The Enthusiasts

5

Emerson and his newly held hostage had managed to overcome their fears of crossing the overhead footbridges. The peculiar circumstances that united both men seemed to settle their mood, allowing them to temporarily outgrow their fear of great heights while cautiously increasing their pace to clear two additional rooftops at Emerson's directive that they must move south. He held Charlie at gunpoint with the stock of the rifle resting nowhere as the men's close proximity allowed for no steady positioning. They were moving quickly over several more bridges of varying degrees of engineered stability.

"This is impossible," whispered Charlie in his battered state.

The power felt from the two roaring engines flying overhead brought amazement. This soaring beast had not been seen by anyone in this part of the world for, what was it? Emerson gave pause to imagine if he had ever seen a real plane, or if it was just a dream he kept with him from familiar images on The Tablet. No, he had seen a real plane, even ridden on one several times in his life. So much had changed over the last decade, these images all seemed like a past life he was recalling.

He was once a budding technological prodigy, and the world, although still in a growing state of social economic turmoil, had opened up in ways he'd only dreamed possible. Air travel had gone nearly extinct during Emerson's childhood, but after becoming a business leader within the largest monopolized entity to ever exist, exceptions were made. Emerson recalled thinking while in flight about the impossibility that humans could soar like birds on a whim. He felt very privileged to have had the opportunity to see the world from such a unique perspective, arriving places so much quicker than by land or sea. He wanted to share the experience, but through what could be gathered from the recorded history of previous generations, climate action measures had left aerospace essentially dead in the water at some point. It was one thing to build a solar-powered car and a completely other thing to create a solar jet. Emerson assumed that even the rapidly advanced AI Mechs had no solution for it. Or, perhaps they had recognized faster travel speeds of material objects through space and time as a gigantic, futile, nothing-burger fueled by Man's unreliable and misunderstood sense of reality.

Emerson took the advantage given to him by this miraculous, angelic floating noise machine to get out of the watchful scope of anyone previously aiming a gun at his head from across the smoking rooftop.

"Keep moving," he demanded, pushing the awkwardly long gun barrel into Hostage Charlie's back.

Emerson tried to get out his scripted lines using his best tough guy voice. He had been going for Vin Diesel, but sounded more Ray Romano on feedback. Their pace quickened as the two men crossed the shortest bridge they'd encountered so far, with Emerson doing all he could to keep his body in perfect symmetry with his captive's. They were almost moving together as one, except that his hostage appeared more balanced on the narrow platforms. Emerson felt he was playing catch-up with the man's footwork. Emerson let out another mild shriek of terror, accidently knocking over a Crush soda can somehow discarded on one of the high-rise planks. The absence of sound before the hollowed aluminum can tinged against the pavement below did nothing to aid Emerson's nerves. He had been doing all he could to focus on moving toward his goal with his partner, estimating how many more steps it would take to cross what he hoped was the final overpass.

Emerson took some slow breaths which still felt too quick and glanced over to the next rooftop which looked more like a finish line after running the race of his life. This moment of determination as if on cue was immediately tested. Both Emerson and Hostage Charlie winced after hearing another cringeworthy sound hitting their ears.

A countless number of onlookers stationed around the ravaged city suddenly began chatting up the local airwaves. Shrieks, gasps, and strange, seemingly inappropriate narratives like the one that stuck out in Emerson's mind at the time — "What's the big idea? You slimy chicken-burping salad tosser!" — were heard coming from all directions by the two tentative sky bridge travelers.