Charlie sighed as he stepped out onto Hawaiian soil. His arm throbbed with every footfall, and his body was a catalog of aches and pains. Now, taking no chances, agents boxed him in, protecting him on all sides.
Ahead was his next transport—not a car, but a helicopter, a large cargo copter that had been fitted with seats. The agents ushered him in, and then sat in the back. Casting around for somewhere to sit that wasn’t between two black-suited men, Charlie noticed another man in the front, watching the procession of Secret Service with unashamed fascination.
As the rotors of the helicopter began to spin, and the doors closed, Charlie sat and offered his hand. “Hello,” he said.
“Hi,” the man returned, shaking his hand heartily. “Name’s Fitz. Nice bodyguard,” he noted. “You must be some bigwig scientist or something, out to advise the President on his not-so-secret classified ship? With the alien or something?” He looked hopefully at Charlie, hoping for some tidbit of information.
“Not exactly,” Charlie returned, shaking his head slightly. “I’m Charlie. Been called out here by the President.”
“Charlie... Charlie...” Fitz repeated. “That name’s familiar.”
He stiffened. “Wait, Charlie? You’re that Charlie?”
“That Charlie?”
“Charlie Duke? You’re Charlie Duke?”
Taken aback, Charlie nodded. Fitz beamed. “Wow, awesome! Wait’ll my friends hear I met Charlie!” He fished out a pen and paper. “Can I get your autograph?”
Dumbstruck, Charlie gaped at Fitz. “You want my autograph?”
“Yes!” Fitz said. “You’re famous now! Everyone knows your name once some librarian dug up the Mission Control roster. I mean, you were talking to Neil—and the whole alien thing—that was incredible!”
Charlie smiled weakly. “It was, wasn’t it?” He took the offered pen and tentatively signed his name.
Fitz grinned, folded up the paper, and stuffed it in his jacket. “Thanks!” he said.
The chopper lifted off, and for a few minutes, an awkward lack of speech (not silence; the rotor blades were loud enough that shouting was the normal level of speech) infused the air. The agents were silent and professional, and Fitz seemed a bit starstruck.
Charlie was just uncomfortable. He knew that being an astronaut would mean he’d get to leave Earth at some point, and then he’d become well-known, but he was the backup astronaut! He wasn’t in space, and wouldn’t be for a while. He’d just been the guy on the ground, making sure nothing went wrong, because he knew Neil and the craft the best. Now people were asking for his autograph, and his name had apparently become a household term in the space of a day and a half, a meteoric rise in fame if there ever was one.
“So...” he finally ventured. “Why are you here?”
“Nothing close as fancy as yours,” Fitz said. “With the president here, they wanted an extra chopper, so they called up another pilot and copilot to go with it. I wasn’t originally chosen, but when the first copilot got hit by a car on the way, they called me up.” He shrugged humorously, “So I’m the third-in-line backup man, and it was just the luck of the draw I got to come. Though,” he said with a smile, “I suppose it wasn’t lucky for that chap who got hit.”
Charlie nodded, and Fitz fished, “So, did anything else happen when they turned the live feed off?”
Charlie automatically responded, “I can’t tell you that; it’s classified.”
Fitz tapped his nose and winked. “Right, classified. Got it.”
Once again, conversation stopped, and Charlie looked out the window, back at the rapidly-receding island behind. Thin wisps of smoke hung above Honolulu, attesting to the violence prevalent in the streets throughout the country, but it was certainly not as bad as the curtain of black which had shrouded much of Los Angeles.
And, he reflected happily, no one had shot at him or tried to kill him on the tarmac, either. Things were looking up.
Soon, land had disappeared from view, and the vast Pacific blue replaced it. It hadn’t been long (not more than half an hour, interspersed with small talk), before the two had both exhausted all the options for small talk.
“Wanna see something cool?” Fitz asked abruptly, taking the plunge. “I can guarantee you haven’t seen anything like it.”
“Sure,” Charlie shrugged.
Searching his luggage, Fitz found a pack of cards, and he turned his back to Charlie for a moment. The noises of shuffling and moving cards were lost in the rotor noise, but it was undoubtedly happening.
Fitz turned back around, cards nowhere to be seen. “Alright, pick a number between one and five,” he said.
“Three,” Charlie chose randomly.
Fitz put his hand by Charlie’s ear, and when he pulled it back, three cards were held in his fingers. “Pick again,” he invited at Charlie’s surprised blink.
“Two?”
This time, he reached his other hand behind his calf, and produced another two cards. “Again!”
“Five.”
Theatrically, Fitz yawned and stretched, putting his hands behind his head. When he brought them back, he held five cards—in each hand!
“How do you do that?” Charlie questioned.
“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Fitz said smugly. Charlie threw a pointed glance to his signature, though, and Fitz fidgeted, before giving in. “Alright, I’ll tell you—but only because I owe you! I’m not gonna give away any of my other tricks. Deal?” Charlie agreed with a nod.
He raised his hands once more. “Look carefully,” he instructed. His hands made a motion of some sort—so fast it was only a blur. When he stopped moving, his hands held cards. “See?”
“No,” Charlie confessed. “All I saw was a blur.”
“That’s the idea,” Fitz confided. “It doesn’t work if I do it slower, but I’ll explain it.” He rolled up his sleeves, and a shower of cards fell out. “So, I’ve got the deck lined up in my sleeves, which are just loose enough to let them fall down without giving themselves away or falling over.”
He demonstrated as he spoke. “When you say a number of cards, I tense my arms ad spread my fingers as I push back,” His hand went back into his sleeve and expanded it. “Which makes the cards slide down, and then I transfer them to my palm, and then my fingers.” He slid a card down to the bottom of his palm and his wrist. His thumb slid in, knocking the card down and to the right, where he snagged it in between his pointer and middle fingers. “It’s really hard—took me months to master once I had the idea. I’ve never been able to teach anyone else.”
Charlie was impressed. “It’s certainly unique,” he said, “And complicated. How many people have you shown that to?”
“Not too many,” Fitz returned. “Just family, friends; I did a few tricks on the base for the annual talent show, but it’s not like I’m a television magician or anything.”
Charlie nodded, but the conversation was interrupted by the pilot. “We’re coming in close to the carrier,” he said over his shoulder. “You’ll be able to see it in just a moment as we come in for a landing.”
Eagerly, Charlie moved to the window, with Fitz trailing behind. Below, the ocean gave way to the USS Hornet—a city-sized, quarter-mile long ship which hosted its own air wing.
No matter how many times he had seen such ships before, the sheer size and complexity of an aircraft carrier never ceased to be incredible. He followed the unhurried men on the deck below, strolling to their business, as well as the frantic men in charge of their landing.
Slowly, the helicopter touched down and shut off the rotors, the buzzing replaced with the shouts of men and the sounds of the ocean. Charlie was surprised to learn that even this far out from land, the carrier hardly rocked at all; it was barely noticeable even if one was looking for it.
“Welcome,” the pilot said grandly, “to the USS Hornet.”
“Home away from home,” Fitz murmured cheerfully as they stepped off the copter and onto the deck.