That might be the best move.Where better to hide than with a bunch of other pilots and planes—vintage planes, too.
He hesitated.The men in black might look there, too, but what would have sent them searching in this direction?And this year?They had plenty of both to choose from.And there were lots of other Pitts to track down—if they’d somehow realized that he and Rita were moving through time.
His brain started to hurt again.
At first he didn’t notice the horizon seeming to melt in front of him.He might not have realized it at all, but from the center of it, he saw daylight.Not the sun setting, but the middle of the day, surrounded by twilight.
He tried to veer away from it, but they were in it as if he hadn’t moved at all.
The bright sunlight, such a change from the dusk, almost blinded him.Now he could see more of the wavering, but he couldn’t tell if something had changed.He felt a bump, as if they hit some turbulence and then they were in the clear again.
The radio traffic was gone and he had no idea when or where they were.Somehow he’d lost his bearings while passing through the—whatever it was.
Ty had shown him a movie where someone had set off fireworks to show the main character the way home.
He didn’t think that was going to happen—
Something shot past them, making the Pitts rock from side to side.The object hit the ground in front of them and exploded.
Someone was shooting at them.
Someone?
His mother would have washed his mouth out with soap for the word he used as he moved the stick, putting the Pitts into a 360-degree roll.
Rita jerked awake feeling disoriented and half blinded by the bright sun.She rubbed her face.Hadn’t it been getting dark?She couldn’t have slept through the night.They’d have had to get fuel…
Something shot past the plane, making it rock violently, then exploded right in front of her.
Someone was shooting at them.
The plane—no, Con turned them into a move that made the ground and sky take turns appearing.Her stomach rose up into her throat, but if she was going to throw up, it wasn’t able to get out against the force of the plane’s arc through the air.
She didn’t have time to feel terror.As they spun again in a new direction, she caught sight of a dark object.
A helicopter.
They’d had rudimentary helicopters post-war, but she didn’t think there were ones that could shoot missiles.
The horizon spun dizzily around her again.She closed her eyes.
It didn’t help.
Drawing from a deep memory, she focused on one spot in front of her, focused hard on that one spot.She still felt nauseated but her stomach wasn’t so far up her throat.
“What the,” John bit off the word as the chopper rocked from currents he couldn’t see and data the instruments weren’t registering.
He glanced at the geek sitting next to him.He was a bit green about the gills and not just because of the light from his tablet screen.
“What’s going on?”John tried not to shout.Apparently that made it hard for the geeks to concentrate.
The geek’s hands hovered over his tablet and he gave John a look that couldn’t decide whether to be panicked or fascinated.
“I…” he stopped and started working on the tablet.“Fascinating,” he murmured.
John looked at the empty sky where the bi-plane had been.Not the word he’d have used.
The engines were loud enough John couldn’t build a menacing silence but possibly the geek sensed it.He looked up and paled.
