He laughed, a carefree sound, as if this was the best ride of his life. “Ah, Helen, Helen. What you do to a guy.”
“Tell me what you think of this car.”
He took the turn off the scenic route, back to normal highway traffic. “It corners extremely well. I barely needed to move the steering wheel. That’s what makes a great car, in my opinion, the cornering speed.”
“It’s a good driver that makes the cornering speed,” Helen pointed out.
He glanced at her briefly. “How did you get to like racing? You’re obviously familiar with cars. I know you’ve driven very fast before because you didn’t even hold on to anything just now. Either that, or you’re an adrenaline junkie.”
Helen laughed. “Or both,” she suggested, as a slight evasion. “Speed is fun, and being the one in control of it is an indescribable feeling—like being at one with the world.”
“As close to Zen as one can get,” agreed Flyboy. “How experienced are you behind the wheel?”
“Not as experienced as you think. I don’t have the resources that you have.”
“So, who owned the few cars you did drive?”
She studied her nails. “Boyfriends.”
“Whoa. Wealthy boyfriends. I’m not in your league, Miss Roston.”
“Yeah, I’m a picky girl,” Helen mocked, “but you got one thing going for you, babe.”
His laughing eyes met hers. “What’s that? Fantastic sex?”
Oh, he would be fantastic in bed. All he had to do was lounge there and be devoured, but of course he knew that already. “Nope.” She leaned closer conspiratorially. “Being a pilot, you have other bigger things for me to ride in.”
They both laughed. One thing fun about flirting with Flyboy. He didn’t take himself too seriously. That was very important in Helen’s playbook, especially in a good-looking guy.
Lunch gave a good opportunity to ask some questions outside the Center. Helen was never sure who was listening in at that place. She’d watched T. carefully scan the ladies’ room, where they usually met, with one of her special rings. Granted, her operations chief was a very careful woman by nature, but if even she was paranoid about her workplace, then Helen figured she had better be, too.
Flyboy and she had a mutual passion—racing—and she understood his love for speed very well. He actually described it better than she could, probably because he had traveled at faster speeds than she would ever have the chance to try.
“Euphoria, or close to it. You’re flowing and floating, even though you know you aren’t, and you have total control of the craft. You can go upside down or nosedive, and still feel perfectly at ease. There’s no conscious effort, yet…” He trailed off, studying her. “Not boring you, I hope.”
“No, no, not at all. It’s the feeling of fearlessness. Or lack of fear. It’s just you and…well, if it’s driving, you and the road and total focus.”
He seemed surprised and pleased at her words, as if he hadn’t expected her to understand. But Helen had enough information to know that despite his flirtatious demeanor, Flyboy wasn’t all heartbreaker; he could fly some of the most sensitive aircrafts in the world. Besides that, he was a COS commando, a man who had undergone extreme experiments and training, just as she had.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And trust, total trust in yourself and the vehicle.”
Which brought up the subject ofhervehicle, the Portal. Of the people she had been introduced to these past few months, Flyboy was the most approachable. Because he had used VR for his work, their conversation naturally turned to aspects of her training.
“Yes, I want to try out the Portal.” He answered her questions in between bites of hamburger. “It’s modeled after the one I’m famous for, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were creating a new simulation program to train aviators. I was the Flybot,” he said, then threw back his head and laughed at his own pun.
“I’ve seen that film package with a simulated you,” Helen admitted. “Very patriotic, very nice…you looked marvelous.”
Flyboy shrugged. “That one was a funding package for Congress. I haven’t seen that version, actually. Part of my work was to help improve sim-flight training and that was my main interest. The other thing was more…” He shrugged again, his blue eyes scornful, as he searched for the right word. “For show.”
Helen tapped his hand playfully with a straw. “Hey, you never know, your sacrifice probably brought some funding into the research for the Portal. And my training, too!”
He smiled. “Well, put in that way, I suppose being treated like a piece of marketing meat is okay.”
“I hope I don’t treat you that way.”
