Accelerated by Vaughn Heppner

and knew an intense feeling of freedom. The only problem was my hair. It didn’t lift in the wind as it used to. It was a small thing, but I was self-conscious about it. Like the rest of me, it was denser than before the incident.
    Blake and I had spotted two ships several hours apart but most of the voyage we had the ocean to ourselves. It was strange how troubles faded while out at sea. I was going to find out who killed Kay…soon. While watching the swells, my thoughts slipped into limbo.
    The boat lurched. I blinked several times. The boat lurched again the other way. I looked up at Blake. He stood at the controls, grinning down at me.
    “What?” I asked.
    “I’ve been thinking.”
    Friends had called me a brooder before. There were times I stopped and stared into nowhere. Then a person would nudge me and ask if I was okay. Despite Blake being a techie writer, he had an extrovert’s way. He liked to talk, even if it was about nothing.
    “I’ve been thinking,” Blake said, as he swung his arm to indicate the ocean. “Could you imagine if we were astronauts and this was a new planet? That would mean this would be the first human vessel to sail across an untouched ocean?”
    The thought made me grin, which no doubt encouraged Blake.
    “It’s a shame we don’t use the Hubble Telescope with more foresight,” he said. “Who cares how the universe began? Use the Hubble to search for nearby planets is what I say.”
    “How would that help us?”
    “What would happen if astronomers found an Earth-type planet within ten light-years of us?” he asked. “That would be a game-changer. The knowledge would start working on everyone’s imagination just as knowledge of spices in the Far East spurred on the early European explorers. People would look at the night sky and realize a new world, an inhabitable planet, was on our doorstep.” Blake’s eyes shone. “Think of it. The knowledge might defuse a few wars and shake up some religious terrorists. It might even shake up some religions. Scientists and inventors would seriously begin thinking of ways to reach that planet. It would be a goal, just like China’s riches once lured Christopher Columbus into discovering America.”
    I considered what Blake said as we rumbled through the ocean. My hazy, limbo-like thoughts evaporated along with my good feelings. Tantalizing goals had lured Kay, and she had shipwrecked her life on a Long Beach street.
    Two hours later, a helicopter appeared as a dot in the sky. It was near six o’clock in the evening, with plenty of light still.
    Blake pointed it out to me. I grunted, acknowledging that I saw it.
    Ten minutes later, Blake said, “It’s still there.”
    “What?” I asked.
    “The chopper is still out there.”
    I turned away from the rolling swells. The sun was behind a cloud, but there were fewer clouds than previously and plenty of blue sky. I was wearing my extra-dark sunglasses, so I could see. But looking up in the daytime sky made me squint too much. If the sun had been freely shining, I wouldn’t even have bothered trying.
    “Is the helicopter bigger than before?” I asked.
    Blake was silent long enough that I glanced at him. He stared intently at the chopper.
    “Maybe,” he finally said.
    Five minutes later, I looked again. The helicopter was still there and it had grown larger. To my mind, it had also dropped lower in the sky.
    “Is it black?” I asked.
    “Black helicopters went out with the Nineties,” Blake said.
    He meant the old conspiracy theory about black U.N. helicopters monitoring American patriots. There were people who still subscribed to the idea, but not as many these days.
    Blake shook his head. “I don’t think it’s black.”
    “Which means nothing in itself,” I said.
    “Are you paranoid about it?”
    The Chief had warned me away from Long Beach. He’d said Jagiello had aimed a workable laser weapon at my head.
    “It’s not paranoid if people really are after