“It’s gun country.”
“What?”
“People love their firearms here.”
“We’ve been over this. Where’s the blood?” the first officer asked.
Fair question. Why didn’t anyone come to help? Where was the ambulance, the firefighters?
“Maybe he killed everyone in sight and flipped the power switch.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Screw Loose. It’s as good a working theory as any. Good reason to stay on the plane, I guess. What time is it?” Lyle asked.
“Here, just past one, in the morning.”
“What’s the temperature?”
“High thirties, but not trusting our gauges.”
“You have electricity.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lyle squinted.
“Well?”
“We have fuel?”
“Yes.”
Lyle looked at the pilot with a clear, unspoken question: Then why not let’s get the hell out of here?
“Maybe enough. Probably. We’ve kept the engine running for the heat. No engine, no heat.”
“But that burns fuel,” said Jerry.
Lyle thought, I slept through it. He’d taken a Benadryl, or four. What you do when you can’t get the good stuff. He rubbed his fingers together, creating sensation, assuring himself he’s awake, sure now that he is.
“What kind of plane is this?”
“Do you know planes?”
“Not really.”
“It’s a 737, Boeing, two turbofan engines. But no communications and the electrical has been less than reliable. Some systems have gone offline. We have auxiliary power. I’m saving it. We take off, we risk coming straight down,” the first officer said. “What we’re asking is whether you’ve ever seen something like this—or read about it? That’s the opinion we’re interested in.”
Lyle reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone. “May I?”
“It won’t work. But be my guest.”
He could look something up, but what exactly? It wasn’t like he was going to go into PubMed and look up the symptom that everyone not on an airplane was dead. His phone came to life. No signal.
“Besides food poisoning,” the pilot said with patience. Lyle liked the nuance in her voice, the control under pressure.
Lyle inched forward, as much as he could, before his knees hit the instrument panel. He put his phone down and peered into the night. Useful words and thoughts failed him.
“So in sum…” the first officer said.
“It’s very hard to know from here. Looks to me like those people are either dead or quickly heading that direction.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s very cold.”
There was a moment of silence.
“A storm is blowing in.”
“How do you know?” Lyle asked. How could they see anything blowing in? No radar, presumably. But his interest was piqued; maybe the storm already came through, bringing something deadly, carried on the wind.
Jerry sighed. His meaning clear enough: You might be a doctor but we’re pilots.
“What happens when you call someone, anyone?”
“It goes directly to voice mail or says all circuits are busy. We’ve been trying to find another human being for over an hour, just on the ground. I can barely contain the passengers.”
“Won’t they look for us, a plane that’s off the radar?”
“One would think,” the pilot said.
As Lyle took it in, he found his attention tugged to the dark horizon outside the plane.
“There,” Lyle said.
“What?”
“The hangar. Movement.”
Three
“I don’t see anything. It’s too dark,” said the pilot, turning to her second in command. “No need for that, Jerry.”
Lyle saw the gun for the first time. It was holstered, sitting on the button-laden dash, beneath the copilot’s sweaty palm. Lyle knew a bit about guns from the protection he sometimes got overseas and figured rightly it was a nine millimeter, standard issue for a licensed flight officer.
Jerry drummed his fingers on the gun. Lyle felt like the presence of the weapon should be telling him something but he wasn’t sure what. It reminded him distantly of the meeting he had with the dean as things were spiraling downward. There was someone from the university’s human relations department in the meeting, like a gun, just in case the dean needed to defend herself. Lyle, your behavior belies the intellectual maturity of a…
“Maybe I imagined it.” Lyle sensed he didn’t. But there was nothing there. Shades of black; even the grays were black, no reflections or shadows. “Why aren’t the lights on out there?” Anywhere. He assured himself he saw something: a wisp, shape, vapor trail in an embodied form. Yet as he tried to see it again, he couldn’t even make out the hangar.
“Some attacks disable electrical systems.”
“So do some storms. Not unheard of.”
“I’m not sure I can be of much help. I’m sorry,” Lyle said. “Is there something specific you want from me?”
“We’re grasping at straws,” Eleanor said. Then, after a beat, she added, “I wanted to have something reasonable to say to them.” It wasn’t immediately clear who she was referring to but then, in the silence that followed, Lyle could hear the dull cacophony that swirled from outside the cabin. Voice stew starting to boil. “I wanted to make sure that we weren’t missing something.”
The pilot lifted the intercom. “I better say something.”
She sat, lifted the intercom, pressed a button on the side with a sweaty-damp thumb. “Folks, I’ve got an update for you.” Lyle almost laughed. She was using the same tone of voice they use when the gate’s not ready or they need to deice the wings. He imagined what he’d next hear: We’ve got a slight delay because everyone in the world is dead. Have some peanuts!
“As you know, we’ve arrived safely at our destination in Colorado. Just outside Steamboat Springs. We are still working to fix our communications glitch.” She stopped. Swiveled. Looked directly at Lyle for the first time. His first impression was that she was unwavering, and strikingly attractive but with slightly crooked front teeth, WASPy with a lemon twist, what his friends in college called light blue blood. He wanted to be on her team, could picture her painlessly climbing the company ladder, making only friends. “I’m going to come out and discuss all of this with you in person,” she told the intercom, then took her thumb from the button on its side.
Just as she reached for the door, a rap of knuckles came from the other side, then a scratching sound.
“Hold on, Stella,” Eleanor said through the door. “I’m coming.” She cleared her throat, muttered something that sounded to Lyle like “No manual for this one.”
To Jerry: “Only I get in here.” To Lyle: “Would you mind joining me? Follow my lead. We’re improvising, but with authority.” Paused. “Got it?”
No answer required. She slid by Lyle to the flight deck door, glanced at him. “In your considered opinion, we’re waiting to get some more information but there’s no reason at all to panic.”
“Yep. Been there, done that.”
“Not that I expect you’ll say anything.”
Eleanor thought about what she’d say: I’m Captain Eleanor Hall—the voice from the intercom. We’re taking a cautious approach. Waiting for a position at the terminal. No reason for alarm.
Another rap on the door and a woman’s voice said, “Please.”
“Okay, Stella.” Eleanor opened the door.
She wasn’t looking at Stella but a passenger.