Simulacrum
Chapter One
(Author’s Note: 1) This is the first chapter of a sci-fi novella I wrote several years ago, prior to my writing The Escape Clause. This story, Simulacrum, is a much more traditional sci-fi story, compared to the The Escape Clause which is focused more on humor and quirky characters. 2) Also, the cover art above was generated by A.I. and will only be used in “unpublished” versions of my story. Should I decide to sell this story, I’ll hire a cover artist. 3) Lastly, I’ll post the entirety of this story for free, one chapter a week. No paywall).
Wind battered the small plane as it dove into a mass of dark clouds. Jessie’s hands gripped the yoke as he fought to maintain level flight. He peered out of the cockpit window at the swirling mists and thought, not for the first time, that conducting field research should be easier than this.
Maybe I should have gone into botany, he thought.
“Shouldn’t we be climbing?”
Jessie flinched then glanced over at the co-pilot’s seat.
“Relax, boss,” Sam said. “You O.K.?”
“I’m good. You startled me is all,” Jessie muttered. He brushed back his long blond hair and briefly looked at the photo on the control panel, then reached out and touched it before returning his hand to the yoke.
Sam noticed and nodded toward the picture. “This weather is crazy. That a good luck charm?”
Jessie again gripped the yoke with both hands, his knuckles turning white. “Yep. It sure is.”
The plane’s altitude suddenly dropped as it flew into a wind shear, a wall of wind that moved the aircraft straight down.
Wind whistled past the cockpit windows as Jessie wrestled with the controls. The plane continued to lose altitude while picking up a dangerous amount speed. He tried directing the plane into an “S” curve to get out of the wind shear, but instead the plane began to fly in a wide corkscrew pattern, losing more altitude as it went.
The lightning and thunder seemed to increase exponentially the lower they flew.
“Uuuggghhhnnnmmm,” Sam moaned as he stiffened in the co-pilot seat and grabbed a handhold over the cockpit door.
After several seconds, Jessie finally regained control of the plane and leveled off. He frantically scanned the control panel and glanced out the windscreen every couple of seconds to get his bearings.
Sam let go of the handhold and adjusted his ball cap over his short brown hair. “If I’d had lunch earlier, I would have lost it right there,” he said. “I’m used to bigger aircraft. This one is like a drunk mosquito, you know?”
The plane was still being battered by the wind and rain, but the clouds had begun to thin somewhat.
They flew in silence for a few minutes, then Sam pointed. “There! Dead ahead!”
The plane broke through a cloud bank into a relative clearing in the storm and Jessie leaned forward and gazed at the biggest mountain he had ever seen. Sunlight diffused through the clouds next to the mountain peak, giving some clarity to the swirling maelstrom of weather that surrounded them.
He scanned the area around the aircraft. Above the plane were clouds, below the plane were clouds and on either side were mountains, as if a tunnel had been carved through the gloom straight to the side of that mountain.
This might be a real short flight, Jessie thought. He had nowhere to go but straight ahead. He looked over at his co-pilot, “Any ideas Sammy boy?”
Sam, one hand over his stomach, the other again clutching the handhold over the cockpit door, was forlornly looking out the windscreen at the mountain and clouds. He looked back at Jessie and motioned with one hand: Up and over?
Jessie nodded and pulled back on the yoke, but the plane gained little altitude.
A tailwind began to push the little aircraft forward at an increasingly faster clip and Jessie leveled the plane off before he lost control. Gritting his teeth, he flexed his hands to get blood flow back into his fingers.
“The sun,” Sam said in an odd tone of voice, as he pointed toward the huge mountain in front of them.
“What about it?” Jessie asked as he scanned the flight panel again.
Still pointing, Sam said, “It’s moving.”
Jessie raised his head and watched, transfixed, as the sun that had been next to the mountain peak moments ago was gliding down, out of the clouds, and diagonally across the face of the mountain leaving a misty trail in its wake. The light emitted by the orb diminished quickly as it descended.
Jessie and Sam glanced at each other, unable to find words for what they were seeing.
Jessie refocused on the looming mountain approaching fast. Nowhere to go, he thought frantically.
The light continued to fade from the falling “sun” and Jessie was running out of time as the distance between their aircraft and the mountain grew alarmingly small.
Jessie said, “O.K. Sam, keep your eyes open. We need options here.”
Sam looked nervously out his side window but said nothing.
Jessie sighed and tried to engage him. “Who do you like for the series?”
Still looking out of the side window, Sam muttered, “Brooklyn Dodgers. Who else?”
Then Jessie saw it. Ahead and below in a glowing yellowish mist where the “sun” had disappeared was a deep pocket valley that looked as if it had been scooped from the mountain side. Jessie looked down into the valley and thought he saw some buildings next to a large open space.
The plane was starting to shudder and jolt erratically from the tailwind that moved past the aircraft, then deflected off the sloping face of the mountain ahead, causing unseen eddies in the air.
Jessie considered: Can’t go left, can’t go right. Can’t go up.
He gritted his teeth then pushed the yoke forward and to the side.
And dove.
“What are you doing!?” Sam cried.
The plane didn’t fly as much as hurl itself toward the isolated valley through the now violent wind.
Once they were below the ridgeline that outlined the upper edge of the circular valley, Jessie slowed the aircraft as much as he could by doing a long sweeping turn over an odd assortment of buildings and structures on the ground below. He angled the plane back toward the open space that turned out to be a frozen lake near a collection of buildings.
Sam, alternately looking at Jessie and the lake, kept saying, “Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea,” then the plane touched down on the ice.
Jessie taxied the plane as close to the shoreline as he dared, fearing the ice might be too thin by the embankment, then he cut the engine.
Sam sat in the co-pilot’s seat breathing heavily, sweat stains on his khaki shirt, but otherwise silent.
Jessie pulled out a notebook and wrote some notes while snow softly settled on the windscreen. He finished his entries, put the notebook away and he and Sam climbed out.
With tentative footsteps, they began to cautiously move across the ice toward the shore. Once they reached the embankment, they shuffled up the snow covered ground then stopped to take in their surroundings.
“Welcome!” someone called out from the night.
Jessie and Sam looked around at the nearest building which was less than a hundred feet from the lake shore, but they couldn’t see anyone through the steadily thickening snowfall. They stood and listened to the soft almost inaudible tsk tsk as the snow touched the ground.
About twenty feet away, the figure of an older man in a large coat materialized through the growing flurry.
A procession of conflicting emotions swept over Jessie’s face, until he was able to get control of himself and refocus on his task.