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“Good good, need someone with steady nerves on this one, steady nerves. Go see Flight Commander Laika at the launch pad, Laika at the launch pad. Glad to have you, glad.” Then he waves his hand again and the lightning door appears again.

You figure that the launch pad has to be where the rocket ship is and you can see that clearly enough on the far side of the room. Flight Commander Laika is easy to spot since she wears a sixties vintage all silver cosmonaut suit complete with helmet. She greets you with a handshake which nearly crushes your bones and a slap on the back which knocks you over.

“Sorry about that, Captain Doubletalk sent you to me? Fantastic, the last three he sent are in the hospital still (minor injuries of course, very very minor), but you look quicker and smarter than them anyway. Come have a look at this.” She bounds over to the strangest assortment of wings, propellers, and rotors that you have ever seen. Barely visible in the center you can just make out what looks like a bicycle with very large saddle bags. “This is the skycycle, my own invention, which is going to completely change the face of interlibrary loan. See libraries not only loan books to their own members but they send them out to other libraries when those libraries don’t have the books which their members need. Usually we do it through the post office or with trucks but the skybike is going to be for those special rush orders. Try it on for size.”

You climb through the maze of parts and get to the bike in the center. At first you are skeptical but once you are in there you have to admit that the thing is pretty cool. Flight Commander Laika hands you a half a dozen very thick, very heavy books which just barely fit into the saddle bags behind you. She stands back. “All you have to do is get up in the air, do a quick circle of the city, then come back. You’ll find it easy I am sure. Now get those props moving!” she pumps her arm in the air in circles and her enthusiasm is so infectious that you start to pedal like mad. A door opens in front of you and before you know it you have shot out, up a ramp, and are airborne.

It is incredible to feel the wind in your hair and be flying under your own power. The city looks beautiful from up there and you keep pedaling as hard as you can to climb higher and higher. In no time at all New York City seems tiny. Flying is just fantastic. Your biggest problem is that you are getting tired, very very tired. You really should have paced yourself better. No matter how hard you try you are losing altitude and your legs feel like rubber. The East River is coming up fast and you are panicking when you see a solution. With a last burst of strength you pull out of the dive to safety.

Relative safety anyway, crash landing on the top of the Brooklyn Bridge is hardly ideal. The skycycle is trashed and you have no idea how you are going to get down. All the same you will remember this flight for the rest of your life.

There really is a web of libraries that exchange books through interlibrary loan. Thousands of libraries trade millions of books a year. There are also really human powered aircraft, one of which has completely circled the globe pedaled by people. As yet nobody has put the two together.