The Running Man

MINUS 026 AND COUNTING

The FASTEN SEAT BELTS/ NO SMOKING sign to the right of the trundled-up movie screen flashed on. The airplane began a slow, ponderous turn beneath them. Richards had gained all his knowledge of jets from the Free-Vee and from reading, much of it lurid adventure fiction, but this was only the second time he had ever been on one; and it made the shuttle from Harding to New York look like a bathtub toy. He found the huge motion beneath his feet disturbing.

“Amelia?”

She looked up slowly, her face ravaged and tear streaked. “Uh?” Her voice was rusty, dazed, mucus clogged. As if she had forgotten where she was.

“Come forward. We’re taking off.” He looked at McCone. “You go wherever you please, little man. You have the run of the ship. Just don’t bother the crew.”

McCone said nothing and sat down near the curtained divider between first and second class. Then, apparently thinking better of it, he pushed through into the next section and was gone.

Richards walked to the woman, using the high backs of the seats for support. “I’d like the window seat,” he said. “I’ve only flown once before.” He tried to smile but she only looked at him dumbly.

He slid in, and she sat next to him. She buckled his belt for him so his hand did not have to come out of his pocket.

“You’re like a bad dream,” she said. “One that never ends.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t-” she began, and he clamped a hand over her mouth and shook his head. He mouthed the word No! at her eyes.

The plane swung around with slow, infinite care, turbines screaming, and began to trundle toward the runways like an ungainly duck about to enter the water. It was so big that Richards felt as if the plane were standing still and the earth itself was moving.

Maybe it’s all illusion, he thought wildly. Maybe they’ve rigged 3-D projectors outside all the windows and-

He cut the thought off.

Now they had reached the end of the taxiway and the plane made a cumbersome right turn. They ran at right angles to the runways, passing Three and Two. At One they turned left and paused for a second.

Over the intercom Holloway said expressionlessly: “Taking off, Mr. Richards.”

The plane began to move slowly at first, at no more than air-car speed, and then there was a sudden terrifying burst of acceleration that made Richards want to scream aloud in terror.

He was driven back into the soft pile of his seat, and the landing lights outside suddenly began to leap by with dizzying speed. The scrub bushes and exhaust-stunted trees on the desolate, sunset-riven horizon roared toward them. The engines wound up and up and up. The floor began to vibrate again.

He suddenly realized that Amelia Williams was holding on to his shoulder with both hands, her face twisted into a miserable grimace of fear.

Dear God, she’s never flown either!

“We’re going,” he said. He found himself repeating it over and over and over, unable to stop. “We’re going. We’re going.”

“Where?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer. He was just beginning to know.