You've done it. Here it is. This is the day. This is your day, Mr. Memphis Theodore Burroughs. You started out from humble beginings, selling magazine subscriptions, and then you designed tennis shoes that everyone wanted to wear. Pro athletes, movie stars, the public. You opened up your own clothing line and that soon opened up your own chain of stores. Then you began a record store, which turned into a music distributing company, Verocity Records. Every pop princess and Disney has-been sings for your label and the people buy them. You've monopolized downloaded media, and everyone, every-goddamned-one, downloads their music, video, books, ringtones from you! You moved on, you grew bigger, FiberDyne, Verocity Aerolines, and now this: Verocity Aeronauticals Star Plane. The Memphis Belle. The first airplane to break the stratosphere and orbit the earth.
Today, is her maiden flight. You've invited politicians, reporters, celebrities and of course your flavor of the week: Danica Hershey, your newest musical sensation discovery. Sure, she's 19 years your junior, but you're Memphis Burroughs. You've got more money than Trump and the prince of Burnai together. More moxie than Hugh Heffner. Tonight, you're going to fuck the shit out of her at over 100,000 feet above the Earths surface in your personal suite.
There is the usual ass kissing, the few nay sayers, but after the press conference and photos...The Memphis Belle is loaded up and awaiting clearance for take off on runway 17 of SeaTac airport. Her jets rumble, your passengers sip nervously on the cocktails and smile shyly at you. This is it. This is the moment. You are the man.
The tower calls out the clearance codes, the engine revs and the plane jerks. The g-force pulls you and the passengers into your soft memory foam seats.
You have a direct link to the cockpit. An earpiece. Within seconds the nose lifts and clouds race past. The Earth's gravity pulls at you and your guests. There is some nervous groans.
"No worries, folks." you announce over your personal speaker, "just as we explained in the briefing meetings, you'll experience a slight discomfort as gravity pulls at us, and your head may feel like it will explode...but rest assured...the crew will be leveling out the cabin pressure..."
The secondary boosters kick in and the Memphis rips through turbulence like a ginsu. You tap the button to the cockpit.
"Any problems, captain?" you whisper.
"No, sir." he answers obediantly, "all systems check okay, we should be breaking through the stratosphere in a few minutes."
"Excellent. You've done well, captain, much appreciated for the smooth flight."
And that was the wrong thing to say. You knew it was. In fact, after you said it, it felt bad in your mouth like diet soda. Because from that moment on, things went bad. Things went really bad.
It started when Kevin Newmann, yes, the action hero movie star, threw up into his cocktail glass. Then he unbuckled his seat belt and attempted to get up to use the bathroom. The idiot got up. The plane was doing mach 7 and about to break through the atmosphere into space and he got up out of his seat.
"I've got to puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu........!" was all that came out of his mouth as he was ripped out of his standing position and slammed through the back wall into the cabin area. He suffered several broken bones, a ruptured kidney, and many lacerations. His career was done. But that is entirely irrelavent.
Just before the Memphis Belle broke through the atmosphere there was a rumble from beneath the plane.
"Captain?" you call through your monitor, "Is everything okay? What was that?"
"Instruments are reading normal, sir." you notice a hint of nervousness in that voice, "No alarms and I just ran a systems check....doesn't seem to be anything..."
"What the hell was that noise that came from underneath us?" the direction your moment of glory is going is starting to piss you off.
"I can't be sure, sir."
"You can't be sure? What do you mean you can't be sure??"
You look up at Danica, she could care less. She's busy looking out the window watching the the earth in full view. The rest of your passengers however, are shaken. After Newman's exit, and the rumble of the undercarriage, they're not sure if they wanted to take a magic carpet ride with Mr. Memphis Burroughs.
"The captain will be leveling off and we'll be reaching orbital pattern in a few moments, folks." you announce, "As soon as we level off, we'll have a look at Mr. Newman's injuries. But please, do not attempt to get out of your seats until we've reached enertial dampening. The light will come on momentarily."
There is concern on some faces for the fallen actor. Some, these are rich people on board, afterall, and they didn't become that way by caring about people. There were just a few bleeding hearts here and there...and you yourself had done some philandering in your long rich career. The Humane Society, the children's cancer fund, hell you even shaved that beautiful mane of yours for St. Baldrick's the children's cancer fundraising event.
The bell goes off. Ding Dong (you wanted that Star Trek sound...the tooweeee-ooo...but they couldn't put it in) The seatbelt light shuts off.
"The seat belt light is now off." the captain speaks, "it is now safe to move about the cabin area. On behalf of Verocity Aerolines, Mr. Burroughs, and my crew, we'd like to thank you for joining us on our maiden flight through orbit. You may experience a slight queeziness as you'll experience the zero-gravity effect in the cabin. We do have gravitational stabilizers equipped in the cabin, but I thought it would be a treat to experience zero gravity. If there is any discomfort during your flight, please be sure to let our staff know."
You feel proud again. Incidents forgotten already. Even as famous Dr. Gregory Bohnstetter, head of cardiology at the Mayo Clinic, the guy who put in 3 stents in your own pulminary system, patched up Mr. Newman and made him as comfortable as he could with a few doses of morphine.
Everyone unbuckles and floats towards the port windows. The Earth glows filling every window. People 'oooo' and 'aahhh'. Some are having problems navigating their way through zero gravity.
"Folks," you begin your glory speech. "thank yew so much for joining me on this maiden flight. A few bumps and bruises are to be expected and ah pray that Mistuh Newman will recover from his injuries which ah will cover all expenses. In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy yourselves. Mi casa es su casa."
There is the congradulatory handshakes, the shallow shoulder pats and kisses.
"You've opened a doorway, Mr. Burroughs." compliments a congressman from Texas, "You've opened the future to space flight for the average citizen."
"Thank you, Mr. Rice." you smile and reach into your breast pocket for your viagra pills.
You look over at Danica, who is staring in awe at the planetscape, this one's for her. You pop the blue pill into your mouth and walk over to her.
"Honey." you put your arm around her waist, "ah'm going up to the cockpit to personally congratulate my crew for a bit, would yew be a dear and meet me in our suite in say....15 minutes?"
"Sure, honey." she says, in her sweet young voice giving you that coy look that you know means, do what you want to me, just make me rich and famous.
You make your way to the cockpit. You press your finger on the keypad by the locked cabin door. A light reads your prints and the door hisses ajar. You open the door and walk into the cockpit which is lit up with the most hi-tech avionic equipment money can buy. Of course, you didn't have to buy any of it because you own FiberDyne that supplied the cable and fiberoptics, and you own Verocity Aeronauticals which provided the rest of the material.
"Captain," you pat him on the shoulder and then look around at the other 3 crew members,"Gentlemen. Ah can't thank y'all enough for a job well done. Congratulations to yew boys, now let's make sure yew git us all home safe and sound as well."
2 comments:
Damn....
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