STABILIZE AND DEPLOY CHUTE.

STABILIZE AND DEPLOY CHUTE.

STABILIZE AND DEPLOY CHUTE.

“You stabilize!” Kade yelled at the thing.

The world was spinning, spinning fast, spinning hard. Skyscrapers, lit up in neon, rotating, spinning down below him, giant barbs reaching up to impale him. He was going to be sick. He was going to die.

He was losing altitude fast, flight worthiness destroyed, aerodynamics lost as he spun madly.

Deploy the chute? In a fast spin it’d tangle, never open, he’d die. They’d drilled it into him.

Stabilize.

Stabilize.

How the fuck do I stabilize?

“DEPLOY YOUR CHUTE!”

It was Sam’s voice, beamed into his helmet, breaking radio silence.

He pulled up comms, tried to talk, couldn’t get his breath over the g-forces of the spin.

“Spinning…” he managed.

“MAIN CHUTE, NOW!” Sam yelled.

Kade grabbed the chute release at his chest, jerked hard. His hand ached with it, but it came away.

Something grabbed at him, yanked at him by his harness, pulled him up and back even as he spun. His head came up, his feet down. He was still spinning, but he was upright now, the sky rotating around him, the city below his feet instead of below his face, his spin slowing. He looked up and behind him, and the chute was barely visible, a distortion in space, its chameleonware trying to mask it, but fumbling, confused by its distorted shape. It was wrapped in a ball around itself, the ordinary black lines leading to it wrapped around each other, keeping it from opening.

He looked down and the world was still rotating, still coming closer, the skyscrapers rising at him.

“NOW CUT IT AWAY!” Sam yelled. “RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR CHEST!”

Jesus, Kade thought. He fumbled for the handle on the right side of his chest, grabbed it, yanked with all his might, felt the chute go, felt his fall accelerate.

“RESERVE!” Sam yelled out of his headset. “LEFT SIDE OF YOUR CHEST!”

Kade reached for the handle at the left, the one they’d told him was the last one between him and death. If he had to pull this… either it worked or he died.

He pulled hard.

Behind him he felt the smaller reserve shoot out into the pre-dawn sky of Shanghai.

It grabbed the air, grabbed hold of him, yanked him up and back hard. His rotation slowed. His fall slowed. He was still spinning. He looked up and back and he could see it, the dark, non-chameleonware reserve, blotting out the sky, the lines to it twisted.

“Kick your legs, Kade! Bicycle! You’ve got to untwist your lines!”

He kicked. He kicked.

“The other way!” Sam yelled.

Right! he thought.

Kick, kick, kick!

His spin slowed. He looked up. Lines came free. The chute was open. Handles were there. He reached up for them, put his hands on them.

Then he looked down.