Nothing in the world feels better than The Jump.

Trust me: I’ve chased a lot of highs; nothing beats The Jump.

It’s an adrenaline junkie’s dream, reserved for a select few of us. We are the highest order of the Earth-Wide Emergency Search & Rescue (EESR), and we have the best job on the planet.

My body is safely nestled a few-thousand kilometers away in a bunk on Earth’s International Space Station. My mind is synced to my EESR Avatar in a satellite of my own. There isn’t a more advanced robot in the world than the one I get to run around in today.

As we run through a quick pre-Jump systems check, I get the run-down of the mission: tunnel collapse in a remote Diametal mine; twelve civilians and one Class-A Avatar are buried; no presumed casualties and no existential damage to the mech; I’m to tunnel in without causing further collapse, pull out the Avatar, then the people.

Mission control stresses the order for me: tech then civ’s. I have a “save-‘em-all complex” they say. One mech can save “countless lives” though, and they’re so damn expensive and the metals used in their neural circuits are so rare, that losing one just to save a handful of people might leave us short-handed to save more people later. “Think long-term,” they say.

I shrug. I will save ‘em all—always do.

I get the all-clear; jumping in five.

I’m giddy. I’m a child. It’s Christmas morning and I already know I’m getting everything I want. My billion-dollar superhero-suit doesn’t have an adrenal gland, but my remapped brain simulates the rush.

I love top-of-the-line models. I can barely remember the military-grade Avatars I used to use; I can’t even imagine how sluggish the civ ones are.

I open my eyes as the airlock doors part in front of me. For a brief moment, there’s only peace. I’m 2,000 km up in a Low Earth Orbit. The sun’s somewhere behind me, so that blue marble down there is lit up in all her beauty. I think I’m over the Pacific right now. Ahh—and the moon is just peaking around the horizon. I love it when she does that.

This job, I tell you.

The moment ends, my thrusters engage, and I jettison from my pod at 300 km/h (add that to the 7.8 km/s the satellite was already flying at if you want your head to spin). According to mission specs I’ll remain in orbit for about eight seconds before easing my way into the upper-atmosphere; eight seconds before hell breaks loose—and the fun begins.

I sometimes wish for this peaceful part to last longer. Send me to the far side of the world just once! I’d love to see it all from up here. But that forty-five-minute trip would often mean I’m too late. Response time is everything for our unit. With forty-two of us up here in in varying orbits, we can get boots on the ground anywhere in the world in under nine minutes.

I won’t complain. I’ll take my eight seconds with a “thank you.” After all: if I wasn’t here right now, I’d be dead, no question.

Six years ago, I may as well have been. I was a junkie—addicted to everything except life. I’d base-jump off a foreclosed tower while soaring on a cocktail of adrenaline, ketamine, cocaine, and methamphetamines. I’d fly. I’d really fly. And every day I’d think about leaving my chute in my pack, just to snag those last few seconds of euphoria hiding closest to the ground.

One day I actually didn’t pull it, but my emergency chute still deployed around 200 m. I slowed to about 80 km/h before I impacted—three times faster than you hope to. I broke both my heels, twelve other bones in my legs, and fractured the hell out of my back. It could have been worse. Had I the means, I could have been put back together pretty well. But a guy like me doesn’t get fixed for free.

I’d resolved to chase the dragon ‘til I died in a chair. Then some guys from EESR showed up. My reputation for being a reckless dummy preceded me, apparently—and my previous life in the U.S. Marines Elite Avatar Operations Unit didn’t hurt.

They offered me a choice: enroll in their training program and likely burnout—or maybe die—before I got anywhere near a mission; or just call it quits now.

I was heading up to the ISS the following week.

—-

My heads-up-display alerts me it’s time to dive. My thrusters pivot in their sockets and my arc over the planet steepens, throwing me into the upper atmosphere head-first. I dial down all sensory inputs with a thought—not all the way down, mind you. At full, both the roar and heat of my descent would overwhelm the human part of my android brain. Standard practices are to set them at 5%. I believe a healthy compromise is reasonable here.

‘Cause this is what I live for.

I open my eyes again as I feel the heat building. The air around me is getting denser. Flames are licking my avatar—plasma burning up in a pressure wave forming in front of me. (Someone told me the science of it once; I tuned most of it out.)

HUD says I’m ninety seconds out; moving at 8.5 km/s now. I’m a falling angel engulfed in flames.

I can vaguely make out a pillow-sea of clouds racing towards me.

A moment later I explode through them, boring a hole a kilometer wide. If you looked skyward from the ground, you’d see me now: a comet rocketing towards the planet.

My reverse-thrust air jets cycle up. At 2,000 m they fire at full clip. My Avatar stops-dead in the air; I keep going, smashing into the ground.

Full out-of-body trip.

This is what kills most applicants to the EESR. The sharpness of that deceleration is totally dissociative. It defies the mind’s expectations to such a degree that the mind just…kind of breaks.

It’s my favourite part. It’s exactly what I was looking for when I didn’t pull my chute six years ago. It’s what I live for, now. This is what we’ve all chase. I wake every day hoping I get to Jump and feel this again.

My mind rejoins the Avatar as I enter into a controlled descent for the remaining hundred meters. Time to go to work.

I assess the landscape. Small island, maybe only about 7 km across. Steep ridges lead to the old volcano’s peak. The slopes are covered in dense forests of tropical flora and seem to slip right into the ocean. There might have been beaches there a few dozen years ago before the seas reclaimed them. Damn.

Mild seismic activity is registering. Volcanic activity had recently been reported about 90 km to the South. This guy here is supposed to be dormant, but my sensors are detecting some faint signatures here as well. Not ideal.

It’s an awful spot for a mine, if you ask me. That’s the thing with Diametal though—you take it wherever you find it. We need every scrap.

I land in the middle of a dirt road a few hundred meters from the mouth of the mine. I salute the handful of onlookers who fled to the cover of tall coconut palms on my approach. I pause for the adulation that usually greets me.

I get nothing; these guys are stonewalling me. Some are shaking their heads; one even waves me off. I guess they didn’t like my landing. I try to make it look as heroic as possible, but you can’t please everyone.

Maybe I’ll get some cheers when I haul their friends and family out of this mess.

I set off towards the mine at a jog, loping strides carrying me a few meters with each step. I activate my local scans to get a fix on my fellow Avatar’s position. The metal in the ground here prevented our satellites from getting an exact location but I should have better luck this close.

Got ‘em. Looks like there’s an air pocket about thirty meters down. Given its size and the number of people down there, they should have about fifteen minutes of good oxygen. There may be a vent that I’m not picking up on which would give us a bit more wiggle room, but I’ll not bet on it.

According to schematics: if I start digging through the main tunnel, I should be able to follow it in a descending circle for 200 m before finding them.

From hands and knees, I start pulling away rocks by hand—working at the speed of twenty civ’s. It’s a delicate balance: clearing a path as fast as possible while reinforcing the surrounding rubble. It’s a good thing I’m good at my job. I have sealant spraying from nozzles on the back of my wrists as I rapidly claw my way forward.

I wonder why that trapped Avatar isn’t digging from his end. From what I can tell he’s just sitting there. I’ll worry about that later; for now, I dig.

My sensors note a spike in heat nearby moments before I see a glowing crack opening up where I was about to claw. I engage my air jets immediately, shooting backward out of my little tunnel just as lava begins filling it in.

Volcanic activity confirmed. This just got way more complicated. My Avatar can handle intense heat—what I survived on the Jump was about 50% hotter than lava ought to be. But superheated Diametal—if being carried in that fiery stream—could do some serious damage.

On to Plan B. It’s a little less elegant, but it is quicker, and I don’t think my old fifteen-minutes-of-air timeline applies anymore.

I race to a spot three feet from where my fellow Avatar is lounging (can’t wait to find out what the hell he’s doing down there) and prepare to bore straight down. I need to make this hole as tight as possible to minimize the odds of collapse. It won’t be wide enough to effectively carry people out of, but we’ll figure out step two when I’m down there.

I configure the micro-thrusters in the Avatar’s boots to burn low but hot, then activate my air jets once more to fire me straight down—like a knife through butter.

The sensors indicate more pockets of heat on the way down. Ribbons of lava seem to be cutting through the rocks across the whole area, perhaps guided around concentrated Diametal deposits.

I pop out into the chamber below in a shower of rock—some solid and some molten. I was spraying sealant on my way down the tunnel and now I set to capping the leak. I admire my handiwork for a half-second before realizing I have bigger fish to fry.

Step one: reassess situation.

The rocky room is lit with dim orange lamps sitting against the walls and red emergency bulbs strung up along the ceiling. The twelve civilians, all shirtless and wearing mis-fitting cargo pants, are clumped together at one end of the room, bowing together in what seems to be a silent prayer. Not panicking; conserving oxygen—perfect.

“Prayers are answered, guys,” I say with a smile.

A couple look up, but none cheer. Tough crowd on this island!

I turn to the Avatar at the other end of the chamber. It’s a larger unit fitted with boring tools. It is not currently boring though. Right now, its body is thrown against a massive boulder blocking what would have been the entry to the chamber. My mouth drops at the sight of the thing. Its surface is smooth as polished marble and so black is seems to suck the light out of the air—except for a few rare spots that glisten like tiny stars.

That one rock would be worth half-a billion dollars right there. It might hold enough Diametal to build a dozen Class-A brains. This stupidly-dangerous mine makes a bit more sense.

I finally take my eyes off it to realize the mouth of the tunnel it’s blocking is glowing.

Situation assessed.

Step Two: act fast.

“If you let go of that thing, this whole chamber floods in seconds, yeah?” I ask the mining unit.

“Yep,” he responds. His voice is strained. He must have his sensors pretty high to detect changes in heat and pressure in the chamber. His brain (wherever it is) must think it’s pretty near death right now. Damn, good for him.

“How long for you to bore a tunnel out of here—big enough to walk all them out?” I ask, gesturing towards the civs.

“Ninety-five seconds.” He says. He’s already done the math. Good.

“Do it. I got this.” I say, taking up a position next to him at the boulder. “Move in three, two, go.”

He peels away and I slide immediately into his spot. I activate air thrusters on low again—no need to dig in my heels like he did. I love having the fancy tools.

“That’s not holding for long.” He says. “Not long enough, I think.”

I have my system run diagnostics, probing the density of the boulder and the rock surrounding the tunnel, and sensing the heat and pressure of the lava building up just behind it. He’s right. In thirty seconds, the tunnel walls will turn molten and start to leak around the boulder; in fifty-five, the boulder will to start liquifying itself; in seventy, a wave will overtake me. I don’t think the Avatar can take that—at the very least it’ll be buried and have to be scavenged after the volcano settles down.

My new partner didn’t wait for my thoughts at least. He’s already boring upwards out of the far side of the chamber at a steep angle.

And one of the civilians is walking towards me.

“Who will you choose, spaceman? Us, or that?” He asks, gesturing to my Avatar.

“Everyone lives today.” I tell him with a wink.

He spits out of the corner of his mouth and shakes his head. He doesn’t buy it. Much as I hate to admit it, he might be right.

“Go. I’ll do what I have to do.” I tell him.

“You’ll do what you always do, spaceman. And we’ll bear the price.”

He walks back to his little tribe and gathers them together to follow the driller on hands and knees in a sad, single-file line. He might not have faith in me, but at least he’s not going to sit there and wait to die. I’ll take it.

Alone in the chamber, I survey the scene again. I can direct a couple air-jets forwards to counter some of the heat being built up. I can use what sealant I have left in reserve to fortify around the boulder.

System says that’ll buy me an extra eight seconds. It’s a start.

I turn the air jets on low, keeping an eye on my power levels. I still need enough juice to get the heck out of here. If I were one to follow orders to a T, I’d be out of here already. “It isn’t worth the risk to the Avatar to even try buying time for those civilians,” I can hear them saying.

I don’t give up that easy. We’re all winning, today.

The edges around the boulder glow hotter and start melting. I adjust, freeing one hand to spray the walls with sealant. Minimal effect. The glowing spreads away from the mouth like an infection.

I jam my metal head against the boulder and spray in wide arcs with both hands. Those miners better be halfway outta here by now.

I can feel the heat swelling. I need my sensors dialed—I need to know the moment I’m out of time—but damn, it’s hot. It’s too hot.

I realize I’ve been waving my hands for nothing; I must have run out of sealant a few seconds ago. The mouth of the tunnel is melting. I increase my thrusters to drive the boulder further back, hoping to stem the flood of lava, but the tunnel is hungry for it.

As I push, I start to feel the surface of the boulder give a bit. I pull my head back to replace it with my hands. Diagnostics tell me of a small scratch on my crown. I try to assess the damage when I realize my hands are slowly being swallowed by the boulder.

Damnit. There’s nothing I can do. If I hold this for another ten seconds, I’ll be halfway inside it. If I jet now, yes: I’ll have to own up to the damage already done to the Avatar, but it will at least be in one piece. But this wave will catch up to the miners in seconds.

If I stay, I’ll never jump again. They’ll send me home tomorrow; and I don’t know if I can go back to that life.

“You’re a junkie; always a junkie; never a hero; don’t anger the dealer,” a pained voice in the back of my head says. It’s right. I don’t want to be a hero. All I want is to Jump.

“You’ll do what you always do,” comes an echo of another voice.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to myself.

I break away from the rock and turn my air jets on full. The force drives me backwards against the mouth of the small tunnel the miners are scrambling up. They should be close to the surface now.

A wave of lava explodes through the boulder of Diametal, shattering it and carrying its precious and deadly treasures towards me. The wave smashes against an invisible wall created by my jets, sending fiery splashes of molten rock in all directions. Droplets hit me in sprays and leave burn-marks wherever they touch. I can feel lava pooling around me. My lower sensors are going haywire and I can barely move my feet. I look down and can’t see past my knees.

The wave presses hard, eager to escape this cave. I grind my teeth and turn the jets to max. The glowing wall behind me starts absorbing me. I can feel it creeping around my ears.

A warning flashes an ugly red in the corner of my HUD: energy levels critical.

Two more seconds and everyone should be safe. I may not have done the “job,” but I did something.

Maybe I can live with it.

I hear a click, and the whirr of my jets powering down. The dragon in this cave swallows me whole.

Maybe they’ll let me jump from the shuttle taking me home.