Chapter 5 – Down, Down, Down Below

It was said that the City of Stratos was the blueprint for how civilization would thrive in the future. With winged humans able to occupy the empty airspace, concepts of urban development evolved to suit the increased vertical access.

Society shifted when height became as simple as moving backward or forward. As such, there was no need for extensive pathways of solid ground. Stratos was a city of omni-directional movement, made for its winged citizens.

For that reason, some of its inhabitants had never felt blades of grass grown from the Earth’s crust, nor did they have a sense of how far the surface stretched across the planet. The airspace of Stratos was all they knew.

For outsiders who balked at the chance to don wings, Stratos instead seemed like a cage that mentally trapped its citizens and kept others out.

Those who grew up pampered in a cage knew not how to react when their owners forsook them. Preaching lines of eventual doom were often spread by the No-Flyers that this city left behind.

------

Arwain took a deep breath to calm himself before opening the comms for the rest of his crew.

“Mayday! Mayday! All Gliders to my position now! Fire up the emergency protocol!”

Immediately, the delivery information faded from his viewing googles, replaced by outlines of people falling in the skies and emergency landing spots. Arrows filled Arwain’s vision as the system AI pointed to the shortest approaches between people and solid ground.

A burst of speed brought Arwain to the closest flailing body, a businessman on his way to work. Catching him with a shoulder carry, he reached out to grab another person on the other shoulder before heaving them both onto a sturdy ledge.

Flashing outlines of bodies zoomed past him as he circled around, bringing all he could reach to temporary safety. He was glad that a system meant for handling a scatter of dropped packages would come in handy in such a dire situation.

Soon, the turmoil had brought attention to other nearby Gliders, who aided in the rescue efforts. Scores of Flyers zipped across the skies, plucking more and more people who had lost their wings.

In his middle of his own rescue attempts, Arwain ran into his crewmates. Jester attached balloons to people which slowed their descents, giving ample time to drift onto nearby platforms. Arwain winced as he saw some others hog-tied and left hanging, a sign that Sarge had brought out her wires to ensnare those around her.

“Jolly, where’s Queen and Dingleberry?”

“En route. ETA of thirty-five seconds and two minutes.”

Arwain let out a puff of relief as he grabbed another two victims to drop them onto any available ledge nearby. Screams of terror gradually waned into calls for support. Arwain craned his head to see if there were any more at his level before he heard a distinct cry for help straight below.

“Woah, woah. I gotcha, I gotcha… I think- maybe noooooot!”

Arwain clicked his tongue as he got small and rocketed downwards, seeing the flailing form of Dingleberry among a mass of bodies. He had yet to learn the limits of what he could carry, his wings desperately trying to gain some altitude but sinking rapidly into a free fall.

“Pass them here!”

With a nod, Dingleberry used his legs to kick someone off him, sending a passed-out person crashing into Arwain. He reached out to snag some other girl’s leg before swirling to a stop. His hands let go, the centrifugal force tossing them both into a window that some resident had opened to check out the noise.

The precious time that it took to prevent deceleration trauma on normal Flyers had sent Dingleberry another few hundred meters apart. Regardless, Arwain dove after him, clearly seeing that panic had disoriented the young Flyer in training.

A film of condensation began to build on Arwain’s face. By now, they had fallen past the residential areas and began to approach the lower tiers, where water vapor from factory scrubbers blanketed the air. Even with humans taking space higher and higher into the skies, there were little resources up there. As a result, the lower tiers of Stratos were filled with the hums and clangs of heavy machinery processing raw material to transport above.

The hiss of excess vapor from filtration and purification turned into the clouds that Arwain saw below. It was an artificial sea down below, keeping Flyers from going too deep. Arwain had never touched these depths, the foggy visibility growing thicker by the second. Soon enough, Dingleberry disappeared within it.

“Dingleberry, come in! Are you still with me?”

“Get me out, get me out, get me out!”

“Calm down, bucko! You’re one of us! We’ve got you! I need you focused on that altitude gauge. Scream out the number for me!”

“1.25 kilometers!”

“Keep reading it off! Don’t stop!”

“1.16… 1.03… 0.9… 0.77, oh my god, I miss my cow, Betsy!”

“KEEP COUNTING! I’M RIGHT HERE!”

Arwain looked all around the clouds, keeping himself at the same level as Dingleberry. After a few more seconds, he saw a blurry outline. But as he reached out to grab something solid, the air suddenly cleared up. The fog had lifted the same as how it appeared, but clarity was now below them.

They had fallen below the clouds.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

Arwain looked below at Dingleberry’s scream, seeing the ground rapidly approaching. He turned back and saw that another four people were clutched between his limbs.

“How the-” Arwain began to say, but then, he remembered that Dingleberry found sport in oxen wrangling in his younger days. There was quite the strength in those farm-hand arms, but unfortunately, the wings failed to keep up yet.

He quickly took the two that were sprawled on top of Dingleberry’s upper body, freeing him to make use of his arms, which he used to make flapping motions to kick start the feeling in his wings.

Children were taught at the beginning to sync up their arms with their wings, building the necessary neurons needed to control motion. Seeing a grown teenager do the same felt almost funny, like an adult still needing training wheels. It was funnier that an idiom from decades past never fell into obscurity even though bicycles were relics now.

Dingleberry strained his face red trying to pull up, the last two victims conscious and clinging onto his legs for dear life. Eventually, their descent slowed to a gentle hover.

“Looks like we have no choice but to touch land.”

Arwain looked around, but the skyscrapers were built smooth near the base. Entry points were few and far in between as even Flyers used the elevators inside to go from the middle sections to ground level. For the first time, Arwain thought that it was rather inconvenient.

The pair touched down with their scared passengers, and all at once, a chill ran down Arwain’s back. He looked around at a sea of eyes, skepticism and a lack of welcome in their glares. They were before people who stood firmly upon the ground – No-Flyers that refused to adopt the new way of life. After a while, they turned away and tried to continue their business.

It was as if aliens had landed, which they ignored as if not wanting to face reality. For the first time, Arwain could see that life was normal, even if these people were vertically challenged. People commuted, children played, and work continued. Time moved forward but at a slower pace. It felt rather stuffy to him.

“Arwain! You alright?” A cry from Queen over the headset interrupted his thoughts.

He looked up to see Queen floating down with the rest of the team. With a wave to dismiss any concerns, Arwain and Dingleberry waited for them to drop down, forgetting the awkward atmosphere.

The crowd of No-Flyers continued to edge away from them, moving on with the rest of their day. Arwain vacantly watched on, strangely curious. It was some time before emergency services would make their way down to check on them.

Until then, a Glider’s duty was to protect his cargo, no matter what shape or form.