Don’t be a fucking retard, he said, in the same snotty tone I’d used. This is the last scene I need to film. I already finished the other stuff. Nobody films in sequence. I’ll put it all back together in the editing room.
You mean your basement.
He rolled his eyes.
So what did you make the space suit out of? I asked.
There is no space suit.
And when he ejects, what? Suffocates? Explodes in the vacuum?
Stevie didn’t answer.
Really? Rocket Boy dies?
What do you care? he said finally.
I started laughing. Come on, five years of the NovaWeapon chronicles and they just shoot him out of the sky and he dies? That’s like killing off Luke Skywalker.
Obi-wan died, he said, and came back in the sequels.
Only as a ghost. Ghosts don’t count.
Stevie ignored me. He pulled off his t-shirt and squatted to open the gym bag. His back was covered with bruises so blue they were almost black.
Holy shit, I said.
He pulled the black mesh shirt out of the bag. Don’t worry about it, he said. Just hull damage, right? He pulled on the shirt, and he was Rocket Boy again.
There were any number of things I could have said or done. New ones still occur to me.
Listen, Stevie said. I want a long shot—an establishing shot. He handed me the notebook, page open to the storyboards.
Just like that, he said. Stand over there by the fence. Film me getting into the rocket, and closing the hatch. Make sure you get me moving inside the cockpit, so they know it’s not a model. Just keep filming until I tell you to stop, got it? Don’t turn off the camera.
Obi-Wan was only a supporting character, I said, and started walking across the field.
The night I should have been paying the most attention, I was in bed, in the next room. I didn’t even have the scanner on. The screams came through the computer speakers in the office.
I don’t know how long they’d been going on before they woke me. Maybe only seconds. Maybe minutes. I bolted out of bed and stumble-hopped down the hall without my crutches. I swiveled the monitor to face me.
The baby was on the floor, shrieking. Mr. Spero stood over him, dressed only in pajama bottoms, his fists on his hips.
William had never made a sound like this before. It was a screech, as if he’d been cut or burnt.
Mr. Spero abruptly squatted, grabbed the baby under the armpits, and carried him out of the room. William was still screaming. I switched to the hall camera, but Mr. Spero walked straight into the master bedroom and I lost him again.
Fuck. I clicked through the camera views, but I couldn’t see a thing. But I could still hear William. That piercing cry was being picked up by all the microphones.
I rushed back to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that pulled down over flange and bag. I grabbed my crutches and lurched outside, bare toes scuffing the pavement as I crossed the two driveways.
I mashed the doorbell, then without waiting for an answer, banged on the wooden door and yelled. “Open the door! Now! Open the door!”
No one answered. I could still hear William screaming. I twisted the doorknob, but it was locked. “Mr. Spero! Where are you? Where’s the baby?”
The door flew open. Mr. Spero’s skin under his robe was fish white. “What the hell do you want?” he said, shocked.
I pushed forward, and got inside the frame of the door. “Show me the baby.”
“Get the hell out of my house!”
“Show me William.”
He started to close the door, but I lunged forward, got another leg inside. Mr. Spero raised his right fist.
“What are you going to do, Mr. Spero. Hit me?”
I wanted it. Local Man Hits Crippled Neighbor. I wasn’t worried about being hurt—this body’s only a vehicle, after all.
He slammed the door back against the wall. “Get out of my fucking house.”
“Not until you show me the baby.”
Mrs. Spero came into the room, wearing the green nightgown, holding William on her shoulder. He was quiet now.
She frowned at me. “Tim? It’s two a.m.”
“I know, I just—”
I couldn’t say, what was he doing on the floor? Did Mr. Spero drop him? Throw him on the ground?
“I heard him screaming.”
“Babies do that,” Mr. Spero said.
I ignored him, and looked only at Mrs. Spero. “He’s all right? Are you sure?”
She turned slightly, so I could see William’s face. His eyes were screwed up tight, and he was sobbing, but he didn’t look bruised or hurt.
“Is he all right?”
“He had a stomach cramp,” she said. “He’s fine.”
My memory is a series of still images, squared off by the viewfinder.
Stevie on the first rung of the ladder, knee raised, hands gripping the rails.
Higher, a dark look over his shoulder—not toward me, but toward some point in the distance, perhaps the enemy troops flying in.
At the top, the lid of the cockpit open like a beetle’s wing, and Stevie gazing into the crowded compartment.
From my desk I watched her place the baby in his crib. He had fallen asleep in her arms, and barely stirred as she laid him on the mattress. Mr. and Mrs. Spero exchanged only a few words, then disappeared into their bedroom.
I sat in front of the PC for an hour, watching and listening. William’s face was dimly lit from his nightlight. The house was absolutely still except for the sound of his breathing.
I went into the living room, too wired to sleep myself. I picked up the can of film I’d set aside for tomorrow night’s viewing. It was the last can from Stevie’s boxes, the last reel before the never-developed Last Reel.
I checked the film, going slow because it was heavily edited, spliced every dozen frames. He’d worked hard on this one. Eventually I threaded it into the projector and flicked on the lamp.
No sound except the clack of sprockets in the brittle film. The titles came up: a hand-stenciled sign. “The NovaWeapon Chronicles.” Flick, and the sign changed. “Final Chapter.”
I frowned. So far, Stevie had never made a chapter that spanned two reels. The movie couldn’t be complete without the scene I’d filmed.
The screen flashed—sun glare on the lens—and out of the white a tiny silhouette plummeted out of the sky. The camera cut to another angle: the same figure, still far away, falling and tumbling, arms and legs outstretched. Then another cut, and another, each shot from a slightly different angle, and the figure fell closer and closer.
I saw a flash of rocks in the background. It was the quarry. I remembered filming it, shooting up from the bottom of the pit, staring into the sun.
And then there were new images, things that Stevie had filmed himself.
I finished the reel, rewound it, watched it again.
A dark shape in the Plexiglas bubble like the pupil of an eye, his hand lifted in a StarForce salute.
I answered the door still wearing the sweats and t-shirt I’d pulled on the night before.
She held a squirming William on one hip. She turned toward the door as it opened, and smiled in a way that seemed rehearsed.
“Tim, I wanted—are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” My eyes felt raw. I probably looked like hell.
She paused, and then nodded. William pulled at her shoulders. “I’d like to talk about last night.”
“Sure.”
She smiled again, nervous. “Let’s not do this on the front step. This boy is heavy.”
William bent backwards over her arm, sure that it was impossible for his mother to drop him. He looked fine. Absolutely fine.