Series: Forebears

The orange fire formed patterns along the clouds and in the sky — fractals twisting and playing and growing, a sound like a ball bearing rolling down a copper tube echoing in the street. I wondered how many of Holland’s neighbors were looking out their windows at the sound… looking up at the burning mandala of mathematics in the sky, and watching it flare a brighter orange…

With a crack, one corner of the fractal seemed to shatter, opening a hole to grey glowing nothing. A craft the size and shape of a tour bus fell through that hole, frost and ice cracking along its surface as it fell. It was at least a hundred meters up and falling, until six underbody turbofan vanes like the flyer’s snapped out and kicked hard to cushion the landing. Above it, the orange fire faded to nothing, even as the medical float leveled off and twisted down towards the ground.