Tom: "Cray and I, we go back a long way. I was about five when we met, he was six. He was a year old when Ash Mountain was "transported" over to our timeline, after that volcano blew half the continent all to hell and really *ed things up for the rest of their world for some years. He doesn't remember any of it. His mom made it inside with him and his sisters, as far as they know their dad died with about a couple billion other people. They don't talk about it much. Me? My folks split up when I was three. We never saw my d of an old man after that, and I don't care if I never see the SOB again. Mom had to work fields all over the Midwest to keep us fed during the growing season, and she didn't have a lot of time for me during the summer. So she sent me to stay with Uncle Dusty and his friends. Their town was maybe 120 miles from Ash Mountain, they knew people there, but I wasn't really allowed close to humans without the grownups watching me like a hawk. They figured I was way too hyper, and I was (laughs). But then I met Cray at one of those VERY closely supervised play sessions, and somehow we connected. I think us both having single moms and being irredeemable little hellions, that was the thing. Soon we were sneaking around to get together and "plot evil", so to speak. He was the match, and I was the gasoline!

"So we grew up and went through our teens together. The one good thing my old man ever gave me before he left was... warbird genes. More power, sleeker lines than the average tractor-with-wings, that's all good. But that combined with the first rush of teen hormones and as-yet incomplete brain development was... trouble. It's a wonder I survived to adulthood. It's a *ing miracle that we're both still alive after some of the s we pulled together. Oh, Cray and I had testosterone poisoning, BIG TIME. That does crazy things to your brain, like making you think that "buck-nekkid" wing riding might be a great idea. We'd worked out the necessary attachments, and Cray welded it all together with stuff he'd swiped from the workshop. In hindsight, what were we thinking? Nothing much to do with common sense, really.

The "naked" thing came later, we decided we'd fly over the reservoir when the other kids were on the beach there. Cray hadn't brought his swim trunks and he... well, he "goes commando" all the time, don't tell him I said this OK? It was hotter than hell. He was already skinny-dipping, and he sees the other kids across the reservoir, and he says, "hey Tom, let's get the rig and do a fly-over!" And because of aforementioned testosterone poisoning, I thought this was a great idea too. So there we were, him with his helmet, googles and boots and nothing else, all strapped in and going like a bat out of hell for the opposite bank. I did a roll or two for good measure. Yeah, stupid, I know. We buzzed our friends a couple of times and didn't stop there, we did a few radial-G's around the mountain for good measure. Our friends who were stupid teens like us MIGHT have been impressed. That old Skyraider, Kathleen, she was NOT impressed. Neither were the mountain elders or my uncle, for that matter. They convened this meeting to see what they were gonna do with the two of us. We ended up doing some very hard labor for the rest of that summer (laughs). Now, when we think about what we did, we just cringe."