G -1

by Kyle Thomas Bruhnke

  “Make one when you wire the first group, and then stick to it,” Kylie suggests without looking up from her task.

  “That’s easy enough.” The second lead of cable comes popping out. Soon all of the outside wires are pulled.

  “Somebody else is going to have to do the short runs,” Gramps yells to me. “My knees can’t take being underneath this thing.”

  “Ty, slide the plank hangers around the cowling, would ya? We need to do the next containment frame,” Jared calls out.

  I slowly guide the planks around while he and Jennifer roll the scaffold. “If you can sit on the little stool,” Jared suggests to Gramps, “you could start securing the outer frames in their tubes. They’re ready, aren’t they Willie?”

  “Yep,” Willie confirms. “Cheri and I were just going to get started on them ourselves.”

  “That’s good,” Gramps replies, sounding relieved. “My neck wouldn’t last very long under there doing that either. I’m going to go stretch my legs.” He turns and heads for the large door. I notice it is getting dark out as I watch him go. It’s going to be a long night.

  “Here, plug these in,” Kylie says behind me. I turn around to find sixteen interface cables being shoved at me. “I got the four hubs plugged in before you got here.”

  “I don’t suppose it matters how these get plugged in, does it?” I ask her.

  “Nope,” she responds businesslike. “Each controller has its own address, then they send the appropriate instructions to the containment fields. They all get the entire data stream, and use what the address DIPs let through. What will matter though, is how the containment fields are attached to the circuit boards. Here. Use this to keep track. You should probably mark the tubes, too. They all have to be in the proper sequence to control your flight characteristics.” She hands me a sheet of paper with a simple schematic on it. I look at her. “What?” she asks.

  “This is great,” I admire quietly, thinking it’s what I should have prepared.

  “On the other side is a little chart,” she points out. I flip the paper over. “Each group of tubes is numbered; ‘I’ one through eight and ‘O’ one through eight, to indicate the inner and outer tubes. To keep it simple, the software considers tubes one through four to be in the front, from right to left, counterclockwise, and the sequencing should continue all the way around for both groups. Just mark down the colors of the wires you attach to the circuit boards so they can be connected to the proper containment tube. And you might want to keep each group of wires in the same order too, just to establish a standard. Oh! And here’s a pencil if you need one.”

  I receive the pencil from her with thanks, standing up to look at the drawing and chart before beginning the wiring task. A grating sound distracts me. Looking up, I see Jared has attached a rope to the scaffold plank to allow Jen and him to move it without having to wait for me to help. I look questioningly over at Jared. He waves to indicate everything is fine. Willie and Cheri have moved away from the saucer. He seems to be helping her with some of the paper liner from the skin material. As I wonder what they are doing, he turns to head back over to the ship.

  “Okay. Listen up,” I shout out so everybody can hear. “Don’t attach any wires to the containment fields before you look at this chart Kylie came up with. Kylie says the program is expecting a certain sequence and I’m going to start the wiring here with the controllers.”

  “Ok man!” Willie shouts back. “You get that ready, and by then we’ll be ready for ya!”

  I descend into the cowling. It might be easier to stand on the hangar floor to do the wiring, but the false floor is in place and I don’t want to take the time to move it. I look at Kylie, who is watching me with a smile. Then she reaches into her bag of equipment and pulls out a head-light. “Here,” she says, handing it to me. “This should help.”

  “You think of everything, don’t you.”

  “Somebody has to,” she zings back playfully. “And I’ve gone about as far as I can with this thing until all the wiring is done. Could you use my help, or should I…”

  “That’d be great!” I interrupt enthusiastically. “Could you strip the ends of the wires for me? That would really speed things up.”

  She lifts herself out of the pilot’s chair. “Sure,” she answers, coming down to where the wires enter the cowling to sit on the false floor. We are out of view to everyone else.

  I finish stripping the first set of wires. “You want to start on those?” I ask, indicating the next cable. She takes the stripping tool from me and begins the next set as I watch. Carefully, she removes five inches of the outer cover, separating the individual wires to work with them. Her cute, slender fingers work quickly.

  “Are you going to attach those or just watch me all day?”

  “Oh,” I say. “Yeah.”

  Turning to my own task, I begin attaching wires; white will be ground, then red, yellow, green and blue. They slide into the terminals easily. I turn the screws to secure them. This will not take long at all.

  The plank hangers on the cowling scrape behind me. I get up on my knees and peer over the lip. Jared and Jen are too busy moving to the next position to notice that Kylie and I have disappeared. I lower myself back down to continue attaching wires, feeling a strange disappointment. I hear clattering on the planks behind me as they continue their jobs. A second later, Kylie looks up over my shoulder and smiles. I turn around to see the other two grinning down at us.

  “And what’s going on down here?” Jennifer asks suggestively. Jared is looking over her shoulder, with one hand on each side of her, gripping the cowling.

  “Nothing you two haven’t done,” Kylie responds quickly. I feel a flush on my face for some stupid reason. I know nothing is going on.

  “Ooo, I like that,” Jennifer coos before turning away to help Jared finish dropping containment frames into the tubes.

  “Why’d ya say that?” I ask quietly, leaning back against the cowling. “It’s not true.”

  Kylie’s crawling around to the next set of wires. “Well, maybe it should be,” she whispers, and leans over to kiss me. I kiss back. As she pulls away, I feel flush again. This is becoming the strangest night of my life. And the best! Feeling recharged, and absolutely joyful, I press ahead with the wiring.

  “Should we start sliding more cable into you?” Jared’s voice says from outside.

  “Not yet,” I answer. “Not until we finish the first group. I don’t want to take any chance of getting them mixed up. We’ll be done with these in another ten minutes or so. Do you want to start wiring the outside group?”

  “Ok,” he replies. “We’re going to take a little rest first though.” I hear their footsteps fade away down the plank.

  “First group’s done,” I confirm the obvious to Kylie fifteen minutes later. We stand up to stretch. Looking around, I see Jen, Jared and Willie standing around where Cheri is working. “Let’s go see what’s going on,” I suggest.

  As I wait for Kylie at the base of the scaffolding, a call comes from the big doors. Gramps and Mr. Charles are walking in. “Dinner’s here!” Each is carrying two large bags, a pair of them showing stains on the outside. As we walk up to our friends, Willie snags a large piece of the paper Cheri doesn’t need anymore, and lays it out on the floor for the two older men to place their packages on.

  “How’s your progress?” Mr. Charles asks as we help ourselves to the contents of the bags; Italian Beef, some hot dogs, a few burgers and several orders of fries.

  “All of the tubes are prepped,” Jared reports with a nod from Willie. “And the containment frames have all been dropped into place.” He stops and looks at me to continue.

  “The first set of wires for the outside tubes, have been attached to the circuit boards.” I glance sideways at Kylie, taking another bite out of my sandwich.

  “The software is loaded and waiting for its next test,” she adds.

  “And what’s this?” Gramps asks, focusing on where Cheri has
been working. We all turn to look.

  Proudly, Cheri holds up a stencil; ‘G -1’ it reads in one foot high letters. Then she holds up a smaller one saying, “And just in case there’s any doubt…” the second, smaller lettered stencil says ‘minus’ “this gets superimposed over the dash.” She holds the two together, showing the effect.

  Jen is the first to compliment. “Nice job,” she says with admiration. “That’s what the whole thing needs.” We all voice our approval.

  “But I’ll have to get some spray paint to complete it,” Cheri adds.

  “I’m sure we can find some somewhere around here,” Jared’s dad says. “So how much longer and what’s next?” he poses to the rest of us.

  I swallow a mouthful. “Another two hours is my guess,” I respond. No other opinions are offered.

  “That sounds good. How long do you think it will take to recapture all of your bits?” Mr. Charles asks.

  “The way the caps on the tubes are designed, about fifteen minutes, and we can keep all the quantities organized, too,” Willie answers through a mouthful of beef.

  “That should do. I don’t know exactly what time our friend Stiles is going to be back, but I don’t think we should be out here much past six A.M.”

  I take my phone out and glance at the time. It’s already after eleven. Seven hours should be enough, but if things don’t go smoothly, you never know. It feels strange though, being here so late. I feel tired, but the excitement of the project is on me - on us all - and any weariness is just being pushed aside.

  Headlights suddenly appear in the dark, gaping mouth of the big hangar door. Mr. Charles and Gramps begin walking hurriedly towards it. If Stiles is already returning, I don’t think he stands much of a chance getting through that door. A wave of tension rolls through the big building as the same thought occurs to everyone else. We watch the door anxiously. The vehicle stops and the headlights shut off.

  “What are you doing here?” Gramps asks the newcomer.

  “Nobody’s answering their phones,” I hear my dad say as he walks into view facing the other two men. “I figured this is where they would be,” he looks over at us teenagers, “but I didn’t expect to see you two gentlemen. Well, maybe you,” he concludes, indicating Gramps. His next comment is directed towards Mr. Charles. “So you’re sanctioning this now?” he asks.

  “You already knew?” Jared’s dad asks back. “I only found out today.” He seems a little embarrassed. “But to answer you, yes. They were all very forthcoming with the whole truth, and after adding up all of the variables, I thought it would be best to continue.”

  The sense of danger passes, so we all get back to our tasks as the men walk into the hangar discussing the various aspects our the project in detail.

  “Tyler,” I hear after a few more minutes. I peek up over the cowling where I’m connecting another set of wires. “Your mother was a little worried when you didn’t check in.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I quietly answer. “We got real busy, and I just lost track of time and forgot to turn my phone back on.”

  “I guess that’s understandable. Sounds like it’s going to be a really big night.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Well, I’ll go home and reassure your mother everything is okay, and tell her you’ll be staying here for the night.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “And I’ll look forward to hearing from you in the morning about how this all turns out.”

  “Okay, Dad. Goodnight,” I say, starting to duck down behind the cowling again.

  “And Tyler?”

  “Yeah Dad?” I reply, beginning to feel bothered by his interruptions.

  “I’m proud of you son.”

  Suddenly I feel choked up. Maybe it’s because I’m tired, but then Dad doesn’t offer those kinds of words very often. “Thanks, Dad.” I wait and watch as the three older men walk back towards the door. They talk more, and shake hands as he leaves the building. I turn back to my work. Kylie is watching me, eyes glinting.

  “That was nice,” she says quietly. We get back to work.

  An hour later, the wiring is finally complete. “It’s time!” Jared declares. “Let’s fire her up!”

  “I assume there’s some sort of pre-flight check that needs to be done?” his dad asks.

  “Yes sir,” Jen answers. “We’ve been checking the containment polarities before inserting the bits. Somebody should probably double-check the lifting weights of the envelopes too, just to be safe.”

  “Kylie and I can do that,” I offer.

  “Kylie has to keep watch on her program, and you should probably become better acquainted with it too, since you’re going to have to perform the same tasks by yourself someday.”

  “I’ll help Jared with the envelopes,” Willie says. “And Cheri can help us, too.”

  “Cool,” Cheri agrees.

  “I’ll go get my compass and coil voltage tester,” Jen interjects.

  “You devised a way to test the voltage of your fields?” Mr. Charles asks with surprise.

  “It seemed to be a necessary tool, and works like a simple transformer,” Jen replies. “Tyler needs to have as refined flight control as possible, so the control modules were designed so that each containment field can be balanced, allowing the lift capability of each to be as equal as possible.” She nods towards the other three. “If they equalize the lift properties of each packet of bits, then this saucer should fly fairly true.”

  I’m astonished by this revelation as well. “You’re amazing,” I mutter. “That’s stuff I hadn’t thought of.”

  “That’s my job. Now get up there with Kylie and learn your part,” she directs me. “Let’s start with the lifters.”

  Kylie is standing on the temporary floor when I climb over the lip of the cowling and into the cockpit. “Go ahead and sit in the pilot’s seat, Mr. Pilot,” she instructs.

  I sit down. I guess the fuel cells are still on from her earlier work. But the computer is off so I press the switch to bring it online. She stoops down and peers over my shoulder.

  “It’ll boot up like any computer normally does,” she explains. “You’ll have the usual menu items and the flight simulator icon when it’s finished.” Only a few seconds pass until the computer is ready. “Now, press the icon on the touch screen to start the program.”

  “But I don’t want the flight simulator, do I?”

  “Just do it,” she instructs patiently.

  A moment later, I am looking at a display of color settings for the cover story for what I assume is Kylie’s gyroscope simulation program. There is a top view and a side view of the outline of the saucer, and a button that reads ‘Start Simulation’ in bold red letters on the black background. I reach to press the button, but she grabs my arm.

  “Not so fast,” she cautions, letting go again. “You don’t want to press that button yet. Press the ALT key and then type,” she waits for me to press the key before continuing, ‘K - Y - L - O - V - E - S - T - Y’”.

  “Ah, a backdoor password. Good idea! ‘K -Y - L - O - V - E - S - T- Y’,” I type, repeating the letters. “Where did you come up with that?” I begin to reach for the ‘Start Simulation’ button. She grabs my arm again. I look back at her. Her face has that playful pout on it again.

  “‘Ky Loves Ty’ is how I say it,” she explains sweetly.

  Duh! Why didn’t I see it? “That’ll be easy to remember. But, you know, it could be ‘Ty Loves Ky’ as well.” Tilting my head, I kiss her hand where it sits on my arm. She pulls it away.

  “Press the button,” she demands with a smile.

  The screen changes. On the left is a graphic in grey that looks like an overhead view of eight helicopter blades, on the right, another with the eight blade shapes all parallel and standing straight up, with the small end at the bottom of the screen. In the center, the top of the screen is titled ‘G -1 Flight Controls’. Below that, the words ‘Calibration Mode’ are displayed with a button labele
d ‘Set’ next to it.

  “At this point, no power is being sent to any containment tubes,” Kylie explains. “Pressing the graphic representation of a group will send minimum power to the controller for that set of tubes. The final step is to set the power for each controller so each set of tubes is lifting equally, but you have to be floating to do that.”

  “If you say so,” I comment in agreement. “Is Jen ready?”

  Kylie stands up and looks around. “Jen? Are you ready to adjust the forward lifters?” Kylie yells out.

  “Ready,” I hear Jen answer. She sounds real close. “And you don’t have to yell. I’m right here.” I look down as she slides into view, seated on the stool looking up at me. In her hand she holds a thin coil of wire, wrapped on a wooden dowel with a meter mounted on the bottom end.

  Kylie stoops down, pulling a small screwdriver from somewhere. “Well, that sure makes it easier,” she says. Turning to me, she continues. “You send power to the front lifters by touching the left-most vertical indicator in the lifter group. That’s the ‘one o’clock’ group.”

  “The one labeled ‘Front’ then?” I joke before pressing the screen. The indicator begins blinking. “Power’s on the front four at one o’clock, Jen”

  “I’m going to take a reading on each tube and then we’ll adjust them, ok?” Jen explains. She begins moving her tester from tube to tube beginning with one. “Point five, point seven, point seven, and point eight. Kylie, see if number four can be adjusted down to seven.”

  Kylie fits the screwdriver in the proper circuit adjustment. “That’s a quarter turn, counter-clockwise. Any change?”

  “Slight. Go another half turn.” Kylie turns the screwdriver some more. “Stop!” Jen cries. “That’s got it right there. Now let’s bring number one up to seven. And you can probably just turn until I say, Kylie. The calibrations seem pretty fine.”

  “Ok,” Kylie responds. “I’m turning number one.”

  “Point six, point seven. Good! Stop!” Jen calls out. “Let’s move to the next four at eleven o’clock.” She quickly repositions herself.