"All right, you got me there," Jimmy Joe said when Tyrone didn't reply. "Frame the game, slip. What's all this twirly stick-dick about?"
Tyrone grinned. "Okay, there are two basic kinds of boomerangs. One is a stick that comes back when you throw it. It might do a lot of fancy stuff on the way out and back, or not, depending on the type. They can range from the basic model that looks like a cross-section of a banana up to helicopter-like things with six or eight blades.
"The second kind is based on the abo war sticks, and it doesn't come back, it just keeps on going until it drops — or it hits somebody in the head. A war boomerang can go farther than anything else as heavy that you can throw. They fly due to gyroscopic precession caused by asymmetric lift. The lift comes from rotation combined with linear motion."
"Code interrupt that last transmission, slip! Put it in my native tongue."
"It flies because it turns into a wing as it spins; it comes back because the wing angle is different in different places."
A red and black German shepherd ran past, chasing a hard-silicone Frisbee Jackarang.
Tyrone shrugged out of his backpack, pulled out his basic Wedderburn. "See how the edge is slanted on this blade, on the inner aspect? But on this side, the trailing edge has the slant. When it spins into the wind, the push is different every time the thing rotates, so it starts to curve. You throw it right-handed, like this—" Tyrone showed him the grip, with the concave side forward and the end up " — and it flattens out and curves to the left."
Jimmy Joe looked at the boomerang. Hefted it. "Hmm. I could code a pro, put in the factors — weight, RPM, speed, aerodynamics, all like that — and make it work exactly the same in VR."
"Welcome to the past, slip. Serious throwers all have their own scenarios, since B.C. days. I've got exacts for each of my birds. But the program is just the map—these are the territory." He opened his backpack to show his friend his other boomerangs. He had three classics and three MTAs, ultrathin and light, rosin-impregnated linen L-shaped blades designed for maximum flight time. His favorite of these was the Moller "Indian Ocean" model, a standard Paxolin model he had gotten pretty good with.
He indicated the Moller. "I'll use this one for my event."
"Hmmp. Doesn't sound as hard as DinoWarz."
"Analog real time is different than digital, hillbilly. Talkin' muscle memory, judging wind speed, temperature, all like that."
Jimmy Joe wasn't impressed. "I could program all that in. One session."
"Yeah, but you couldn't walk over there and throw this and make it work."
The dog ran back with the Frisbee in its mouth and dropped it at the feet of its owner, a tall dude with green hair. "Good girl, Cady!" Green-Hair said. "Go again?"
The dog barked and bounced around.
"And the event you are doing is which one?"
"Maximum Time Aloft. You throw, it twirls up and around, a judge puts a stopwatch on it. Everybody gets a throw, the bird that stays up the longest wins. You have to catch it when it comes back or it doesn't count, and it has to land inside the fifty-meter circle. You want something light and with a lot of lift. The current record is just over four minutes."
"Feek that! Four minutes twirling around? No motor? Come on."
"That's just the official record. There are guys who have put one in the air for almost eighteen minutes, unofficially."
"No feek? That doesn't seem possible."
"I scat you not."
Tyrone held up the Moller. "My best with this is just over two minutes. If I could throw that today, I could probably make the Junior National Team."
"That'd be DFF."
Tyrone smiled. Yep, data flowin' fine. Too bad his dad wasn't here to watch. Dad had been real helpful when Tyrone had gotten started, even had an old boomerang at Grandma's house he'd found. Of course, Dad couldn't keep up with him now, but that was okay. He was not bad — as dads went.
The PA system blared to life. Tyrone's event was up.
Tyrone swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. Practice was one thing; competition was another. This was his first, and he suddenly felt a need to go pee, real bad, even though he had gone just ten minutes ago.
Despite his indoor pallor, Jimmy Joe seemed to be getting into the spirit of things. "So, when do you do your thing?"
"I'm eighteenth. There are thirty-some-odd throwers in my class. Some of them have come all the way across the country for this, and some of them are real good."
"You gonna watch the others?"
"Oh, yeah. Might see something useful. Plus I want to know what time I have to beat."
"You know some rude dude has, like, three minutes, that helps you?"
"Just like knowing the high score in DinoWarz does."
"Copy that."
There were several other events under way at the same time — distance, accuracy, Australian — and Tyrone and Jimmy Joe found a shady spot under a dealer's canopy and watched the juniors.
First guy up was a tall, lean kid with a shaved head. He threw a bright red tri-blade — not the best choice for this event — and Tyrone clicked his stopwatch. Forty-two seconds. Nothing.
The next guy was a short, stout kid with a Day-Glogreen L-shape, which looked like a Bailey MTA Classic or maybe a Girvin Hang 'Em High. Or it could be one of the clones; you couldn't really tell from this far away.
Tyrone clocked the flight at a minute-twelve. No winner here, he was pretty sure. Winds were light, from the northeast, so he wouldn't need to tape coins or flaps to his blades to keep them from getting batted down.
Third thrower up was a girl, as dark as Tyrone was, probably about his age, and she had a Moller, same model as his. She took a couple of steps, leaned into it, and threw.
The bird sailed out and up, high, hung there for what seemed like forever, spinning, drifting, circling back. It was a beautiful throw and an exemplary flight. Tyrone glanced away from the bird at the girl. She was looking back and forth from her stopwatch to the bird, and she was grinning.
As well she should. When the bird finished its lazy trip and came down, the black girl had a two-minute-and-forty-eight-second flight to her credit. That wasn't going to be an easy time to beat.
They watched eight more throwers, none of whom came within thirty seconds of the third girl, then Tyrone had to go and warm up for his own throw. His mouth was a desert, his bowels churned, and he was breathing too fast. This ought not to be scary, it was something he did every day the weather was good, throw his boomerang, dozens of times. But there weren't several hundred people watching him practice, and today he only got one throw that counted.
Just let me break two minutes, he thought, as he approached the throwing circle. Two minutes won't win, but I won't be last, and I won't feel like a fool. Two minutes, okay?
He pulled a little commercial pixie dust from his pocket and rubbed it between his left thumb and first two fingers, letting it fall to check the wind direction. The glittery dust sparkled as it fell and showed him that the wind had shifted a hair toward the north but still was mostly northeast. He dropped the rest of the dust, pulled his stopwatch and held it in his left hand, and took a good grip on the Moller with his right. He took three deep breaths, exhaling slowly, then nodded at the judge next to the ring. If he stepped out, he'd be disqualified. The judge nodded back, raised his own stopwatch.