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  Obeying the regulation to avoid driving on runways unnecessarily, Jared turns left onto the taxiway bringing us around the side of the building. Slowly we chug along the wide strip of asphalt leaving a blue cloud as we take another left to bring us to the front of the hangar. The large door is closed. Across from that, where we had been cleaning in building ‘D’ yesterday, the door is slightly open.

  Next to that, building ‘C’ is wide open and bustling with technicians removing any useful equipment from the now retired space plane. I can also see uniformed and armed men milling around as if on guard duty. They have heard us coming and eye us humorously as we pass by. Then, as the view into the hangar is coming to an end, there is Stiles leaning up against the door jamb. Jared punches the horn on the wrecker, which can’t utter any more than a feeble grunt. Stiles waves us off, laughing at the spectacle. I force myself to wave back, suppressing the feeling to duck and hide from his eyes as they tirelessly search for what he hasn’t found yet.

  “That guy gives me the creeps,” I hear Willie mutter as we put the building behind us.

  The wrecker picks up speed as we pass the remaining hangars. To our left, the windows of the maglev prep area rise up through the ground. Until two weeks ago, that had been my only view down into the workings below. It would be great to have the time to explore it a little closer.

  The last structure on the right is the loading ramp we hid behind the night the shiff landed. The weed-covered tracks point north to where I know The Hill lies hidden by the brush that grows between here and there. What were we thinking?

  Jared slows to turn left. We all carefully look side to side before he warily crosses the runway. Planes rarely land here, but none of us want to take the one-in­a-million chance of meeting up with even a small one coming in to land.

  It seems like a different world once we cross the runway; the smooth asphalt is gone. Willie and I have to hang on more tightly while Jared guns the old engine over dips in the dirt road with a yip of elation. The mid-morning sun and the breeze coming over the roof of the wrecker wash any lingering apprehension about Stiles to the back of my mind. I look ahead, seeing the growing shapes of abandoned aircraft, remembering the sense of freedom I felt back in the days of riding our bikes out here to explore and play.

  And there is the rising spike of the maglev launch rail on the left, pointing its curved, black finger up into the sky. We have been riding parallel to the underground section since we crossed the runway. Out here it finally exits, cut into the foothills by which it is supported. Soon the track will be completely out of the mountain’s shadow, and the first waves of heat will begin radiating from its surface. Years ago we’d crawl under the fence that protects the launch rail from threats we didn’t understand. If it was a cool morning, we could walk up the unused structure until the vertical angle would cause us to lose our footing and slide back down, sometimes knocking each other over, laughing during the uncontrolled descent.

  As we get closer, I look for my favorite passenger plane; the one I would sit in pretending to fly to far off places. Jared’s favorites are the military planes. To get into the cockpits of an aged fighter, we built makeshift ladders out of whatever we could find. Those had been fun times, and I marvel that we had never gotten any more than a small bruise or cut.

  Jared rolls to a stop in front of the first plane. With the engine off, it becomes eerily quiet among the derelict machines. A breeze is blowing gently, causing some loose pieces of hardware to clang against one another somewhere in the yard. My eye is drawn up into the sky by black dots high above the ground; buzzards circling lazily on the wind. “How appropriate is that?” I comment out loud, pointing towards the birds.

  “What’d ya say?” Willie asks. Then looking in the direction I’m pointing, “Ah, yes. Scavengers of the dead. I guess we’re going to be just like them today,” he adds with a grim smile before jumping down to the ground.

  As I climb out, I notice Jared heading for the fence. Silently, Willie and I follow. Jared is hanging on the fence, looking down into the depression of land. “What a waste!” he mutters under his breath as we come up on either side of him.

  It is an awesome view that we haven’t seen in a long time, and seems to us an engineering marvel. It is easy to figure out why the original developers of the launch facility chose this site. The flat level ground where the hangars are built is separated from the quickly rising foothills of the mountain by a slight ravine that had been carved at this location by ancient wind and water. The underground maglev track easily exits its cavern to cross the ravine’s trestle and begin the slow curve skyward. The channel that had been cut into the opposite hill is much larger than I remember.

  Jared points down to the track. “Remember when we used to climb around down there? I’m surprised we didn’t kill ourselves.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t get some really nasty burns,” Willie comments. “That metal must be scorching hot even by this time of day.”

  “Nope. It never gets that hot,” Jared says. “The track is made out of some alloy that conducts the heat away. It doesn’t rust either, as you can probably see.”

  “Yeah, but I remember we couldn’t go barefoot on it,” I add. “It was hot enough, and I don’t think we ever wore shorts out there either.”

  “Hey! Remember when I almost knocked you into the ravine sliding down that curve?” Jared continues with a laugh, pointing across the gap.

  “You’re lucky I got a grip on that beam. You would have had trouble explaining that one to my mom.”

  Jared turns to face me, suddenly very serious. “You didn’t ever tell your folks about that one, did you?”

  “No way, man. It was too much fun at the time. They would never have let me play with you again if I had,” I joke.

  Jared grins. “That’s cool.”

  “You guys are nuts,” Willie cuts in. “I thought I was being a daredevil, jumping my bikes and stuff, but you two take the cake messing around down there. You’re both lucky you didn’t end up like this,” he slaps his hand on his right thigh, “or worse.”

  “You’re right about that, Willie. We probably did push our luck a little, eh Ty?”

  I nod, looking pensively back down into the ravine. “Just dumb luck for stupid kids,” I say quietly before turning to walk away. Jared and Willie follow a moment later.

  “So what are we looking for out here?” Willie asks as we get back to the wrecker. I pull some sketches of the saucer out of my right jeans pocket.

  “I was hoping for four or eight structures, either from wings or maybe a fuselage of smaller planes.”

  “What do you plan on attaching them to and how?” Willie continues, looking over the drawings.

  “I don’t know yet. I was just kind of hoping we’d see something out here and know that it would work,” I answer, feeling dumb and unprepared. “I was also hoping you might have some ideas.”

  Willie studies my plans for a few moments. “I know a lot about cars and trucks and bikes, but I’m a little behind on aircraft construction. It’s mostly aluminum and alloys, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jared answers, “and rivets and welding with helium, too.”

  “Dad’s talked about that at the shop. I had a little exposure to it in school, but I’m not very good at welding aluminum. We’ve had to learn more about it now that lightweight car bodies are becoming more prevalent, but fiberglass, epoxies, and composites seem to be the new standard.”

  “Maybe that’s something we could consider for the skin,” I comment. “Composites, that is. I’m glad you’re up on it Willie. Then we just have to think lightweight for the frame.”

  Jared suddenly gets excited. “Hey! Maybe a pair of wings, cut back to their high point and joined together. That would be a pretty wide surface with good support. We’d only have to fill in between them.”

  “That might work,” Willie agrees, “but you still need something to attach them to. And how’s the cockpit going to fit in?”
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  I have no response to Jared’s imploring look. “Well, let’s see what we can find. And think about the instrumentation for the cockpit, too. Wasn’t there a gyrocopter around here somewhere? It should have some applicable gauges in it.”

  “If they still work,” Willie comments.

  Jared points to his right. “I think it’s over there in that corner of the yard. You want to check it out Ty? Willie and I will split up and start hunting for wings... or something.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Willie says, and starts walking off into the field of broken airplanes. “Give a shout if you find anything interesting,” he calls, not looking back.

  “Good hunting,” I wish Jared before walking away to try and find the gyrocopter.

  Maybe it was the rising heat of late morning, but I quickly feel like the graveyard is bigger than it had seemed when we used to speed around it on our bikes. Things look a little more familiar as I come around one wreck into an area of smaller, private planes. There is the twin engine that had been my favorite in the old days. The front landing gear has since collapsed, probably from the stress of a strong wind, and it’s now turned up on its nose, the bent propeller wedged into the ground.

  “Hello friend,” I greet the old bird, stopping for a second to pat the oxidized aluminum nose down at my feet. It responds with a hollow echo inside the cavity where the avionics had been removed. The vibration easily travels up the fuselage. As I turn to continue my search, the plane begins to groan. Fearfully I wheel around to face it again, quickly jumping out of the way as the right landing gear collapses, followed quickly by the left gear as the plane crashes one final time. The propeller, twisted further by the fall, comes loose, showering me with a burst of dirt and sand.

  “Glad to see you too!” I reply after dusting myself off.

  “Hey! You okay over there?” I hear Jared yell from an unseen location.

  “Yep! Everything’s fine! Just saying hello to an old friend!” I yell back as I resume my search. Then, through the struts of a small, single engine plane that’s missing half of its right wing, I spot what appears to be the sagging blades of a rotor.

  “Here you are,” I whisper, walking up to the helicopter wannabe. I continue around to the pilot’s seat and sit down on the cracked leather that barely covers the metal springs beneath.

  Most of the gauges have been removed. The remaining ones have cracked glass covers and some indicator needles are missing. It’s a pretty simple cockpit though; one control stick centered in front, another on the lower left side, along the seat. Jared had explained a long time ago how they have to be used together to control flight. I grab both controls and move them around a little. They are stiff from lack of use. I notice the handle on the left hand lever twists and remember that the throttle controls the speed of the engine, and the up and down movement of the lever controls the lift somehow. “These might be useful.”

  Walking back towards the tail rotor, I try to imagine how similar mechanisms could be applied to the saucer. As my hand runs over the blade, I look past the frame and notice something I didn’t recall being out here at all. Maybe the fully intact crop-dusting helicopter was a recent addition.

  Walking over to the faded yellow whirlybird, my spirits get a huge boost because here is something I hadn’t considered much either; a cockpit cover. I climb onto the pilot’s seat. This one’s in much better condition. And all the gauges are here. I grab the control sticks. “This is perfect!” I smile as I jump out to walk around the machine. I wonder how hard it would be to chop off the tail section?

  My excitement builds, believing I have found part of what we had come to look for. I look around trying to guess where Jared and Willie might be in their search when I hear a distant, oscillating whistle.

  Forgetting the heat, I start jogging in the direction I think the sound is coming from. I make my way around several commercial aircraft in various stages of disassembly, noticing an increase in dismembered parts lying on the ground, leading up to what appears to be a pile of them at least ten feet tall. As I round the tail-section of what might have been an old fighter jet, I nearly run Jared over as he jumps in front of me.

  “Heard you coming a mile away,” he grins, thinking he has caught me by surprise.

  Without acknowledging his little prank I proclaim, “Wait until you guys see what I found. It’s perfect and going to make everything so much easier.” We continue in the direction the whistle had come from.

  “Tyler! Jared! Up here!” Willie yells. We look up the slope of the pile to see Willie standing almost on top, waving his hands to get our attention. We begin climbing to join him being cautious of the dull metal edges of severed aircraft parts.

  “What do you think of this?” Willie asks, slowly rotating his arms in a circular motion.

  I try to survey what Willie is standing in. It’s circular and has a rounded bottom, the cup of which is where Willie is standing. “What is it?” I ask.

  “Looks like part of a jet engine to me,” Willie suggests.

  “It’s a cowling,” Jared declares, “the engine cover, air inlet to an old turbo-fan.”

  “Where’s the engine?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Willie continues, his enthusiasm showing. “This would make a great cockpit for the saucer! It’s round, it’s solid, and it’s strong.” He kicks his heal on the metal shape as he finishes speaking.

  “Kind of fat for a saucer,” Jared jokes. “More like a mixing bowl. Hey! We can invent the first flying mixing bowl,” he concludes with a grin.

  Willie ignores him and resumes the disclosure of his hunt. “And look over there.”

  I look. He’s pointing towards a pile of wings. There are small ones and big ones from both commercial and private planes. “There’s a lot of wings there Willie. How are they going to help us?”

  “Look at the end of that big one,” Willie says. “Don’t you see it?” I look again, unable to discern what Willie is referring to. “The ribs!” he shouts in frustration.

  “Ribs?” I quizzically ask.

  “Yeah! Ribs! The pieces of framework that give the wings their shape. We can get our saucer shape by attaching the ribs to this thing.” He kicks his heal on the cowling again for emphasis.

  I begin to understand. “Willie… you’re a genius.”

  “And you see that piece that goes between the ribs?”

  “Called spars, if I remember right,” Jared says.

  “If you say so. We can use those for stability between them.”

  “I like it!” I exclaim. “And I think I have a cockpit that might fit right in.”

  Willie gives me an encouraging look so I launch into the results of my search and the idea about using the crop duster mechanisms to control the saucer.

  “Let’s go see it!” Willie suggests.

  We carefully descend the pile of plane parts and proceed to where the helicopter sits. Willie walks around it nodding his head in agreement.

  “The only thing I can’t figure out at this point,” I say quietly, “is how to make the thing turn once it’s up in the air.”

  “Maybe we can incorporate this tail rotor somehow,” Jared wonders.

  “Maybe, we’ll see. So where should we start?” Willie asks.

  “There’re grinders and cutters on the truck,” Jared states, “and the generator to power them.”

  “What about lunch?” I ask.

  “Yeah, it must be past noon by now,” Willie says, looking up to see the sun’s position. “And I’m pretty thirsty, too.”

  “I guess it’s break time then. Let’s head back to the house to have lunch,” Jared says.

  We begin walking towards the wrecker. “What else are we going to have to bring back out here?” I ask. “You got a large wagon or something? We can’t just drag this stuff back with a chain.”

  “There’s probably something,” Jared answers.

  “I could probably borrow the flat-bed we use for hauling breakdowns to the shop,” Willie
offers.

  “It’s going to be a busy afternoon, gentlemen.”

  “Let’s not forget to bring something to drink when we come back out,” I suggest. “It’s going to be pretty hot later on.”

  “Good idea.”

  Willie and I hop onto the back of the wrecker as Jared starts it up. With a plume of blue exhaust marking our route, we head back to the house to get ready for a busy afternoon.

  Surprises

  I get up late Sunday. Mom and Dad have gone to church. Gramps says they’ll be heading over to see Earl afterwards and probably won’t be home until late afternoon. After lunch, Gramps says he’s going for a ride. I follow him out to the garage as he is preparing to go. “Next week you get your license, then you can ride along,” he says as he is leaving. I watch him ride away.

  He’s been trying to teach me about motorcycles. He has even let me ride to the end of the driveway and back. It’s strange riding an internal combustion engine; the noise, the smoke, the power. I can see why they were popular back in their day, but I still think today’s clean machines are better.

  As I walk over to where my hy-ped is sitting on its center stand, I wonder how often I will take it anywhere once I have my license. Of course, I really haven’t taken it anywhere except over to Jared’s, and occasionally to Jimmy’s for lunch. But it has always been fun to ride. And it was even more fun to build.

  I had seen an ad in one of those amateur science magazines when I was almost twelve. I cut it out and taped it to the mirror over my dresser. Gramps had already instilled in me the idea that riding on two wheels was fun. Mom and Dad said they wouldn’t buy it for me but they had enough jobs around the house for me to earn some money. Dad had installed the solar generators two years before that and then his new job came along with all its traveling. At twelve it became my job to maintain them whenever he was away. Mom thought I was kind of young at the time, but Dad trained me well enough to set her at ease. In less than a year, I had almost saved up enough money to order the hydrogen powered bicycle. Gramps gave me the last hundred dollars I needed on my thirteenth birthday.