For the Futurefolken.

[gone_byebye]

The point of re-entry to Ray's world is the same nearly every time. He makes a point of using the same exit from the Firehouse: a door that leads from the building's side into a nondescript alley. The door opens, this time, onto a windy November day. Ray glances up at the sky, then gestures to the others. "Looks like home," he says. A sniff of the air reveals gasoline, horses, and a couple of tough-to-identify stenches. "Yeah, smells like home too. C'mon, guys, I'm pretty sure this is my dimension."

Comments

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

He was probably going to get whiplash from how fast his head was darting around as he looked at everything through the windows.

"Car. Automobile. Oh oh! Motorcycle!" He pointed. "Beka, that's a motorcycle! That's what I was talking about! Look at it! Can you blame a guy for wanting one? Total chick magnet."

Harper pretty much threw himself over Beka and Ray to get a good glimpse out the window at the Empire State building, when Ray pointed it out.

"Wow."

After a moment of staring, he said, "Dad said that some that great-great-great-great-great-great-add a few more greats-grandpappy Harper helped build that thing after he immigrated over. They preserved it, y'know, through the centuries. One of world's most ancient landmarks. Just like Lady Liberty, but when the Drago-Katsoff came..." He mimed an explosion with his hands. "Kaboom, say bye bye."

[gone_byebye]

Ray winced. "Yeah," he said. "I can imagine." He was still remembering the look on Peter's face when he'd had to explain about the Towers falling. Hopefully, there wasn't even a memory of the things left by Harper's time.

"You are wanting to see the statue too, then?"

"Not on this leg of the trip," Ray told the driver. "After the Intrepid." To Harper, he explained, "She's off the southern tip and we're going up to about a third of the way along the island's length. You'll get your chance- we can take the ferry over if you want to actually visit. The head's accessible. The torch isn't."

The taxi swung right again and they were on the West Side Highway, a long street three lanes wide in either direction, punctuated by traffic lights. To the right were buildings; in the middle of the road a divider filled with plants; to the left, past the other lanes, lay, well, the New York Trapeze School, where the teachers were demonstrating the use of the flying trapeze. But beyond them lay the Hudson River, which was riddled with civilian boats of every size and description.

"There's a heliport further up if you don't mind primitive air transportation- you can get a nice aerial tour of four out of five boroughs in twenty minutes."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"As long as we get off the ground, I'm happy. All this solid ground is freaking me out," Beka said.

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

Harper could barely comprehend everything.

"Boats!" he exclaimed. "A chopper? Beka, you'll love the helicopter. I wonder if you could fly one, boss. The controls are probably kinda rudimentary."

[gone_byebye]

"They're not going to let you fly the helicopter," Ray said. "It's purely a tour thing. Best I can offer you for control is the kayak club- you can paddle around on the river for twenty minutes if you know how to swim."

The car stopped at a red light. Two women in sweatsuits skated across the street and joined a smaller lane of pedestrian traffic, as did several people on bicycles. Moments later the light changed to green and took off again.

"... that's the Nomadic Museum, they built it out of shipping containers, it's got photographs inside of humans interacting with animals in all kinds of situations. It'll be gone in a few weeks... okay, and that's Chelsea Piers. Sports, sporting equipment, and various sorts of electronic entertainment. That over there is the meat-packing district, and- oh, hey, check it out-"

Mounted policemen. Every so often they turned up and went through this part of the city before returning to midtown.

"Okay, uh, up ahead? See that brown structure on the left? That's where the ferries from New Jersey come in. We're going to the aircraft carrier after that-"

But before they reached the carrier, a yellow-and-red helicopter lifted off from the riverside launchpad, hovering briefly over the highway before peeling off to head for downtown.

"-and that, my friends, is what we'll be riding in after Intrepid."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

The helicopter caught Beka's interest.

"...you sure they won't let me fly it?" she asked, her eyes following it.

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

"Horses! I've never seen a live one before. So the cops just ride around on 'em?" Harper asked. "That must make high speed chases interesting. Why don't they just use cars, like everybody else?"

[gone_byebye]

"Oh, they do," Ray said to Harper. "The horses are supplementary. There are cops who patrol on foot, and a few on bicycle, but in places like Central Park you can't get very far on foot very fast and you can't get anywhere in a car except the roads. The horses help with that. Around here, it's just the vantage they get, I think. And no, definitely not, the helicopter people don't have that kind of nerve..."

The taxi pulled into a parking lot next to a large, grey military vessel. "USS Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, ahoy," Ray said with some satisfaction as he paid the driver. "Military history out the yin-yang, but what we're here for is for our boy here to have a look at what's on deck- namely, twenty-five of the finest examples of military atmospheric aircraft to date. They've got a Blackbird, even- and I think there's an X-1 mockup around here somewhere..."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"X-1?" She looked to Harper. "Isn't that the hunk of bolts you have in Machine Shop 11?"

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

"Glamorous Glennis is not a hunk of bolts. She is Glamorous. Hence the nickname. The Bell X-1 was the plane that broke the sound barrier, Beka. The X-1 is the Maru and the Andromeda's great-great-great-add-even-more-greats-than-when-I-was-talking-earlier-great grandma," Harper corrected, practically leaping out of the cab, and bouncing on the balls of his feet as Ray paid the driver.

He couldn't take his eyes off the carrier.

"I could cry. Even you're gonna like this part, boss. This isn't Earth stuff--this is air stuff."

[gone_byebye]

"There are better collections of airplanes," Ray said, "but not here in New York. You'd have to go to Washington or San Diego or Mount Hope, Ontario. This is what we've got to offer." He grinned. "And hey, check it out- there's hardly any line at all. C'mon, guys, it's a big boat and I know you're gonna want to see the Blackbird."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"Blackbird?" She was starting to show some interest now. After all, the air was the air and the sky was the sky. Anything that got off the ground interested her, and she could probably fly it, too.

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

"Less talking, more moving," said Harper, putting a hand on both of their backs and pushing them forwards.

[gone_byebye]

"A spyplane. One of the best for decades on end. The only thing that obsoleted it was the advent of spy satellites that could read the headline of a newspaper lying on the ground from low Earth orbit. It could officially do Mach 3.5, but you know how it is with intelligence agencies- they're not about to say just how fast their birds can go... Titanium construction, almost entirely. Only material we had that could hold up to the kind of air friction it got at those speeds. Really sweet."

He went on ahead at Harper's insistence, his wallet out to pay for the tickets as soon as they reached the front of the line. "Three adults, please. Um, did you guys want to see the submarine, or just the birds and the boat?"

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"Spy satellites," she said in a flat voice. She reached into her pocket to pull out her wallet. "Ray, how much is this costing you, because I exchanged some crowns for your money at the bar..."

She pulled out way more fifties than it probably cost.

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

"I know, isn't it cute? Bet they put them up with fuel-powered rockets even."

Then, "Hey, that better not be where I think it's from!"

[gone_byebye]

"Chemical rockets, yep," Ray said. "It's all we've got. Although we're working on solar sails for stuff that's already in orbit. We are grotesquely primitive by your standards, us dumb monkeys."

He blinked at the sight of the bills. "Oh, man. Don't even- save those, okay? It's thirty-three dollars for you two and you're going to need those at the comic store. Did you want to start with the Hangar Deck? They've got some- you talk about old, let me show you old- they've got propeller aircraft on the hangar deck-"

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"Are you sure? I really don't like freebies. Well, I do, but not when I can pay for things myself."

To Harper, "This is my money, not your prize winnings, although I know you hide them in that spot above the walkway grid. Speaking of the PanGalactic, we saw footage of you. You did good."

She stuffed some money into his hand and rumpled his hair. "Consider that more hazard pay."

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

Harper was not the type tp refuse freebies, so he snatched the money and had it hidden on his person in the blink of an eye.

"Propellor aircraft! I wanna see the really ancient stuff first. Although I ought to be used to it, with her around, heh heh."

He danced away from Beka, just barely quick enough to avoid a smack.

[gone_byebye]

"Don't worry about it. Consider it an act of hospitality from a city that's normally known for being extremely rude."

Ray led the way to the hangar deck. "Okay. That big honker there is an original TBM Avenger torpedo bomber- it has to go back to another museum eventually, but we have it for now- and those two are replicas. F6F Hellcat fighter and an SB2C Helldiver dive bomber. Personally, when it comes to propeller fighters I prefer the British Spitfires but they're not goign to have those here..."

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

"Oh. Oh wow." Harper went over and after sneaking a look at the museum personnel, he reached out a hand to brush his fingers across the bomber.

He looked longingly towards the engine.

"Ah, Beka? How about the 'pretty woman.' Think it'll work? I just want a minute or two to get a little looksie."

[gone_byebye]

"Um," Ray said. "They're gonna get kind of pissed if you do that. On the other hand there is a helicopter upstairs that's been fully restored- it's an Army AH-1G Cobra gunship. The engine's open so everyone can have a look at all the work they did."

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

"But I wanna look at this one," Harper said a little childishly, his fingers twitching.

It was so big, and shiny.

"And don't worry, Beka's good at this."

He took something out of his pocket and clicked it a button on it.

"And ah, that took care of the cameras if there are any. I came prepared."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

There was a glint in Beka's eyes, the sort of look someone had when they really enjoyed certain challenges, even if they'd become so good that said challeneges had grown routine over time. "'Pretty woman'? Gotcha. I can probably give you five--they're young fellas. Don't break anything though, like in the Atonnica--the Perseids could'a killed us."

Why do what they were allowed to do when they could just as easily do what they weren't?

[gone_byebye]

Ray sighed. "Leave all the parts in place and I won't say anything," he said resignedly. "My nephews keep trying to bring home dinosaur parts when they think no one's looking."