Lucifer Falling

By Julian Flood

The night before a drop I never to sleep. Three o'clock in the morning is the best time to walk the sidewalks of Vegas, there's no-one around, they're all inside playing their luck and the traffic doesn't start to build until the sun comes up and the temperature hits the roof. Then they all totter off to their beds while the day shift moves in. I never gamble, just drift through the casinos and watch, hidden in the crowds. But when I went into Nero's Temple that morning the Big One was unoccupied. It's the highest paying slot in the world, so there's normally a queue of about a hundred suckers. It's free, you get one pull and if you win it pays a fortune. If not you go to the back or move on. Most people relax and move on. Having already lost a million it makes it easier to go and throw away a few thousand. The Big One is very good for business. I'd never played the Big One.

The guards were hardly bothering to watch as I pulled the chromed handle. Four reels clattered, the bells banged into place one two three four and every light in the casino flashed andthe Big One laid a single coin. The whole place was quiet, the roulette wheels, even the slots stoppedtheir rattle ching. Everyone was looking at me. I picked up the coin and looked at it.

On one side it had a great big number ten, underneath it said ten million, on the back it said subject to ratification. The guards fell in beside me, nothing heavy.

"Let's go and see the manager," said the giant on the left.

"Right away" said his right-hand twin. They elbowed their way through the crush. I felt like I'd been caught with my hand in the President's panties, then some guy near the front recognised me.

"Lucifer Baines, it is, look at that, Lucifer Baines and he's won the Big One." The mutterspread through the crowd, became a shout. "Baines! Baines! Lucifer! Baines!" I grinned and waved, punching my fist in time with the chant. You've got to be good to the fans.

The manager was an understanding guy, when he saw who I was. He offered me a drink. I refused, I never drink before a drop, but then I never gamble before a drop. He offered again. I took a double, straight. I was shaking. "We'd normally have a doctor in here peering up your ass and past your tonsils. You'd not believe some of the jiggers they use to fix the BO. We had one sucker who had electronics planted where his right lung should have been. We gave him corrective surgery, on the house."

"Anaesthetic?"

His mouth smiled. "Not a lot. We have to be careful with the machines, check up on our winners." He held out one manicured hand in case he'd offended me. "Not on you though, Mr Baines, not on you. We never hassle millionaires. I'm surprised you bothered to play, another ten million can't be that important."

"My laundry expenses are high. I get through a lot of underwear." They put that quote on the wires and it was all round the world by morning. I never read it though, I was too busy.

"How would you like the money? Draft, note or direct?"

"Give it to me in chips." It was good to see him blink. He wasn't a drop fan, didn't know the net of superstitions we live by and die with. Blue Flash Lumumba now, he wore copper pants. Said they'd bring him luck and if they didn't he'd make the prettiest meteor you ever saw. Upfront Sue reckons if she can get her CG one centimetre higher she'll be able to spit into Dead Centre without getting out of her chute harness. She says it's aerodynamics, she's got the calculations to prove it, but her CG's been moving up for years and she still says it needs to be up just one centimetre more. We've all got our own but we all agree on one. Whatever you do before you drop, don't win.

I had a lot of losing to do. I sat at the wheel with the fans crowding round, two pretty women in place of the guards, watched the table for five minutes and started to play. I couldn't lose. I put a hundred thousand on black and it came up. I let it ride and it came up again. I moved it to red. Red came up. Onto sixteen. Bingo. Thirteen. Win.

Any fool can throw away money, that wouldn't count. What I had to do was stop being lucky. By five I was up to twenty-three million. I was sweating blood and my companions left me. Theymust have been able to smell the fear. Then the lady left me as well and by twenty past I'd lost thelot. I flicked the last ten thousand to the croupier, tipped an imaginary hat to the crowd and walkedout to a clear pink morning. I felt great. I was walking down Main when a cruising hooker, up late or out early, pulled up beside me in a big red convertible. "Hey there, need a ride?" I started to laugh, an hour before and I'd have given her a hundred thou just to get rid of it and here I was with five dollars. I flipped her the coin. "Have a coffee on me. Sorry."

"Big spender!"

The convertible roared off into the traffic. I walked back to the Golden Palm, picked up my rucksack and caught a box to the roof. The chopper was waiting. Three hours later I opened my eyes and we were at the Nome launch site. I got a coffee from the machine, the worst coffee in the whole world and stepped back into someone. I felt a nudge, two nudges. I knew that gentle touch.

"Upfront Sue," I said without turning, "you've moved that old CG up again." She got hold of my face from behind and pulled my head round-my nose lent her some leverage and anyway her workouts have given her a lot of muscle up top.

"Still got the re-entry shield I see." She tweaked my nose. It was said as a joke and the other guys in the room pissed themselves, but her fingers felt as if she'd like to pull my nostrils over my head. "I feel better meeting you, Upfront, now I know that I've been unlucky right up to the jump." We all josh around, nerves, but with me and Sue it was personal. We'd had a thing going three years back, when she was still four inches shorter than me and the superstructure was not quite so spectacular. Now we could meet eyeball to eyeball. In her search for the perfect centre of gravity she'd first had her legs stretched, and I was so sore about her leaving me I tried to get her tag changed to Tits-on-Stilts. It caught on with the guys for a while but the networks wouldn't wear it, too many kids follow the drops. Then my little joke gave her the idea of raising her CG by upping the weight in her blouson and a drop star was born. Upfront Sue had a following only a few of us could match, and she rated number three behind Lumumba and me. It was a taut season.

"Looking at you gives me an idea. Maybe my theory's wrong, with a conk that size you must have the world's highest CG but you can't fly for shit."

"Perfectly balanced by an enormous weight lower down."

"Not that I remember."

Fireworks Lee shut us up. He never talks much, quiet little guy but we all like him. You'd never think from the way he acts that he holds the speed record, orbit to Dead Centre, flaming all the way down. They say he needed three months surgery to fix the burns and he's number ten now, or, to put it another way, last. Each season he's going to retire and each season he's back. Lumumba was losing his edge, Upfront Sue and Lucifer Baines were breathing fire down his neck. It was the last drop of the series. We didn't say any more. As the ship trundled out to the launch point I could see the really dedicated fans beneath their aircraft, waving and chanting, ready to jump aboard and race us to Dead Centre, watching the screens in flight so as not to miss a second. The rockets hit and forced me back into the seat. There's a pause when the boosters cut off and the air-breathers are just firing up. You float up against your straps and it's like falling out of the drop-hole. That's the point I always notice for the first time that I'm scared. Then the Satans start to crackle and you get the illusion of gravity and you can fool yourself for a few more minutes.

It's very quiet on the way up to orbit, ten jockeys alone with their thoughts. I don't think I've heard anyone say anything until we're all in the locker room, then it's just curses as we struggle into the layers of clothing. Most of the kit's a waste of time, but the inspectors are hot as hell. This weightof garments, that insulation factor. They weigh the suit to a microgram, check its CG to a thousandth of a millimetre. You can design all the fancy aerodynamics you like but the constraints are so tight that it all boils down to three things, skill, luck and guts. The winner of the world series has the most guts, the most skill and the most luck, for that year at least. I was number two and hungry for that last little roll of the dice. Cannonball Joe was next to me. He'd been smoothing down his suit each jump till he looked like a beachball with legs. I went in for fun, strakes, a bit of decorative artwork, I'd even thought of putting on a forked tail but the sponsors turned it down. All my decorations burn off during the first pass but look good on the launch camera. Earlier that year they'd given me a weight penalty so now I was jumping three kilos overweight and ablating down to spot on for touchdown. Blue Flash Lumumba was covered in foil, gleaming copper from head to foot. He was going to flash blue to his home crowd and how.

"Dead Centre in two minutes. Good luck everyone, see you in the Dead Centre locker room. "That's when it hits you for real, churning inside, your heart thumps and your fingers tingle with the adrenaline. The jump crew slaps the side of your helmet, thumbs up, your chutes are clicked on, main on the front, spare on your left shoulder. You shuffle to the drop holes all in a line. The red light turns to green and your heart stops. With a big woosh of air the ship blows you into space and you tumble out three hundred klicks above the Earth with Dead Centre right below and enough energy in your hurtling carcass to fry your balls off. Take one drop-jockey. Take one impact point. Arrange for the two to meet. The alignment jets puffed crystals of ice as everyone spun themselves. Headfirst, somehow, it doesn't seem so bad. The dispersion moved us apart pretty quickly. I saw Cannonball fire his first retro straight off and he dropped away, gaining on us until he'd vanisheda gainst the blue of the Atlantic. Then Sue went, then the others. I held on for a few minutes then fired two and down we all went together.

"Hi there China, watch me flare." Lumumba, glowing copper green and blue. We all like hitting the air in darkside first, you look good and you get the biggest eyeball audience. They run out and watch you flame past then back in to catch the TV action. No-one's ever died on the first graze. I hit a touch harder than I'd wanted and I was sweating as I skipped out of the atmosphere to let the red-hot front of the suit radiate the energy away into space. Cannonball was after the record, I saw his flare for the second time as we broke out into daylight. Lumumba was right with him andit must have been there he made his mistake. They said afterwards he only screamed once, I didn't hear it though, I was too preoccupied with my own affairs. I had my tongue on the switch to fire my third shot when I heard Sue. She sounded scared.

"Oh shit." They let it out on all the networks, everyone was too shaken to move, they'd seen what had happened. The big cameras on the jets and satellites homed in on that one little figure. They're prissy about bad language, even though they'll broadcast your dying screams as you burn.

"What's the matter, Sue?" I sounded scared too.

"Chutes. They've both unclipped." Far below I could see the little flashes as Sue's only link with the world flared into ash. I was thinking hard.

"Break break, all stations." The cackle on the airwaves died. "Sue, don't fire until I tell you, Woomera how far ahead is she."

"Two hundred klicks."

Fire one, pause, fire two. Wait.

"Sue, we'll need some air for manoeuvre. Don't fire until I tell you. Woomera, how far now?"

"Fifty, three point five lower, closing slowly."

"Sue, fire one now."

"Done."

She shone against the darkening sky. We both began to glow as the atmosphere bit. I angled my arms, got her centred and said a prayer to the lady. I was far too fast, closing like a train, impact in three, two, fire one fire two fire three, NOW. BLAAM. Not too bad, like running full tilt into a wall. I wrapped my legs around her and angled for lift. Sue had her back arched.

"Just like the old days," she said.

We didn't make a lot of height, I'd thrown away too much energy. In the few minutes wewere in free fall Sue clicked our docking lugs together and scrambled onto my back.

"Just like the old days." I said. "Stand by retro."

She knocked on my head with a knuckle and jammed her helmet against it. I could just hear her voice conducting through.

"Not yet, Lou. Have you thought what we weigh together? We'll drop like a lead brick. We'll gain minutes. Are we going for a safe landing or are we racing?"

"Damn right we're racing." I shouted so loud I was hoarse for a week. I hadn't pushed the transmit button so no-one heard me, just Sue. Privately I wondered what would happen when we hit dirt, whoever got there first was going to take a lot of punishment, double weight on one chute. Sue started crawling up my back.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting the CG upfront. It'll help, you see."

We hit hard air, both firing retros in synchronised bursts. America spread out below and grew. It's all brown from up there. By thirty thousand I knew we had a good one going, as we fell through ten I could tell from the wind count that we were in the groove. With our combined and complicated shape we had damn all manoeuvrability but we crabbed towards Dead Centre and popped the chute at about a thousand up. We piled in two klicks out of town. Just before impact Sue shimmied further up my back and the only legs that hit belonged to me. I felt something break. We rolled a couple of times and ate dirt. I pulled off my helmet and lay on my face, listening to the roar of the crowd around the bullseye and letting the air dry the sweat. They were chanting. Upfront! Upfront! Upfront Sue!

"Hey Sue, they've not noticed I'm here. Sue? You OK?"

I looked around. About a K further out was the gleaming shape of Cannonball, waddling along in his fat suit, still wearing his helmet. Rule 45, the whole suit must reach Point Zero. Two hundred metres towards Dead Centre was Sue, helmet under her arm, running like a demon. I got up, dumped my chutes, grabbed my hat and started to run.

With four hundred metres to go I was just getting into my stride. Welcome to Dead Centre. Please drive carefully. I would have run right through a car if it'd got in my way. Sue was flagging. We reached the inner neck-and-neck and she put on a spurt. With a couple of metres to go she dived for it and hit the spot under me. I pushed her hand aside, slapped my own on the red mark and fainted. I'd run all that way on a broken leg to come second.

That evening we had the post-drop party, broke open Blue Flash's locker and drank his health. There was a bottle of champagne each. I've got whisky in my locker, nine bottles. When I'm not there I'll leave them all with a hell of a hangover. They say his copper pants looked like the Fourth of July as he burned up. They never tried the little guy who jimmied Sue's connectors, they had the video evidence but the drop fans in the jail beat him to death. Whoever put him up to it got away.

Even after a bottle of champagne my splinted leg hurt like hell. Sue came and stood next to me.

"Coming my way, number two?" she said. Her brown eyes were friendly. My leg didn't seem to hurt any more.

"Don't mind if I do, champ." She helped me to the door.

We stuck it until a month before the next season, about the time you need to get into hard training if you want to make a mark. Then one day I packed my rucksack, hid it in the wardrobe and told myself to wake up at three. I didn't touch her to say good-bye, just crept out of the dark room with my sack on my shoulder and the note I'd taken so long to write in my hand. Sue was standing by the door, sack on her back, her note on the table.

She took my envelope and read my words aloud.

"Sorry about this. I guess I wasn't born to be lucky every day, just now and then."

I read hers. "Sorry about this. I couldn't take having kids, it would screw up my CG."

We grinned at each other and walked out of the door. The air was warm, still. For a minute we breathed it together.

"Tell me something, Sue, when we linked up, before we re-entered, did you really want to get the CG forward or did you figure that it would mean I hit first?"

"Someone had to take the strain."

"You're a hell of a competitor, Upfront."

"Don't be too lucky, Lucifer."

I waited politely. She turned left so I turned right.

Drop-jockeys all live alone.