteland. “Hard to imagine.”
“It wasn’t the Badlands back then. That name came later.”
“What changed? Do you know?”
“My grandparents used to talk about something called carbon capture farms, how they were supposed to change everything, calm the weather and all that.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, I guess it didn’t work quite the way they thought it would.”
“How was it supposed to work?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Beats me. But from what they said, it was supposed to absorb the bad air. Only it wasn’t enough. My grandmother used to say it was like trying to patch a leaky boat with a sponge.”
She thought of the old PRD with the videos that described geoengineering. “Did they ever talk about some kind of particles that were released into the air?”
He nodded. “Hell, yes. My grandfather used to bitch about that all the time. Said it messed up everything for his grandparents. The Apollo Project.”
“Yes! That’s it!”
“It was supposed to keep heat trapped way up high, but instead it built up, and came crashing down one day. My grandfather said it was like a scorching tidal wave pressing down on the world. The storms got really bad after that.”
“I heard it descended because the people who’d been releasing the particles decided to spend the money on video surveillance instead. So someone else just sent up different particles.”
“Figures. My dad used to say that ignorance was one of the paving stones on the road to disaster.”
She looked over at him. “Really? What else paved the road?”
He looked far out his window. “Greed, arrogance . . . violence, hubris . . .”
She’d never heard the last word before. “What’s hubris?”
“Thinking you’re a god,” he said.
She squinted in the sunlight, toward the towering gray clouds building in the far west. The tiny plane flew in that direction.
“Should we be worried about those?”
He smiled. “Not until we have to fly into them.”
She sighed, readjusting her weight in the seat. The drone of the propeller filled the cabin, and the swaying of the plane made her a little sleepy. She fought the urge to close her eyes, so she studied the ground below. Great expanses of dust billowed upward, sweeping over the hills and valleys. As far as she could see, no twinkle of water caught the sunlight. The storm-swollen rivers of the east didn’t extend this far inland; instead the thirsty country choked on dirt and dust.
Still her eyes longed to close, and at last she let them, leaning her head against the seat.
She awoke suddenly as the plane jolted upward. “What’s going on?” she said, sitting up straight.
“Will you take a look at that?” Gordon said, pointing down. “Well, I’ll be.”
She followed his gaze down, spotting a vast stretch of verdant trees.
“What do you make of that?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I think we need to take a look. You game?”
“Sure.”
He brought the plane down near the edge of the trees, wheels touching down on a flat stretch of brown earth. Up ahead the world was green. “What about Death Riders?” she asked.
He opened the pilot door. “Death Riders don’t have nothing to do with this.” He gave a low whistle, then jogged toward the trees. “Come and look at this, will ya?”
She caught up to him. A sudden gust of wind brought with it a wonderfully sweet smell. It was the best air she’d ever breathed. She felt invigorated. She walked to the edge of the forest and placed her hands on either side of a tree. Its jade leaves rustled in the wind. She pressed her face against it.
“Where did all these trees come from?” Gordon asked, moving among them. “This beats all!”
She followed him, breathing deeply, listening to the sighs of the leaves.
