Timecaster

THIRTEEN

The drop was vertical, the metal duct wide enough so my shoulders barely grazed the sides as I picked up speed. Held rigid by the Taser and wracked with pain, I did a quick calculation in my brain.

Vicki conned me into going skydiving once. Not too many things scare me, but I’m not a huge fan of heights, and the control freak in me dislikes heliplane rides because I’m not the one driving. Jumping out of a heliplane seemed like a really bad idea, but being a big macho peace officer and a new groom who wanted to impress his bride, I did it. Vicki jumped first, which was perfect, because she didn’t see any of the three times I vomited.

Prior to jumping, I did a fair amount of research on skydiving and the speed human beings fall. In open air, terminal velocity-when the force of gravity on a person is equal to wind resistance-takes about fifteen seconds to top out, at around 125 mph.

There was no air resistance in the chute. And the vertical position I was in meant I’d be accelerating faster, and hit a higher speed.

On the fiftieth floor, roughly six hundred and twenty-five feet high, I’d probably have a terminal velocity of thirty feet per second.

Which meant I had twenty seconds, maybe less, before hitting ground zero. And even if I fell onto a stack of air mattresses, at my speed it would be the same as hitting concrete.

The chute was dark, except for the zigzag of light that continued to drill into my chest as I plummeted. Just as I wondered what the transmission range of Taser bullets was, the electricity shut off, plunging me into complete darkness but allowing my muscles to move again.

My arms and legs felt heavy-the jolt had filled my bloodstream with lactic acid. I spread out my feet, trying to get a grip on the sides of the chute. No good. The metal had been treated with polymer-slick, so recyclables wouldn’t stick. Polymer-slick was a carbon-based surfacer made with buckyballs. I might as well be trying to grip crude oil.

With ten seconds wasted and ten left to live, I slapped at my utility belt, seeking my nanotube reel Nine seconds…

My right hand fumbled for my gun, so I had to release the reel catch with my left Eight seconds…

I hit the catch and pulled the blank, my plummeting body brushing against the side of the chute, burning all the skin off my knuckles Seven seconds…

The pain in my hand brought instant tears, but I managed to hold on to the blank, while I willed my right hand to somehow pull the Glock from my holster Six seconds…

I brought the Glock around, manually inserting the blank into the chamber backward, through the barrel Five seconds…

I fired at waist level, straight into the side of the chute, the blank embedding itself in the metal and forming a molecular bond Four seconds…

The nanotube line whirred out of the reel, only a few millimeters thick but stronger than steel, and I kept my hands away so it didn’t slice them off Three seconds…

The autosensor in the reel adjusted tension, my belt digging into my gut like I’d been hit by a bus, slowing me down, but not fast enough Two seconds…

The chute ended, and I fell into open air, the line on my belt tugging me so I went from vertical to horizontal One second…

Light blurred by, and I gasped and choked on the strong reek of rotting garbage just as my back slapped into the ground with a wet splat.

Was the splatting sound my skin splitting open and spraying out blood? Was it my head exploding like a pumpkin?

I stared up at the chute, twenty feet above my head, and watched an orange peel flutter out and hit me in the chest while I waited for pain and death to overtake me.

But neither did.

I did a body inventory. Left leg worked. Right leg worked. Left arm worked, but hurt. Ditto the right arm. Head and neck okay. Shoulders and back seemed fine.

I snorted, amazed I had not only survived, but did so intact.

So what made that splatting…?

Then the ground seemed to melt beneath me, and I realized I wasn’t on the ground at all. I was on a huge vat of decaying plant matter. The putrescent sludge swallowed me up like a flesh-eating blob, and I took one more gulp of air before sinking into the muck.