Winston Chase and the Theta Factor by Bodhi St John

Author:Bodhi St John [John, Bodhi St]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-01T07:00:00+00:00

22

Destination Revelation

Bledsoe felt his body tense with each of the three narrow steps up from the airport tarmac and into the Cessna, a sleek white beast with what seemed to be an improbably long, almost cartoonish snout. Bledsoe loathed cartoons. The early afternoon breeze chilled the sweat on the back of his neck. His left arm ached from how tightly he held his ballistic nylon messenger bag against his body.

It’s only another plane, he thought as he stepped into the cabin. Just a plane. On a short trip. Only ninety-seven miles. The plane makes a two-hour-plus drive into thirty-five minutes. Finding that artifact is worth it.

To calm himself, he mentally ticked off the plane’s key characteristics he’d studied on the drive over.

Model 510, aluminum alloy construction. Length of forty feet and seven inches. Average cruising speed of three hundred ninety miles per hour. Requires a minimum landing distance of seven hundred twenty-nine meters. Seats four or five. Only one pilot required.

As he glanced over the cabin, taking in the gray leather seats, beige carpeting, and tinted oval windows, Bledsoe was struck by the sight of a glossy, open-mouthed skull staring balefully at him from between the back seats. It took his brain a moment to adjust and realize he was looking at a pair of cupholders in their lacquered wooden panel centered between the chairs, which resembled black eye sockets in the dim interior.

Get it together. Focus on the objective.

The pilot, a gray-haired man with sunglasses and a Los Angeles Dodgers cap, appeared from the cockpit behind Bledsoe. “Afternoon, sir. We’re ready to take off when you are.”

Bledsoe made a fluttering wave with one hand, vaguely indicating that they should get going. It was as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

“Right,” said the pilot. “If you’ll make yourself comfortable, we’ll be on our way.”

He returned to the cockpit and took his seat on the left before clamping on his headset. Not even a curtain divided the cockpit from the main cabin. Hopefully, the man wouldn’t be chatty.

Bledsoe found himself in a dilemma. He couldn’t shake his superstitious dread of sitting next to the skeletal cupholder in the back row, but neither did he want to sit in the front row, which would not only leave him facing backward but also staring at the skull. Finally, he decided to tuck his suit jacket’s collar under the center armrest, never mind the creases, and drape the body and arms over the cupholders. This would also let him keep an eye on the pilot.

Once settled in, with three-point seatbelt firmly latched, Bledsoe extended a short table from a slot in the cabin’s side paneling. He withdrew the tablet from his bag and brought up the Claude recordings once again. Such a jumble of nonsense. Plane. Clouds. Propeller. That lattice of intersecting lines. Yet somewhere in here might be the image he needed to get the jump on young Winston and claim the Alpha Machine for himself.

The Cessna gave a slight lurch as the plane’s brakes released and the pilot started them backward.

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