the two turbines with more weight-efficient engines, while replacing much of the body with light carbon fiber, in order to get enough thrust versus weight.
“Does anyone know the population of Ecuador?” Jasmine asked.
“No,” Bob answered, “but I hear a brazillian people live in Brazil.”
Gina laughed and slapped his arm. James had never known his dad to act silly before. He almost preferred the grumpy old man than the virile rival who made hotties laugh.
“So, dad, tell us about your trip to Orlando,” James said over the noise of the rotors.
Bob smiled like he just got laid. “When we got into the hotel room, the phone rang. Gina kind of freaked out because nobody knew we were there, so who the hell was calling? We didn’t even tell you guys, so I was a little concerned myself. Of course, it was only the front desk making sure we liked the room. However, I didn’t tell Gina that.”
She reached across to playfully slap his shoulder.
“Instead, I covered the mouthpiece and whispered like I was terrified, ‘it’s the government, and they’re coming to get us! Oh, no, they finally caught me.’
“Gina naturally started screaming, so I asked her if she could see the black helicopters yet. As she studied the sky through our windows, I told the front desk that my wife found a rat in our room, then I let him hear Gina scream like a horror movie victim. The guy apologized and offered to comp our room when the manager got in. I later explained what happened, but not until I had more fun with Gina.”
“Jimmy, your father is a bad man,” Gina said dramatically, clearly in love.
Indeed, every time James felt like the happiest guy in the world, his father unknowingly one-upped him. He wanted his father to be happy, but never expected him to be happier. His relationship with Jasmine couldn’t be better, yet Gina and his father had more chemistry than Dow Chemical. Bob somehow hit a grand slam while only trying for a single.
“Jesus! Look at that. Someone call Michael Bay.”
Sticking out of the nearly four kilometer caldera was what looked like a half-finished bridge to the sky. It sprouted out of the mountaintop and ended in the air. Three kilometers long and over half a kilometer high, the end of the launcher looked like something from a Transformer movie.
Steve Paul, the president of the company, explained that the supersonic boom proved too destabilizing when the capsules left at the summit. Raising the exit half a kilometer meant it bypassed more atmosphere, continued gathering speed, and didn’t shake the damn mountaintop.
They landed and joined the other tourists in the observation tower, which was more of an underground bunker than a tower. They all wore oxygen masks until entering the bunker to avoid fainting for lack of oxygen.
“Welcome, friends and customers,” Steve Paul greeted them. A charismatic leader, Bob never invested in the company because he didn’t trust salesmen, the charismatic, or men with two first names. “Sorry you have to wear the masks and the heavy coats, but we are a few kilometers closer to orbit than the tip of Mt. Everest, thanks to Earth’s bulging belly. Soon you will witness a capsule shoot out of the launcher at 28,000 kilometers per hour, so don’t blink.” Only he laughed at his joke. “Please use your binoculars when we tell you or you will miss it. We have also set up a video that will replay the launch in very, very slow motion. Although this structure is sound proof, a supersonic boom will still hit us. Anyone outside, who could somehow endure the thin air and freezing cold, would have their eardrums burst. Tomorrow twenty of you will get married, and the day after you will be among the rare few to get the privilege of riding a train through a volcano into orbit!”
He laughed again to an otherwise silent room. The lonely ride up unsettled many of them. Several people used their binoculars to look down the mountain.
“That’s a very long walk,” Paul joked. Most of the glacier had already melted, but he didn’t envy the poor bastards who still had to make the trip on foot.
“I’m higher than Keith Richards,” Bob joked to the few people who heard of the long dead Rolling Stones musician.
“This is the view from inside the capsule,” the CEO helpfully pointed out. A giant computer screen showed increasingly blurry images as it shot by. In the beginning, they could make out numbers that marked each kilometer. Towards the end, they couldn’t even identify the numbers. “It is now inside the volcano.”
The Arab prince, who Jasmine grew to despise, for more than the taste of his nasty jism, started swaying like a skyscraper in an earthquake. His soon-to-be wife steadied him in alarm. The group always traveled with a company psychiatrist, who now tried to get the poor man to sit down.
Soon a countdown from ten to zero started.
“Watch closely!”
Something the size of a bus spat out above them, then quickly grew smaller as it flew farther away into the heavens. Instead of smoke, like from a cannon, they could see the contrails as it literally punched through the air. Like spy satellites that find ships by searching for their wakes, the guests tried to see the capsule by the contrails it left behind.
Then the sonic boom hit them like a hurricane wind, shaking the mountaintop like a pissed off giant. It must have been much worse when they ended the launcher at the summit.
“That’s it?” Bob asked, unimpressed.
James heard a thud. Turning, he saw some guests cradle the prince on the floor. His fiancee looked on, horrified. She seemed more embarrassed than concerned for his health. Later they would learn it was a political marriage between ambitious assholes.
Gandhi once remarked that those in the west try to marry the one they loved, while those in the east try to love the one they married. This bitter lady clearly had no love for her husband-to-be.
The guy opened his eyes, but James could not make out what he was mumbling. His right hand shook and something didn’t smell right. His fiancee now started cursing at him. He didn’t understand why until he got his first whiff of urine.
Did that guy just pee himself?” Gina asked.
Indeed he did.
James, who tasted his sperm, had the last laugh. Literally. He walked over, looked the guy in the eyes, and laughed so hard he cried. James began ridiculing him while, to add insult to injury, his fiancee kicked the poor man while he was down.
The psychiatrist looked at the CEO and sadly shook his head.
“It appears we have a vacancy,” Mr. Paul announced with a fake cheer. The Arab lady jumped for joy, fist- pumping the launcher. “Is there a single couple willing to marry tomorrow who is healthy and rich enough to pay $2 million to honeymoon in orbit?”
“I’d love to marry my girlfriend tomorrow,” Bob said, “but I don’t have a ring.”
Gina rushed to the Arab lady. “It will be harder for him to marry you if you give away the rings.”
The princess took off the engagement ring from her finger, searched the guy on the floor for the other rings, then handed them to Gina. Camera crews pushed people aside to get the best view as Bob got on one knee, slipped a ring on Gina’s finger, and looked up at her with love.
“There goes my best man,” James whispered to Jasmine. “I was once best man at a nude wedding and came within an inch of being best man.”
“Shhhh!” Jasmine whipped out her camera phone to record the proposal through her tears.
“I thought I was happy before I met you, but it turns out that I didn’t know what happiness was until you entered my life. Now I can’t imagine living without you. I was blind, but you helped me see; deaf, but now I can hear. You are the last thing I see before I sleep, and the first thing I see when I wake. Losing that would make me suffer more than waterboarding. I need you now, and I need you for the rest of my life. In return, I promise that I will be yours, only yours, and yours forever. I will take care of you, protect you, and savor you for as long as I breathe. Gina, the love of my life, will you marry me?”
No sooner did Gina whisper “yes” than her daughter screamed like fingernails clawing a chalkboard. Gina threw herself at her fiancee so hard she nearly knocked the poor man over. He twirled her around, almost smacking James in the head with her high heels. The producer of the reality show looked happiest of them all. James and Jasmine hugged and the four of them cried until the cameras stopped rolling.
