Celerity, p.1
CELERITY, page 1
CELERITY
Scott Falcon
Also by Scott Falcon
THRESHOLD
AMERICAN MUTT
CELERITY, a Novel
Copyright © 2020 Scott Falcon
ScottFalcon.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher using the contact page on RandWilde.com, and include “Attention: Permissions Coordinator.” In the subject line.
ISBN: 978-1-7341473-6-0 (Ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-7341473-7-7 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-7341473-8-4 (Hardcover)
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020908096
FIC031080 FICTION/Thrillers/Psychological
FIC015000 FICTION/Horror
FIC031010 FICTION/Thrillers/Crime
FIC031000 FICTION/Thrillers/General
FIC030000 FICTION/Thrillers/Suspense
FIC025000 FICTION/Psychological
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Printed by Rand Wilde Media in the United States of America.
FIRST EDITION
RandWilde.com
Contents
The Aftermath
Celerity Audio Recording Pregrame
Celerity File 1
Celerity File 2
Celerity File 3
Celerity File 4
Celerity File 5
The Agent
Celerity File 6
Celerity File 7
Celerity File 8
Celerity File 9
Celerity File 10
Celerity File 11
The Agent
Celerity File 12
Celerity File 13
Celerity File 14
Celerity File 15
Celerity File 16
Celerity File 17
Celerity File 18
Celerity File 19
Celerity File 20
Celerity File 21
Celerity File 22
Celerity File 23
Celerity File 24
Celerity File 25
Celerity File 26
The Agent
Celerity File 27
Celerity File 28
Celerity File 29
The Agent
The Island
Break It
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Scott Falcon
The Aftermath
You discover the harsh truth of it—in your last moment of crisis—that you are alone. And always have been.
—Celerity
* * *
THE CRASH
The ghost plane streaked across the cobalt blue Pacific sky—its white contrails twirling into vortices. The streaks extended for thousands of feet in the humid air, an early indicator of a coming storm. The private jet circled in a slow bank for over an hour, the cockpit windows frosted over, evidence of rapid decompression of the cabin, and loss of oxygen for the crew. An American military jet flew above and behind, its pilot keeping watch over the crippled plane.
* * *
In an NTSB office at night, two men sat in front of the banks of video and audio equipment. They watched the video of the plane descending; the video taken from the trailing F-22A. The video paused.
The talent agent handed a thick manila envelope to the NTSB official, who flipped through the one-hundred-dollar bills, slipped the envelope into the front pocket of his khakis, then handed the agent a flash drive.
“So, you promise not to use this until it goes public, right?”
“Yeah. No problem. Play the last recoding from the black box again,” the agent said. The official pressed a button on the audio panel.
“It’s a cockpit voice recorder, not a black box. Technically.”
“Whatever. Play it.”
“I can’t breathe… I can’t…” the voice said on the recording. Then static, open-air transmission, no more voices.
“Was that her voice?” the official said.
“Sounds like it.”
“It goes on like this for more than an hour, just static. We think she went unconscious. After the pilot had already passed out.” The NTSB official stopped the recording.
“Okay, go back to the video,” the agent said.
The video played, the plane continued its slow bank.
“Fast forward to when it flamed out.” The official fast-forwarded.
The contrails ended, and the plane went into a spiral.
“She’s out of fuel now. No more flying the friendly skies.”
The plane plummeted in free fall, then nosedived into the Pacific at high speed.
The agent pushed back into his chair, big exhale, hands through his hair, “Like a knife. Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“Wreckage?”
“Just pieces at three thousand feet, where they found the cockpit voice recorder.”
* * *
THE IVY RESTAURANT - BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA
The paparazzi cameras flashed and popped. The agent watched self-help guru Tony Tango move through the restaurant with his entourage. Tony noticed the agent, shook his hand, and slithered out the entrance and into his limo. The car drove away.
The agent walked back into the restaurant, spotted a man and a woman at a table. They waved him over, and the agent sat down.
“Hey,” the agent said.
“Tony Tango, in the flesh?” the woman said.
“Yeah, and his crew. I just sold the movie rights. We’re pushing for Gosling,” the agent said.
“Gosling’s not Hispanic,” the woman said.
“Makeup. Or a tan.”
“What about Benicio?”
“Too old.”
The woman slid a martini in front of the agent. “You heard the black box?” the woman said.
The agent sucked half a mouthful, then another. “Yeah, her last words.”
“What’d she say?” the woman said.
“I can’t breathe.”
“Jesus.”
“What about the other recordings, her memoirs, or notes or whatever they are? When can we hear them?” the man, a publisher, said.
“You mean the recordings that don’t exist,” the agent said.
“Yeah, the recordings that don’t exist, that you have no legal access to,” the woman said.
“Where’d you find them?” the man said.
A few seconds passed, then “So, where are we on her estate?” the woman said.
The agent scanned the clientèle. He took another drink.
“I’m working on that with legal. This will be an instant bestseller, right?”
The woman placed her drink on the table and leaned in. “You kidding? Biggest book in a decade. Where are you going with these movie rights? We can help with that.”
The agent smirked. “Thanks, but I got it.”
“Haven’t heard if there’s a will,” the man said.
“The agency still representing the estate per legal, all proceeds go in escrow until probate. Let’s get back to the advance on US publishing rights.”
The woman slid a folded piece of paper over to the agent. He opened it.
Poker face.
“We good?” the woman said.
“No, but I’m here, aren’t I?”
The man and the woman looked at each other.
The agent finished his martini, swallows, not sips.
“I heard the lobster’s good here. On us, of course,” the man said.
“I like the hot seafood platter, mesquite-grilled Eastern lobster, scallops, shrimp, crab cakes, and calamari. We need champagne. French. Old. I’ll choose,” the agent said.
* * *
HOLLYWOOD HILLS
It was magic hour, the sun just over the horizon. The gate opened, and the agent drove his Bentley convertible into the driveway of the restored mid-sixties modern.
The kitchen had a panoramic view of the city lights of Los Angeles. A laptop was on the kitchen table. The agent removed the flash drive from his pocket and inserted it into the computer. The audio file played.
My pilot… my pilot seems to have passed out. We have lost cabin pressure and I can’t breathe. The cabin is freezing over at this altitude… I… Mayday, mayday, can anyone hear me? This is Celerity. We have an emergency. I can’t breathe… I can’t…
A thump, then the ambient sound of the plane’s cabin. The whine of the jet engines.
The agent stopped the audio file.
He walked into his living room, picked up a remote control from the coffee table and turned on the seventy-inch flat screen. Frozen on the screen were three women, two of them playing guitars. He clicked play.
The song blasted from the home theater system, Waiting All Day for Sunday Night. Carly Yellowhair was flanked by Joan Jett and Celerity, playing an old blond Fender Telecaster. The three women were dressed in all black, Celerity with spiky black hair and blue makeup.
“So f ucking hot,” the agent said.
Celerity’s voice was gritty, Joe Cockerish.
The agent cranked the volume, the threesome rocked it, and he danced around the room.
“Fuckin’ A. Such a killer song.”
The song ended, color commentator Kyle Eversworth and play-by-play announcer Michael Allanwood appeared on the screen.
“So here we are, Kyle. We’re predicted to be the most watched NFL game in history, surpassing the highest-rated Super Bowl. Tonight we have the lowly Chicago Bears against their nemesis, the Green Bay Packers. Even after the Halas family finally sold the team to a hedge fund billionaire, and he pumped in a boatload of money, the Bear’s offense has been struggling with one quarterback controversy after the next. Nothing new there,” Allanwood said.
“But, all everyone is talking about is something else, huh? They signed Celerity to a contract, usurping all the other teams. She spent two weeks with their practice squad and was added to the roster for tonight’s Sunday night game,” Eversworth said.
“We knew someday there would be a woman in the league, but I thought it would be a soccer star, a field goal kicker, not a wide receiver. This is a historic moment in sports. A mega-moment, if you will. I just hope she doesn’t get killed out there,” Allanwood said.
“We all hope Celerity, the supposed fastest woman in history, who some people refer to as CLT, does not get injured, of course, but we have had many guys on the small side in the league. I mean, DeSean Jackson, for example, is like five ten but only a hundred and seventy-five pounds. But CLT? We have her at five nine and a buck thirty-five, so let’s just hope,” Eversworth said.
“Let’s hope is right. On the other hand, what a ratings boost for the NFL. This game is predicted to be the most watched in history, right here tonight in Chicago. So what do you think about the Packer’s coverage? Cover two, zone, double team to not get embarrassed? I mean the Bears have to play her, right? There would be a riot, not only in Soldier Field but in the streets of Chicago, if she didn’t get into the game.”
“No doubt the Bears will play her. We don’t know when, but she’s going in, and what a moment it will be. I think the Packers will cheat a safety over to her side.”
“Let’s talk about how she got here. So from what we know, what our media sources tell us, is that her super-agent got word of her workouts at her old high school track after she left UCLA as a freshman. So, he approached her. Then timed her in the forty. Nothing official, but our sources tell us she ran a four-three-flat forty. That’s eight tens off the men’s world record. If true, just remarkable.”
Eversworth shifted in his seat, “Her workouts with the Bears were held inside Halas Hall with no media allowed, but from what I’m told, Mike, it’s not only her lightning-fast breakaway downhill speed, but we are told her routes, her cuts, were off the charts. Later in the week, the Bears put their Pro Bowl defensive back Kalan Foster on her, and I’m told she got open, like wide open. So this is gonna either be amazing, or a disaster—probably one or the other.”
The agent fast-forwarded the telecast to Chicago’s first possession. Celerity was on the sideline. The crowd booed.
Run play up the middle. Two yard gain. Second and eight.
Huddle broke, no Celerity. The crowd’s booing continued.
Run play. No gain. Third and eight on Chicago’s twenty-seven.
Chicago’s coach turned to Celerity and nodded. She ran on the field and into the huddle.
The crowd erupted, chants echoing through Soldier Field. “CLT, CLT, you go girl, make six for me.”
The huddle broke.
“So, this is it, Mike. The big moment. One of the biggest in the history of this league,” Eversworth said.
“And it seems, Kyle, the crowd had their chant ready even before she ran her first play.”
“She’s already a social media phenom, Mike. Like the most searched name.”
Celerity was lined up as the slot receiver.
The camera zoomed in on her face. She had black stripes painted below her eyes.
The agent hit pause on the remote and sat back on the couch, staring at Celerity’s face.
The doorbell rang.
The agent picked up his cell phone, saw a young man standing at his front gate, and buzzed him in.
The agent opened the front door. The young man was twentyish, scruffy.
The young man followed the agent to the kitchen table, sat down, and removed a Corsair Survivor USB 3.0 flash drive from his pocket. He set the round silver tube with rubber bumpers on the table.
“It’s all here. Everything I could scrape from her MacBook until it was powered off a couple of days ago. The audio from the game starts on file fifteen, in case you want to skip ahead.”
“You didn’t hear a thing on these recordings, and you were never here. Clear?”
“Dude, we be clear.”
The agent picked up the flash drive, unscrewed it, examined it, and set it on the table. He left the room, then returned with a briefcase. The young man opened the case and examined its contents. He smiled, closed the briefcase, and stood.
“Should be enough for a month at Passages Malibu and six months’ rent. Good luck.”
“Copy, dude.”
“And dude? I know where you fucking live.”
“Uh, yeah. Well…I move around a lot.”
The agent slowly turned. Scruffy left.
The agent removed the black box flash drive from the laptop and inserted the Corsair. A list of audio files displayed on the screen. He clicked the play icon of the fifteenth file.
Celerity Audio Recording Pregrame
CELERITY’S VOICE
The locker room thing. They thought it out, kinda. I mean, I really didn’t care. I kinda wanted it to be a no-change deal, where there wouldn’t be any changes from before. I get dressed and undressed in the locker room like all the other players.
Then there’s the shower thing. I liked the idea of being stark naked in a shower at the same time with thirty twenty-something NFL studs. I wanted to see how many of them started waving flags in the shower. Just do it, right? It would be like a weekly scorecard; how many Bears got a perk up, how many went full flag? Me, the quicker picker-upper.
How many of them would touch themselves, then I catch them doing it, and they see me catching them, and it’s a fucking crack-up. I was looking forward to that. That is bad, huh? Come on, what woman wouldn’t find the whole deal entertaining? In the shower, I have the power. Then I soap up, and they lose it, or gain it, if you will.
But the truth is that in the new Halas Hall, the showers are nice and private, big-city indulgent, personal trainer, rain shower-heads on terrazzo floors. It’s not like school where sweaty fat chicks jammed in the Auschwitz shower galley. This is luxury professional athletics with wooden locker doors and free hair conditioner and towels that aren’t fraying at the ends.
There was still the dressing and undressing thing, so the organization set up a room adjacent to the main locker room and had some towel kid shuffle back and forth telling me when all the players were “decent.”
They had special shoulder pads made for me that extended down over my breasts—cups with flexible frames. That was the only change to the equipment—tit guards. Oh, and one more thing; they had to send my pants to their seamstress to remove the extra space for a cup. Obviously, I didn’t need that. Sans package.
Once I was dressed, I spent a few minutes in my little dressing room alone before joining the team. I thought of my father, what he would think. He would be amazing proud and excited and nervous and pacing around in his patterns of thought deliberation, thinking of the natural order of things and how this is not one of them. A chaos crash is inevitable, he would say, the female and male species of the higher life-forms demonstrate a continuity of physical and mental attributes, a sexual selection process of peacock's plumage, and the only plumage I would be displaying tonight, with a record reach-rating-Nielson-click-through-user-sessions/visits, is a target on my back. A bull’s eye on a ball field full of bulls.
