Varg showed her which abandoned skyscrapers she was most likely to get impaled on if the target dropped her over the ruins of Provo or the last surviving megaliths of Salt Lake City. Vibeke studied the air of the Bonneville wasteland, the toxic air of old industries and old wars, obsolete poisons that lingered on like noxious vapors over a tomb. They all surveyed the jump location and calculated the altitudes and atmospheric pressure. Violet practiced the jump online and in the air over the Arctic Sea. Varg and Vibeke ran simulation after simulation of physics and contingencies. Veikko had infiltrated Skunkworks, no small task, and snuck a peek at the upcoming test schedule and flight paths. V team had spent the last week preparing for the jump.
If she were truly unlucky, Vibeke could pilot the shuttle fast and accurately enough to catch her, and she would never hear the end of it.
She could slip into the target’s jets and be incinerated utterly. If she failed to connect with that target, the result could be bad, worse, or catastrophic: She could miss the target and fall to her death, splattered on the rock-hard salt flats below. All she had was a sticky suit, and all that could do was stick to things. She fell with no parachute, no personal descent thrusters, and no crash armor.
As she fell deeper and deeper into the thickening air, the wind began to punch, then stab. VIOLET JUMPED and hurtled toward the troposphere.
0 kommentar(er)
