Elizabeth Hand: Errantry: Strange Stories

And everywhere, there were wings, sprouting from every inch of the craft’s body in an explosion of canvas and balsa and paper and gauze. Bird-shaped wings, bat-shaped wings; square wings like those of a box-kite, elevators and hollow cones of wire; long tubes that, when Robbie peered inside them, were filled with baffles and flaps. Ailerons and struts ran between them to form a dizzying grid, held together with fine gold thread and monofilament and what looked like human hair. Every bit of it was painted in brilliant shades of violet and emerald, scarlet and fuchsia and gold, and here and there shining objects were set into the glossy surface: minute shards of mirror or colored glass; a beetle carapace; flecks of mica.

Above it all, springing from the fuselage like the cap of an immense toadstool, was a feathery parasol made of curved bamboo and multicolored silk.

It was like gazing at the Wright Flyer through a kaleidoscope.

“That’s incredible!” Robbie exclaimed. “How’d you do that?”

“Now we just have to see if it flies,” said Leonard.

Robbie straightened. “How the hell can that thing fly?”

“The original flew.” Leonard leaned against the wall. “My theory is, if we can replicate the same conditions—the exact same conditions—it will work.”

“But.” Robbie glanced at Emery. “The original didn’t fly. It crashed. I mean, presumably.”

Emery nodded. “Plus there was a guy in it. McCartney—”

“McCauley,” said Leonard.

“Right, McCauley. And you know, Leonard, no one’s gonna fit in that, right?” Emery shot him an alarmed look. “You’re not thinking of making a full-scale model, are you? Because that would be completely insane.”

“No.” Leonard fingered the skull plug in his earlobe. “I’m going to make another film—I’m going to replicate the original, and I’m going to do it so perfectly that Maggie won’t even realize it’s not the original. I’ve got it all worked out.” He looked at Emery. “I can shoot it on digital, if you’ll lend me a camera. That way I can edit it on my laptop. And then I’m going to bring it down to Fayetteville so she can see it.”

Robbie and Emery glanced at each other.

“Well, it’s not completely insane,” said Robbie.

“But Maggie knows the original was destroyed,” said Emery. “I mean, I was there, I remember—she saw it. We all saw it. She has cancer, right? Not Alzheimer’s or dementia or, I dunno, amnesia.”

“Why don’t you just Photoshop something?” asked Robbie. “You could tell her it was an homage. That way—”

Leonard’s glare grew icy. “It is not an homage. I am going to Cowana Island, just like McCauley did, and I am going to recreate the maiden flight of the Bellerophon . I am going to film it, I am going to edit it. And when it’s completed, I’m going to tell Maggie that I found a dupe in the archives. Her heart broke when that footage burned up. I’m going to give it back to her.”

Robbie stared at his shoe, so Leonard wouldn’t see his expression. After a moment he said, “When Anna was sick, I wanted to do that. Go back to this place by Mount Washington where we stayed before Zach was born. We had all these great photos of us canoeing there, it was so beautiful. But it was winter, and I said we should wait and go in the summer.”

“I’m not waiting.” Leonard sifted through the papers on his desk. “I have these—”

He opened a manila envelope and withdrew several glassine sleeves. He examined one, then handed it to Emery.

“This is what survived of the original footage, which in fact was not the original footage—the original was shot in 1901, on cellulose nitrate film. That’s what Maggie and I found when we first started going through the Nut Files. Only of course nitrate stock is like a ticking time bomb. So the Photo Lab duped it onto safety film, which is what you’re looking at.”

Emery held the film to the light. Robbie stood beside him, squinting. Five frames, in shades of amber and tortoiseshell, with blurred images that might have been bushes or clouds or smoke damage, for all Robbie could see.

Emery asked, “How many frames do you have?”

“Total? Seventy-two.”

Emery shook his head. “Not much, is it? What was it, fifteen seconds?”

“Seventeen seconds.”

“Times twenty-four frames per second—so, out of about four hundred frames, that’s all that’s left.”

“No. There was actually less than that, because it was silent film, which runs at more like eighteen frames per second, and they corrected the speed. So, about three hundred frames, which means we have about a quarter of the original stock.” Leonard hesitated. He glanced up. “Lock that door, would you, Robbie?”

Robbie did, looked back to see Leonard crouched in the corner, moving aside his coat to reveal a metal strongbox. He prised the lid from the top.

The box was filled with water—Robbie hoped it was water. “Is that an aquarium?”

Leonard ignored him, tugged up his sleeves then dipped both hands below the surface. Very, very carefully he removed another metal box. He set it on the floor, grabbed his coat and meticulously dried the lid, then turned to Robbie.

“You know, maybe you should unlock the door. In case we need to get out fast.”

“Jesus Christ, Leonard, what is it?” exclaimed Emery. “Snakes?”

“Nope.” Leonard plucked something from the box, and Emery flinched as a serpentine ribbon unfurled in the air. “It’s what’s left of the original footage—the 1901 film.”

“That’s nitrate?” Emery stared at him, incredulous. “You are insane! How the hell’d you get it?”

“I clipped it before they destroyed the stock. I think it’s okay—I take it out every day, so the gases don’t build up. And it doesn’t seem to interact with the nail-polish fumes. It’s the part where you can actually see McCauley, where you get the best view of the plane. See?”

He dangled it in front of Emery, who backed toward the door. “Put it away, put it away!”

“Can I see?” asked Robbie.

Leonard gave him a measuring look, then nodded. “Hold it by this edge—”

It took a few seconds for Robbie’s eyes to focus properly. “You’re right,” he said. “You can see him—you can see someone, anyway. And you can definitely tell it’s an airplane.”

He handed it back to Leonard, who fastidiously replaced it, first in its canister and then the water-filled safe.

“They could really pop you for that.” Emery whistled in disbelief. “If that stuff blew? This whole place could go up in flames.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Leonard draped his coat over the strongbox, then started to laugh. “Anyway, I’m done with it. I went into the Photo Lab one night and duped it myself. So I’ve got that copy at home. And this one—”

He inclined his head at the corner. “I’m going to take the nitrate home and give it a Viking funeral in the backyard. You can come if you want.”

“Tonight?” asked Robbie.

“No. I’ve got to work late tonight, catch up on some stuff before I leave town.”

Emery leaned against the door. “Where you going?”

“South Carolina. I told you. I’m going to Cowana Island, and…” Robbie caught a whiff of acetone as Leonard picked up the Bellerophon . “I am going to make this thing fly.

“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 screwing 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.”