Chapter 2 #2
It had been a fun lark back home on Earth the night she’d done it but now, in this shuttle high above the planet, Helaine regretted ever signing up for IDA.
“It was a dare. My friends dared me to go onto the IDA app and try to meet someone. I was a little tipsy…well, okay I was drunk if you must know and I checked off all the boxes that weren’t me.
I thought no one would be interested in the real me and maybe I’d meet a few interesting guys.
Like in the books I read.” She wiped away a tear, embarrassed beyond belief to be making this confession.
“I didn’t get any matches, or rather no one I’d care to date, and frankly I forgot all about it until I got the notice from IDA I’d been picked by them to come here and then it was too late to change my details.
” She hid her face in her hands, tears falling rapidly now.
“I’m sorry to ruin your week,” she said.
There was a moment of silence broken by the AI’s flat voice mentioning the time left before the door would open.
“I got this,” she heard Latham assure the crewperson.
She felt his hands on her shoulders and opened her eyes to find him kneeling in front of her, face full of concern, not anger or disgust. “Hey, I’m not here to judge you for wanting a taste of adventure and then getting more than you bargained for.
But don’t give up so easily. Where’s the fighter who got our accommodations changed?
There’s a pretty cove and a bungalow waiting for us down there and all you have to do is step out of the flyer and drift to the ground like a leaf. ”
Helaine shook her head. “I can’t. I’m deathly afraid of heights.”
Latham took a deep breath. “We’re a team,” he said. “Do you trust me to get you to the surface safely? You can keep your eyes closed the whole time if you want,” he added in a cajoling tone.
Desperate to find a way out of the situation she asked, “How exactly would we do that?”
He wiped her tears away with his thumb. “We buddy jump. I’ll connect our two harnesses and I’ll hold you the entire time. I’ve done this before, including tandem jumping and never hit the ground yet.” He grinned.
She found herself offering him a tentative smile. She didn’t want to end their date like this. Latham intrigued her, especially now he wasn’t uptight and tense. “You swear it’ll be safe?”
He rose to his feet and pointed at the harnesses. “We’ve got two rigs, each rated for more weight than the two of us combined. Even if one failed—which they never do let me hasten to add—we’ll descend safely.” Holding out his hand to her, he said, “Trust me.”
Helaine took a deep breath and then another. She rose from her seat and he helped her get her backpack over her shoulders before he began fastening the harness onto her body. “What if I pass out?” she asked as he checked the buckles.
“Then I’ll get to hold you in my arms till we’re down.” He winked.
“Door opening,” the AI said.
The whole side panel slid aside and wind rushed into the cabin. Helaine was battered by the gusts and retreated toward her seat but Latham had her hand in a tight grip, tugging her toward the opening.
“Guests must depart promptly,” the AI said. “Your guide is waiting at the landing site. Schedules must be kept.”
“Better get going, buddy,” the crewperson said.
Latham took her in his arms, facing away from him and basically lifted her bodily off the deck. He took two giant steps and they fell into the empty air, descending rapidly.
Helaine screamed and tried to turn toward his body but Latham held her firmly.
He allowed the drop to be fairly rapid at first and then worked the controls to slow them until they were descending more like the leaves he’d spoken of.
The view was astonishing, the ocean sparkling off to their left and tree covered mountains rising to the right. .
“You could open your eyes now,” he said in Helaine’s ear. “You don’t want to miss the beautiful bird’s eye view.”
He guessed she took his advice after a brief hesitation, judging by the way she gasped and swiveled her head as if to see everything beneath them.
The landing zone was clearly marked with bright lights and he angled them to make a perfect descent, all but coming to a stop on the antigrav and then going the last two feet like an old fashioned elevator arriving at the designated floor.
He unfastened the harnesses from each other and immediately caught Helaine as she fell to her knees in the grass. “Are you all right?”
With his help she rose on shaky legs and threw her arms in the air. “That was wonderful! Lords of Space, I had no idea.” She threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug. “Thank you for talking me into taking the risk.”
Really the jump had been risk free, especially compared to ones he’d made in combat with blaster fire and killer drones all around, descending at a great rate of speed, but he’d never been rewarded with an enthusiastic hug from a beautiful woman before either so he shut up and enjoyed the moment.
Helaine let him go, to his regret and struggled to get the harness off. A woman in an IDA Resort Planet uniform came out of a small hut off to the side and helped her while Latham took care of his own rig.
“I’m glad that’s over with though,” Helaine said, sitting cross legged and watching him repack his backpack. “Hey, are you taking those with you?”
“Sure, why not?” He’d detached the antigrav generator from his harness and hers and was making room for them with his own gear. “They might come in handy. I’ll turn them in once this adventure is over.”
“Won’t your pack be too heavy?” she asked.
“This is nothing compared to what we carry when we’re deployed in a combat zone,” he said truthfully. Or the weight of an injured comrade, who couldn’t be left behind…but he shoved the bitter memory aside. It had no place here on this bright afternoon in a tropical paradise with Helaine.
“When you’re ready, we can hike,” the IDA employee said.
“Oh, finally hiking,” Helaine chuckled. “I’m ready when you are.”
As they set out into the jungle on a well marked path, Latham worried about how well she’d cope with the next obstacle in their path to reaching the cove.
Helaine was sweet, kind hearted person, gorgeous to look at, but obviously impulsive and heedless of consequences.
He was exactly the opposite. Make a plan, revise the plan, research the plan, dry run the plan, revise the plan, dry run the revision, execute the plan.
No room for errors or problems you should have identified and failed to see.
Of course unexpected things happened—no mission ever ran exactly to the planned agenda—but you had to try to mitigate the issues you could be aware of.
She had obviously only paid attention to the beautiful, isolated cove and ignored the details of how guests arrived there.
As they hiked behind the guide, Helaine doing pretty well for a novice, he couldn’t find any regret or guilt in his heart for having forced her out of the shuttle, or for subjecting her to what lay ahead.
He’d get her through it and eventually they would arrive at the pretty bungalow and virtually private beach and she could relax.
He didn’t think Mindy in Admin would have been so bright and friendly if they came back the same day, requesting to be placed back in the hotel because Helaine had falsified her entire preference sheet.
IDA had rules and clauses in their Terms of Service which Helaine had probably also not read, about people who lied on their profiles.
Not to mention the Ardannan authorities would be upset to learn one of their slots had been wasted on a broken match.
He didn’t feel like it was broken though. Maybe the IDA algorithm had matched them in error, based on her foolish lies, or maybe it had seen through that and matched them because they were such complete opposites but he liked Helaine. He found he didn’t mind the chaos which came in her wake.
The path they were on was pretty smooth and level but it ended abruptly at the lip of a gorge.
Helaine stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the vast distance to the other side.
“All right,” she said, turning to Latham.
“I get it. This trip is just all kinds of effing fun. Where’s the damn bridge? ”
“Bridge?” he asked, delaying the inevitable upset when she learned the truth about the next challenge.
“Yeah, you know, the rickety old wooden bridge with no handrails swaying in the wind? Isn’t there always one in these locations?” She made big gestures with her hands. “You’ll have to carry me across it, I’m warning you.”
“There’s no bridge, ma’am,” the guide said with a puzzled frown. “You get across on the zipline.” She pointed at a wooden tower ahead.
Briefly Helaine was speechless, her mouth open in a gasp. “Zipline?” she screeched. “Oh no way, not happening, I’m going back to the hotel.”
“Give us a moment,” Latham said to the guide with a smile as he drew a fuming Helaine aside.
“Sweetheart, it’ll be fine. You already handled the antigrav jump today, now you can do the zipline.
All you have to do is strap yourself into the harness and float across the gorge to the other side.
Then we have a little more walking and we’ll be there.
No other aerial hazards, I promise.” He was reserving the information that there was a cliff to descend to reach the cove itself.
“You know we can’t go back to the hotel.
Even if we hiked back to the landing area, there’s no shuttle or flyer waiting.
I honestly don’t know if IDA would even send one out since they were doing us a favor with this alternate trip. ”
She stood with her head bowed, breathing hard. He grew worried when she stayed silent and gently tipped her face up with his finger under her chin. “What?”
“I know I should be okay with this after surviving the jump but what if the line breaks? What if I fall into the gorge and die?”
Latham looked over her head at the guide. “How many people have been on this thing since it was built?”
“Dozens,” she said. “The cove is secluded and small so we don’t get large numbers of guests but the line’s never broken and no one has ever fallen.
We conduct safety tests on a regular basis.
It was constructed to seem rustic but it’s built of the most up to date materials.
Say, can we hurry this up a bit? I still gotta hike back to where I met you and get myself home to my own base. ”
“Do you have a groundcar?” Helaine asked too eagerly.
“Single person hover scooter,” the guide replied. “Your friend is right—you haven’t got any choices. The only pickup point for guests is at the cove and the boat comes in four days.”
“Helaine, sweetheart, you’re a special person to me,” Latham said, putting his genuine feelings into the remark.
“But trust me, you’re not the one special snowflake in the Sectors for whom the zipline is going to break, flinging you to your dramatic death while the guide and I watch in horror.
It’s going to be a quick ride across the gorge, pretty vistas to see if you choose to keep your eyes open and check out the view and then you’ll be safe on solid ground over there. ”
“Are you implying I have an exaggerated sense of my own importance and likelihood of suffering a climactic accident?” she asked, raising one eyebrow and putting her fists on her hips.
Latham eyed her cautiously, sensing he’d blundered into a trap. “I meant no offense…but, yes.”
Her laughter was a relief to him. “Duly noted. Will you go first?”
He studied her face, trying to decide if she thought she could talk the guide into taking her back if he was gone.
Jutting her chin and getting an even more annoyed expression on her face, she said, “I’m not trying to pull a fast one on you, I promise. I give you my word I’ll come across on the zipline once I’ve seen you do it and you’re waiting to catch me.”
He decided to trust her so he gave her a quick hug and headed for the tower. “Let’s get this done,” he said to the guide.
Donning the harness and the bright yellow safety helmet only took a few minutes while the guide ran through a standard set of instructions which he didn’t need but didn’t interrupt either.
While Helaine watched white-faced, arms wrapped around herself, he stepped off the edge of the platform and zoomed out over the gorge.
It was a breathtaking view of a river far below.
Ziplines weren’t his favorite mode of travel but he didn’t mind them either.
He stripped off the helmet and the harness as soon as he landed, frowning a bit over the lack of another staff person to help as there ideally should have been and sent them back across in a basket on the other zipline.
Then he stood and waited, hoping Helaine would keep her word.