A: Get wet.
"We" are way overdue in reporting the 9/11 BOOM-BOOM. No, not an anniversary terror attack, a mucho strange event. Are you crazy? Hughes is not, but the E.T.-chasers at USAF keep dragging out their discarded prototypes and flying them around "The Aviator's" gene pool. The last one was really loud, and I've got to look up what it was. I think they are trying to tell me something, like perhaps how we waste tons of money on planes that don't fly right, or as Harry S. Truman would say, "On the other hand" planes that are superior but not enough of a taxpayer ripoff for the deeefense contractor. I promise to be on time, on budget, and not cheat, but this, ladies and gentlemen, puts my life in great danger. Go figure. Back in time we go, screenplay style, to 09.11.2009.
HUGHES sits out in front of the senior center reading The Economist and Business Week. He frets about the Space Shuttle to no one.
HUGHES
Those assholes aren't coming down at Edwards. Just this little bit of cloud cover and they'll wimp-out. If you run out of oxygen, don't blame me. Call the Russians, and they'll send a Soyuz. Didn't they think about putting fourteen people in that thing?
The CAT WOMAN walks by with her black cat.
HUGHES
Why did I write a screenplay called Walking the Cat? Now, I get a real woman who walks her cats. What the hell is this?
Hughes flips through the magazines.
HUGHES
If you run out of consumables, that's not my problem. This government has to stop trying to blame me for everything. What if that thing burns-up again? I should have never opened another e-mail account. They'll say I ordered it. More crispy spyonauts.
Another lady approaches in pink.
HUGHES
I'm not shutting up just because you're here. Jesus! They flew all of those aircraft over my head, and now that I want to make a movie, you want me to pay? That's called "product placement, Soldier Boy. Let's see...I need A-10's, F-18's, B-52's, an AWACS, Air Force One, a few tanks, an APC, some Humvee's, old battleships like Reagan shelled Lebanon with, a mine-dumper, as with Nicaragua, so what's the big deal?
The woman in pink walks away robotically.
HUGHES
I guess I'll look for a newspaper to find out what happened to the shuttle. Maybe the local Mafia will leave me a copy of the Ventura Star. They'd better not burn up. You assholes! Flying the B-1, B-2, F-15's, and Air Force One over my head. Then, it took a long time to figure out the "mystery plane" in 1989 was an F-117 prototype, and the big triangular one outside Columbus last year was the B-70 Valkyrie, a prototype of the B-2. Man, that was cool! Why do you do these things to me? Next thing you know, they'll fly that shuttle over my head. They've done everything else.
SOUND: (soft) PAGES TURNING
SOUND: (loud) BOOM, BOOM.
Hughes jumps up and starts shouting.
HUGHES
I knew it! I knew it! Those assholes! They did it! Yahoo! They're baaack! And what a way to find out. They know I like loud noises. Jesus, I haven't heard that since McDonnell Douglas F-4's. Soldier Boy, were you even alive back then? Unless they crash in the next few minutes, you can't claim I blew-up or burned-up another Space Shuttle. You assholes!
Over Hughes' shoulder, we see he is writing in a notebook. The entry says:
"Double sonic boom at 5:50 p.m. announces you-know-who are back."
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