A Long Way Down is the first work of fiction I am publishing at mathoda.com. You can read it online or download it here (adobe pdf). Enjoy…
A LONG WAY DOWN
by Ranjit Singh Mathoda
created November 30, 2000
When Jonathan Kapcane Swift jumped out of the old space station Alpha and started falling towards the Earth, he was quite bored. Earth, a glorious orb of color set against the bright, liquid stars, a vision that had transformed astronauts into amateur poets, did not draw his attention.
Johnny had been ignoring his surroundings for some time. The tremors of the shuttle ride up to the space station, the video of the friendly jump instructor, the safety features of the re-entry space suits, had all failed to register. Sure, he noticed when the bullet shuttle was being positioned for firing into space by the equatorial rail gun. He was quite annoyed to find his satellite communication messages cut off by the self-testing magnetic fields.
Deprived of satellite communications, he looked to Katrina for entertainment, but her radiant beauty was marred by a slack gaze. He questioned his software, to discover what was distracting her.
He half suspected Ivan Niroyavich, the bastard who kept sending her poetry readings, who had talked to her late into the night on two occasions during the last month, whom she said was “just a good friend”—not “fakey, fakey” like all her other friends. Katrina claimed she didn’t have many guy friends, that Ivan was important but no replacement for Johnny. She had used all kinds of words to tell Johnny that he was irreplaceable. He felt unfaithful for not trusting her and potentially foolish for trusting her, so he tried not to think about Ivan at all, avoiding the anger that bubbled through his blood. If he let her know how angry he’d become she’d just ignore him, and he couldn’t stand being ignored. Katrina was different, she couldn’t stand confrontations.
Oh, damn, his software reported her retina projector was patched into their bullet shuttle’s cameras. She was just concentrating on what would soon be a rapidly receding launch platform. Johnny hated feeling guilty. A shade stupid, also, since the rail gun’s magnetic bottle would interfere with any signals sent to her, even if that asshole Ivan was boosting his love rhetoric with a hacked UN Shiva satellite.
To lessen his guilt at being angry Johnny slipped rage-blockers into his blood, making sure he wouldn’t get angry for awhile. Distracted by the pleasant buzz of the chemicals, he hardly noticed the shuttle’s launch, transit or docking.
His inattention was detected by the day trip tour-company at seven minutes to planet fall. After watching an interminably long three-minute warning video Johnny had tried accepting responsibility for “any death, dismemberment, distress or discomfort” he might suffer. The verification program glanced at his iris and then snooped into his medical status, setting off an alarm. Johnny hastily agreed to a skin patch of anti-rage-blockers, to help him regain legal competency. Then he agreed never to sue or encourage or condone suit of the day trip company, its investors or assigns.
Johnny wasn’t quite free of the rage-blockers, otherwise he might have gotten a bit angry when Katrina didn’t kiss him, just pressed the helmet down over her head. She avoided looking in his eyes before stepping into the airlock, and as she kept ignoring him natural anger and rage-blockers and anti-rage-blockers fought a pitched battle in his bloodstream. The world turned progressively more gray and cold and boring as his confused nerves reacted by shutting down.
The airlock took forever to cycle her, then another tedious eternity cycling him through. Johnny left the first and last International Space Station with a light hop. He yawned while trying to spot Katrina’s starkly painted space suit against the garish brightness of the Earth. The station began moving away rapidly, and a small shower of dust pinged against the ablative shielding that covered his body. He dimly recollected something about the importance of the shielding.
Johnny spotted Katrina’s suit. Funny, how she looked so small already.
He morbidly dwelt on the distance between them. They had been inseparable, once. She seemed to be getting a lot of advice on their relationship from a few mysterious sources. They had shared a night at Niagara, mostly for the rustic nostalgia sense of it, and had ended up gifting each other with their passwords. It had been a wonderful night. But a month ago she got some messages that the password she had given him would not access. She had laughed off his questions, saying a girl had to maintain her mystery. But she had also teased him, saying that friends were advising her to reconsider him. Johnny wasn’t sure she was kidding. Which friends, dammit? What were their motives? It was no use asking her, she wouldn’t say, and as punishment he’d be ignored for a week.
Johnny stifled another yawn. Even remembering being angry was making him tired. His eyes glazed blankly at the scenery.
The jump from Alpha to Earth was something he had done before. He had fallen into a sales job after school, and temporarily ended up with bungee cord loving, sky diving, space station jumping friends. Johnny distrusted Ivan because he was that type of sales person, the type who was only interested in conquest, in the next big experience. Katrina, who had just entered her graduation year, probably found the novelty of the jump very exciting, Ivan’s attention flattering.
Johnny felt the beginnings of a headache, a throbbing which probably would become a pounding if he didn’t calm down some. He breathed heavily in his helmet. As if it were a symptom of his mental state, Katrina’s small figure suddenly started slowing down. He upped his magnification, catching the flare of heated air around her, but then it was hard to hold her image in the lens, she was being flicked about by the upper atmosphere.
Johnny triggered his suit’s communications laser. He sighted it near Katrina and waited for it to find her.
Johnny frowned, tried again.
Katrina’s suit jets were correcting her alignment, he could see them flaring on and off like swiftly hit piano keys. She passed beneath and to one side of him, over Indonesia. No, his angle of view wasn’t right, maybe she was over the subcontinent.
“Come on,” Johnny muttered as he crept towards the atmosphere. He questioned his suit software, running a diagnostic.
Johnny felt a tug on his leg, then on his other leg and arm, even as his suit began to scream warnings. He started tumbling in the upper atmosphere. It was as if a giant was pressing hard on ever changing sides of his body, always slinging him in some new direction. The attitude correction jets on his suit were firing, and the surface of his suit flared out, but the ride was harsher than he remembered. He toggled through the warnings, realizing belatedly that it wasn’t for the upper atmosphere, it was for a failure in the gyroscope assembly.
The warning bleat went silent, replaced by a soft, calm female voice whispering into his ear. “This is your suit. Our attitude correction jets may be mistiming their firing due to a malfunction. This suit is contacting its manufacturer, maintenance provider and UN Space Response personnel, upon a general broadcast frequency.”
His throat clenched. His limbs moved involuntarily as the suit pushed him into an emergency descent position. The Earth and space spun crazily, trading places like wicked twins at a wedding.
Sweat began to ooze from his pores.
“This is your suit,” the beautiful, lilting voice repeated. “We have been unable to contact UN Space Response, but will keep trying. We are tracking our journey and anticipate we will land safely, although we will experience some turbulence.”
Johnny suspected the suit was lying. Would it really tell him if he was going to slam into Upper Mongolia? Were there houses in China being evacuated right now? The suit’s tendency to refer to Johnny and itself in the plural was irritating his deadened nerves.
Johnny’s teeth bit into his mouth-guard and due to the force of the winds buffeting him he felt as if his jaw were being repetitively punched. The suit would not allow him to change position, holding him in an odd pose. He clenched every muscle in his body anyway.
“This is your suit,” the woman whispered in his ear. “We are now in secure and confidential contact with UN Space Response via general emergency frequencies, although transmissions are limited to text and low bandwidth data. Please review your visor display.” Words were scrawling across Johnny’s field of vision, in a solid black box, in front of the rapidly turning view of earth and space. His eyes fastened hungrily on them. UN Space Response, reassuring him he would be okay, that they were working on a software fix for the suit, and that all craft were being routed away from his carefully observed trajectory.
Not that they could do anything about the damned news pods, watching his humiliation and relaying it to the whole solar system. He was a human highlight film in the making. Johnny didn’t give a damn about the money or fame, well not too much of a damn. He shut his eyes, a tear almost forming. Accidents like this were so rare these days. He opened his eyes. UN Space Response was assuring him that both he and his companion would be recovered in short order, from splashdown in the glorious, peaceful waters of the Pacific.
Katrina, Katrina, Johnny thought, as he tumbled, trying futilely to catch a glimpse of her. The world flashed about him, his every limb and sinew taut with fear and the desire for solidity. He had laughed once, at an old movie in which an actor had kissed solid ground. He would kiss the ground before even kissing his girl, he thought, and then a horrid idea occurred to Johnny, and he hated himself for thinking it. It raised bile to his throat, and he swallowed hastily, clenching his teeth, lest he vomit in his suit. He typed his thanks, for transmission back to UN Space Rescue, then asked them to discover who was involved in the sale of his suit.
Johnny felt paranoia and nausea compete with panic. His throat burned from the bile and his jaw ached. “Message sent,” his suit informed him softly, her voice showing no strain. It could at least sound worried. “Would you like to play some music?”
Johnny hardly heard the question, lost as he was in his thoughts. It was a strange thing to think of, whether his suit had been sabotaged, but Johnny Swift didn’t want to die unsure of what had happened. At least he’d done what he could.
Johnny’s eyes refocused on the world outside, and he realized he wasn’t spinning. The stars lurched and shook, but did not swirl around him. Flames flickered around his peripheral vision, and the Earth was no longer visible. The suit had placed his back towards planet fall.
Except for the constant buffeting, and the growing unease of falling towards something he couldn’t see, it almost felt peaceful. He questioned the suit why he was falling backwards.
“This is your suit,” the lady replied soothingly. Johnny was starting to love her voice. “The broadest and least segmented expanse of heat shielding is now facing towards the Earth. Your current orientation is standard procedure for this type of landing.”
Johnny struggled through confusion and the ache in his head. What did it mean by this type of landing? An emergency landing, a crash landing?
Also, the entire suit was rated for reentry, so was his suit’s diagnostic programs detecting another malfunction? Would it tell him even if it were? He knew they programmed the damn things to keep their occupants calm in a crisis. The drugs in his system were already keeping him insanely calm, it could be honest with him.
“This is your suit. General communications have been reestablished.”
Johnny felt suddenly comforted. It was strange, how just reconnecting with the Net made him feel secure, as if everything would turn out okay as a result. At least all his suit’s systems weren’t screwed up. He felt a wave of gratitude to UN Space Response, they had probably fixed something already.
Johnny felt his headache ease, felt lightheaded almost, as he checked for new messages. No reporters had caught onto his identity yet, otherwise they would have requested an interview. UN Space Response must be doing their best to keep his name silent, but the media would figure it out eventually. No response to his inquiry from the UN guys, either, but investigations took time, they couldn’t be resolved in the space it took a man to smash into the Earth.
Johnny toyed with writing a message to his mother, but no reason to freak her out. He’d be fine. Better to let her know after the fact. He wrote a brief note on time delay that she’d find in a few days.
Johnny was about to call Katrina, see if she was worried, when he saw a message from her in his inbox. It was old, from the shuttle ride up, even.
“This is your suit.” The lady’s voice interjected. “You have reached terminal velocity and have entered the lower atmosphere. Standard reorientation of your body will now occur, to prepare for splashdown. Please do not be alarmed, this is a regular procedure.”
Johnny felt his arms move, as the world swiveled and his legs crouched. Something whined before clicking to a stop. After spinning around him twice, the Earth settled into position between his feet, clouds stretched in long dirty wisps, the sun gleaming off of the waters to his left. He was creeping towards them, it seemed. He opened the mail from Katrina.
Johnny—
I know this must come as something of a surprise, but I think we aren’t really in the same place of late. I don’t want to worry you, but I can’t hide how I feel from you.
—Katrina
ps. These feelings have nothing to do with anyone else, there is nobody else, I just have been thinking through where we are at, and what is best for me.
He stared blankly at dirty gray clouds, then read the message again. He then tried to spot Katrina, but his suit wouldn’t allow his neck to move, and his eyes couldn’t find her.
The first layer of clouds didn’t seem nearly as substantial up close, flittering away like shadows, leaving a smear of vapor on his suit for a moment. A darker mass of clouds lay in wait below, like a gaggle of vultures.
“This is UN Space Response, an automated message. Please prepare for splashdown. You will be recovered within minutes of landing, as we have personnel on the scene.”
Johnny wasn’t sure what Katrina meant. Were they broken up for sure? Was there room to talk? He read her words again. He stopped halfway, and triggered his communications software, trying to reach her, but he realized even before error messages sprang up that she must be splashing down. It would be some time before communications between them were live again.
He already missed her. How could she not miss him? How could she say this through a stupid text message? How could she tell him this at all? Had his suit just said something?
Johnny fell through a dark mist and then a pure white glare and then into much deeper darkness. Lightning flashed, revealing rain drops rising swiftly about him. He stared at them in puzzlement, and then the waters of the Pacific struck the soles of his feet like a concrete hammer, and, as numbness spread up his legs, threatening to seize his heart, he plunged into the deep.
Jonathan Kapcane Swift wondered if he was going to be smothered by the weight of the ocean, whether he would sink to the bottom and be mired in the muck. Katrina must have thought he received the message before the airlock. She had been avoiding him, even before then, maybe.
Ivan, you bastard, you asshole, you can have her, you deserve each other. Or maybe there is no one else, like she said. Johnny glimpsed an ugly thought, tried to stay away from it, and then reluctantly gave it form. Maybe she’ll be happier with Ivan, and don’t I really want her to be happy? He hated himself for thinking about this, but felt the pride of his own humility. He felt a sense of loss that was unfamiliar and harrowing.
There were waves breaking over him. From below, the waves were a wondrous sight, a curved surface of air, spoiled by water droplets, swept by wind, and cloaked in light and shadow by the storm. It was a shocking vision, such a contrast to how he felt. Tears formed in his eyes and ran down his cheeks as he looked up at the falling rain through the thin barrier of the waves.
“Mr. Swift, can you hear me?” his suit asked. No, wait, this voice was clear and warm, but it was not the same as his suit. Johnny had heard this voice before, in entertainment news videos, in interviews of celebrities and ordinary citizens. He tried to put a name and a face to the voice, but he was too exhausted. “Mr. Swift, if you can hear me, do you have anything to say about your amazing uncontrolled fall to Earth? About the arrest of Ivan Niroyavich?”
Johnny’s mouth opened in surprise. He started to speak and then stopped, uncertain. What had Ivan done? Had Katrina known what Ivan had done? What were they to each other?
Johnny didn’t know how to describe what he was feeling. It wasn’t rage or satisfaction. It was something strange and melancholy and complex and confused.
With a great weariness Johnny closed his lips, tasting the salty remnants of his tears, and then his eyes, flushing the visible signs of his grief away. He shut down the channel to the reporter, shut off the channels to the outside world. He stifled the questions that lay like mines in his head.
Then, feeling very hollow, he let the storm tossed waves of the Pacific soothe him to forgetfulness and sleep, as he came to the slow realization that he would survive.
~ The End ~
Thanks for taking the time to read this story. Please share it with your friends.
This story is copyright by me as of November 30, 2000, and is distributed under the the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. This means you have the right to share it and even make your own stories based on it as long as you attribute the source of the story to me, your sharing or adapting is non-commercial, and any adaption is distributed under the same terms (see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/). That’s it for the copyright law talk, glad that you survived it.
You can find more of my stories at http://mathoda.com/stories.
