Breakers

  "Well, kid," Otto said, gazing at the blue and yellow cloth, "I'm damn sure glad my friends are too dead to witness this sorry business."

  Walt laughed. He couldn't help it. He'd been laughing since he thought of it: their superweapon, a wad of circus-colored nylon. A basket that had once carried wealthy lovers in the sunrise above the California coast would instead lift as many of the highest-yield, lowest-metal explosives Otto could rig up. It was perhaps the dumbest idea Walt could have thought of, and back in the Thai restaurant where they'd waited out the enemy jets, Otto had said as much.

  "You think they don't have radar? Only chance we got is if they're laughing too hard to shoot straight."

  "Balloons don't always show up on radar. Depends on the equipment. The weather."

  "These are an advanced species that smashed us like a wine glass at a Jew's wedding."

  "Wrong. It doesn't have to be a wine glass."

  Otto scowled, hunched over the booth's table. "Why don't we steal a fighter jet instead? Crash it into the carrier's bridge?"

  "Because," Walt said, stepping to the boards across the windows, "I don't know how to fly a jet."

  "You do a balloon?"

  "My parents owned them. We take it up at night, up high, then drift down, as slow as we can. They hunt by movement. Maybe their sensors do too."

  "And if they do see us, what then? You gonna bail out the side?" Otto shook his shaggy head. "Falling from a mile up, the ocean's like concrete. The sharks will spread what's left of you on their toast."

  "Probably. So the fuck what?"

  Otto spread his thick, callused hands. "I'm just getting this out here so I can scream I told you so on the way down."

  That had been that. On the spot, Walt had checked the restaurant's voluminous yellow pages—if this thing worked, they'd have to establish Phone Book Day—and found a purveyor of hot air balloon rides a ways up the coast. He'd returned to the tunnels for supplies and struck out the next night while Otto stayed behind to build more things that went boom (he claimed he'd manufactured his own C-4 when his platoon ran out in Vietnam) and try to scout out the structure of the monstrous ship hanging over the bay.

  It took two days to find the balloonery. Two more to make sure all the equipment was available and working and then get back to Otto. Another three to load up their wagons—literally; they'd picked up little red wagons in a Toys "R" Us, thinking they'd be easier to move than wheelbarrows and more stable than shopping carts—and roll up the coast to the hills. They spent one last day preparing, testing and setting up the gear, going over Otto's dozens of sketches of the gigantic ship's external geography and hypothetical interiors. That evening, with the balloon spread on the grass, its deflated nylon envelope tethered to the ground, Walt waited for the night to deepen.

  He kept one eye on the sky, waiting for the meteoric streak of the ICBM that would spell the final death of the city. Otto said Lompoc was some 150 miles upstate, the air force base just past that. It had been more than a week since the others had left. Even if Raymond and company stayed on foot, they could be there by now, making the final calibrations before turning the key.

  "Will you quit the skygazing?" Otto groused. "You'll get your chance to kill yourself soon enough. No way they figure out how to get a missile off the pad, let alone aim the damn thing."

  "About as likely as taking down a mothership with a hot air balloon."

  "You're darker than a snake's asshole, son."

  A mist had rolled in with the night, blocking out the stars. He would have liked to see them one last time. The clouds had their silver lining, though. He wouldn't have to rig up anything to conceal the burner's flame.

  "I'm going to miss it," he said.

  "Shit."

  "This isn't a 'wax nostalgic because I'm about to die' thing. I didn't get enough time. I was afraid for so long."

  "Yeah, well, life ain't fair, is it."

  "Obviously not."

  Otto squinted up at the clouds. "You had another eighty years to live, what would you do?"

  "I would walk around," Walt said. "Catch fish. Build fires. Go swimming. Sail. Watch stars. Fry mushrooms. Read books and throw them away."

  "Simple life, huh? What if you break your leg fifty miles outside Vancouver? Or you get to be sixty and your knees start barking any time you walk further than the corner? What do you do then?"

  "Die."

  Otto grinned. "Me, I was looking forward to a couple decades of couch-side NFL Sundays and cold Millers."

  "If you can build bombs, you can brew your own beer." Above, silent black clouds drifted inland, bound for mountains and rivers and deserts. "I wouldn't wait to do what I want to do or for things that are wrong to get better on their own. You keep moving forward. Every day, you walk on."

  Otto nodded. Walt watched the clouds. Finally, it was time.

  He lugged out the fan—gas-powered, fortunately—and started it up, packing cold air through the balloon's mouth. The envelope rippled, slowly swelling. Otto leaned into the bulging nylon, smoothing it against the light wind. After ten minutes, the envelope was plump, approaching round. Walt slid on his gloves and flipped on the burner with an airy whump. Flames shot for the balloon's open mouth. Heat reached Walt's face. The envelope tautened, began to bob from the ground. Finally, it rose, righting the wicker basket with it, tugging its tethers.

  He helped Otto load the basket with blanket-wrapped blocks of what the old man had assured him was C-4. He frowned at the burner. Well, whatever. Waking up in the morning was a risk, too. Otto handed him a pack of laser pistols and bottled water and rope and thick plastic hooks. Walt waved him in. The old man climbed into the basket with knees bent, hands outstretched like he might fall overboard at the slightest sway. Walt smiled and cast off the lines.

  He opened the burner. The basket lifted, rocking faintly. Otto hunkered down against its wicker wall, knuckles tight on the lip. The balloon lifted into the darkness. The field fell away.

  Otto swallowed. "If I jumped out right now, think you could rig this stuff on your own?"

  "Quit barfing and try to enjoy yourself."

  They were high enough to see the ship now, a great disc of lights and bays half-hidden by the low marine clouds. The wind blew from the sea, nudging them inland, and Walt took the balloon higher, hunting for a stream that would take them out to sea. The air cooled. An enemy jet lifted from LAX, blue lights winking. It soared and banked north. Towards them. Walt hung there, hand on the switch of the silent burner.

  "Should have brought parachutes," he said.

  "I'd prefer a rocket launcher."

  The vessel tracked closer, rumbling below the clouds. It would be on them in a minute. Walt's stomach sank. He'd wanted to set foot on the carrier, at least. Get off a single bomb. Show them they weren't untouchable. Otto put his hand on his shoulder. Walt nodded.

  The jet curved out to sea, lifting toward the waiting carrier. Walt laughed and hit the burner. It roared, spouting flame into the waiting envelope. Sea-mist pickled his face. Gauzy clouds wrapped them up, freeing Walt to rise and rise until he found the stream.

  The balloon slowed its inland drift, swayed. He cut the burner. The balloon eased toward the shore.

  Toward the waiting ship.

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