DropZone

‘Everything’s important,’ Sam had said over lunch. ‘Not just who you are, but why you are. I don’t want to put just anyone in the sky and throw them out of a plane attached to a silk bag. That’d be irresponsible. I want to know why they’re in the air in the first place, what kind of person they are, their motivation. Understand?’

By the end of the day Ethan’s mind was leaking terms he’d never heard before. He found himself rattling off phrases like he knew them: AAD, body position, burble, cut away, RSL, terminal velocity, wave off, and the term used to describe people who don’t jump – wuffo. He was never going to be a wuffo ever again. That felt good.

Sam had drawn the day to a close with a ‘Well done, Ethan,’ and a firm shake of the hand, before driving away in his Defender. Now Ethan was sitting on a bench outside the hangar, his head resting against the wall.

‘So,’ said Joh

‘I’m knackered,’ said Ethan, and meant it. ‘Sam’s a hardarse, isn’t he? Really drives stuff into you like your life depends on it.’

‘That’s because it does. Sam lives and breathes skydiving. He’s done it all his life.’

‘You’re no different,’ Ethan told Joh

‘Oh, I am,’ he said, sliding down next to Ethan. ‘I’ve been jumping for two years. I’m a qualified rigger. I can do formation stuff and solo. But Sam? He’s a god.’

‘Yeah. A scary one,’ said Ethan. ‘But that’s the fu

Joh

‘HALO?’ asked Ethan.

‘High Altitude, Low Opening,’ Joh

‘Sounds pretty intense,’ said Ethan.

‘You’ve got that right,’ Joh

‘Nice.’

‘Yeah. It’s pretty difficult to pull a ripcord if you’re an icicle doing a hundred and twenty.’

‘So how low’s the low opening?’ asked Ethan.

‘Real low,’ said Joh

‘Freefalling for over twenty-seven thousand feet? That’s crazy!’

‘Sure is. And pulling your canopy at under two thousand five hundred doesn’t allow any room for error.’

Ethan was quiet for a moment; then he looked at Joh

‘Do I really need to answer that?’

Ethan gri

‘High Altitude, High Opening,’ said Joh

‘That’d be amazing!’ said Ethan. ‘Like flying!’

‘Sam described it just like that,’ said Joh

‘Survival rate?’

Joh

‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ said Ethan.

‘It’s a whole different ball game now,’ Joh

And when the time came, when Ethan actually found himself at the door of the plane at 12,000 feet, Joh

The call came, and Ethan jumped.

He fell…

… tumbled…

… tried to stabilize…

Around him the world spun and flipped. The plane appeared, disappeared.

Green Earth…

Blue sky…

Green again…

Arch your back, Ethan… he told himself.

Stable! Air rushing past, blasting away all sense of sound.

Ethan felt his arms buffeted by the wind as if he’d stuck them out of a car sun roof at eighty.

Joh

This feels natural, he thought; like I’m meant to be up here, doing this. But what really grabbed him was the sense of freedom. Even with Joh

More hand signals. Time to deploy the canopy. Ethan looked down to the handle at the end of the ripcord. He knew he had to make sure he had firm contact. He gripped it hard, just as Sam and Joh

Everything was in the next movement.

He pulled the handle hard and downwards. Any other direction and the wire could snag in the steel piping it ran through, the pin wouldn’t pull, and the main canopy wouldn’t deploy.

As soon as he’d pulled the handle, he pushed both arms out to the side.

Symmetrical.

Stable.

Crack!

Ethan felt his whole body being pulled upwards as, above him, his canopy burst open, caught air, inflated. Joh

‘Ethan. You OK?’

For a second Ethan had no idea where the voice was coming from. He was breathless, disorientated, buzzing like hell. Then he remembered the radio. It was Joh

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Spotted the DZ?’

Ethan quickly glanced around. There it was. How small it looked. ‘Got it. Now what?’

Sam’s voice came over the radio too. ‘Remember what you learned yesterday. Just stay on your current heading,’ he said. ‘You’re doing fine. Remember to use those steering toggles. Try it. Track right.’

Ethan pulled the right steering toggle. He felt himself turn to the right. He eased off, tried the left toggle, turned left. Wow! He was in control of this thing! Unreal!

‘Great,’ came Sam’s voice again. ‘Keep doing that so that you’re on course for the DZ, OK? But remember, you’re not aiming to land on it. You’re aiming for the field just off to the right.’

Joh

Ethan laughed, looked down at the fields below, and started to gradually alter his course.

The world was getting closer and everything was quiet. The wind pushed him along, and slowly he drifted down, down, down.

‘Right,’ came Joh

‘Awesome! How am I looking?’