Vol. III Chapter 17 “Most people will tell you the Wright brothers made the first flight."

Chapter 17 "Most people will tell you the Wright brothers made the first flight."

Burton spent the day working in the motel room he'd grown up in. A day of chemistry set science and tinker toy bots made from scrap. It made it impossible for his mind to see anything else. The scratchy, threadbare carpet. The mismatched desk and chair. The tv that wouldn't properly tune. All of it surrounded him, feeling smaller than even he remembered.

The hallucination started as he crafted tiny bots from scrap. As he'd done endlessly as a child. Little walking ones, jumping bots with plastic legs. He thought of how his mother shrieked with delight as he brought broken bits of rubbish to life. It always seemed to be night in the conjured room, yet his mother never arrived.

The simple bots came together quickly. Plastic pipe housing, enough space to keep it buoyant. A sensor module and lens up front. A battery and electric motor sealed within. With a vectoring impeller to keep it moving.

Test tubes and flasks bubbled and fizzed on the sideboard. It seemed strange how well they fitted in. A simple pendulum rocked an agitator plate. Mixing silver nitrate and potassium, turning the liquid into yellowing sludge. Every hour he'd pour it out onto catering trays. He didn't need to wear a mask. The noxious irritant barely registered.

A day spent sleeping cleared the delusion, bringing him back to the cavernous steel box. He'd never missed that tiny room, until now. His workbench looked like that of a mad bomber. Various lengths and sizes of cut pipe. Ends sealed, wires and sensors sticking out. He started with the heaviest.

The water had sat for weeks, fetid and murky. A thick layer of algae broke as he pushed the first pipe under. The six attached toy bots started whirring, taking the pipe under. Hours later it surfaced at the breach into the launch tube.

Burton took control of the bot in the tube. Hanging with one arm and working with the other. Slow and steady movements disconnected the toys, rolling them back down into the water. Their payload delivered, he drew one of the threaded metal spikes from the sealed pipe. The hexagonal shape helped the triple prong claws twist them into the concrete.

With a more stable footing for the bot, Burton could start the next phase. It took two full days to send the rest of the packaged pipes through. Down one stone spiral, through a sealed corridor of the Vault below, and up another stone spiral. The bot in the launch tube perched on steel rods. The breach serving as a work surface.

Burton manipulated the bot, concentrating intently. Somehow reassembling modified Hellstorm anti materiel missiles remotely seemed easier in theory. Despite removing most of the explosives and solid fuel, enough remained to cause problems. Namely blasting the bot to bits, then collapsing the tunnel. Every weld felt agonising, like performing surgery by remote.

The engine housing and fins assembled quickly. The main body welded cleanly and the circuity in the nose remained undamaged. The final step involved packing any and all empty space with silver iodide and simple table salt.

Without the shoulder carried launcher, Burton had to improvise. Wire tied round the missile in loops, hooked on a bent rod.

"Shabby, Burton. Very shabby." The voice he knew made him jump. Burton closed the remote override to see Mr. House, dusting off a chair before sitting next to him.

"All it has to do is go up." Burton sounded defensive, then got angry. "You're not even here." He ignored the presence, got the bot clear, and hit fire.

Sound and flame hissed up the launch tube. Error warnings blinked as the missile clipped the launch tube wall. The impact sent it out at an angle, arcing through the night. Burton checked the updated trajectory being calculated in his peripheral vision. He waited the few seconds for the peak, then detonated it manually. Far too low to be of use.

"Oh dear Burton." Mr. House had a smug tone. One Burton knew well. He tried to think of a comeback. "Perhaps you need a reminder of what going up means." Mr. House stood from his chair, straightened his unrumpled suit, and began walking. "Come along Burton." He followed, unsure as to why.

"Most people will tell you the Wright brothers made the first flight. Drivel parroted by dullards." Mr. House kept talking as he walked. Not once looking back, attention expected at all times. "Henri Giffard flew a hundred times further some fifty years earlier."

"Thank you for that entirely useless piece of information." Burton scoffed.

"If I know that then you know that. Do we really need to have that conversation again?" Mr. House stopped for a moment, still not turning round. "Where was I?" He turned on his heel and set off again. "Ah yes, Monsieur Giffard. Do you know how he flew?"

"No." Burton quipped sarcastically, amusing himself.

"How very droll." Mr. House turned and glared right at him. Nostrils flaring and moustache twitching. "Think back to all the time you wasted."

Mr. House began pacing towards him with menace. "Think back to all those pointless evenings spent in drunken debauchery and the company of the simple minded!" Burton started backing away in fear. "Think of all that time wasted trying to spite me when you should have just known your place!" Mr. House yelled in his face, sending him stumbling. The moment he hit the ground the delusion blinked away.

Burton sat hunched over, shivering and afraid. His delusions had grown more frequent, but rarely interacted with him directly. And they were never aggressive.

"Why did he get so angry?" Burton said to himself alone. He racked his fogged mind, getting to his feet. Then he saw the label on the crate he'd been led to. Metrological equipment. "A balloon. Herni Giffard flew in a balloon."

The weather balloons Burton's subconscious led him to, turned out to be an effective idea. Burton thought he dismissed the idea weeks ago. Due to the reduced lift ratio caused by the diameter of the launch tube. He'd forgotten the lessons of Herni Giffard, who used a balloon under power to achieve flight, circa 1852.

Burton spent the day redesigning and recalculating. Everything had been sent through the water filled tunnels. Then unpacked and reassembled by the bot.

Remotely operated claws gripped the helium canister. Silver sheeting tumbling down like an evening gown. He made the bot twist the valve, and balloon began to inflate. Soon a silver orb emerged from the flat sheeting, slowly lifting, filling his entire view.

The situation had reached the point where Burton could do no more. "God I hope no one sees this." He said to himself as the balloon crested the launch tube.

"We used to fake ufo sightings for recon balloons." Burton closed the display and noticed Shaw, sat next to him like he'd been there for hours. Burton didn't know what to say to him. As usual.

"Haven't seen you in a while." Burton resisted the urge to ask what he really wanted to know, trying instead to engage.

"Got a good night for it. I'll check the perimeter." Shaw didn't look back as he walked away.

"Wait!" Burton scrambled from his seat, but timers flashing red forced him to stop.

Above ground the weather balloon inflated fully, tugging at the line. Quickly Burton prepped the second balloon, connecting the line and starting the inflation. The second balloon climbed rapidly, bouncing up the tube like a ping pong ball. The third balloon went up even quicker. Followed by three missiles, each attached to a balloon.

High above the wasteland, the balloons drifted with the wind. Burton could do nothing but watch the telemetry. He let out a relieved sigh once they'd all reached cloud level.

The altimeter sensor clicked on a motor, drawing the missile up. The instant the line retracted fully, the missile engine fired. The spike of flame ripped the missile free, igniting the balloon in its wake. The explosion scattered the payload of dirt.

The missile streaked through the dusty, toxic clouds. Rotating and spewing its own contents. Soon the next one fired, then the next.

All the readings were at zero. Burton chain smoked, pacing, glued to the bot's visual feed. High above the silver iodide began to react, pulling minute amounts of ice from the air. These tiny specs collided with others, then others still. Until a single drop of rain fell from the stale and acrid cloud. Again and again this chemical reaction occurred. Until the rain fell like a monsoon.

This would wash the radioactive dust from the world. The water would be toxic, which would feed the bacteria and algae. This in turn would put slightly cleaner water back into the cycle. Getting cleaner and more efficient each time.

Burton saw drips on the bot's lens and dropped to his knees. For the first time he believed that he might leave this place.

"Looks like rain." Shaw stood next to him, dressed in a sharp grey suit.

"Yeah, I think so." Burton lit a cigarette, offering one to empty space. "See you round Andrew." Burton got the sense that if he did ever manage to leave, it wouldn't be alone.