Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
MYLO
The rig looms over the black sand of Bethells Beach, where hills crumble into the ocean, emerald forest giving way to coppery red. The warm afternoon sun hangs a golden haze over everything, lending the lapping waves an otherworldly hush.
That endless azure flickers behind my eyes as ghostly heat slides along my skin.
I chalk it up to a trick of the light.
The rig itself is built around a crane. Bundles of wires carry electricity and signals up the boom, which has been fitted with a massive hydraulic robotic arm. The fuselage of a futuristic plane hangs from the end, woven with tracks to support the camera through its one impossible shot.
Christine, Andy, and I stand at the base of the crane, watching as the fuselage sweeps through programmed movements.
It looks like it’s really flying, albeit in slow motion: it twists, rocks, and banks through the air, cutting an arc out over the water before circling over the forest. Orange flags mark the clearing where the airbag will be set up for my fall.
One of the riggers, a middle-aged local who’s on-loan from a special effects studio nearby, walks us through.
“It’s all driven by computer. We’ve done a lot of pre-vis with the camera angles to find where we can cheat it to make it seem like it’s moving faster than it is. It’ll follow the exact same path each time, which means when we do our low run today, it’ll be the exact same as our high run tomorrow.”
As he talks, my eyes follow the crane’s braces, which extend out onto the sand.
No wonder the shooting window is tight; the tides will totally change the sand density, and they’re probably adjusting and recalibrating the rig every morning.
A giant crane isn’t exactly something you want to leave propped up next to the ocean for too long, even if the producers were willing to pay the permits for longer, which I’m sure they aren’t.
“That’s one hell of a thrill ride,” Christine chimes.
We’re all out of wardrobe and in casual clothes, and she shows off the muscles of her arms and legs—and her cold tolerance—in a matching tank-top and running shorts from a luxury athleisure brand.
I don’t know how she expects us to think she’s down-to-earth when her outfit probably cost as much as my car.
It’s a stark contrast to my faded sweatshirt and basketball shorts, which sport a few holes and singe marks from previous stunt practice.
Thanks to my chat with Haley, I’m newly committed to not letting her get to me. Yeah, she’s always spouting bravado—probably what she does when she’s nervous. It’s not my problem either way. I’m just here to do my job and hopefully enjoy myself. On the coolest goddamn rig I’ve ever seen.
My better mood is probably mostly enabled by the genuine sea breeze, which absorbs and scatters her scent.
It should do the same to mine, but I still take a few puffs from my vape to be safe.
“We can still adjust the camera tracking?” Andy asks.
“Yeah, all good. Pauli here’s a whiz.” He gestures at the technician in the cab of the crane, supervising all the computer outputs. “Any changes you need today, we can square up tonight. Tweaks tomorrow will be harder though, so try to get it close, eh?”
Andy rubs his chin in thought, then looks to me and Christine. “Ready to get in there?”
Pauli hits a button on the crane, and the space-plane fuselage lowers toward us.
“Can we see the camera track on the low run?” I ask. “I’m thinking working to the camera might actually make this easier, versus the other way around. Melinoe’s more mobile anyway, so if I just give Christine enough to react to… I should be able to keep both of us in frame.”
Andy nods. “Let’s run it through once or twice. I’ll see how it’s looking for the camera. Should be a good starting point.”
When the fuselage comes to a stop in front of us, I vault through the open doorway to check it out.
It’s a cockpit and a small cargo area, something like an oversized helicopter.
The instrument panels are utterly convincing, with digital readouts and indicator lights flashing alongside hundreds of switches and buttons.
Cargo netting lines the walls, and bundles of futuristic-looking cables help hide the track for the camera.
The track is essentially a rigid pipe, and it sweeps out of the door and onto the outside of the fuselage to get a view of the wings.
The rig is nice and stable underfoot, meaning I can safely throw my weight around without jostling the camera. Whether Christine can is yet to be seen, but the fuselage will be a bit tight for her to maneuver in, anyway.
The lead rigger pops his head in. “How’s it lookin’?”
“Sick as hell, man. Or, uh… sweet as, cuz?”
The rigger laughs and slaps the floor of the fuselage. “Good as gold, mate. Wanna see ‘er in action?”
“Absolutely.”
I hop back out, and Pauli steers it around to where it’ll start.
I can better appreciate the precise angles now that it’s closer.
It even shudders periodically to simulate turbulence.
The camera slides around it in a fluid motion, spinning on its track to capture a variety of angles as it glides in and out of the plane.
My mind runs through options, already mapping out the potential fight. I’m sure Andy’s doing the same.
As the fuselage reaches the end of its path and swings around to reset, I bite my thumb as I think. “It’s really just the first transition out onto the wing that I’m struggling with. Getting tossed out makes sense, but I just need something to hang onto until the fuselage levels out again…”
“Luggage straps,” Andy says. “We’ll get some attached, set them up so they fall that way as the rig tips.”
“Yeah, okay, perfect. How do you want to tackle this?”
Andy thinks for a moment. “Let’s stay focused on the story.
We want a good, entertaining fight, but with a schedule like this, the story comes first. Everything else after.
” He waves over one of the nearby production assistants, a bookish woman who supports the script supervisor. “We need our goals.”
The woman flips through her copy of the script and opens to the pages for the battle.
“So, Electra has just recovered the Thunder Stone, which is the key to her ancestry and unlocking enough power to defeat Thanoseid. She’s leaving in her jet, which is on AI pilot.
She doesn’t know that Melinoe followed her and has grabbed the outside of the jet until one of Melinoe’s hacking bots deploys and opens the door, allowing her to jump in and try to steal the Thunder Stone.
They fight. Melinoe finally falls from the plane, and only as she falls does Electra see that she has the Thunder Stone.
Melinoe’s fate is unclear for the moment, and Electra is forced to re-route her jet and chase Melinoe for the stone. ”
“So it’s a game of keep-away,” Andy says. “I need… a ribbon? Some string?”
The PA nods, and she’s back within a minute, breathing heavily with a foot of orange plastic ribbon, the same as is marking the stakes for the airbag.
Andy beckons Christine closer.
She leans down, and he ties the orange ribbon into a bow around the strap of her tank-top.
“First, let’s play a game,” Andy says. “Christine, use the blocks we worked through to protect the ribbon. Mylo, you’re on offensive. Get the ribbon and keep it all in frame.”
“What about the story?” Christine asks.
“The goal is the first pillar of the story,” Andy says. “Emotion the second. Let’s work out the goal, and then we’ll layer in the emotion.”
Improvising a scene like this is absolutely insane, and I’m thrilled. This is a unique opportunity to show off what I do best, and an incredible amount of trust to receive from Andy.
I slip out of my sweatshirt and set it aside. Gooseflesh prickles on my arms for the moment, but I’ll warm up quickly.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s give it a shot and see how it goes.”
Andy guides us to our marks in the fuselage; we’re skipping a bit ahead from Melinoe’s infiltration, and we’ll work backwards to that when the time comes.
“First, try it with no movement,” Andy says. “Ready… go.”
Christine sinks into her legs, taking on a ready stance. Her chest angles down toward me, expecting a strike from below.
I jump to the side and she swivels, but she doesn’t anticipate me kicking off the wall of the fuselage into a backflip.
I land and stop there.
She bounces her weight between her feet. “What, finished already? C’mon.”
“I am, actually.” I hold up the orange ribbon, snagged from her strap mid-flip.
Her eyes widen with surprise. “Well, that one doesn’t count. I wasn’t ready.”
“Mhm.” I hand the ribbon back to her. “No cheating with a double knot.”
“Like I’d need to cheat to keep it away from you.” She flashes a cocky, practiced smile.
My heart thrums faster. “Are you saying that as Electra or Christine?”
“Both. I think it’s a little unrealistic that Melinoe gets the Thunder Stone like this, but the plot beat is good, so.”
I give an incredulous laugh. “Oh, you think it’s unrealistic? I was gonna go easy on you, but…”
“Do your worst,” Christine says with a smirk.
She’s not smirking a half hour later when the longest she can keep the ribbon away from me is a minute. The fight needs to last for five.
Exasperation leeches into her tone, and she turns to Andy. “Don’t we need to get to actually rehearsing before it gets dark?”
Andy’s warm gaze watches everything and reveals nothing. “We’re on schedule,” he says. “You wanted to get into more advanced techniques. First step is to understand why you need them. Basic blocks don’t work on a fighter like Mylo.”
“Like Melinoe, you mean,” she says.
Andy doesn’t answer, but beckons her out of the fuselage. He walks her through some techniques that will give her more agility while I spend some more quality time with the fuselage. It’s full of little nooks and handholds I can use, and I can’t wait until it starts spinning.
While Christine and Andy are still busy, it’s a good time to explore the outside of the rig.
I lean out the door and grab the top of the doorframe. Using nothing but my grip on the smooth metal, I pull my legs up and around, kicking off the wing to flip myself onto the roof.
A glance over my shoulder catches Christine looking at me. I smirk.
I might be showing off a little.
Andy scolds her to bring her attention back to him, and to avoid Andy’s ire myself, I drop to the other side of the fuselage, getting a hang of the wing there.
While Andy and Christine keep working, I call over to Pauli and have him twist the rig to a couple different angles.
It’s mesmerizing to watch the jointed robotic arm spin, able to achieve any angle.
I test my grip around the edges of the wings, having Pauli gradually tilt the fuselage to lift the wing I’m on.
As the plane body tilts, incline becoming steeper, its surfaces provide even more options for springing and kicking off.
“How do I get one of these for my apartment?” I call over to Pauli, and he laughs as Andy signals him to reset the rig. I slide down the wing, through one door and out the other, landing next to Christine and Andy.
That I did for fun and not to show off, I swear.
Andy soon has us back on our marks in the fuselage.
Christine wears a serious, focused expression.
I offer a casual smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you this time, princess.”
Her jaw twitches. “Don’t you dare.”
“Suit yourself.”
Andy calls, “Go.”
I reach up and grab a conduit on the ceiling, pulling my weight up and evaluating my angles. I swing myself over Christine’s shoulder, and this time she anticipates it, stepping back and around to keep away from me.
“Better,” I say.
I make a few other passes, not truly going for the ribbon, but getting a hang of how Christine is moving now. She turns and steps back, trying to make use of the limited space in the plane to maneuver.
I pull up again, this time hooking my pointed foot through a loop of cable so I can crawl along the ceiling, dropping my top half down to grab the ribbon before whipping my legs under me and landing in a crouch.
“Don’t feel bad,” I say, handing the ribbon back to her. “It’s hard for any amateur to keep up with a professional.”
Christine takes the ribbon and ties it back to her strap. “Again.”
I glance over Christine’s shoulder at Andy, and he nods.
Now the real puzzle begins. I’m no longer trying to get the ribbon, but Christine is now mobile enough that I can manipulate her movement. Her defenses are earnest, and my attempts look convincing as I push and pull her around the fuselage.
The first minute, she’s focused. The second, she smirks. By the third, her smile fades, sinking into a grimace as she realizes I’m toying with her after all.
“That’s good,” Andy says. “Let’s add the movement.”
Andy signals to Pauli, and the fuselage starts moving through its programmed track at half-speed.
This makes my job both easier and harder.
Easier because I have more angles to use, more ways to catch Christine off-guard.
I’m figuring out which angles get her to twist around the fastest, which blocks will look the best for the camera.
It’s harder because I have to track not only mine and Christine’s changing positions in space, but the fuselage as well.
We go through another few passes, Andy giving notes and adjustments each time, following us on the sand.
Nausea edges in; the fuselage moving around us affects me more than I expected. I find ways to keep my gaze focused out of the doors, trying to ease the motion sickness, but this cuts off my options too much, and Christine’s able to stay in one place.
Her scent filling the space doesn’t help either. There’s more of that sickly sweet coconut, and it reminds me too much of getting drunk on Malibu and Coke in college. The sea breeze seems unable to flow through the fuselage, leaving the interior hot and stuffy.
I power through until a partial run at full speed leaves me on the verge of throwing up.
As Christine resets, I lean out of the door. “Andy, think we can take ten?”
“Yeah, of course.”