Hellicopter

There went the copter again, lifting off.

Hey.

Maybe two blocks away and fifty stories higher, the thing’s nose swung toward her, dipped.… It’s the wiz. Sort of wobbled there, then it was coming down.… Wiz; it’s not real. Straight down toward her. It just got bigger. Toward her. But it’s the wiz, right? Then it was gone, behind another building, and it was just the wiz.…

It swung around a corner, still five stories above the roof of the carlot, and it was still coming down and it wasn’t the wiz, it was on her, a tight white beam stabbing out to find the gray car, and Mona popped the door lock and rolled out into the snow, still in the car’s shadow, all around her the thunder of the thing’s blades, its engines; Prior or whoever he worked for and they were after her. Then the spotlight went out, blades changed pitch, and it came down fast, too fast. Bounced on its landing gear. Slammed down again, engines dying, coughing blue flame.

Mona was on her hands and knees by the car’s rear bumper. Slipped when she tried to get to her feet.

There was a sound like a gunshot; a square section of the copter’s skin blew out and skidded across the lot’s salt-stained concrete; a bright orange five-meter emergency exit slide popped out, inflating like a kid’s beachtoy. Mona got up more carefully, holding on to the gray car’s fender. A dark, bundled figure swung its legs out over the slide and went down, sitting up, just like a kid at a playground. Another figure followed, this one padded in a huge hooded jacket the same color as the slide.

Mona shivered as the one in orange led the other toward her across the roof, away from the black copter. It was … But it was!

“Want you both in back,” Molly said, opening the door on the driver’s side.

***

Mona Lisa Overdrive ch 33