Comic Book Hero Chapter 5

Murray sat at the desk hunched over his keyboard, fingers flying in a machinegun staccato. He glared at the flat screen before him, flashing rainbow blobs of electric color in the dimming light reflected across his face and glasses. He scowled, his attention totally focused on the scrolling images before him. But at intervals his mind would wander, the scowl on his face replaced by the vulnerable look of uncertainty. At those times he would half turn in his seat, looking over his shoulder at the two younger men behind him, as if to make sure they had not disappeared while he wasn’t looking.

Tom and Mike lounged at opposite ends of an old brown couch, their body language fairly screaming their nonchalance. They chattered incessantly, talking about sports and politics, TV shows and old girlfriends. Sometimes they talked about Murray, Tom telling his older brother about the films he had worked on, the gags he’d designed and had immortalized on screen. Their entire demeanor showed a complete indifference for the way they had turned Murray’s life upside down, which he found irritating as hell. But that, he knew, was the whole point.

A rumble from his stomach reminded Murray that he hadn’t eaten since before the Blackwoods had arrived that morning, some six hours earlier. The smell of the take out pizza they had ordered and just consumed hung in the air, redolent of processed cheese and greasy meat, washed down with a six pack of Tuborg Light. Murray hadn’t wanted to stop his research for anything, embroiled as he was in the greatest puzzle of his life, but had reluctantly agreed to the delivery when the two brothers had threatened mutiny unless they were fed and fed now. Somehow, they had even managed to stick him with the bill.

Murray finally sighed and straightened up, the kinks in his back and neck making popping sounds. Rolling his shoulders and rubbing the bridge of his nose, the little man swiveled his chair to face the other two. It was not a pretty sight.

When they weren’t scarping down the American perversion of Italian cuisine, the two brothers had spent their time rummaging through the movie props and appliances that littered the mostly empty warehouse. Bits and pieces of memorabilia from over twenty years in the business spilled out of bins and off shelves, electronics and rubber body parts, rayguns and broadswords, the truly bizarre mixing with the simply odd. The whole gave an impression of Frankenstein’s basement combined with Norman Bates’ attic.

The two brothers had just come across a gorilla mask from Planet of the Apes, complete with leather helmet. Of course they just had to try it on, didn’t they? Tom slipped the mask over his head, his gray eyes blinking myopically through the slits. Still playing, he beat his chest and howled, waddling across the floor and shaking his arms over his head. Suddenly he leaped up into the air, grasping at imaginary branches and swinging across the great room, suspended ten feet off the floor and screeching like a zoo chimpanzee performing for the crowd. Mike literally fell down laughing, clutching his belly as his face turned red.

Murray shook his head and tried to look disgusted, but inside he was still thrilled at what had walked into his life this morning. I mean, really, a flying man was just so damned cool! The little man had to work hard not to let his elation show like a neon sign.

“If you two clowns are finished with the circus act,” he said, raising his voice, “then sit down and listen up. I think I’ve got something.”

Like a switch being thrown the Blackwood’s light banter vanished, replaced by looks of concentration. Mike scrambled to his feet as Tom dropped beside him, hastily taking the gorilla mask off and dropping it to the couch. As Murray turned back to face the monitor the two younger men quickly took positions behind him, peering over his short but blocky frame. Lines of text and technical drawings, a website with few frills showed on the screen.

“Okay, first off,” Murray began, edging to the side to make room for his two guests. “This is based solely on those cockeyed backyard experiments you two told me about. I can’t come to any real conclusions or theories until I’ve made my own tests using proper and accurate scientific instruments. In other words, no kite string, duct tape, or chewing gum.

“Still, you guys did pretty good considering your lack of training and what you had to work with. So based on that and my own observations only, I’m willing to propose a preliminary working hypothesis. Remember, at this point it’s just a wild assed guess, nothing more, so don’t hold me to it.”

Mike snorted. “What are you, a lawyer? C’mon, stop covering your ass and just tell us how Tommy goes tripping off into the wild blue yonder.” Tom withheld his own comments, but he nodded in agreement with his brother. He wanted answers too.

Murray grunted. “Your funeral. Okay, in my hypothesis, the motive power behind Tom’s flight is gravity. Somehow, the explosion at Lydecker labs has given him the ability to warp the force of gravity in a field around his body. He controls it, splits it, makes it pull him in two or more directions at once. If he splits it in half and has it pull him upwards, he floats. If he splits it three ways and has it pull him sideways, he flies. Or more accurately, Tom doesn’t fly, he just falls in whatever direction he wants to.

“I believe this because of three things. First, Tom can’t lift more than his own weight, which is consistent with the idea that the motive force is no more or less than his own gravity redirected. Second, when you guys did that speed test, Tom’s high speed was always around 125 miles an hour. Now I know from some of the skydiving gags I’ve done that a falling human has a variable speed, depending on everything from the wind resistance of the clothing to the position the diver takes. But the average speed is about 125.

“Third, there’s that little stunt you pulled with the pendulum and those tire chains. Nice idea, it definitely proves a field effect. The fact that your lifting power also increases in proportion to the weight of whatever’s in the field is pretty conclusive.

“Okay, so now we know what Tom does, he warps and redirects gravity. Next question; just what is gravity?” Murray looked at his audience, his eyebrows rising in invitation. Tom and Mike looked at each other, the same question mirrored in both of their faces. Finally they both shrugged, turning back to look at the enigmatic Murray. “We don’t know, Murray. So why don’t you tell us?” Tom finally answered.

“I can’t,” Murray replied. “I don’t know either. And neither does anybody else.” He gestured towards the computer on his desk, scowling at it almost accusingly. “Oh I’ve found plenty of theories alright. Theories are like assholes and excuses, everybody has one. But none of them have been proven, and most of them have holes you can drive a truck through. Like I said, when it comes to gravity, nobody really knows what it is.”

The Blackwood brothers frowned, taking it in. Then Mike said, “You say everybody has a theory, but they all have holes. Give us a for-instance.”

“Okay, check this out,” the small man answered, turning back to the PC on his desk, his fingers flying as he accessed a new website. “Here’s a guy, has a really great website, all dedicated to his theory on what gravity does. Do you guys know what a neutrino is?”

“Ummm, isn’t that supposed to be the smallest particle of matter? It’s so small it has no mass, so it can pass through matter without being slowed down?” said Mike.

“Give the man a see-gar. That’s pretty close, but not quite. See, neutrinos were first postulated by Wolfgang Pauli back around 1933, although the first one wasn’t actually detected until the late fifties. Neutrinos travel at the speed of light, and since they’re so small and because matter is mostly space, they pass through it with almost no effect. Like dust, drifting through outer space. About a hundred trillion of them pass through our bodies every second. But neutrinos do have some mass, and on the statistically rare times when a neutrino strikes an atom, it becomes a particle called a muon, which releases a small burst of energy that can be detected. No one is sure what purpose neutrinos serve in the universe, but everyone is sure that it’s important. The U.S. is so interested that they sponsor Project Amanda at the south pole. The acronym stands for Arctic Muon and Neutrino Detection Array, and as of this year they’ve managed to bury over five thousand sensors in the polar ice just to detect neutrinos.

“Anyway, there are three different types of neutrino discovered so far, and this guy says that gravity is just another neutrino that we haven’t found yet. He says that these neutrinos impart momentum when they pass through, but we can’t feel it because we’re being hit equally from all sides at the same time, except from the direction of the earth, which is dense enough to slow down the flow.”

“Huh. You mean gravity doesn’t attract, it repels? And we’re not pulled toward the earth, we’re actually pushed to it?” Tom asked. When Murray nodded, he said “Okay, so what’s wrong with that theory?”

Murray snorted. “First off, all matter is traveling away from galactic center, the spot where it all started, the neighborhood of the big bang. We may twist and spin and our trajectories may alter, but in general everything is heading away from that one spot. Basically, everything in the universe is just galactic shrapnel. But according to this guy’s version of the universe, for some reason neutrinos don’t come from one source like all other matter, they come from all over, pushing on us equally from all directions at the same time.” Murray’s voice turned wry. “For some reason, this guy never got around to explaining that little problem.

“Now, the second hole in this guy’s theory is, neutrinos travel at the speed of light, but gravity propagates instantly.” He looked at his audience, but met only blank stares. He grinned. The little man was getting his own back for the way they had pole-axed him before.

“Okay, kiddies, here’s a little physics lesson. Our sun is about 93 million miles away. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, so it takes approximately four and a half minutes for the sun’s light to reach earth. So if you want to know exactly where the sun is at any given time, you have to look at where you see it now and just add four and a half minutes to it’s trajectory. Now we may not know just what gravity is, but we do have instruments that can detect it, even on something as massive and far away as the sun. And these instruments show the gravitic pull of the sun as being four and a half minutes farther along on its trajectory than where we can see its light. In other words, light and neutrinos propagate at 186,000 miles per second, but gravity propagates instantly. Therefore, gravity probably isn’t a neutrino.

“Anyway, that’s just one theory, but there are a dozen more just like it. Some of them are just as cockeyed or illogical, others might make sense but you can’t prove or disprove ‘em. But what it all boils down to is, nobody really knows just what the hell gravity is.”

The three men were silent while Murray’s information sank in. Tom got to his feet and started pacing the floor, a look of fierce concentration on his face. Mike stared fixedly at the hands in his lap, granting his brother the time to think. He knew how much of Tom’s future rode on the results of what was discussed here, in this decrepit looking warehouse with its strange little inhabitant.

Finally Tom stopped pacing, his eyes fixing across the room at Murray.

“Alright, for now let’s accept that what I do is warp my own personal little slice of gravity. We don’t know how I do it, and maybe we never will. Fine, I can live with that if I have to. But how about why I can do it. Was it the explosion, the particles the doctors say peppered my spine? Just what are they, and what else can I expect. Are they toxic? Radioactive? Am I going to wake up tomorrow with cancer?”

Murray didn’t miss Tom’s use of the word ‘I’. It brought home just how alone the young man was in all of this, no matter what he or Mike or anybody else said. Tom was the only person in the whole world that this had happened to, and in the end he alone would have to face the unknown consequences of his bizarre condition.

“Okay,” Murray began, all banter gone from his voice. “Here’s what I found out. Lydecker Labs has issued press releases about the explosion. They say this Doctor Scarpelli who caused the explosion is in an unnamed private hospital, still in a coma, and suffering from severe facial damage. They refer to Tom as ‘an unknown construction worker’ who suffered some burns on his back but had already been released from the hospital. They don’t know what caused the explosion, but they ‘speculate’ that it may have been a gas leak caused by the remodeling.”

Mike snorted in disgust. “ ’Construction worker’ my ass. They make it sound like you were involved, like maybe the explosion was your fault. They’re covering their own butts, Tommy, and they’re gonna try and screw you out of a settlement.”

Murray nodded in agreement. “The rock star’s right. They’ll try and whitewash this.”

Tom waved his hand in dismissal. “That’s something for the lawyers to work on. Right now I just want to find out what really happened. What can you tell me about Scarpelli?”

Murray turned back to the screen, and with a click of his mouse called up the notes he had taken on his web search. They were extensive, considering how little time he had had to work with, taking up several pages, splotches of bright yellow highlighting areas of particular interest. “Dominic Nicolo Scarpelli, born August 3rd 1954, in Chicago. Parents were working class immigrants from Naples, with very little formal education. Little Dom tells everybody that they’re dead, but I found out otherwise. In an interview with Scientific American Magazine, he hinted that he was descended from old Sicilian nobility, and I guess having a bricklayer old man would make that hard to buy. Guess he just doesn’t want anybody to know he comes from ‘peasant stock’.

“Got a scholarship early, a fellow child prodigy. Went to Columbia and got a Ph.D. in biophysics, then another at MIT in electrical engineering. Wrote some papers and did a lot of research in organic superconductors, that’s superconductors made out of plastic. He claimed that someday you would get a room temperature SC using organics, and from what I could tell, a lot of people were listening.”

Mike glanced at his brother and said, “Hey, didn’t the doctors say that most of the stuff peppering your spine was plastic? That’s why it didn’t show up well on x-rays.”

Tom nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense. I have some sort of superconductor all over my back, something that works at room temperature instead of 30 or 40 degrees Kelvin.”

“More,” Murray added. “Room temp would be about 78 degrees Fahrenheit. But body temperature is 98.6, remember?”

“Ok, so what else do we know about him?”

“We lucked out on the personal front. Scarpelli worked at Bell Labs before he went to Lydecker, and I got a friend who still works there. She described him as ‘the most brilliant asshole I’ve ever met’. He was vain, arrogant, rude, and completely ignored any rule that inconvenienced him in the slightest. He treated people like dirt, and in the eighteen months he was there at least three other employees resigned because of him. Not exactly a people person. But despite all the complaints, they put up with him as long as they did because he produced. Bell developed the first plastic SC out of polythiophene in 2001, and according to my friend Scarpelli was one of the top people on that project.”

“Yeah, so? If he was that big a wheel at Bell labs, how did he end up at Lydecker?” Mike asked.

“Money and ego. Scarpelli thought he deserved more of the credit for polythiophene, demanded more money and the right to publish, plus a percentage of all profits accruing from the project. A percentage not to be split with the other team members, naturally. And either the Bell guys had had enough and booted his ass, or Lydecker made a better offer.”

“Maybe both,” Tom said thoughtfully, remembering the gossip he’d overheard in the three weeks before the explosion. “At Lydecker everybody hated his guts, but they sure gave him a lot of perks. Private parking, private lab. There’re ‘no smoking’ signs all over that place, but he was always walking the halls with one of those damn smelly French cigarettes going. Lydecker can’t afford to pay as much as Bell, but they would probably put up with more crap. Maybe his ego was more important than his bank account.”

“I thought you said Lydecker had plenty of money,” Mike said. “Even if they’re not as big as Bell, why put up with it?”

Murray snorted. “Superconductors, you dipstick. They currently use them for everything from power storage and digital routing, to running the most sensitive equipment ever made. England, Germany, Japan and America are all planning on having maglev trains operational within the next five years or so. By 2005, SC’s were a $90 billion market, and by 2010 it’ll be over $200 billion. That’s more than the entire American sports industry.

“And that’s the conservative estimate. Think about it. Right now, the fastest speeds attainable with modern computers are tereflops, a trillion operations per second. But if someone comes up with a room temperature superconductor, you can build computers that run at petraflop speeds, which is a thousand trillion operations per second. When that happens, the SC market goes through the roof. Believe me, Lydecker knows it, and they’ll swallow an awful lot for a shot at that kind of loot.”

“All of which went up in smoke when Scarpelli’s lab blew,” Mike mused. “All that cash spent and all that crap swallowed, and nothing but a charred hole in the wall to show for it. Lydecker’s publicly owned, isn’t it?” Tom nodded in confirmation. “So chances are, somebody is really sweating the next stockholder’s meeting. And you know something? They’re not going to want to pay out any expensive insurance claims right now. Especially not without a physical exam.”

“Yeah,” Tom said, quietly. “A physical exam.”

The last words hung in the air like a cloud, like an ominous smell. The silence stretched for long seconds, it’s import felt heavily by all three men. Finally Murray spoke, putting their fears into uncharacteristically soft spoken words.

“And you can’t do that, can you, Tom? You don’t dare do it. If anybody finds out about this, sooner or later someone’s going to grab you and take you apart like a cheap watch, just to see what makes you tick.

“You where right, man. If what you can do ever becomes public, everybody in the whole freaking world will want it. Every government, military leader, or rich psycho with big ideas will either want to control you or to dissect you, and they won’t give a damn who they have to hurt to do it. You, or anybody you care about, if they need the leverage.”

The two brothers looked at each other soberly, both minds going back to the conversation they had shared at the campsite in the foothills. The harsh reality of the real world had come crawling uninvited into the movie fantasy of the warehouse. “You, or anybody you care about,” Murray had said, the words echoing in their thoughts, followed by the knowledge that both of them had children.

Tom shook his head and shivered, trying to throw off the cold feeling that had sunk into his bones. He looked at his brother and saw the same coldness mirrored there, the same fear. A sudden feeling of defiance formed in him. Damn it, but it would be so easy to wallow in paranoia if they let themselves. But looking over his shoulder and checking under the bed was not his style, and he refused to live that way for anyone.

“Enough,” Tom barked, a sharp sound that made the others jump. “Nobody is going to find out, okay? I agree, there’s a real danger here if the wrong people do here about it, but if I’m careful about where and when I fly, and if we all keep our mouths shut, nothing’s going to happen to us. Or to our families. Alright?”

The last was said with a glare, a challenge backed by the first hint of an iron will. The other two men found themselves nodding in agreement, and in that instance a pattern was set. Tom was the youngest of the three, made less money and had acquired fewer worldly goods, but if only on a subconscious level they had accepted that he now made the final decisions for their group.

The worlds only flying man stood and took a deep breath, marshaling his thoughts. To the others he said, “Look, guys, its been a busy day, and I’m beat. And Mike, Cathy and the kids have probably forgotten what you look like. Let’s call it a night. Murray, if you want to do some more research on this, I’d appreciate it. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, and we’ll discuss it in detail then, alright?”

Murray snorted, amused. “ ‘If I want to research this’, he says. Do you know what an understatement is, Blackwood? You just try and keep me out of it.” It was said jokingly, but in a tone that meant Murray was as serious as a heart attack. It brought a smile to Tom’s face, dispelling the last of the gloom.

Mike stood up too, stretching, his lanky frame making popping noises the other two men could hear. “You’re right, bro. Tonight is meatloaf night, and you know how I just love Cathy’s meatloaf.” He turned around and started toward the doorway at the other end of the warehouse, Tom following behind, but Murray called out to stop them.

“Hey, Flyboy, wait a minute. Before you go, I got one question.” The two Blackwood brothers stopped, waiting expectantly.

“Just tell me one thing, Tom. What are you gonna do with it?”

Tom frowned, glanced at his brother, and then back to his friend. He didn’t need to ask what Murray was talking about. After a few seconds he shrugged, shaking his head.

“I don’t know, Murray. I haven’t gotten that far yet, you know? I think I still need more time before I can answer that.”

“Fair enough. But tell me this; are you going to do the traditional thing?”

Tom frowned, puzzled. “What do you mean? What ‘traditional thing’?”

Murray snorted disgustedly, then grabbed something off his desk and held it up. Tom saw it was a copy of Spider Man he had sold Murray the last time he was there. “You sell these things for a living, you idiot, and you don’t know what to do when you get a super power? Get a clue, man.”

Tom and Mike stared, the enormity of what Murray had suggested slowly sinking through their shocked senses. For long seconds they said nothing, looking at him like deer staring at the oncoming headlights. The silence was broken when they both burst out in a fit of whooping laughter.

“Ohoooh! Hey Mikey, can you picture me in spandex?” Tom gasped, hanging onto his brother’s shoulder.

“Yeah, right. ‘This is a job for Captain Lovehandles.’ That has a ring to it. You think you’ll get an action figure, Tom?” It was too much. The last comment sent the two brothers into another fit of giggles.

Murray waited them out patiently, tapping the plasticene-covered comic against his knee. No trace of irritation was evident on his face, but his very silence acted to sober the two brothers. When their hilarity finally wound down and they stopped to catch their breaths, Murray finally spoke.

“Okay, you clowns. Enjoy the comedy while you can. But sooner or later, Blackwood, you’re going to have to answer the question. What are you gonna do with it?”

Silence was his only answer.

*****

Tom drove, watching the lights of the cars as they passed by them in the night. His mind was troubled, and an uncertain pall was cast over his thoughts. It was a restless and tenuous feeling, a sense that there was something he should do, had to do, but without any concrete indication as to what.

He sighed, decided to be honest with himself. It was that last shot of Murray’s that was eating at him, when he had demanded to know what Tom was going to do with his new ability. It had cut to the quick, hadn’t it? After all, here he was with a power that everyone in the world dreamed about, a fantasy shared at one time or another by every human being who had ever existed. The ability to fly, more easily and gracefully than any bird, to play tag with the eagles, and hide and seek in the clouds. A freedom he dare not let anyone know about. The ability to tell gravity to go to hell, and he didn’t have the first clue on what to do with it!

As he watched the headlights that swept past it occurred to Tom that each one represented a life, and for each life a person with problems and decisions of their own. But it was a safe bet that not a single one of them had any decisions to make even remotely like his. He remembered his mother, who used to have a saying for every occasion. One of her favorites came to him now, the one that went ‘Tom, there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s all been done before’. Yeah, sure, Mom. You wanna put some money on that?

Although Tom was silent during the ride Mike was anything but. A nervous energy possessed him, the excitement of the past few days manifesting as a compulsive chatter. The need to talk was so strong, he hadn’t even noticed how completely one sided the conversation had become.

Mike’s current topic was, of course, Pablo Murray.

“Christ, and you say he actually lives in that warehouse? Man, I never saw so much collectible crap in one place in all my life! The tag on that Harley says it was used in Road Warrior, and I think that red space suit next to it was in Starship Troopers. Half that stuff should be in a museum somewhere. And did you see that pile of paper on that little workbench, you know, the one over by the drill press? Those were original scripts from at least a dozen of the biggest movies in the past ten years, all autographed by the cast, and they were just lying out open faced on a freaking workbench! Man. Can you imagine how much those suckers are worth?”

“I sell collectibles on the Internet, remember?” Tom muttered distractedly. “Believe it or not, Mikey, I do know how much that stuff is worth.”

”And what’s the deal with that Wild West outfit, huh?” his brother continued, and Tom was pretty sure that he hadn’t heard his last comment at all. “I mean, the dude looks like the bank teller in Dodge City. What’s the deal with that, huh?”

“Pablo just does that when he’s working, that’s all. He sometimes dresses up like a character from his current movie when he’s designing a stunt or an effect. He says it helps him focus. You should have seen him a few years ago, when they where doing that twenty-five year anniversary bit for Rocky Horror Picture Show. NOT a pretty sight.”

The sobering image that came from Tom’s comment finally did the trick, and a much subdued Mike finished the trip in silence. But as they approached the exit that would bring them to Mike’s neighborhood, Tom spoke up.

“Mike, I’m not going to stay tonight. I’m going to pick up my things, and then I’m going back to my place.”

Mike looked at his brother in the dim light of the pickup’s cab for a long, silent moment. “Are you sure, Tom?” he asked, quietly.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I would’ve left days ago, if it wasn’t for this flying thing. You need to get back to work, and Cathy’s getting tired of having me underfoot, and I think even the girls are getting fed up with me hogging the TV. I’ll stay for dinner, then pack up all my stuff and go. It’s time, Mike.”

They pulled into Mike’s driveway and parked, and unloaded the camping gear to the garage in silence. They entered the house amid excited greetings and hugs from the kids, and a kiss from Mike’s wife, Cathy. Tom left Mike to explain his upcoming departure, and went to the guest room to pack his things. After a dinner of Cathy’s promised meatloaf he said goodbye to his brother’s family, giving his sister-in-law a buss on the cheek and a heartfelt thank you for her hospitality. A last mandatory rough house session with the two girls and he was out the door, with Mike following close behind. Outside, amidst the far off sounds of traffic and the summer’s usual cricket chorus, the two brothers had a few last words in the privacy of the night.

“So,” Mike began, having difficulty finding something to say. He felt himself winding down from the excitement of the last five incredible days, and he was finding it disorienting. It was a feeling akin to closing the final chapter on a great book, a little sad, and not exactly sure what comes next.

Tom grinned, answering, “Yeah, so.”

“So, what are you gonna do now, bro? Are you going back to work?”

“Yeah, soon, but not right away. I’ve still got another week of workman’s comp I might as well use up.” He shrugged, looking out into the night for answers to the questions he couldn’t even form. So what are you going to do with it, Blackwood?

“I think I need to experiment some more, on my own, you know? Find out what I can really do, maybe practice under different conditions. Ah, hell, Mikey. I think I just want to play with it by myself for a while.”

Mike smirked, “Spoken like a twelve year old kid who just found out what his penis is for. I guess I can’t blame you, Tom. If I had it, you couldn’t keep me on the ground. Hell, man, you never listen to me anyway, ‘Flyboy’.”

Tom grinned, relieved at his brother’s acceptance. He had worried that Mike would start playing protective-big-brother again, and although he appreciated his concerns, this attitude change would certainly make things easier. Now if only he doesn’t freak when I tell him the rest.

Mike asked, “So where you gonna go to ‘play’, Tom? Back up to the mountains?”

Tom shook his head and answered, “No. I’ve thought about this, and it’s just too open around here. If somehow somebody did see me, I’d be visible for way too long before I could get out of sight. I need a place where I can duck away fast if I have too. Besides, between the airport and Mather Airbase, there’s just too much attention on the sky for me. I need someplace where the horizon isn’t so far away.”

Mike frowned, thinking. “What, do you mean like in a city or something?”

“I mean San Francisco.”

The music of the crickets was briefly broken by the sound of Desiree’s muffled laughter coming from the house, loud in the ensuing silence, as Mike digested Tom’s newest little bombshell. An old station wagon with peeling brown false wood panels passed on the street, its tires making a hissing sound where they touched the pavement. Of all the lame, irresponsible, suicidal…! Mike sighed, looked out into the darkness, then turned back to Tom.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, man,” he said, his voice a soft murmur in the night, his gaze as level and serious as Tom had ever seen it. “There’s a lot of eyes in San Francisco. Be careful, alright?”

Tom blinked in surprise, frowned, and then scowled. “Alright, who are you, and what did you do with my brother?” he demanded. Mike shook his head and laughed.

“Ah, hell, Tom. Okay, you’re right. I know I’ve been acting kind of paranoid and overprotective since this happened. That first solo up in the mountains, you lost your head for a while, and that scared the hell out of me. But afterward you were alright, and you were careful and didn’t do anything too damned stupid. I know it’s your life, and that this thing is your, uh, well, your ‘thing’ now. And I know you’ve got to live with it, and maybe taking some chances is just inevitable, you know?

“So if you say you have to go to ‘Frisco and play on the rooftops, maybe I should just trust your judgment and not make a fool of myself. Just don’t dive-bomb any tourists, okay?”

Tom smiled, and a warmth spread through his chest. There were bonds between him and his brother, strong as steel, forged out of family and shared experience. Mike’s words of support brought those bonds out into the open, hi-lighted them, and confirmed in his mind what he had always known in his heart. No matter what happened, or what bizarre and freakish turn his life was now going to take, he would not be facing it alone.

With a nod Tom accepted this gift, and the two young men briefly embraced, slapping each other on the back. And just like that it was over. Without another word Tom threw his suitcase in the back of the truck, climbed behind the wheel and turned the engine over. A nod and a wave to Mike and then he was gone, two red tail lights that paused at the corner and then turned, disappearing into the night. Mike stood out in the street for another long minute, watching where the lights had last been, seeing into another world. And then he turned away and went back to his own world, with dishes to wash, a wife to hold, and two little girls that needed Daddy to tuck them in.

*****

The next morning Tom cleaned up his apartment and paid some bills, wincing at the lowered digits in his check book. Then he packed the last of his clean clothes into his freshly emptied suitcase, and then picked up the phone to call Murray. He was not surprised when the phone was picked up on the first ring. From his own experience of less than a week ago, he was pretty sure Murray hadn’t even been to bed yet.

“Tom!” Murray greeted him, enthusiasm raising the tone of his voice. “You lazy bastard, it’s about time you got up. Hey, I’ve been thinking all night about the next battery of tests. Now, I know this is a bit off the wall, but hear me out. I have this friend down in L.A. who has access to a wind tunnel—”

Tom cut him off before Murray got a full head of steam up. It was amazing, this change in his usually laconic friend. Like ripples in a pond spreading out from a thrown rock, it appeared that the miracle of ‘this flying thing’ was going to have far reaching effects on more lives than just his own, probably a lot more.

Tom told Murray about his new plans, explaining that he would be in San Francisco for a week, and then he would have to return to work. Unsaid but implied was that it might be some time before he would be available to play guinea pig for the little special effects man. There was a long moment of silence while Murray digested this, and when he spoke the boyish enthusiasm was replaced by a brusque urgency.

“Stop by my place before you leave. It’s important.”

“Look, Pablo, I really don’t want to—”

“It’s important, Tom” Murray reiterated, and abruptly hung up.

Tom blinked, staring at the phone that now produced only with the buzzing sound of a dial tone.