21 min read
Part One: The Jump
The plane was high in the air, just outside Fairbanks, Alaska. Its twin engines roared as the wind howled and barreled through the yawning door. It was June 2025. A sprawling sea of black spruce was licked in flame three thousand feet below, adding to the midsummer heat. Though the blaze spanned thirty acres, it wasn’t as big as the others that Sam Forstag had seen that benighted the sky with billowing smoke.
He, like the five others in the plane, was outfitted
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