The time came to make the big flight to New Calvert. Jeff and I were psyched to see how it would work. Assuming everything went as planned and I made it to the city safely, I’d spend the weekend with my dad in his apartment. He was always begging me to come down and see him. There’s a safe place to land on top of the building where he lived and I’d stash the wings there on the roof.

My parents were okay about me spending the weekend with my dad. Mom always worried about me, but didn’t want to stand in the way of me seeing Dad. Dad was excited to have me spend the weekend with him, but would probably be working while I was there. I’d come to expect that from him. So, I decided to e-mail Katie and let her know I’d be down there. After all, that’s what this was all for, right?

Hey, I’m going to be in the city this weekend, visiting my dad. Are you going to be around?

Then, I waited impatiently for a response. Morty and I paced the room as I waited, which became like a dance… but, in a totally heterosexual way. She wrote back later that day:

Hi there! Good to hear from you! Yeah, I’m rehearsing for a show during the afternoon, but we can do something afterwards. Does that work for you?

Well, it wasn’t exactly a date, but I’ll take it. I wrote back to her:

Yes, definitely! It will be great to catch up. I can’t wait to hear what’s going on with you. See you then!

We decided to set out around 1PM the next day, again from the roof of the school, since that seemed to be a good casting off point. If everything went as planned, I’d be in the city by nightfall. Jeff brought plenty of coffee, but I had only one cup. I already had the jitters. A scarier thought: I didn’t want to be flying over the middle of nowhere and suddenly have to go to the bathroom. I suppose I could just… you know, in the air… but I didn’t want to think about that. Wouldn’t you hate to be the one it lands on? What’s this yellow rain?

“Okay, keep your phone on during the whole trip,” Jeff said to me.

It was really almost cute—Jeff was turning into a mother hen. “I’ll be fine, man,” I said. “We’ve done our homework.”

“Well, you never know what’s going to happen.” He handed me the helmet and attached the cord to my cell phone. I dialed his cell phone number and he answered.

“It’s a good thing I have a phone plan with all these free minutes that I never use,” I said into the helmet’s microphone.

“You sound like a commercial,” Jeff said, as he reached up and tried to smack me on the side of the helmet. I pulled away before he could do it. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. Wish me luck,” I said as I jumped off the roof.

“I’m here for you, man!” Jeff yelled.

I flew up and outside city limits, trying to climb as fast as possible to avoid detection. It didn’t exactly work as I’d hoped; I saw some people looking up in the sky before I reached a good cruising altitude. Most likely, they thought I was a large bird or a small, low-flying vehicle. I couldn’t resist the temptation to wave at them.

Over the next couple of hours, I was busy checking the variometer for climb/sink rate. I wasn’t so busy that I couldn’t take a peek at the scenery. Previously, whenever I’d taken the bus down to visit my dad, I spent most of the time reading a comic book or listening to music; I didn’t really pay attention to the landscape. That day, as I was flying, I saw for miles. Between Coreyville and New Calvert City, there were miles and miles of land, covered with trees of every variety. Some had foliage spread out in a plume. Others had spires that grew upward, as if they were pointing at me. Some had colors I’d never seen in nature before, not just shades of green, but also crimson, yellow and pink.

Every so often, there would be a clearing and I could see herds of animals running below. In the sky around me, I saw all different kinds of birds. A flock of geese flew near me; I wanted to join their formation, just to see how they’d react, but I decided against it.

The terrain changed as I got closer to New Calvert City. At first there were fields, trees and the occasional steeple or home. Then, almost without warning, there were more and more homes and other kinds of buildings. It’s always amused me that people chop down trees to make cities, and then they cut little areas into the concrete and plant trees in them. Soon, I was flying into an area where there was concrete and a vast group of foliage in the midst of all the buildings—that had to be Central Park.

After five hours of flying from Coreyville, I passed Central Tower, the landmark which Jeff had circled on my map. The long journey was nearing its end. As interesting as it had been to see the world from a different perspective, there was no way was I going to make this long trip again. My father’s building was about two miles away. Just the thought of stopping, setting down and touching the ground again made me happier. Maybe I’d kiss the ground. Adrenaline coursed though my body. “Oh, thank you!” I said under my breath.

“What happened?” Jeff said.

Damn. I didn’t realize he was still on the phone. “I’m almost there.”

“Great!” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m a little tired.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Have you been there the whole time?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ve been here reading Doctor Life comics.”

I should have guessed.

"At one point, I left, had lunch, did some other things and got back on the phone. Didn’t you hear?"

“No, I guess not. I was busy doing other things and watching the landscape. Wasn’t there a whole list of things you were supposed to do for college?”

“Oh, yeah, that. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“Folks, we’re beginning our descent into the downtown area,” I said, pretending I was piloting a plane. “Please return your tray tables to their upright position.” Jeff laughed on the other end as I made airplane sounds.

Life on the city streets below took shape as I moved closer. It was night, but there was plenty of activity in the streets below. Unlike Coreyville, something was always happening in New Calvert City. NCC never went to bed. Some people here had night jobs. Others partied into the morning. I decided to glide over to one of the less-crowded streets to avoid being seen.

Chances were good Dad would still be working when I got to his apartment. Often, he’d be working on his art and would just lose track of time. Before he knew it, it was early in the morning and he’d decide to just crash out on the sofa. The late nights were one of the things that my mom had always hated. She never knew that I heard them arguing about it.

Below, two kids were running down the street, yelling at each other. It was a little late for kids to be playing outside, I thought, even in the brightly-lit city, so I swooped down to investigate.

“Come back here!” one boy yelled to a smaller boy running away from him.

“It’s mine!” the smaller one yelled. He clutched something in his right hand, but I couldn’t see what it was.

“There’s something going on below me,” I said.

Jeff responded immediately, “What’s happening?”

“ A fight of some kind,” I said. “I think he’s trying to steal that kid’s… radio, maybe ? Game? Whatever it is.”

“A robbery? Just fly away, dude," Jeff said, still in mother hen mode. "It’s best not to get involved.”

“What are you saying, Jeff? The other night you talked for an hour about how Armored Man was in ’enraged by the crime in his beloved city,’ how he was going to make a difference, put an end to the crime and avenge his brother’s death.”

“That’s a comic book, Scott! It’s fiction! This is real life! People are crazy in the city. You don’t know what they’ll do to you.”

“I’m going in,” I said, as I flew closer to them.

“No!” Jeff screamed into his phone. “Are you crazy?”

“Just to see what’s going on.”

The chase continued. The smaller kid turned a corner. The bigger one wasn’t far behind. He snatched a metal pipe sitting by a trash can.

“He’s got a weapon!” I said.

“What?”

“He has a pipe!”

“Maybe he’s a plumber!” Jeff yelled at me, his words dripping with sarcasm. “You can’t be sure what’s going on.”

“I have to do something.”

“No, you don’t!”

I tried to fly in closer. The big kid had almost caught up. He raised the pipe over his head and was about to lower it. I reached down, hoping I was close enough to grab it. Noticing my shadow on the ground, the bigger kid stopped short. Success! I snatched the pipe out of his hand. He turned and looked up at me in horror. The younger one stopped too.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at the little kid. “Keep running!”

Apparently I scared both of them. They ran in different directions.

I made a 180-degree turn, barely missing the awning of a building. Leaves flew as my wings clipped the side of a tree.

“Hey!” I heard a woman gasp and a man yelled, “What the hell is that?”

The big kid turned onto a side street and I followed, just to make sure he left the little one alone. Below me, I could hear his labored breathing. My own heart was pounding.

“Don’t hit him,” I muttered to myself. ”Just push him. Don’t hit him. Just push him.”

“What?” Jeff yelled. “What’s going on?”

“I’m just going to push the kid. Knock him over. Make sure the other kid gets away.”

“Are you nuts?”

Before I had the chance to do anything, though, the kid tripped and fell. As he lay on the ground, I soared over him. He screamed and scrambled to get away from me, but I could tell that he was okay.

I pulled up, above the buildings. There was no sign of the other kid.

“What’s happening?” Jeff yelled. “What’s happening?”

“It’s over,” I said. “Everything’s okay.”

“Did you..?”

“The kid just tripped.” I said. “The other one got away. I didn’t even have to use the pipe.”

I dropped the pipe into a dark alleyway, where it crashed to the ground like a thunder clap.

Jeff breathed an audible sigh. “Pipe? What pipe? You know, I don’t want to know. Please just tell me you’re not going to do anything crazy like that again.” Then, the excited nerd in him took over and the asked, “Seriously, though, how did it feel?”

“That was a rush!”

Next Chapter: Chapter Fifteen (unedited)