It was coming at the public delivery ceremony of the first production SR-9 in front of thousands of people on a stage very much like the one where it had all begun. And when it came this time, nobody would laugh. The delivery ceremony was set for a Saturday in spring 1 year and 3 months after the flight that had changed everything. It was the largest public event Falcon Dynamics had ever held. The first production SR-9, the aircraft that had nearly destroyed the company and then saved it, was being formally delivered into service, and the whole world wanted to watch.
There were thousands of people this time, not hundreds. There were television crews from three networks. There were government officials and military brass and investors and reporters. And filling out most of the crowd, ordinary people who had followed the story that had captured the entire country. The story of the janitor who turned out to be a legend and the billionaire who learned to see.
Marcus almost didn't want to do it. "It's a circus," he told Evelyn 2 days before in her office. "Thousands of people. Cameras everywhere. I spent 9 years making sure nobody looked at me.
And now you want me to stand on a stage in front of the whole country. You don't have to say anything," Evelyn said. "You just have to be there. The pilot who saved this aircraft should be standing next to it when it goes into service. That's not a circus, Marcus.
That's justice. That's the world finally getting the story right. " She paused. "Besides, Lily wants to come. She told me last week she wants to see the helicopter her daddy flies. Are you really going to tell her no? " Marcus sighed, because of course he wasn't going to tell Lily no.
He never could. "Fine," he said. "But I'm not making a speech. " "Nobody's asking you to make a speech. And I'm home by 6:00. " "You're always home by 6:00," Evelyn said. And she smiled because after a year, she knew the rhythms of his life as well as she knew her own.
"Some things never change. You told me that a long time ago. " The morning of the ceremony, Marcus dressed Lily in her best dress, the blue one, and he brushed her hair the way her mother used to, clumsily but with love. And Lily looked up at him in the mirror and said, "Daddy, you look nervous. " "Maybe a little. " "Why? " "You're not even flying today. You already flew. That was the scary part. " Marcus laughed because she was eight going on nine now, and she said things like that, cutting straight to the truth the way children do.