As one, the passengers turn and search — and find ‘Judd Dell’ in row 56, seat A. He forces a smile and they clap. The clapping then changes and becomes applause, then changes again and becomes — good Lord — cheering. They’re cheering. That’s a first. All Judd wants is for it to stop. He half rises out of his seat and tries to tamp it down. Unfortunately that just means the few people who aren’t already cheering because they don’t know what the hell is going on see him for the first time and join in.
Two hours into the flight the last of the wellwishers have returned to their seats. Twenty-seven different people visited him during that time, some from Virginia but most with friends and family there, and all of them credit Judd with saving either their lives or the lives of loved ones. Also amongst the wellwishers were some supporters of NASA who wanted Judd to know they thought the space program was in safe hands with him, and then there were a few people who just wanted an autograph and a momentary brush with fame.
When he’s finally able to sit back, he feels terrible. Terrible. The whole reason he booked row 56, seat A and wore the old cap and the silly headphones and the ridiculous sunglasses and turned up his collar like he was Rob Lowe in 1985 is not because he doesn’t want to be mobbed by wellwishers. He doesn’t mind that at all. He likes chatting with people and signing autographs and spruiking NASA, it’s an important part of the job. No, what he doesn’t like is the feeling that he’s fooling people. What’s the saying? You can’t fool all of the people all of the time? Well, it seems you can, and he’s been doing a pretty good job of it for almost a year.
Judd pulls out his iPad and lays it on the tiny tray table. He has two hours before they land at LAX and there’s plenty to do. He needs to read the Atlantis 4 screenplay so he doesn’t sound like a complete moron when he talks to the studio execs and director about it. Then, time permitting, he should take a power nap, which is the same as a regular nap except with a cooler name.
He does neither of those things.
Instead he swipes open the iPad and watches a video he downloaded from YouTube six months ago, a video he has watched many, many times — a wobbly, hand-held, shot-on-an-iPhone-in-portrait-mode affair that lasts forty-six seconds.
He leans back in his seat and starts the video. It begins innocently enough, a young woman films two of her friends outside the Imax Theatre in Houston before an early evening show. The setting sun throws a warm, orange hue across the groups of people who mill about in the background and wait to enter. One of those groups is Judd, his partner Rhonda, his Aussie mate Corey and his blue heeler, Spike. It’s a couple of months after the Atlantis hijacking.
All is fine and dandy as the crowd displays the usual expectant buzz before a show — then a man shouts: ‘Everybody get down!’ The man is Judd. The crowd scatters as the camera phone whip pans to a tall blond guy holding a sawn-off shotgun. Bang. He fires the weapon and the camera phone films the sidewalk for a moment as the camerawoman takes shelter behind a nearby truck, then turns and aims the camera phone at a white car. On one side Rhonda, Corey and Judd are crouched as they take cover, on the other the gunman approaches the vehicle. Bang. He fires again, blows out the windshield. The tinkle of glass on bitumen is heard.
The camera phone wobbles and Judd pauses the video. Past the stunned and panicked faces of Rhonda and Corey he can see himself in profile and remember exactly what he was doing at that moment. Astronaut Judd Bell, hailed as the great American hero, who not only helped save the hijacked space shuttle Atlantis but prevented the detonation of a nuclear dirty bomb in Virginia, was trying — and failing — to come up with a plan to save his friends and himself.
Judd un-pauses the video. The man with the shotgun is the towering German Dirk Popanken, who the world thought was dead. He is not, and as the lone surviving member of the crew that hijacked Atlantis and attempted to detonate that dirty bomb, strides around the white car to where Judd is crouched to enact his revenge. Fortunately, because of the angle, Judd is unsighted by the camera phone at this point. Otherwise the whole world would have seen him cowering, without a plan of action.
The gunman raises his weapon and aims it directly at Judd’s unseen face. And that, you would think, is that: Judd’s life cut short with the pull of a trigger. Except something else happens to fill the last twelve seconds of the video, something that changes his fate.
Judd’s friend, ex-astronaut, launch director and fellow member of the Atlantis 4, Severson Burke arrives. Usually it’s extremely difficult to stop a motivated gunman without serious firepower, but Severson manages to do it — with a Toyota Prius.
The vehicle, almost silent because it runs on electricity most of the time, strikes the oblivious gunman in the back of the legs at forty-five kilometres an hour. The weapon is knocked from his hands and he is launched ten metres across the sidewalk, straight into the glass doors of the Imax Theatre, bounces off and slumps to the sidewalk, broken and unconscious. Considering the speed of the action the camerawoman manages to capture it surprisingly well.
The camera phone then whips back to the Prius as Severson exits the vehicle to a round of applause. Judd had invited Severson to the movie but, as usual, he was running late. Severson humbly accepts the crowd’s applause, turns to Judd, who has found his feet, and says with a wry grin: ‘Sorry I’m late. Parking was a bitch.’
Sorry I’m late. Parking was a bitch. It became the catchcry of summer. The clip had over one hundred and seventy million views on YouTube and, it seemed, just as many memes. Judd loved those seven little words because, and thank God for this, it drew attention away from pretty much everything else in the video, most importantly Judd’s inaction.
That didn’t stop Judd’s embarrassment, though. The fact is, when he needed to rise to the occasion he hid behind a Buick. And even though he’s the only one who knows the truth he still feels the failure acutely. That’s why he doesn’t want to be congratulated by well-wishers, and why the constant hero talk sticks in his craw. It’s like he’s pretending to be something he isn’t. And succeeding in the Orion simulator didn’t make up for it because, as difficult as that was, it was still just a very expensive video game and no one’s life was at stake.
So why the hell does he watch the video so often? Because he wants to remember that he needs to be better if there’s ever a next time, and nothing motivates him more than being embarrassed, and this video is the most embarrassing thing he’s ever been a part of. It’s walking-naked-down-a-city-street-in-the-middle-of-peak-hour embarrassing. It’s so embarrassing he’s not mentioned it to anyone and never plans to.
Judd reclines his seat and picks up the iPad. He better get cracking with this screenplay. As soon as he lands he’ll be busy. There’s an interview with Corey at CNN, then lunch with the studio head and his posse at Spago, then they head over to the official press announcement at the Twentieth Century Fox lot, where he’ll link up with Rhonda and Severson, who are due in later this afternoon.
He glances at his PloProf to check the time. They should be taking off any time now.
6
The Southwest Boeing 737–400 sits on the tarmac of the General Mitchell International Airport in overcast Wisconsin, engines turning.
Rhonda Jacolby climbs the stairs to the front door. She always wonders what it would be like to pilot a commercial jet. This 737 is roughly the same size as a shuttle, but she knows that’s where the similarities end. They have nothing in common except wings and a tail.