The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 34

"He really is nuts. I mean, when was the last time he even saw Maggie?" Robbie asked as Emery drove him back to the mall. "I still don't know what really happened, except for the UFO stuff."

"She found out he was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with someone else. It was a bad scene. She tried to get him fired; he went to Boynton and told him Maggie was diverting all this time and money to studying UFOs. Which unfortunately was true. They did an audit, she had some kind of nervous breakdown even before they could fire her."

"What a p.r.i.c.k."

Emery sighed. "It was horrible. Leonard doesn't talk about it. I don't think he ever got over it. Over her."

"Yeah, but..."Robbie shook his head. "She must be, what, twenty years older than us? They never would have stayed together. If he feels so bad, he should just go see her. This other stuff is insane."

"I think maybe those fumes did something to him. Nitrocellulose, it's in nail polish, too. It might have done something to his brain."

"Is that possible?"

"It's a theory," said Emery broodingly.

Robbie's house was in a scruffy subdivision on the outskirts of Rockville. The place was small, a bungalow with masonite siding, cracked cinderblock foundation and the remains of a garden that Anna had planted. A green GMC pickup with expired registration was parked in the drive. Robbie peered into the cab. It was filled with empty Bud Light bottles.

Inside, Zach was hunched at a desk beside his friend Tyler, owner of the pickup. The two of them stared intently into a computer screen.

"What's up?" said Zach without looking away.

"Not much," said Robbie. "Eye contact."

Zach glanced up. He was slight, with Anna's thick blonde curls reduced to a buzzcut that Robbie hated. Tyler was tall and gangly, with long black hair and wire-rimmed sungla.s.ses. Both favored tie-dyed t-s.h.i.+rts and madras shorts that made them look as though they were perpetually on vacation.

Robbie went into the kitchen and got a beer. "You guys eat?"

"We got something on the way home."

Robbie drank his beer and watched them. The house had a smell that Emery once described as Failed Bachelor. Unwashed clothes, spilled beer, marijuana smoke. Robbie hadn't smoked in years, but Zach and Tyler had taken up the slack. Robbie used to yell at them but eventually gave up. If his own depressing example wasn't enough to straighten them out, what was?

After a minute, Zach looked up again. "Nice s.h.i.+rt, Dad."

"Thanks, son." Robbie sank into a beanbag chair. "Me and Emery dropped by the museum and saw Leonard."

"Leonard!" Tyler burst out laughing. "Leonard is so f.u.c.king sweet! He's, like, the craziest guy ever."

"All Dad's friends are crazy," said Zach.

"Yeah, but Emery, he's cool. Whereas that guy Leonard is just wack."

Robbie nodded somberly and finished his beer. "Leonard is indeed wack. He's making a movie."

"A real movie?" asked Zach.

"More like a home movie. Or, I dunno-he wants to reproduce another movie, one that was already made, do it all the same again. Shot by shot."

Tyler nodded. "Like The Ring The Ring and and Ringu Ringu. What's the movie?"

"Seventeen seconds of a 1901 plane crash. The original footage was destroyed, so he's going to re-stage the whole thing."

"A plane crash?" Zach glanced at Tyler. "Can we watch?"

"Not a real crash-he's doing it with a model. I mean, I think he is."

"Did they even have planes then?" said Tyler. "He should put it on YouTube," said Zach, and turned back to the computer. "Okay, get out of there." Robbie rubbed his head wearily. "I need to go online."

The boys argued but gave up quickly. Tyler left. Zach grabbed his cellphone and slouched upstairs to his room. Robbie got another beer, sat at the computer and logged out of whatever they'd been playing, then typed in MCCAULEY BELLEROPHON.

Only a dozen results popped up. He scanned them, then clicked the Wikipedia entry for Ernesto McCauley.

McCauley, Ernesto (18??1901) American inventor whose eccentric aircraft, the Bellerophon, Bellerophon, allegedly flew for seventeen seconds before it crashed during a 1901 test flight on Cowana Island, South Carolina, killing McCauley. In the 1980s, claims that this flight was successful and predated that of the Wright Brothers by two years were made by a Smithsonian expert, based upon archival film footage. The claims have since been disproved and the film record unfortunately lost in a fire. Curiously, no other record of either McCauley or his aircraft has ever been found. allegedly flew for seventeen seconds before it crashed during a 1901 test flight on Cowana Island, South Carolina, killing McCauley. In the 1980s, claims that this flight was successful and predated that of the Wright Brothers by two years were made by a Smithsonian expert, based upon archival film footage. The claims have since been disproved and the film record unfortunately lost in a fire. Curiously, no other record of either McCauley or his aircraft has ever been found.

Robbie took a long pull at his beer, then typed in MARGARET BLEVIN.

Blevin, Margaret (1938) Influential cultural historian whose groundbreaking work on early flight earned her the nickname "The Magnificent Blevin." During her tenure at the Smithsonian's Museum of American Aeronautics and Aeros.p.a.ce, Blevin redesigned the General Aviation Gallery to feature lesser-known pioneers of flight, including Charles Dellschau and Ernesto McCauley, as well as...

"'The Magnificent Blevin'?" Robbie snorted. He grabbed another beer and continued reading.

But Blevin's most lasting impact upon the history of aviation was her 1986 bestseller Wings for Humanity! Wings for Humanity!, in which she presents a dramatic and visionary account of the mystical aspects of flight, from Icarus to the Wright Brothers and beyond. Its central premise is that millennia ago a benevolent race seeded the Earth, leaving isolated locations with the ability to engender human-powered flight. "We dream of flight because flight is our birthright," wrote Blevin, and since its publication Wings for Humanity! Wings for Humanity! has never gone out of print. has never gone out of print.

"Leonard wrote this frigging thing!"

"What?" Zach came downstairs, yawning.

"This Wikipedia entry!" Robbie jabbed at the screen. "That book was never a bestseller-she snuck it into the museum gift shop and no one bought it. The only reason it's still in print is that she published it herself."

Zach read the entry over his father's shoulder. "It sounds cool."

Robbie shook his head adamantly. "She was completely nuts. Obsessed with all this New Age c.r.a.p, aliens and crop circles. She thought that planes could only fly from certain places, and that's why all the early flights crashed. Not because there was something wrong with the aircraft design, but because they were taking off from the wrong spot."

"Then how come there's airports everywhere?"

"She never worked out that part."

"'We must embrace our galactic heritage, the spiritual dimension of human flight, lest we forever chain ourselves to earth,'"Zach read from the screen."Was she in that plane crash?"

"No, she's still alive. That was just something she had a wild hair about. She thought the guy who invented that plane flew it a few years before the Wright Brothers made their flight, but she could never prove it."

"But it says there was a movie," said Zach. "So someone saw it happen."

"This is Wikipedia." Robbie stared at the screen in disgust. "You can say any f.u.c.king thing you want and people will believe it. Leonard wrote that entry, guarantee you. Probably she faked that whole film loop. That's what Leonard's planning to do now-replicate the footage then pa.s.s it off to Maggie as the real thing."

Zach collapsed into the bean bag chair. "Why?"

"Because he's crazy, too. He and Maggie had a thing together."

Zach grimaced. "Ugh."

"What, you think we were born old? We were your age, practically. And Maggie was about twenty years older-"

"A cougar!" Zach burst out laughing. "Why didn't she go for you?"

"Ha ha ha." Robbie pushed his empty beer bottle against the wall. "Women liked Leonard. Go figure. Even your mom went out with him for a while. Before she and I got involved, I mean."

Zach's gla.s.sy eyes threatened to roll back in his head. "Stop."

"We thought it was pretty strange," admitted Robbie. "But Maggie was good looking for an old hippie." He glanced at the Wikipedia entry and did the math. "I guess she's in her seventies now. Leonard's in touch with her. She has cancer. Breast cancer."

"I heard you," said Zach. He rolled out of the beanbag chair, flipped open his phone and began texting. "I'm going to bed."

Robbie sat and stared at the computer screen. After a while he shut it down. He shuffled into the kitchen and opened the cabinet where he kept a quart of Jim Beam, hidden behind bottles of vinegar and vegetable oil. He rinsed out the gla.s.s he'd used the night before, poured a jolt and downed it; then carried the bourbon with him to bed.

The next day after work, he was on his second drink at the bar when Emery showed up.

"Hey." Robbie gestured at the stool beside him. "Have a set."

"You okay to drive?"

"Sure." Robbie scowled. "What, you keeping an eye on me?"

"No. But I want you to see something. At my house. Leonard's coming over, we're going to meet there at six-thirty. I tried calling you but your phone's off."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Robbie signaled the bartender for his tab. "Yeah, sure. What, is he gonna give us manicures?"

"Nope. I have an idea. I'll tell you when I get there, I'm going to Royal Delhi first to get some takeout. See you-"

Emery lived in a big townhouse condo that smelled of Moderately Successful Bachelor. The walls held framed photos of Captain Marvo and Mungbean alongside a lifesized painting of Leslie Nielsen as Commander J. J. Adams.

But there was also a climate-controlled bas.e.m.e.nt filled with Captain Marvo merchandise and packing material, with another large room stacked with electronics equipment-sound system, video monitors and decks, shelves and files devoted to old Captain Marvo episodes and dupes of the Grade Z movies featured on the show.

This was where Robbie found Leonard, bent over a refurbished Steenbeck editing table.

"Robbie." Leonard waved, then returned to threading film onto a spindle. "Emery back with dinner?"

"Uh uh." Robbie pulled a chair alongside him. "What are you doing?"

"Loading up that nitrate I showed you yesterday."

"It's not going to explode, is it?"

"No, Robbie, it's not going to explode." Leonard's mouth tightened. "Did Emery talk to you yet?"

"He just said something about a plan. So what's up?"

"I'll let him tell you."

Robbie flushed angrily, but before he could retort there was a knock behind them.

"Chow time, campers." Emery held up two steaming paper bags. "Can you leave that for a few minutes, Leonard?"

They ate on the couch in the next room. Emery talked about a pitch he'd made to revive Captain Marvo in cellphone format. "It'd be freaking perfect, if I could figure out a way to make any money from it."

Leonard said nothing. Robbie noted the cuffs of his white tunic were stained with flecks of orange pigment, as were his fingernails. He looked tired, his face lined and his eyes sunken.

"You getting enough sleep?" Emery asked.

Leonard smiled wanly. "Enough."

Finally the food was gone, and the beer. Emery clapped his hands on his knees, pushed aside the empty plates, then leaned forward.

"Okay. So here's the plan. I rented a house on Cowana for a week, starting this Sat.u.r.day. I mapped it online and it's about ten hours. If we leave right after you guys get off work on Friday and drive all night, we'll get there early Sat.u.r.day morning. Leonard, you said you've got everything pretty much a.s.sembled, so all you need to do is pack it up. I've got everything else here. Be a tight fit in the Prius, though, so we'll have to take two cars. We'll bring everything we need with us, we'll have a week to shoot and edit or whatever, then on the way back we swing through Fayetteville and show the finished product to Maggie. What do you think?"

"That's not a lot of time," said Leonard. "But we could do it."

Emery turned to Robbie. "Is you car road-worthy? It's about twelve hundred miles roundtrip."

Robbie stared at him. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"The Bellerophon Bellerophon. Leonard's got storyboards and all kinds of drawings and still frames, enough to work from. The realtor's in Charleston; she said there wouldn't be many people this early in the season. Plus there was a hurricane a couple years ago, I gather the island got hammered and no one's had money to rebuild. So we'll have it all to ourselves, pretty much."