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Paper Planes

Thanks to all those who participated in my poll to work out which WIP to work on. The winner happened to be the one with the fewest words already written - barely more than an idea! But thanks to you guys it's now a short fic!

It's basically a pointless bit of fluff - Scott reminiscing about childhood. No warnings.

Paper Planes

Scott sat a little more heavily than he’d intended, almost collapsing into the chair behind the desk rather than easing into it as he normally would. With Virgil away from the island for a few days to show his face in R&D departments across a few of Tracy Industries’ larger facilities and check in on the day-to-day runnings, staff morale and procedural compliance, the others had been a little under the pump with rescues. As a result Scott was not looking forward to the inbox full of emails, and other assorted admin that awaited him.

With a sigh he quickly cast an eye over the to-do list and started to triage the most urgent tasks to direct his attention toward. He signed off on a few of the reports that he’d already read through, and a few others that John had done the reading through for him and given the okay.

A pop-up message in the corner of his holoscreen flashed once for non-urgent attention. Apparently Chelsea, his PA in New York head office, had noticed he was online and doing TI work and had taken the opportunity to catch his eye.

“Thought you might like to see your brother’s notes on this file. You’ll be pleased to know the staff member whose desk he found it on was about to reject it when Virgil intercepted it out of curiosity earlier today.”

The file in question was a design submission for a small, unmanned aircraft. TI often received such submissions from various designers and unknown hopefuls. Most of these never made it past the initial once over by staff employed to screen them. Those with promise were passed on to more experienced engineers for a closer look, and from there the surviving designs might go to Research and Development to work their way up the chain there.

The message from Chelsea had 2 attachments, one was the submission file, the other a photo. The thumbnail of the photo was enough for him to see what she wanted him to look at, so he opened it first.

It showed a paper copy of the blueprint, and across the top left corner in his brother’s unmistakable handwriting was scrawled a message that made Scott bark out a hearty laugh.

“I wouldn’t trust these blueprints to produce anything capable of flight unless they were folded into a paper plane.”

The only thing that surprised him about the comment was the lack of a second photograph, or perhaps a video, showing the blueprint expertly folded into an aerodynamic form and sent soaring across the R&D office.

Scott found memories rapidly surfacing in his mind – epic competitions between himself, Virgil and John all vying for paper plane design supremacy. Who could make the best looking plane, the one that flew furthest, or fastest, and of course the ultimate bragging rights . . . one that achieved all three?

Casting his mind back, he recalled it had all started with a library book John had brought home. At the time they were all aged between about ten and thirteen. He didn’t know what had attracted John to this particular book in the first place – maybe he needed it for some kind of science project or something – but he did know The Ultimate Paper Plane Book had sparked something in them all.

Virgil had spotted it on the kitchen table and been immediately attracted to the artistic and engineering aspects of making a structure capable of flight out of paper. Scott had seen Virgil studying one of the designs, hands busily miming the folding actions shown on the page, and taken a closer look. There were some interesting aviation facts included on the page, and explanations for the proper aviation terminology used in the description of the parts of the plane and how they helped achieve flight.

Next thing he knew Virgil had raced off to find some craft paper and come back to the table with a glint in his eye. The challenge didn’t need to be spoken in words. They flipped through pages, agreed on a design they both wanted to make and suddenly they were in a race with each other to fold the perfect plane and get it to fly.

At some point John must have come looking for the book, and ended up joining in by making one as well. It was less of a race to finish first after that, the importance being placed on how well the finished products flew. Distance, direction, speed. All factors would be considered in the final result.

John’s plane had the neatest folds and crispest edges, but he’d had the luxury of taking his time from the start. Virgil’s plane was almost as neat, the engineering side of his mind placing importance on accuracy in the build process. Scott’s plane was a little more wonky looking. Some of his folds were quite rough and hurried which resulted in one wing being a bit shorter in length, and further forward than the other, and it had a bit of a blunt nose. But that wouldn’t matter if it flew fast!

The living room became the testing area for their creations. The three of them standing side-by-side at the doorway and aiming for the far side of the room, a countdown from three and the planes were launched. Scott’s immediately banked sharply left and plummeted into the couch. Virgil’s went almost straight up, flipped and crashed to the floor upside down, and John’s flew straight but not far as the trajectory was a downward one. A few more tries, adjusting the launch angles and techniques, and each plane managed to achieve some distance, though Scott’s always tended to veer left. But at least it was the fastest!

That was the first of many test flights as they all tried out the different ways to make paper fly. Scott tended towards the ones that looked like actual aircraft, while Virgil was more interested in the ones that looked the furthest from them – possibly because he liked figuring out how and why they flew. He liked the one that looked like a ring the best, but it took a lot of trial and error to work out the correct way to launch it so it would spin fast enough to float through the air. John also liked the science behind the various designs and learning how each one worked, why a certain adjustment to exactly the right place would make a plane fly faster, or straighter, higher, or for a longer time.

By the time John needed to return the book to the library the three boys had made almost all 115 variations of the thirty different plane designs and learned a great deal about aerodynamics, paper folding techniques, the best speed and trajectory for launching paper planes, and how to tweak things when they didn’t fly true. And they’d had a great many competitive victories, defeats, rule challenges and friendly arguments settled.

The memories had Scott smiling at all the fun they’d had. Maybe he should suggest a new round of paper plane battles with all five of them. Kayo might want in on the action too. Asking Brains might make for a real challenge. And Grandma shouldn’t be left out either . . .

A new alert pinged on the holoscreen.

This one was from John, and when he clicked open the link it opened a video feed from the security cameras in the large R&D test area of TI Aeronautics division in Denver.

The screen gave him a split view between all four camera feeds, revealing that the long room was mostly empty, a large space between workbenches had been cleared from end to end across the room. There were people at one end of the cleared space. Quite a lot of people. Not just the technicians, engineers and mechanics who would normally occupy the test area, but it seemed there were office staff and managers amongst the throng. And front and centre was Virgil, smiling and directing the participants of whatever activity this was.

About half a dozen of the assembled staff members took position in a line at the end of the space between the benches. It took a moment, but Scott realised every person was holding something in one hand. Virgil seemed to inspect each one and comment on them to their owners, some of whom appeared to make adjustments to their objects. Then, as one they all raised their hands in preparation . . . and launched their paper aircraft across the room.

Over the next few minutes wave after wave of paper planes of all shapes and sizes were launched through the Denver R&D test area. Then, Virgil took his place with the last bunch of people to test their designs.

For the second time that morning the welcome sound of Scott’s laughter echoed through the villa, as he watched Virgil’s paper plane fly further, straighter, and surprisingly faster than any other, all the way to the far end of the room.