Scav
Mostly Harmless
- Joined
- May 8, 2010
- Messages
- 1,002
- Reaction score
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- Points
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It's been way too long since I've afforded any attention here . . . but it does go to show that I should probably write more. 
I give you all:
SEP: Interlude
Eastbound, Pomona Freeway.
Hacienda Heights, Greater Los Angeles, Calif.
The cellphone rang again.
Jamie Cunningham reached with her free hand to silence it with a disgusted growl as she kept the wheel in front of her steady with her other hand. She should have completely silenced the ringer once she had got in the car in the first place, she told herself savagely. At least (things being as they were) it could have been worse. She would have to answer that. And shortly. She didn't need to wake her device up to check the log; she knew who was well aware of her arrival in Los Angeles, and he was probably becoming impatient.
Screw that, she thought. I'm driving a rental car in a large city with a printed map that says it should only take me two hours to get from the airport -- she frowned -- to the middle of East Bumfrick. You do the math.
She saw signs begin to materialize in the shoulderwork before her, and she knew once again it was time to weigh her options. Actually getting out of Los Angeles, from its very heart was a study of driving in conditions not unlike her home of Houston, though she was willing to admit she could have seen some of the more brash traffic infractions before they actually happened (whether they happened to her or she just saw them happen was another thing). Now the concrete and brick trees were beginning to be replaced by real trees and she knew she was getting closer to her destination.
A blue sign passed by. GAS on the next exit. Great. She made her decision.
She pulled her car into a parking stall next to the gas station building, ratcheted the emergency brake up and shifted into park. She left the engine running. She knew better, seeing the dash indicator trumpeting out a triumphant 116 degrees Fahrenheit. It was then that she knew she had the time to take her phone out of its cradle and finally deal with this annoyance.
The phone rang.
"Hello!"
"You wanted a status update, I take it?" Jamie said mildly.
"Well sure, as long as you're offering." She grimaced.
"I'm on the Pomona . . . well, at a gas station, actually. Hacienda Heights."
"Sheesh, Jamie. Got a long way to go before you hit Mordor, you know."
Jamie fell silent and rolled her eyes.
". . . I'm kidding."
"Well . . ." She said pensively, "if that follows, then I'm only sitting in Ithilien."
"I'd say closer to . . . ahh, forget it. Do you have a pen on you?"
"Yes."
"Good -- because I've got the last part of the directions that didn't make it in my email."
Jamie shook her head at that. She had, of course, cross-referenced the directions she did get before she ever so much as left her home city (and well before she requested the time off from her employer), and they matched with all of the usual mapping protocols. Her friend, former coworker, Mission Commander and cancer scare survivor Brian Adkinson had returned to his home in Los Angeles shortly after the events of SEP-010 roughly . . . (what was it?) two years ago. In that time, what the doctors had thought was leukemia was a bad case of radiation poisoning stemming from being at the wrong place at the wrong time, astronomically speaking.
It had ended his career as an astronaut, of course. But he was okay with that. Because, she thought wryly, it gave him ample time and opportunity to steer the fledgling engineering career of a young blonde-haired blue-eyed woman sitting in a rental car somewhere in the middle of a state she had honestly never thought she'd had the right to see up-close.
She knew her Midwesterner roots grew deeply . . . and the fact she was a transplant living in the great state of Texas held well to her own foresight and ability to keep stocked up on sunscreen. But even this (her eyes caught a full blast of the damned-near-blinding California sun as she looked to the heavens in exasperation once more) was brutal.
She fished a pen from her travel pack and set the map on her steering wheel.
"Go ahead, Brian."
"Alright," he said. "From here, whatever you do, stay on the 60 eastbound until you get to Interstate 10. Once you get to that point, you'll be passing through U.C. Riverside. Stay on the highway and you'll be okay; your next exit is in the city of Banning. The road to look out for is Hargrave Street, then left onto Lincoln."
"Highway ten, exit at Hargrave, then left onto Lincoln," She parroted.
"You've got it. Lincoln will curve to the right; take the left turn at Barbour and then turn left at the gate. Then find a parking spot."
Jamie blinked. "Lincoln curves to the right, then left onto Barbor, then left into the gate."
"That's right. Barbour - that's B-A-R-B-O-U-R."
"I knew that," She growled.
"No, you didn't," Adkinson replied cheerfully. "See you in about four hours!"
"It's not going to--" Jamie shot back . . . but her retort died behind her lips as she heard the 'Connection Lost' chime blaze into her ear.
City of Banning, California
One hour later.
Jamie Cunningham trolled her car slowly along the quiet residential street known as Hargrave Avenue. On the outset, her surroundings seemed just as stereotypical California as any other part of Los Angeles she'd seen so far -- she had by now lost the novelty of seeing so many palm trees, spruce and cedar floating around in one place.
Now, as she returned her direction to the road in front of her, she passed through a stop intersection and continued through. The thought in the back of her mind grew in intensity -- first, no more nagging than a strange impulse that something was wrong -- then as she passed the next intersection and read the streetsigns she knew something was wrong. The streetsigns were all wrong; they were going the wrong way.
Or . . . as she passed through the next intersection . . . the streets were named completely out of any kind of alphabetical order.
She swore tartly as she pulled over. At least there was very little traffic, and everyone in town seemed to be going northbound. She was the only one poking around southbound looking like they knew where they were going.
She geared the car into park and pulled out her phone. After a moments' tapping, she had a GPS fix and found Lincoln easily enough - it was almost three quarters of a mile behind her.
Sudden curiosity impaled her mind as she held the phone, and after a moment's thought-wrangling she zoomed the map out further and followed her route endpoint with her finger.
This road leads to another airport, She thought testily to herself. Why didn't you do this ten minutes ago?
Banning Municipal Airport
Jamie pulled the car into a parking spot and shut the engine off as her phone rang again. That had to have been Brian, she thought. As she checked her phone, she nodded to herself. You're starting to become just like my little sister, she thought to herself.
"Hello," She said mildly.
"I see you," Adkinson said. Jamie looked around -- all she could see was a pair of low, long hangar buildings, the airport gate to her south, the airfield to the north and the tail of a large aircraft sticking up from behind what looked like the airport's main FBO building.
". . . Where?" Jamie prompted.
"Come into the building. I've got something to show you."
Jamie stopped unbuckling her seat belt at that. As a matter of fact, all rational thought also jammed completely to a halt. "You dragged me over a thousand miles out of my way and made me take P.T.O. off for some show and tell?"
"It's worth it. Now come inside!"
"Oh, alright . . ."
She opened the car door and stepped outside.
"So . . . Brian," Jamie ventured. They had just spent the last half hour standing in the pilot's lounge sipping ice water. And they had caught up. First, on Brian's series of diagnoses and medical treatments, and ultimately getting better (though it had taken time and it really wasn't a very pleasant experience) to Jamie's abrupt departure from NASA following the near trashing of their flagship. She knew she hadn't heard the end of the whole incident that was on the books as SEP-010 (nor, she doubted she ever would). Of the incontrovertible facts that were there, that Brian was quick to remind her of, there were three:
1. You were a part of NASA. That should have been enough for anyone.
2. You were in space. Twice.
3. You stood on the moon.
The last two stuck in her craw like a rabid animal's jaws that would never let go. She had been in space . . . had loved the experience both times . . . and would never be there again. She knew there was no such thing as casual spaceflight, and she knew whenever anyone went up there was always the wonderful opportunity for Really Bad Things to happen Inconveniently Publicly. Her own mission as Pilot had confirmed that.
She broke away from his stern gaze and tracked her eyes across the airfield. Few people were flying today, she noted. She saw one Cessna Skyhawk on the field looking like it either had just been out (or was about to be taken out), followed by a parked Mooney and a Baron. She also saw a loose assortment of Cessna 150s, a Katana and what looked like a Cirrus on the far side of the field from the building.
"Are you up on your medical and licensing?" Adkinson asked abruptly.
Jamie snapped her jaw shut and she looked at him again.
"That's what this is all about?" She said.
"Mmm," he shook his head briskly. "Let me explain. I know you've still probably got all the paperwork in hand, but . . ." He shrugged. "Anyway. I haven't actually taken time off from my own life for several months, and truth be told, I really need this vacation. And you can't tell me you didn't need this vacation either. Now, without giving away too many secrets, how would you like to spend the afternoon in the air with me?"
Jamie smiled. "So this was your colossal plan, eh?"
Adkinson shrugged. "We'll take an hour out and back, and I'll show you Los Angeles like it was meant to be shown."
"That's right," Jamie wrinkled her nose. "I got an aisle seat on the flight out."
"Well," He prompted. "Come with me. I think I've got just the thing that's going to brighten your day."
"Hello . . . bright sunlight?" Jamie intoned, and Adkinson grinned as he crossed over to the door leading outside.
Okay, so it's not the Cessna, Jamie thought to herself as they walked past the Beechcraft Baron that was tied down closest to the building. At Adkinson's lead they walked right past the tail of the high-wing aircraft . . . leading to the squat, tail-sticking-straight-up Mooney tied down a wingspan's length from the Cessna.
Brian Adkinson turned abruptly to Jamie, and he flashed her his trademark grin as she looked first from the aircraft to him, and back.
"This is yours?" Jamie asked.
A Mooney was a reasonably high performance, light, single-engine aircraft, not likely to be in anyone's rental fleet. This one was privately owned. Things began to click in her brain as she went over what little she knew about this airplane: it was fast, had decent fuel economy (she distantly remembered hearing someone at some point in her life claim to miser about fourteen gallons per hour out of its engine at high cruise) and had great lines.
"It was my stepfather's," Adkinson said. "He willed it to me shortly before he passed. It was one of the few things in his life that was actually paid off. I, uh, was able to keep it. I keep it maintained, of course, and I fly it around when I can. Sorta . . ." He grinned abruptly. "Sorta keeps me from needing to partake in public mass transit on a macro scale when I have to travel for work."
A strange smile played across Jamie's face, and she nodded her understanding.
"So we're going to go up in the air . . . in that."
"That's the plan."
"I could do that," Jamie said.
"Of course you can," Adkinson replied with a smile. "Besides, my kneeboard's got all the airport and sectional charts for the region; I, uh, kinda had it ready for both of us to go up hours ago."
"You see," A suddenly stern look played across Jamie's face, "that's what happens when you give a Minnesota girl directions."
"You said it," Adkinson grinned. "So, are we getting in this thing or what?"
"Not without a pre-brief and a walkaround," Jamie blurted, and Adkinson grinned again.
"That's my Jamie," He said proudly to himself.
I give you all:
SEP: Interlude
Eastbound, Pomona Freeway.
Hacienda Heights, Greater Los Angeles, Calif.
The cellphone rang again.
Jamie Cunningham reached with her free hand to silence it with a disgusted growl as she kept the wheel in front of her steady with her other hand. She should have completely silenced the ringer once she had got in the car in the first place, she told herself savagely. At least (things being as they were) it could have been worse. She would have to answer that. And shortly. She didn't need to wake her device up to check the log; she knew who was well aware of her arrival in Los Angeles, and he was probably becoming impatient.
Screw that, she thought. I'm driving a rental car in a large city with a printed map that says it should only take me two hours to get from the airport -- she frowned -- to the middle of East Bumfrick. You do the math.
She saw signs begin to materialize in the shoulderwork before her, and she knew once again it was time to weigh her options. Actually getting out of Los Angeles, from its very heart was a study of driving in conditions not unlike her home of Houston, though she was willing to admit she could have seen some of the more brash traffic infractions before they actually happened (whether they happened to her or she just saw them happen was another thing). Now the concrete and brick trees were beginning to be replaced by real trees and she knew she was getting closer to her destination.
A blue sign passed by. GAS on the next exit. Great. She made her decision.
* * *
She pulled her car into a parking stall next to the gas station building, ratcheted the emergency brake up and shifted into park. She left the engine running. She knew better, seeing the dash indicator trumpeting out a triumphant 116 degrees Fahrenheit. It was then that she knew she had the time to take her phone out of its cradle and finally deal with this annoyance.
The phone rang.
"Hello!"
"You wanted a status update, I take it?" Jamie said mildly.
"Well sure, as long as you're offering." She grimaced.
"I'm on the Pomona . . . well, at a gas station, actually. Hacienda Heights."
"Sheesh, Jamie. Got a long way to go before you hit Mordor, you know."
Jamie fell silent and rolled her eyes.
". . . I'm kidding."
"Well . . ." She said pensively, "if that follows, then I'm only sitting in Ithilien."
"I'd say closer to . . . ahh, forget it. Do you have a pen on you?"
"Yes."
"Good -- because I've got the last part of the directions that didn't make it in my email."
Jamie shook her head at that. She had, of course, cross-referenced the directions she did get before she ever so much as left her home city (and well before she requested the time off from her employer), and they matched with all of the usual mapping protocols. Her friend, former coworker, Mission Commander and cancer scare survivor Brian Adkinson had returned to his home in Los Angeles shortly after the events of SEP-010 roughly . . . (what was it?) two years ago. In that time, what the doctors had thought was leukemia was a bad case of radiation poisoning stemming from being at the wrong place at the wrong time, astronomically speaking.
It had ended his career as an astronaut, of course. But he was okay with that. Because, she thought wryly, it gave him ample time and opportunity to steer the fledgling engineering career of a young blonde-haired blue-eyed woman sitting in a rental car somewhere in the middle of a state she had honestly never thought she'd had the right to see up-close.
She knew her Midwesterner roots grew deeply . . . and the fact she was a transplant living in the great state of Texas held well to her own foresight and ability to keep stocked up on sunscreen. But even this (her eyes caught a full blast of the damned-near-blinding California sun as she looked to the heavens in exasperation once more) was brutal.
She fished a pen from her travel pack and set the map on her steering wheel.
"Go ahead, Brian."
"Alright," he said. "From here, whatever you do, stay on the 60 eastbound until you get to Interstate 10. Once you get to that point, you'll be passing through U.C. Riverside. Stay on the highway and you'll be okay; your next exit is in the city of Banning. The road to look out for is Hargrave Street, then left onto Lincoln."
"Highway ten, exit at Hargrave, then left onto Lincoln," She parroted.
"You've got it. Lincoln will curve to the right; take the left turn at Barbour and then turn left at the gate. Then find a parking spot."
Jamie blinked. "Lincoln curves to the right, then left onto Barbor, then left into the gate."
"That's right. Barbour - that's B-A-R-B-O-U-R."
"I knew that," She growled.
"No, you didn't," Adkinson replied cheerfully. "See you in about four hours!"
"It's not going to--" Jamie shot back . . . but her retort died behind her lips as she heard the 'Connection Lost' chime blaze into her ear.
* * *
City of Banning, California
One hour later.
Jamie Cunningham trolled her car slowly along the quiet residential street known as Hargrave Avenue. On the outset, her surroundings seemed just as stereotypical California as any other part of Los Angeles she'd seen so far -- she had by now lost the novelty of seeing so many palm trees, spruce and cedar floating around in one place.
Now, as she returned her direction to the road in front of her, she passed through a stop intersection and continued through. The thought in the back of her mind grew in intensity -- first, no more nagging than a strange impulse that something was wrong -- then as she passed the next intersection and read the streetsigns she knew something was wrong. The streetsigns were all wrong; they were going the wrong way.
Or . . . as she passed through the next intersection . . . the streets were named completely out of any kind of alphabetical order.
She swore tartly as she pulled over. At least there was very little traffic, and everyone in town seemed to be going northbound. She was the only one poking around southbound looking like they knew where they were going.
She geared the car into park and pulled out her phone. After a moments' tapping, she had a GPS fix and found Lincoln easily enough - it was almost three quarters of a mile behind her.
Sudden curiosity impaled her mind as she held the phone, and after a moment's thought-wrangling she zoomed the map out further and followed her route endpoint with her finger.
This road leads to another airport, She thought testily to herself. Why didn't you do this ten minutes ago?
* * *
Banning Municipal Airport
Jamie pulled the car into a parking spot and shut the engine off as her phone rang again. That had to have been Brian, she thought. As she checked her phone, she nodded to herself. You're starting to become just like my little sister, she thought to herself.
"Hello," She said mildly.
"I see you," Adkinson said. Jamie looked around -- all she could see was a pair of low, long hangar buildings, the airport gate to her south, the airfield to the north and the tail of a large aircraft sticking up from behind what looked like the airport's main FBO building.
". . . Where?" Jamie prompted.
"Come into the building. I've got something to show you."
Jamie stopped unbuckling her seat belt at that. As a matter of fact, all rational thought also jammed completely to a halt. "You dragged me over a thousand miles out of my way and made me take P.T.O. off for some show and tell?"
"It's worth it. Now come inside!"
"Oh, alright . . ."
She opened the car door and stepped outside.
* * *
"So . . . Brian," Jamie ventured. They had just spent the last half hour standing in the pilot's lounge sipping ice water. And they had caught up. First, on Brian's series of diagnoses and medical treatments, and ultimately getting better (though it had taken time and it really wasn't a very pleasant experience) to Jamie's abrupt departure from NASA following the near trashing of their flagship. She knew she hadn't heard the end of the whole incident that was on the books as SEP-010 (nor, she doubted she ever would). Of the incontrovertible facts that were there, that Brian was quick to remind her of, there were three:
1. You were a part of NASA. That should have been enough for anyone.
2. You were in space. Twice.
3. You stood on the moon.
The last two stuck in her craw like a rabid animal's jaws that would never let go. She had been in space . . . had loved the experience both times . . . and would never be there again. She knew there was no such thing as casual spaceflight, and she knew whenever anyone went up there was always the wonderful opportunity for Really Bad Things to happen Inconveniently Publicly. Her own mission as Pilot had confirmed that.
She broke away from his stern gaze and tracked her eyes across the airfield. Few people were flying today, she noted. She saw one Cessna Skyhawk on the field looking like it either had just been out (or was about to be taken out), followed by a parked Mooney and a Baron. She also saw a loose assortment of Cessna 150s, a Katana and what looked like a Cirrus on the far side of the field from the building.
"Are you up on your medical and licensing?" Adkinson asked abruptly.
Jamie snapped her jaw shut and she looked at him again.
"That's what this is all about?" She said.
"Mmm," he shook his head briskly. "Let me explain. I know you've still probably got all the paperwork in hand, but . . ." He shrugged. "Anyway. I haven't actually taken time off from my own life for several months, and truth be told, I really need this vacation. And you can't tell me you didn't need this vacation either. Now, without giving away too many secrets, how would you like to spend the afternoon in the air with me?"
Jamie smiled. "So this was your colossal plan, eh?"
Adkinson shrugged. "We'll take an hour out and back, and I'll show you Los Angeles like it was meant to be shown."
"That's right," Jamie wrinkled her nose. "I got an aisle seat on the flight out."
"Well," He prompted. "Come with me. I think I've got just the thing that's going to brighten your day."
"Hello . . . bright sunlight?" Jamie intoned, and Adkinson grinned as he crossed over to the door leading outside.
* * *
Okay, so it's not the Cessna, Jamie thought to herself as they walked past the Beechcraft Baron that was tied down closest to the building. At Adkinson's lead they walked right past the tail of the high-wing aircraft . . . leading to the squat, tail-sticking-straight-up Mooney tied down a wingspan's length from the Cessna.
Brian Adkinson turned abruptly to Jamie, and he flashed her his trademark grin as she looked first from the aircraft to him, and back.
"This is yours?" Jamie asked.
A Mooney was a reasonably high performance, light, single-engine aircraft, not likely to be in anyone's rental fleet. This one was privately owned. Things began to click in her brain as she went over what little she knew about this airplane: it was fast, had decent fuel economy (she distantly remembered hearing someone at some point in her life claim to miser about fourteen gallons per hour out of its engine at high cruise) and had great lines.
"It was my stepfather's," Adkinson said. "He willed it to me shortly before he passed. It was one of the few things in his life that was actually paid off. I, uh, was able to keep it. I keep it maintained, of course, and I fly it around when I can. Sorta . . ." He grinned abruptly. "Sorta keeps me from needing to partake in public mass transit on a macro scale when I have to travel for work."
A strange smile played across Jamie's face, and she nodded her understanding.
"So we're going to go up in the air . . . in that."
"That's the plan."
"I could do that," Jamie said.
"Of course you can," Adkinson replied with a smile. "Besides, my kneeboard's got all the airport and sectional charts for the region; I, uh, kinda had it ready for both of us to go up hours ago."
"You see," A suddenly stern look played across Jamie's face, "that's what happens when you give a Minnesota girl directions."
"You said it," Adkinson grinned. "So, are we getting in this thing or what?"
"Not without a pre-brief and a walkaround," Jamie blurted, and Adkinson grinned again.
"That's my Jamie," He said proudly to himself.
* * *
