Dinosaur, thought Saskia. Exactly.
She pictured a huge, lumbering Tyrannosaurus rex clawing through a forest, ripping at branches with its tiny hands. The visualisation brightened. The up-and-down plunging of her awareness steadied to a slow, manageable numbness. Dinosaur. Exactly. She stumbled into the aisle and clawed along, headrest-to-headrest. Jennifer’s attack on her wetware device had to be based on radio communication. It must, therefore, weaken with distance.
Inverse square law, she thought. Interference. From the avionics.
The passengers barely noticed her, but Saskia focused on their details, conjured lives from their scant exteriors. Some were businessmen. Others were boys on first holidays unaccompanied. These mothers and fathers and wanted and unwanted children. Retired, precise ladies and gentlemen. A police officer. A musician. Those who constructed their personal spaces from Evian, iPods, their lap-held fictions. Saskia scrambled along the aisle. Dinosaur. Her fingers groped for gross visual features; seat-backs, armrests. Exactly. She fought her way towards the steward.
The storm in her head redoubled. She lost her sense of orientation. Spokes of sunlight, anchored by the portholes, slit the compartment like swords through a box. It became a shaft down which she stared.
Not enough interference, she thought. More. How many passengers had forgotten to switch off their phones?
Inside her head, she screamed, Answer me!
The first call came through on the phone nearest to her. The woman said, ‘Preggo?’
Another phone, two rows back: ‘Yeah?’
‘Hallo?’
‘Si?’
As the handsets punched signals through the fuselage to masts thousands of feet below, the high-strength defence washed through her. She crouched in the aisle, having regained control of herself, and turned back to Jennifer. Their stares met. Jennifer was frowning.
Saskia hurried towards the steward. As she ran, she transferred Jennifer’s bracelet to her pocket. The steward was talking to a passenger. Saskia put a hand on his shoulder and whispered into his ear. He laughed, but the noise slurred into a snore and Saskia guided him into an empty seat. She tugged his collar to cover the red marks made by her fingertips. She glanced back and saw Jennifer walking up the cabin.
Three flight attendants in totaclass="underline" two remaining, both women. Are there sky marshals on this flight?
No.
Saskia swept beneath the curtained arch that marked first class. A sense of the cabin became part of her proprioceptic awareness before her second footfall. As naturally as she knew the position of her left hand, she knew that the width of the cabin was four metres. She felt the exits: six, evenly spaced. She saw the halo of a wiring bundle where its current leaked and, from that, she pulled an instant of flight deck sound (static and a steady bleep) as it passed to the (black box) rear of the aircraft.
There was a stewardess on the other side, and she turned with a bright smile that presaged a rebuke.
In Italian, Saskia said, ‘Behind me, there’s a lady dressed in black. She’s just left her seat and is scaring the other passengers. She won’t sit down.’
Saskia put a firm hand on her arm and pushed her towards the rear of the aircraft. It worked. The stewardess made a soft, placating noise and moved to intercept Jennifer. Saskia continued along the cabin. She smiled at those passengers who met her eyes and concentrated on reaching the captain.
There was a food cart near the door to the flight deck. Saskia glanced at it for weapons. The trays looked like they contained snacks in plastic wrappers, bottled water, and ice. Saskia pulled out one of the trays. Cutlery: plastic. Useless. She took the coffee flask from the top and turned to the keypad next to the door of the flight deck. No time to pick it.
Saskia lifted the wall-mounted phone and pressed the button marked ‘flight deck’.
‘Capitano, la serratura è rotta. Per favore apra il portello.’
She looked back once more and saw Jennifer passing through the first-class archway. There was no sign of the stewardess that Saskia had spoken to. Two flight attendants down. One left. The last had to be with the pilots.
Saskia turned back to the flight deck and was surprised to see that the door had opened. An elderly man stood on the threshold, regarding her with equal surprise. He wore a light suit and leaned on a cane. Saskia dropped her glance to the red spatters of blood on his left hand. The man looked behind her, probably at Jennifer.
The time traveller.
Her Huckleberry.
Saskia turned in time to see her nod.
His age belied the fury of his attack. She had room to turn and loop the phone cord around his cane, which cut through the plastic (How? she thought, angry at this miscalculation) and licked at her ribs. She saved her heart by bringing the coffee flask down on top of his wrist. The flask struck the sword’s handle—for it was a sword, not a cane—and spoiled his thrust. He had the advantage of her, though, and followed through with his elbow, which sent her tumbling into the fuselage at the foot of the exterior door.
‘That’s enough,’ shouted Jennifer. ‘You’ll damage the recall band.’
The man stepped away from Saskia. In a moment, she was submerged into lake-cold paralysis once more. She could not turn, or blink. Her eyes were stuck in their sockets. She watched the man move back from her statue. His form was clear, but the surroundings—beige plastic, a little of the flight deck door, a galley cart—blurred with static, then faded. Saskia became blind.
He asked a question in a language she did not recognise. The translation came in her native German: Who is she?
‘Never mind,’ Jennifer replied in English. ‘You did the right thing.’
‘She damn near knocked my head off.’
‘You got old, Cory. Look at you.’ The words carried contempt. ‘She’s stolen my recall band. If you’re still my Huckleberry, take it.’
Saskia felt hands enter her pockets. She was sickened by her immobility. Where were the passengers? Why weren’t they helping? She wondered how she could recover from this. The aircraft was still due to crash. As she had feared, she had become part of events. She could face the likelihood that her actions would lead to the loss of the aircraft; indeed, she could embrace this and trade it for the chance that Jennifer was mistaken, or that lives could be saved. Saskia waited for another opportunity to take control. The man, Cory, had left the pocket of her shirt until last. The recall band was there. But before he could reach it, one of the passengers spoke.
‘Leave her alone,’ said the stranger. ‘Now move away from her. That’s right. Jennifer, you too.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The code spell released its grip and Saskia stumbled against the fuselage. Immediately, she looked for the source of the voice. It came from a first-class passenger, standing in his seat three rows back. He seemed about the same age as Jennifer’s Huckleberry, but just as spritely. He wore a grey suit and held a
GLAS 1 ceramic subcompact pistol with electric ignition, fourteen rounds
gun in his right hand that would not be manufactured for a decade.