Read Online Blood Zero Sky by J. Gates - Free Book Online

as it is, the thought of Clair being the one surrounded and dragged away by those laughing squadmen remakes this entertainment masterpiece into a work of horror.
    I look over at her. Her face is downturned; she holds the gun in her lap delicately now, seeming to mourn over it as if it were a dead bird. Her eyes are closed in thought—or in prayer.
    What’s really going on here? I ask myself. Is she kidnapping me, or am I helping her escape? And if Blackwell finds out I helped her, what’s going to happen to me?
    Before I can come up with an answer, the chopper shudders. I glance down at the fuel gauge and my heart sinks: almost empty. There used to be a refueling crew on duty twenty-four hours a day, but last time I talked to my dad, I vaguely remember him mentioning cutbacks in the Headquarters aviation department. He was proud of himself for squeezing an extra half a million dollars of profit out of the operating budget—now, his cut is about to kill me. I curse at myself for not checking the fuel level before we took off—but it’s too late now.
    “What’s going on?” Clair asks.
    “We’re out of fuel.”
    Clair doesn’t even react. She just stares out the windshield, already resigned to her fate.
    “Don’t worry, we’re going to be fine,” I lie. Actually, we’re probably going to crash and die, which is why my heart is fluttering faster that a hummingbird’s wings.
    I’m looking out the side window, desperately scanning the gray concrete landscape for a place to set down, when the chopper shudders again. Great rolling clouds, some gray, some black, some white, rise from factory smokestacks on all sides of us. Directly below are several rows of N-Corp housing units—these only a few stories high. To the right I see a red flash, and then it comes: the sound of sirens. I bank left.
    “This is it,” says Clair, despondent. “I failed.”
    The chopper shudders again as I bank. The fuel is very low, dangerously low.
    “I have an idea,” I say.
    Ahead, a pale silver line, etched in the face of the gray concrete landscape, cuts toward the waning, smog-enfeebled sun.
    “Look,” gasps Clair. She points, and my eyes follow her finger to my left, back toward the city. Five black dots grow larger before my eyes. Squad choppers.
    “What do we do?” she says—to herself, not to me.
    “You’re going to pray,” I say, clenching my teeth as I fight to hold the chopper level.
    “What are you going to do?” she asks.
    “I’m either going to save us or kill us,” I say, gripping the chopper’s controls tighter. “Now seriously, start praying ”
    Ahead: the river.
    ~~~
    A drop of sweat rolling down my brow; the scream and shutter of the chopper; Clair next to me, talking to God or her gun or herself; the black steel birds no doubt filled with leering squadmen growing larger and closer: all these things shred my concentration, unravel my nerve. Still, I bring us lower, throttle up our speed. The chopper’s shaking worse now. The whirring blades above seem almost to groan as they slice through the air. The engine’s howl is pinched and broken with coughs.
    I press the button labeled “auto.”
    The river shimmers below, seeming to hold the only shards of light left in this desolate place.
    I rise from my seat and almost pitch back into the rear cargo area, but manage to maintain my footing. I grasp the door handle. Turning back, I find Clair’s questioning eyes on me.
    “Jump when I jump,” I scream over the dying engine.
    She looks at me, shocked. “Are you kidding?”
    “We’re over water. The satellites will lose us when we jump, and the choppers will see this thing crash and think we’re dead.”
    “If we jump we will be dead.”
    “Maybe not.”
    She blinks at me, still cradling her gun like a dead parakeet.
    “We gotta go now,” I yell. “If the squads are close enough to see us when we jump, they’ll just pick us out of the water. They have to think we went down with the