Fog Bastards 1 Intention Read Online Free PDF Page B

you.
     
     
The door is opening, Jen used her key. I go give her a quick kiss on the forehead and take her bag of groceries. She pulls me back toward her for a proper kiss. We eat, play and fuck until we can't do it anymore. I get a "what's gotten in to you?" from Jen when I roll her over for round three. I would tell her, but she'd never believe me.
     
     
We drift away to sleep in each other's arms. When I open my eyes next, the alarm is blaring. Halloween is sitting on the bed next to Jen, ball at the ready. One more good night of sleep, courtesy of my watch cat.
     
     

Chapter 3
     
     
Miss Mankat is at the counter when I get to dispatch, this time without my dad. She hands me the file before I can open my mouth. I guess being the son of her boss' boss makes me memorable.
     
     
"Fast and efficient, and I don't even know your first name," I smile and try to make my words smile too. "Did you know," I ask without giving her a chance to speak, "that your position lets you come to Hawaii with us?"
     
     
She's laughing. "First, your dad told me that under no circumstances am I allowed to go to Hawaii with you, and, second, that I am to have you call me Miss Mankat, not Taylor."
     
     
"Taylor? Doesn't sound Indian to me."
     
     
"My parents are untraditional, something yours are not. Your dad very much likes your girlfriend, and I very much like my job."
     
     
A captain appears at my side, laughing, I assume, at our conversation. He joins in the bash Simon contest. "Your dad told me to make sure you didn't hit on the new dispatcher. I am, unfortunately, too late to do my duty as chief pilot. Why is it that every aviator in the company would trade their wife or girlfriend for yours, and you keep looking to trade her in on a newer model?"
     
     
"Owning a Ferrari doesn't stop you from wanting to drive a Lamborghini," I looked at Miss Mankat when I made the Lambo comparison, hoping she understood that was her. She had, after all, told me her first name when dad had told her not to.
     
     
Then I slap the folder in my hand, and head off to a table. Captain Robert Amos had taught me to fly before I was a teenager, taking me up in an old Cessna. He got me the hours I needed to solo at 16, get instrument and multi-engine rated by 18, and have my commercial certificate by 20. When he couldn't fly with me, he'd "persuade" the junior first officers to be my right seat. He got me a job flying a corporate jet right out of college, and then led me back to Mountain Pacific as soon as I had the experience. I owe him big time, which allows him to speak the truth, and my dad to use him against me without making me mad.
     
     
The captain is meticulous, and it takes us right up to departure time to do everything just the way it should be done. The tower clears us to go, and Captain Amos makes a perfect takeoff. He's two years away from mandatory retirement, and both the other pilots and the passengers will miss a man with his skills.
     
     
When we're finally in the boring part of the trip, I ask him the same question I had posed the other night to Jen (no, not whether she wanted to come to Hawaii with me). He doesn't think about it very long.
     
     
"A life of meaning is what every man should strive for. It doesn't have to be saving the world, it can be raising a couple great kids, and keeping the missus happy for 60 years. If you had the chance to push the button and didn't, would you then be responsible for every death that occurred in the Middle East for the rest of time? Could you live with that?"
     
     
My mind was spinning, or what was left of it was. Death or wish for it. If I say no, and 1,000 people die in a bomb blast tomorrow, is their blood on my hands? Or is it on the hands of the fucking fog lunatics who thought this was a good idea? It's not a choice over some horrible burning torture, it's the potential torture of watching bad things happen and not knowing if you could have prevented them. I spend most of the