King Acid

6- FOLLOW THE YELLOWCAKE ROAD

Skyler didn't smoke the whole cigar. He decided to rest his head on the couch while he let it die in the ashtray. As it agonized, he regaled himself by watching the graceful wisps that snaked and signed up the air long enough for them to roll out their narcotic effect on his focus. He believed he saw with increasing intermittence images of Rorschach as his mind drifted off, lurking in the mist like a wraith in a blizzard. He wondered if smoke inspired Rorschach himself, or if Rorschach had inspired smoke. That was it for his train of thought, along with his wakefulness.

And then he opened his eyes. The former cigar was nothing more than a corpse of ashes. From the cockpit, he could hear the muffled voices of Lockhart, cursing their fate, and Seiber, swearing in closed German. He tried childishly closing his eyes and falling asleep again to tune them out, but a compact turbulence tore him from his slumber.

And then he opened his eyes. He stood idly from the chair and walked to the door. When he put his hand on the knob, it twisted and opened. Over the threshold and visibly worked up was Seiber, something outright new to his eyes.

"Your brother's gonna kill me."

"What's going on?"

"We're being tailed."

"By who?"

"We don't know yet. We just know it's a plane. We didn't expect there'd be birds with long-range radar here. At the moment, it doesn't seem like they want to bring us down."

"How do you know that?"

"If they wanted to, they would have already done it."

Skyler looked at the ceiling and dropped a sigh of resignation, then looked back at Seiber.

"What's the plan now?"

"Wait for them to contact us. They'll tell us to stop to make a false inspection and take you away."

"So, what do I do?"

"All I can think of is that you parachute off the plane while we land and sidetrack them," Seiber answered with natural folly. The lack of playful wrinkles around his lips confirmed to Skyler that the proposal was nothing but earnest.

"That's the plan?"

"Didn't say it's a good one. Besides, you were into skydiving for a while, right?"

A sudden mind flash of an endless stream of gales from the San Diego sky towards a refurbished civilian base thudded against Skyler's face so hard that his wound hurt.

"But those were tandem jumps with an instructor. I've never parachuted by myself!"

"That's good enough. Solo jump's just like riding a bike..." Seiber scratched the back of his neck. "Well, if you didn't fall the first time. OK, never mind. Listen, I have to stay here with Cedric to hide everything illegal and in case of more setbacks."

Skyler sighed for the second time, unable to comprehend on how on Earth he had gone from the most peaceful sleep to the most agonizing strain in a matter of seconds. He guessed he should have gotten used to living under those contrasts the moment he had boarded the plane.

"And how are we gonna do it?"

"Cedric will fly us under the other plane on the pretext of landing. That's when you jump. The position and the plane itself will provide a screen so you won't get made out on your way down. And it's dark already, so it'll be hard for them to spot you."

"It's night already? Where are we?"

"Africa, but that's not important now. I'll give you a flashlight to guide you and a radio to keep on at all times. When we're done, I'll make contact to tell you to come back to the plane."